The America-Hater

In sort of a res ipsa loquitur thing, along with conservatives, who'd disagree with Obama if he said the ocean is wet, some liberals don't like the message, either.

As I've said from the beginning, Obama is a centrist. This doesn't change the minds of those who think he's an America-hater, "sent here" to destroy us; can't let a little thing like all the evidence change a hate-filled mind, can we?

Reflection

I keep thinking about the murders, and the reactions to them.

To me, it's undeniable that there's far more hateful and eliminationist rhetoric pouring from the right than the left. The examples of left-wing excesses are, nearly exclusively, the utterances of some individual in a blog comment, or the occasional hateful sign or shout at a rally. And it's exceptional. From the right, it's a constant, both in the halls of Congress and in their admitted and self-described propaganda wing known as Fox "news." It's the game plan.

People who call for killings -- Ann Coulter, for example -- are regularly seen and lionized on Fox "news." And their own commentators -- Sean Hannity for example -- announce we'd be better off if all liberals were eliminated. Rush Limbaugh makes millions and has millions of listeners because he rants endlessly about the evil of the other side; vomits up unapologetically racist bile. When Keith Olbermann goes over the top, he gets called out. And apologizes. Changes his show. Bill O'Reilly gets pissed. (Not to mention defensive.) Pretends he's mild as milk. Glenn Beck goes into denial mode.

People claim such rhetoric is behind the killings, others deny it. Democrats propose civility, Republicans say no.

But let's let all of that go for a minute. Most likely, that direction leads nowhere. Let's just ask a basic question: whether or not it had anything to do with this particular horror, is it a good thing or a bad thing for a democracy when parties (I'll say it in the plural, but you know where I stand) literally demonize their opponents? If democracy is founded on -- depends on -- thoughtful discourse, careful deliberation and, yes, compromise, is it better or worse for the process if people are made to hate those with whom they disagree; to be told those people literally want to destroy them?

Are issues better addressed factually, honestly, recognizing differences of opinion as valid and worthy of consideration; or is it better to demand no compromise, to believe that the giving of an inch is a step toward destruction by literally evil forces? Is one more consistent with democracy, the other with totalitarianism?

In short: whether or not Sarah Palin's gunsights, Sharon Angle's "second amendment remedies," Michelle Bachman's "armed and dangerous," Glenn Beck's concentration camps and "deep seated hatred of white people," Sean Hannity's "eliminated," Ms Gifford's opponent's M-16 rally, had anything to do with this particular shooter's motivations: is such talk a good thing or a bad thing for the future of the American democracy?

In microcosm, I ask again: is a crazy person more likely to do harm if he's constantly being told there are enemies all around, or if he's told we're all on the same team? In the larger sense, I ask: if democracy is a valid form of government in a pluralistic society, is it better served by honest and level-headed debate of its most difficult problems, or will its survival be more assured by propagandizing, lying, and demonization of opposing views?

It's a simple question; forget about Arizona: Are the screamers helping, or hurting?

To me, the answer is obvious.

But then, I actually believe in democracy.

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Added: datum to help in the discussion.

Transparency

One of many themes of the Party of No is that the process of health care reform (and of the economic recovery act, too) was not transparent. Allow me a contrary view: the problem is it was TOO transparent.

For the first time that I remember, we've been privy to the messiness of legislation: the give and take, the wheels, the deals. Compromise in all its glorious ugliness. So people got excited. They got schooled. They got pissed.

They had to confront the platitudes and plaster them with practicality. They had to answer the most basic of American questions: do you believe in democracy, or not? Turns out, for lots of people, the answer is no. Hell no.

In Congress (to coin a phrase) it would seem the entire Republican party is on the "no" side. Among Democrats, so are several -- but, by contrast, far from all -- members, including (until the day I'm writing this, reportedly) Bart Stupak.* Among the teabaggers, without question, there isn't a democracy believer among them, not a one. Likewise, it must be said, among some on the far left.

Democracy and compromise are joined like Chang and Eng. It's only in the kind of government that the wingnuts claim to abhor that a person can get 100% of what he or she wants, and that's only if that person is the dictator.

I don't like that the health care bill is based on private insurance, allowing the same huge amounts of money to be sucked out of the system and distributed to investors and CEOs. I'd prefer, at minimum, a "public option." Similarly, I didn't like that the stimulus bill spent forty percent of its money on tax cuts. I wish -- but I don't expect -- that all legislation were perfectly to my liking. But that's simply not the way it works. In democracies, it can't work that way. Until the Obama presidency, lots of people were able to ignore that fact. Our problem is that reality has set in. And those same people can't handle it. Given the legacy of Ronald Reagan, namely that we can have everything we want and not have to pay for it (and that government is not supposed to work), it's not surprising that most of those people are on the right side of the political spectrum. But it isn't helpful.

Despite the elimination of the public option, despite taking single-payer off the table, despite giving central stage to private insurers, the right say they were ignored. "Left out of the process" as a commenter likes to say. Bullshit on its face: the bill is so centrist that it mirrors prior Republican proposals, and has lost the support of many liberals because of it. The stimulus bill was smaller and built much more on tax breaks than liberals wanted. No matter. Not a vote for either by Republicans, and no support by their loudmouths. In a democracy, among people who believe in, uh, democracy, that simply should not be the case. Yet here we are. And there we go.

The process has been more than transparent. It's made the right wing face something they hadn't heretofore acknowledged: they neither understand nor approve of the most fundamental idea of democracy: compromise. The process was so see-through that it become obvious.

As the right wingers take us further and further toward deliberate diseducation, and away from actual understanding of the real meaning of our form of government, the future looks worse and worse. If everyone listened more to the Stones, we'd be a hell of a lot better off.

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* Seems official. So unlike all the Rs, one of the most intransigent Ds was willing to accept some degree of compromise. Sorta proves my point, doesn't it?

Beyond Outrage, Beyond Hope

This might be too much for me. Most literally, it makes me physically ill. Trying to put into words the depth of my visceral reaction may be impossible. It's simply the most despicable, horrifying, destructive, and fundamentally threatening thing going on in the body politic of the US. It's beyond the lying of Fox "news;" it's beyond the formless and factless rage of the tea bag people. This even overshadows, as a threat to everything we are as a country, the abuse of Senate rules by the Republicans that has all but ground governance to halt. It is worse than (although it's abetted by) the dereliction of duty of most of our news media. This is, unarguably, evidence of the beginning of the end. Unless even those uselessly enraged and idea-disencumbered right wingers wake up and say, enough. Enough. We are a country of laws, that values laws, whose legal system protects us all. Us all. All of us. Laws.

ENOUGH.

I refer to the demon spawn of Dick Cheney. I refer to her horrible group of America haters. I refer to the fact that there are people out there -- marinating in putrefaction, as expected, on Fox "news" but also, evidently, in all walks of life (using the term loosely) -- who don't see the danger. The disease.

This person, this evil thing, this smirking embodiment of blind hatred and the unapologetic disseminator of desperate lies, has declared revenge on lawyers assigned to defend accused terrorists in American courts. This damned individual, who most surely hasn't the foggiest appreciation of the Constitution or the laws that have stemmed from it, who would destroy the foundations of a legal system that has been the model for most of the civilized world, who is regularly given air time when she should, in fact, be deprived of air (at least the kind that wafts outside of damp and moldy basements), would happily -- because it makes her famous, and garners laudatory grime from the scum that love her, and because she's desperately trying to keep her felonious father out of jail -- ruin the lives of people doing the bidding of that very Constitution which she ignores so thoroughly. (I can't find the will directly to link to her ad, but there's a link within the previous one.) What a horrible, fraudulent, venal excuse for a human being.

Well, I guess those were words; but really, I have no words. This is as low as it gets; were she and her bootlickers to get their way, we'd no longer be a country of laws. We'd no longer be a country at all.

It's so obvious. And yet, there she is, a darling of much of the media, mostly -- but not limited to -- Fox "news" and the radio screamers. And there are listeners who give credence to her, and who (you can read it in comments on various sources that have covered it, but I don't recommend it), in the most despicable of language, filled with the sort of glee that only springs from pure evil (and I don't even believe in such a thing), agree with her. It's not just disheartening; it's not just depressing; it's not just dismaying. It's so far beyond any of those that I can't express it. The words stick somewhere near my diaphragm; they close my throat. Because it means we are so far from reason in parts of this country that there remains no basis for hoping we can get beyond where we are. We shall not overcome. It's too potent, it's too attractive to those that prefer hatred to hope, in whom it's simply not part of their makeup to think beyond their own sad fears and selfishness, to whom the idea of democracy in all its ramifications is as foreign as breathing underwater.

Times are tough. Right wingers, evidently, aren't. They talked tough, oh yes. But they got their deferments. And now, in the heat of great need, they have melted. Called upon by the times to rise to new heights, to honor what has served us through wars and depressions, they have sunk to new lows, descended into the mongering of fear and hate and the wholesale peddling of lies. And they're the ones that claim the mantle of patriotism, even as they reject the fundament of what has -- until now -- made us great. As they destroy us from the inside, deliberately, thoroughly.

Patriots.

I'd laugh, if I could.

It's come to this. When tested, we have failed. Cowed by people in caves, and by the premeditated and self-serving terrorizing of our populus by politicians like the Cheneys and virtually all Congressional Republicans, and the RWS™, we are on the verge of complete capitulation to fear, of renunciation of the rule of law and democracy. At a time when we are most in need of reason, we get this. We fall upon ourselves. We grovel in a level of discourse so low that the founding fathers would fail to recognize what they have wrought. One of the most brilliant of whom, as we know, defended British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre.

How pathetic these distorters of reality have become, how craven in the face of danger, how they recoil from the challenge of real problems that need real solutions. How quickly they shrink from the hard work of democracy. How they cheerlead and stoke anger. How far down people such as Liz Cheney have dragged us, septic, into the cesspool in which they live, when we most need to lift ourselves up; how easily such thoughts as hers take hold and, like the slime that they are, spread over us all, suffocating, eating our bones. And, it seems, we barely notice.

See? I have no words. None, at any rate, that convey convincingly and sanely the awfulness of these people. They will destroy us. And, even as we breathe our last, they'll find someone else on whom to blame it.

Is there anyone on the right willing to speak out? Anyone who calls him- or herself a true conservative willing to condemn Liz Cheney and the horseshit she rode in on?

Anyone?

And while you're at it, anyone on the right want to disagree with this soulless succubus that, even as he keeps arresting terrorists at a greater rate than her putrid progenitor, President Obama isn't serious about terrorism?

Anyone?

[Update, 3/5: Well, well, a couple of conservatives (none who troll these waters, of course) have spoken up. One even went so far as to use the word "unfortunate."]

Unworkable

It's taken almost two-and-a-half centuries, but it's clear that our form of democracy doesn't work. It did. But now it doesn't.

There are certain ironies: clearly, the writers of the Constitution didn't trust people all that much. They eschewed direct governance, and they established an elaborate system of checks and balances; they saw to it that rash decisions would be hard to make, that changes to the Constitution would be difficult, but possible. And yet, fundamentally, they made some optimistic judgements that have proved to be preposterously unrealistic. They counted, it seems, on a basic level of intelligence and education among the electorate and on the idea that those elected to govern would share at least a modicum of deference to the common weal. I can only assume that, back then, there was reason to believe it.

I don't hold Tom and Ben and George and John and Alex and James and the rest responsible for not being able to foresee the development of a major party devoid entirely of either of those basic qualities. Nor, in their zeal for a free press, seeing its necessity as a balance to government and as a provider of information, can I fault them for not imagining the scope and reach of a modern 24/7 news organization devoted entirely to a political agenda. Nor could they have predicted the gullibility of an ill-informed and lazy electorate subjected to constant propagandizing while having been deliberately deprived -- by a cunning mix of religious indoctrination and inadequate funding of meaningful education -- of the tools to recognize it; how could they have foreseen the efficacy of an effort so diabolically designed to deceive? But whether blameless or not, the founders managed to create a form of government that turns out to be entirely unworkable under the circumstances in which we now find ourselves.

I've said it before: we don't deserve the democracy we've been given. It's as if we've been handed a precious work of art and are using it as an outhouse. Our democracy is the Buddha carvings after the Taliban got to them. Nor should it be difficult to understand who, in that analogy, are the destroyers. To function, democracy needs people of intelligence, of knowledge, of energy. And of good will. That, most especially: people of good will. In Congress. In the populace. On both sides.

Here's a perfect example of the problem: the "discussion" about trying terrorists in the US civil court system. It's one that is not just amenable to, but NEEDS, rational debate; in my view, the arguments strongly favor civilian courts, but there are reasonable positions to the contrary. Yet we've had nothing of the sort, and the blame is squarely on the right wing. There's the neo-cons and their daughter, desperately trying to defend their failures; there's the Congressional Republican spokesfolk and the usual RWS™, completely ignoring the fact that the current administration is doing exactly what the previous one did, 319 times, for people such as KSM and Richard Reid. And, worst of all, there are the thoughtless but angry, uninformed but certain, "patriotic" but hate-filled people in the streets, tea bags in hand, vitriol fully in throat, hurling epithets with no basis. Unformed rage, misplaced feelings of victimhood, complete incomprehension of how their government works.

For an informative discussion of the terror-trial issue, listen to this. But be warned: it's long and it's thoughtful; it contains facts. It shows why complicated issues are simply too much for our politics, as currently degenerated, where demagoguery replaces debate and hypocrisy replaces helpfulness.

If the Sarah Palin phenomenon isn't the perfect proof -- with her deliberate lies, her anti-intellectualism, her faux (and Faux) populism based on demeaning the other guy, her proud vacuity, her careful absence of actual ideas (her performance for the Teabaggers was a classic of appealing to the lowest common denominator, nastiness for its own sake, and avoidance of meaningful proposals), her rabid followers who find her "like one of us" (she is; oh yes, she is!) -- then nothing is. Well, maybe this, too.

Oh, I rant and rave. But I'm deadly serious. I've said we need two strong parties in this country, and intelligent debate over tough issues. But such a concept is predicated on honest intention, of which there simply is none in the current minority party. They won't take yes for an answer, and they never will.

And their followers will never admit it. Because outrage is easier than pitching in. Because believing stuff doesn't take the effort of knowing stuff. Because being led by people who deliberately feed your sense of aggrievement feels gooder than being made to think by people who know what they're talking about. Y'know. Like a charismatic law professor with a teleprompter. Damn sure don't need that, not us real 'Mericans. You betcha.

We no longer have the luxury of stupidity and crass party politics. Those are what got us here, yet those are what still drive the debate. If we can't rise above it, and soon, it'll be too late. But then, in my view, it already is.

4 July

Happy Independence Day, everyone. At the end of a week in which the voice of the Republican party called for a military coup against our government, a frequent guest on Fox News, to the nodding agreement of one of its house idiots, hoped for a terrorist attack of cataclysmic proportions*, and when a former Bush diplomat called for the bombing of Iran for the third time in less than two weeks, it's nice to know there's still a party that believes in democracy and constitutional government, wishes for safety of its people, and advocates restraint in foreign policy.

Let's hope that one party thus inclined is enough.
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* I have to add: as inured as I may be to the crazy one hears on Fox News, this may be a new low. We need an attack, he says, to wake people up to demand our government keep us safe. In other words, the longer we go without an attack the more evidence there is that we're not being kept safe from an attack. Even for the RWS™, that's pretty jaw-dropping. (Of course, hearing Sarah Palin say that staying on her job would be weak, and quitting is strong is right up there, as Orwellian as it gets. As are the wild huzzahs from the rightosphere.) If it were ever clear how badly our country is being served by the extremes of the right, and how much better off we'd be with a credible opposition, it's now. We. The people. Are screwed!
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As Opposed To...

In the previous post is President Obama's speech on terrorism and policy, and my brief take on it. Then, like backflow from a clogged toilet, came Cheney. While he said nothing new, he did repeat the most anti-democratic essence of his administration:

And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don't stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for - our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.

Of course, seeing the past leader attacking the current one does nothing of the sort.

Forgetting the obvious inconsistencies (because there are so many) and the irony (that it's HE who gave al Queda "exactly what they were hoping for," HE who has distracted our leaders), the central theme is that you can't discuss policy or air out differences or criticize the government (except if you're a Dick or his RWS™ host) because it gives comfort to our enemies. Democracy, and our Constitution, in other words, are to be ignored because they are fundamentally flawed. Our system of government, he says, is inadequate to deal with threats; the discourses of free and lawful society are signs of weakness.

What could be more unAmerican than that?

But it's exactly how he ruled, and I mean "he" and "ruled" literally. In doing so, in rejecting our own and international law, in trumping up reasons for invading Iraq, in torturing and incarcerating people illegally and improperly, he's left us nearly paralyzed as Obama tries to straighten it out, and while Congress fights over it in the most disingenuous and demagogic terms.

Dick Cheney will never admit how badly he damaged us. The question is, when will his remaining supporters do so? Can't the Republican party find a voice that remains true to its principles (such as they are, in tatters) but rejects this dangerous man, this rejecter of democracy?
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The Answer

WHY NOT TORTURE?

Here's the answer.

The historically perfected use of torture, as we all know by now, has been in the producing of false confessions, be they of heresy, witchcraft, or political treachery. So imagine this: by some sort of horrible twist of fate, this country elects leaders of ill will. Maybe a delusional and paranoid vice-president (let's call him Dick) and a credulous and malleable president (any suggestions?) And what if they had certain questionable plans in mind, for concealed reasons, like, say, going to war against a country that was no threat to our security. (To be really outrageous, let's pretend they were both oil men, and the country in question had lots of oil. I know. I know. We're getting sort of science fictiony and conspiratorial here. But it's just for the purpose of making a point, okay? Bear with me.) Could it happen that, in order to gin up a plausible cover for their plan, they'd round up people and try to torture them into "revealing" a non-existent link between that country and, say (bear with me, again), a terrorist group?

A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq.

"While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

So, what's the big deal, the RWS™ and their apologist commenters on this blog might ask? None, I guess, as long as it's god-fearing and truth-telling and thoughtful leaders such as those recently departed. But can you imagine Barack Obama, that godless America-hating Nazi communist, getting his hands on a waterboard? Forcing some CEO to request regulating his industry?

Seriously. How close did we come to returning to the Spanish Inquisition? Close enough, I'd say, to be indistinguishable. If what we are learning about our use of torture and the potential consequences thereof isn't chilling to everyone -- even conservatives!! -- then the danger to our nation is even greater than my rantings imply. There are, we are told, many effective ways to elicit the truth from prisoners. Getting false confessions, for your own purposes? Like Pol Pot, like Torquemada, like Ho Chi Minh, like Stalin, like William Stoughton, like... For that, you need torture.

Trying to force desired answers whether true or not, in order to provide rationale to a predetermined and hidden agenda. Is there anything more potentially destructive to the foundations of democracy?

Seen in that light, ought it not be an entirely non-partisan issue?
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Toast

Contrary to the accusations of detractors, I don't believe Barack Obama is god, or even god-like. I do, however, find him to be unlike any politician in recent memory, and closer to what I'd consider ideal than any I've lately seen.

Which is not to say I agree with everything he says or does. Particularly his plan for more troops in Afghanistan, and, to a lesser extent (because I don't really understand banking), his reluctance to put some banks in receivership. Is it because he thinks his plan is better, or because he's afraid of the politics? I don't know. But some economists argue in ways I find compelling; particularly Paul Krugman.

But the ideal politician is not one with whom I universally agree. It's one who is intelligent and thoughtful, who understands the arguments, and can make a case for his. Who addresses constituents as if they are adults. Who speaks well, and can mix inspiration, humor, and reality. Who doesn't need notes all the time to form a sentence. Who is truthful. Who seems more concerned with solutions than the next election. In all of these, Barack Obama comes closer than any I can name.

Which is exactly the problem. LT couldn't score if his offensive line were from a Pop Warner team. Likewise, Magic Johnson made Larry Bird better, and vice versa. As I watched Obama's speech to Congress, and observed the people in the audience; as I listened to Bobby Jindal's response, and as I've heard commentary from the likes of Tom Delay, it seems clear: what's missing is more people like Obama on his side, and across the line of scrimmage. And there are none. It bodes ill.

The good news is that the vast majority of people seem, to a greater or lesser extent, to share my feeling about the president. So even if the politicians around him are, variously, stupid, incompetent, hide-bound, narrow, incapable of forward-thinking, if it's clear that Obama has support from the electorate, the rest of Washington might be expected, in spite of themselves and their limitations, to get the message. In the referenced poll, 92% of people had a favorable view of the speech.

Amazing, isn't it? During the campaign, Obama said it wasn't about him, it was about us. He couldn't do it alone. Change comes from the bottom up. It's what energized the people (myself included) who worked for and donated to him: the idea that democracy could, after years of disbelief, actually be made to work. I'm not yet close to convinced that it's true. But given the mediocrity of most of our leaders, the only real hope is that the people make it clear what they want. If they want enough of what Obama wants, and if they continue to make themselves heard, it's conceivable he could accomplish things in spite of Congress. It would be the opposite of what's been the norm for years: politicians saying one thing and doing another, while voters eventually tuned it all out, disillusioned, convinced they didn't matter.

This would be a new (or maybe a very old) paradigm: a president demanding that the electorate stayed actively tuned in, letting Congress know what they think, believing it makes a difference. And actually making a difference. This is the power that Obama has, and I think he knows it. I believe the rest of our national politicians know it, too. Some are excited, some are scared. But maybe they'll all be listening. His budget should be a real test; Congressional Republicans are already screaming bloody murder.

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