David Guilbault

THE LUNTZ DISTORTIONS

No one triggers my ire more quickly and forcefully than Frank Luntz.  He is a deceiving, manipulating political dastard.  His mission for The Right is to twist language in order to purposely distort the positions of their opponents and obfuscate the true agenda of Conservatives.  And in this opinion piece for The Washington Post he is doing it again.  Sadly, he does it brilliantly.

In the piece he states that five myths about Conservative voters are incorrect.  In fact, they are not myths, but, rather, generally true characterizations.  Luntz' goal is to make us believe the opposite of what is true.  To do that, as he often does, he uses his own polling in which the forms of his questions elicit the pre-determined responses he wants to generate.

He then takes those results and comes up with language to twist the true tenor of the national debate.  He wrote memos for Republicans on how they could defeat health care reform and financial & insurance industry reform by manipulating the language of the debate.

I have written about this before:

"I Smell Frank Luntz"

"Luntz the Liar"

"Sick Talk on Health Care"

Luntz is proud of the distortions he has formulated, and brags about them on his company's website.

If you need to create the language to build support for legislation, we’ll find the right words.  If you need to kill a bad bill, we’ll show you how.

Either take control of the debate, or the debate will take control of you.  It really is that simple.  Silence is no longer an option.  The news cycle never ends.  Either you determine the message or someone else will.

Our focus is on language.  We already know the words that work – or we’ll find them for you…fast.

Consider our record:

We changed the “estate tax” to the “death tax” and that changed the course of legislative history.

We changed “global warming” to “climate change,” and while that was highly confidential, even opponents acknowledged how those two words significantly impacted the public debate.

We changed “drilling for oil” to “exploring for energy,” and that helped energy companies secure the rights to develop more energy resources right here in America.

We changed “school choice” to “parental choice” and “vouchers” to “opportunity scholarships,” and that has helped the education reform efforts in more than a dozen states.”

Time after time we have succeeded in changing the course of the debate, and the impact can be measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Remember, what matters is not what you say.  It’s what people hear.

For this upcoming election campaign you can expect to hear Luntz' new distortions parroted by The Right.  Here are a few you will hear, all crafted to soften or cloud hard positions, making those extreme, cynical positions sound downright compassionate and patriotic, and meant to sway the common citizen to see the government as his/her enemy:

The purported myth:  Conservatives care most about the size of government.
The Luntz distortion:  "Big government makes small citizens."
The truth:  Rich Conservatives want to shrink and starve government virtually out of existence, so they can keep all their money.  They only want their limited tax money spent on military defense, and not on any social programs to benefit the less fortunate.

The purported myth:  Conservatives want to deport all illegal immigrants
The Luntz distortion:  "America should have tall fences and wide gates."
The truth:  White Conservatives feel threatened by the increasing number, influence and power of minorities and want to keep foreigners, especially Hispanics, out.

The purported myth:  Conservatives worship Wall Street.
The Luntz distortion:  "All Americans should have economic freedom."
The truth:  Rich Conservatives don't want any regulation of how and where they invest their extra money, and want to operate unfettered by government oversight or taxation.  The so-called "economic freedom" they crave is really freedom from ethical restraints. Of course, the poorer among us have little or no economic freedom, as they have little or no money.

The purported myth:  Conservatives want to slash Social Security and Medicare
The Luntz distortion:  "Increasing patient choice will save Medicare."
The truth:  Rich Conservatives have the independent means to provide for their own health, safety and security and don't want any of their money spent to provide the same for those less privileged.

The purported myth:  Conservatives don't care about inequality.
The Luntz distortion:  "Anyone can become rich in America."
The truth:  Rich Conservatives believe that their wealth came from their hard work and not from the privilege of better opportunity and education.  So, they are vehemently opposed to giving poorer folks any of their money or providing them access to equal job opportunity, health care and education.  They are saying, "It's our money, we own it, we're keeping it, and you are on your own."

Plainly stated, Frank Luntz is a liar.  The media continue to put him forward as a "pollster", illuminating the thoughts and concerns of American citizens.  But, in fact, he is, and always has been a propagandist.  His service is not to the truth, but to voter manipulation. He states as much on his website, LuntzGlobal, as quoted below.

Luntz Global is a powerhouse in the profession of message creation and image management.

We have counseled Presidents and Prime Ministers, Fortune 100 CEOs and Hollywood creative teams in harnessing the power of language and visuals to change hearts, change minds and change behaviors.  We have become a hyper-attentive nation that is quick to judge.  The words and visuals you use are more important than ever in determining whether you win or lose at the ballot box, the checkout line, and the court of public opinion.  We know the words that work.  Do you?

Our confidence comes from decades of research, polling, and consulting to the opinion elite worldwide, with proven results that withstand the test of time.

Remember: "It's not what you say.  It's what people hear."

I SMELL FRANK LUNTZ

 

"Words matter. The most powerful words have helped launch social movements and cultural revolutions. The most effective words have instigated great change in public policy. The right words at the right time can literally change history." - Frank Luntz, The Huffington Post, March 1, 2011

When you first read that quote from Republican propagandist Frank Luntz, it sounds high-minded - great words can lead great causes.  What it belies, however, is that Luntz intentionally uses words to distort the truth and manipulate change.

He is the primary architect of the edifice of lies that stood against the healthcare and financial reforms sought by the Obama administration.  Instead of engaging in an open dialogue about the merits of the obviously necessary reforms, the Republicans, protecting their benefactors in the insurance and financial industries, distorted the debate under the guidance of wordsmith Luntz.  Health insurance reform became "a government takeover of healthcare."  Financial institution reform became "taxpayer-funded bailouts."

I smell the odious work of Frank Luntz again this week.  In the orchestrated outrage over the wholly-concocted charge that Obama is attacking religious freedom with birth-control requirements in the new Affordable Health Care for America Act (tarnished and tarred as ObamaCare), the Republicans are all parroting the phrase "government-granted rights", using it as a perjorative.

At this year's Conservative Political Action Committee convention, Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum said "Are we going to believe, as our Founders did, that our rights don't come from the government, that they come for a much higher authority?"

He went on to say, “There are those in the Oval Office who believe that’s not the case, that rights do, in fact, come from the government, and they have gone around convincing the American people that they can give you rights. We see what happens when government gives you rights. When government gives you rights, government can take away those rights. When government gives you rights, they can coerce you in doing things in exercising the rights that they gave you.”

So, the message of the Right is that the government is trying to take away the people's God-given rights and has no authority to grant any further rights to its citizens.  And that any rights the government does grant enslave the electorate.  These are outrageous corruptions of the truth.

Indeed the Declaration of Independence starts with the words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."  That's pretty clear - "certain unalienable rights."

But, the Republicans are ignoring the next line of that declaration, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…"  Ah, yes, the "consent of the governed."

Dear Mr. Santorum, by our government charter, the Constitution of the United States, we elect representatives of the people and they gather in Congress to write "laws."  Some of those laws grant citizens certain "rights."  Like the right to vote or the right to be free from discrimination.  Most recently, the rights and protections in the new health care law.

In fact, Mr. Santorum, you and your ilk need to be reminded, the first ten amendments to our Constitution are called "The Bill of Rights."  Our original Constitution did not grant its citizens freedom of speech, press, religion and petition.  Those rights had to be formulated by the government and adopted by the governed.

So, this attack on "government-granted rights", such as those granted in the new health care law, is another phony attempt to concoct an evil-sounding phrase to color the truth and dishonestly paint progressive social reform programs as threats to liberty.  Again, Santorum, “As a result, government will own you because you will have to pay tribute to Washington in order to get the care you need for your children."

Like I said, I smell the work of Frank Luntz, or if not him, someone of his disingenuous fashion.  I wouldn't be surprised if there is a memo lurking somewhere from Luntz, being circulated among Republicans, on what language to use to distort the positions of their opposition and confuse the voters in the 2012 election.

Luntz distorted the debate over health care reform with this memo, and he did the same on financial institution reform with this memo.  The intentional falsehoods advocated in those memos were repeated incessantly by Republicans.

It is ironic that so many on the Right seeking to become part of the government rail so loudly against it.  But, that is in the true spirit of the afor-mentioned Declaration of Independence, which goes on to state, "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

So, obstructionist Republicans, staunch Conservatives and members of the Religious Right, tell the truth.  Advocate for your positions and principles, but don't use propaganda as talking points.  Don't demonize your opposition.  Don't disparage their principles and morals. Don't distort their positions.

Our government is not the enemy.  It is of, by and for the People.  If you think it needs reform, run for political office.  If you think it needs different representatives of the people, campaign for your candidate.  If you think its current guiding principles are wrong, debate them openly and honestly in public forums.

But, stop telling lies.

TRUTH-TELLERS

On August 8th, 1974, I was the Washington Desk Assistant for "The ABC Evening News with Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner."

One of my duties was to distribute the wire copy from the Associated Press and Reuters teletype machines.  When a bulletin would "move" across the wires, a bell would go off, alerting me to rip the five-ply yellow paper from the machine and distribute it to the writers, producers and anchors. 

I had never seen a wire service "flash" or "snap" before.  But, on this day, as the bells rang repeatedly, those words were typed out, one letter at a time, followed by just two more words - NIXON RESIGNS.

Only the top copy of teletype paper was imprinted with ink.  The remaining copies underneath were pressure sensitive.  The force of the mechanical letter striking the paper would leave a readable impression.

I kept copies of all the snaps, flashes and bulletins.  Unfortunately, all the pressure sensitive copies have faded away with time.  The only readable copy I have now is this bulletin.

Another of my duties was to distribute copies of the evening news script.  The photo below is me delivering the anchor copy of that night's lead story, the Nixon resignation, to Howard K. Smith, the Washington anchor of the broadcast.  I knew it was worth memorializing, so I asked a colleague to take the picture.

My interest in becoming a journalist was born when I was a lowly message router for Naval Intelligence at the Pentagon from 1970-72.  I learned my government was lying to the citizenry about our actions in the Vietnam War.  I resolved that when I became a civilian I would devote my career to exposing lies.

When I got out of the Navy I was fortunate to be hired as a Desk Assistant for ABC network news in Washington, as the Watergate scandal was unfolding.   While I never became an "investigative reporter", I always treated every story I pursued with a passion for the truth.

At the Washington bureau, in the Seventies, I listened, I learned.  I began honing my craft and, over time, moved up the ladder - Desk Assistant, Production Assistant, Production Associate, Associate Producer, Field Producer, Special Assignment Producer, Senior Producer, Executive Producer.  Along the way, I helped launch cable news at CNN in 1980 and Internet news at MSNBC.com in 1996.

Most satisfyingly, over 40 years, I travelled to exotic places, met fascinating people, witnessed  scenes I could not have seen, except as a journalist.  I worked with ideas, images, sounds and words to craft compelling stories that were seen by millions of viewers.  I was enriched.

I worked inside one of the most prestigious news organizations ever assembled, ABC News, during its heyday.  The talented professionals I worked alongside of there - producers, correspondents, camera crews, editors, technicians, directors, writers - were committed to the truth.  My colleagues were the standard-bearers of credibility and integrity.

We were represented on-air by the likes of Howard K. Smith, Harry Reasoner, Peter Jennings, Frank Reynolds, Sam Donaldson, David Brinkley, Charlie Gibson  Now, in broadcast journalism, not so much.  But, that is for a future rant.

This day, the anniversary of the inevitable downfall of a corrupt politician, his abuse of power exposed by a vigilant press, makes me, once again, proud to have been there, to have been one of the truth-tellers.

 

 

 

 

 

BEGRUDGE THY NEIGHBOR

When I was growing up in the Fifties, chasing the American Dream was in full vogue.  My parents bought their first house in a development called Swayze Acres, in Waterford, New York.  The newly-leveled neighborhood (the oval of houses in the photo above) was a collection of three different models of ranch homes built on dirt lots.

In economic terms, it was also a level playing field.  Everyone in the development was in roughly the same economic class - the burgeoning Middle Class.  And, so each of them began the upwardly mobile quest of "keeping up with the Joneses."  One by one, dirt driveways became gravel driveways, became concrete driveways, became car-ports, became garages.  When my neighbors got a Magnavox stereo console, so did we.  When they converted their concrete-block basesments into panelled rec-rooms, so did we.  When we built a patio out back and then covered and enclosed it, so did they.  We were all "movin' on up."

In those days, my parent's generation aspired to be as successful and as prosperous as their neighbors.  Those dreams were supported by their unions, their employers and their politicians.  Everyone was glad for each others' success.  It was an ethos.

All that has changed.  The middle-class is in a precipitous economic decline, brought on by the rampant rise of the fortunes of corporate America.  Never in this country has the gap between the richest of us and the poorest of us been more stark.  According to the latest census data, the top-earning 20 percent of Americans – those making more than $100,000 each year – received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent made by the bottom 20 percent of earners, those who fell below the poverty line."

Of course, the very weatlthiest of us are feeling no pain whatsoever.  Corporations are making obscene, record profits by exploiting cheap overseas labor, eliminating American jobs, eviscerating workplace and environmental safeguards and marketing their cheap products to the Third World.  The only things "made in America" anymore are fear and deceit.

On this landscape, we begrude our neighbors.  Instead of wanting what they have for ourselves too, we want to deny them whatever we don't have.  As more and more of us lose our jobs, benefits, pensions, houses, livelehoods, skills and self-respect we are envious of others' success and want them to suffer as we do, share in the pain.

At the same time, there are rabid campaigns underway to decimate federal programs that help citizens prosper - public education, environmental protection, financial reform, publicly-financed news, medical care and retirement benefits.  These campaigns are being waged by the rich, to get back the tax money that was meant to contribute to the public good.

Quite frankly, the corporations no longer need the middle-class who thrived during the post-World War II booming economy.  They don't need them as workers or as consumers.  So, why educate them, protect their safety, improve their health or give them sufficient wages, benefits and pensions?  Hurting those social benefits for the middle-class doesn't hurt the rich, as they already have the best private teachers, doctors and money managers that money can buy.

So, the key to the continued dominance of the wealthy is to turn the former middle-class into the working poor and then turn them against each other.

Thus, the cynical efforts in State Houses across the land to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights.  You hear cries from private sector employees that their benefits and pensions aren't as rich, so, they argue, the public employees' plans should be weakened.  By begrudging their neighbors, they are unwittingly playing into the hands of the puppet masters who control the acquisition of wealth in this country.

(When politicians use deficit-recduction as a reason for ending worker rights and social programs, it is a canard.  Our national debt was caused by two un-funded wars and a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans.  State deficits are a mixed bag and are largely caused by poor executive management.  Negotiate public employee wages and benefits, yes, but not their right to bargain.)

Make no mistake, it is in the interest of the rich for the workers of this country to no longer feel they can "make it" in America.  Workers are now made to feel lucky if they even have a job.  And they are being made to feel that they no longer have any right to hope for or expect health benefits, worker safety or retirement plans. And they are being made to turn against their fellow workers who have been able to collectively bargain for lucrative wage and benefit packages.

The new normal, as defined by the corporate powers-that-be, is for American workers to be re-shackeled and satisfied with barely making a living wage, while corporate profits rise unfettered, unregulated and un-shared.  The American Dream has been turned on its head.

What the workers of this country need is to strengthen the institutions that fight for their rights and procure their prosperity - enlightened government and labor unions.  They need to understand and support governmental programs that use our tax dollars wisely to strengthen the economy for all of us with innovations in education, infrastructure, research and medical care.  And they need to support the right of all workers to organize into unions and negotiate for their own interests.

The corporations have never, and will never, put the best interests of the working class ahead of their shareholders.  They now have almost all the power - with control of manufacturing, distribution and marketing of most goods and services, outside of the United States.  And, by the power of their money and influence in the U.S., they have a grip on political discourse and public debate with a cabal of bought politicians and media propogandists.  Their remaining impediments to unbridled profiteering and exploitation are organized labor, an informed citizenry and regulatory government.

So, when your neighbor makes a home improvement or gets a raise, don't begrudge him his prosperity, ask who exactly is preventing you from prospering.  Don't buy the lies.  It isn't the government or the labor unions, my friend, it is the corporations and those that do their bidding.  You have rights that are slowly and surrepticiously being taken away.  Take up the fight to restore them.

 

 

 

TELLING THE TRUTH

My deepest respect and regards go to the courageous journalists around the world who work daily to tell the truth and often risk their lives to do it in the face of agression and repression.  There is no justice without truth.

In Egypt, as anti-government protestors gathered in the streets, calling for the immediate departure of President Hosni Mubarak, pro- Mubarak forces have reportedly begun a concerted, organized campaign to intimidate the foreign press and prevent them from doing their jobs.  CNN, Fox News, Al-Jazeera, The New York Times and the Washington Post are among news organizations that have reported attacks on their journalists.

The attackers have threatened some reporters with beheading, have beaten others, wounding some and sending them to the hospital.   And supposed agents of the government have confiscated broadcast equipment and detained journalists.

All this bodes ill.  Is this to clear the country of official witnesses in advance of a more violent crackdown on the people's uprising?

"The Committee to Protect Journalists has received nearly 50 reports Thursday of journalists being detained or beaten, said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, program coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. He said reporters from various countries, including a BBC television correspondent and reporters from Spain, Sweden and Italy, are among those who have been rounded up or assaulted. He said there was a report of "thugs" breaking into a Hilton hotel -- where many journalists were staying -- to round up reporters.

"Things are about as out-of-control as they can get," Abdel Dayem said. The number of reporters who have been detained or beaten is "definitely in the dozens. Egypt TV is accusing a number of people, basically all foreigners on the street, to be Israeli spies. So you can do the math. Dozens have been arrested, beaten on the street, their equiptment confiscated and broken and their credentials burned."

Abdel Dayem said he does not recall a similarly bleak situation for reporters in recent years. According to CPJ's Web site, four journalists have been killed around the world in 2011 and 145 are currently in prison, not counting Egypt. In a report on its Web site Thursday, the CPJ rounded up the incidents in Egypt it has compiled so far.

"We hold President Mubarak personally responsible for this unprecedented action," CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said, "and call on the Egyptian government to reverse course immediately."

- Washington Post

 

The Washington Post - Foreign Journalists Arrested

CNN - Journalists Targeted in Cairo

Christian Scienc Monitor - Foreign Journalists Targeted

Aljazeera - Media in Line of Fire

 

 

WORDS KILL

Let us be very clear.  No one is directly responsible for the murderous rampage this weekend of mentally unstable Jared Loughner but Loughner himself.

We have yet to learn what motivated this killer to shoot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords through the head and then spray rounds of deadly bullets into a crowd of her political supporters, leaving six dead and 14 wounded.  He, and he alone, is responsible and culpable for his actions.

But, that is not the point of the public debate that has risen from this tragic crime.

Bullets kill.  Words kill, too.

And, each of us, alone, is responsible and culpable for the words we use.

Our political debate, of late, has been filled with violent words.  Campaign slogans that tell voters to "reload" are unconscionable.  Political ads that use imagery that literally puts opponents in the "cross-hairs" of a gun are intolerable.   Appeals to the electorate to consider "second-amendment remedies" against politicians they disagree with in Washington are irresponsible.  These incitements, just noted, came from candidates who seek the power to lead this amazing country.

No, these words did not kill a judge, a congressional aide, a little girl, an elderly man and two elderly women in Arizona.  But, they have wounded the heart and soul of America.

We cherish our First Amendment.  And I would defend the right to mouth the most hateful of speech.  (Hate is always best countered with truth and justice, not censorship.)  But, those who espouse violence bear responsibility and culpability for the violent acts committed by those they have aroused.

This past campaign season saw the rise of the Tea Party.  We witnessed public rallies where members came with signs reading "We came unarmed, this time."  Or, "Support the economy, buy ammo.".

Some politicians on the Right and their media mouthpieces, Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio have played to the fears of these people.  They have stoked their anger by falsely and cynically demonizing the very institutions that we rely on to maintain the public good and trust - government and the media.  They have made anyone who disagrees with them "the enemy."  And, in any language or culture, the enemy, of course, is to be hunted and killed.

What has been described, meekly by the press, as "overheated rhetoric" is more heinous than that.  It is deceitful, deliberate and dangerous.  We live in unkind times.  I can tolerate the slimy, dirty language of politics which pollsters seem to believe brings electoral victories.  I can not, and will not, tolerate calls to violent actions, no matter how carefully couched by media manipulators.

The Right is busy today (purposely) missing the point.  They are repeating that the toxic rhetoric of the nation is not connected to the Arizona shooting.  That is absolutely correct.  Not directly.  But, it is a deceit to suggest that intentionally inciteful words have not bred hatred, a deterioration of honest debate and a demonization of "the other."

I will neither accept the tepid response that we just need to bring more civility to our politics.  Those that have used extreme language to rally political action and wrest power have to take responsibility and culpability for their words and the actions they have wrought.  Period.

Every political leader and pundit today should take a look at their own words, examine their own responsibility and culpability and own up to the potential destructive power of their language.

Yes, we have always been a violent nation.  We were born of revolution against a tyrannical king and committed genocide on the Indian Nation.  We fought each other in a bloody civil war over our evil embrace of slavery. We endured the assassinations of Martin, John, Malcolm, Bobby.  Can we never be better than that?  Yes, we can.  And, yes, we will.

The truth is the truth.  Bullets kill.  Words kill, too.

(I wrote the song below, "Better Look Both Ways", during the 2010 election season when I was worried and frightened by the angry mob mentality of the Tea Party.  The performance at Egan's Ballard Jam House is from Saturday, January 8th, the night of the assassination attempt on Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.  I always start my shows with this song.  This night it rang too true.)

 

 

I REMEMBER

 

NEED TO BE TOLD

MEMO TO MEDIA

TO:  The Heads of ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, PBS, CNN
FROM:  David Guilbault  (Former Television News Producer)
DATE:  September 7, 2010

SUBJECT:  You Need to be Told What Needs to be Told

To the point, the most important stories of our time are not being reported, or are being under-reported.  They are stories of power and greed, and the long, steady, decline of the American working class.

It is long past time for your organiziations to get back to your primary journalistic duty, fully fund your news operations, stop chasing ratings and do your public service by reporting the stories people need to know.  Credibility, prestige, increased viewership and, likely, increased advertising revenue will follow.

To that end, I propose the series of reports listed below.  I would be happy to come out of early retirement to help you set up special units to report these critical stories.

POWER AND MONEY:  Who Controls the World?
Corporations and their rich and powerful owners rule the world.  Who are they?  What do they own?  What resoruces are they exploiting?  How are they weilding their power?  Which governments and politicians do they control?  How do they use their political might?  What worldwide policies are they trying to endorse and which are they trying to thwart?  Why are they doing what they do and to what end?  Why do some operate in secrecy?  Most importantly, how do their actions effect the lives of common people and the broader economies of the world?

ENEMIES:  Why Do We Fight?
The world is in conflict, seemingly perpetually.  Why?  This series of reports would have a journalist of the stature of a Ted Koppell travel the globe to interview world leaders face-to-face.  The direct, blunt, questions would be the same for each.  We would be looking for honest. straight-forward answers, not diplomatic subtleties, to these questions.  Who is your enemy?  Why are they your enemy?  How have they wronged you?  What do you intend to do to them?  How have you come to this position?  What do you think might be your misperceptions or misunderstanding of your enemy, or their motives?  What doesn't your enemy know about you and your intentions?  What would you be willing to do, if anything, to make peace with your enemy?  What would you expect from them in return?  Is there a solution to your conflict?  If so, what is it?  If not, why not?

THE GULF BETWEEN US:  What Don’t We Know About the Middle East?
Americans simply do not understand the Middle East.  Too many don’t know the differences and/or similarities betweens Arabs, Persians, Muslims, Islamists, Shiites, Sunnis, Shieks, The Taliban, The Iraqi Awakening, Mullahs, Imans, Ayatollahs, Hamas, Hezbullah, Al-Qaeda, the Palenstinian Authority, Jihadists and “terrorits”.  Neither do I.  As this part of the world is where we are constantly embroiled in armed conflict, it is unconscionably negligent that news organizations aren’t doing daily primers on all this.  So, let’s do it.

MAKING STUFF:  Who Are the Drivers of  the Engines of Industry?
The future will belong to those who make the products wanted and sold around the world.  So, who are the world’s manufacturers?  Which countries and companies are at the forefront, making solar panels, mining lithium, developing efficient electrical grids, designing low-emission, high-mileage automobiles, inventing new battery technologies.  Who has research and development money and how are they spending it?  What new industries are coming next and why?  Where are the wealthy investing their money?  Where is our country leading or lagging?  Who will control the engines of industry?

POOR STUDENTS:  Why are We Dumbing Down the Masses?
Public education has been cynically allowed to wither and die in this country.  Because our schools are primarily funded by property taxes, rich districts get more money and good education, while poor districts struggle and fail at educating their students.   Education should be a regular, strong beat for any and all news organizations.  The Constitution calls for “equal” education.  That is simply not the case across the nation.  And, the rich, in an effort to stop sending their tax money to poor schools, are pushing hard for a so-called voucher system that would allow them to take their tax dolalrs out of the public school system and funnel their wealth into the private schools their children attend.  That would all but destroy public education in this country.  In whose interest is an undereducated population?  Who benefits and why when only the rich can get a proper education?  Tell this story, loud and clear.

THE WORKING POOR:  How Are People Surviving?
Studies show that the rich are indeed getting richer and more concentrated in number while the poor are getter poorer and increasing in numbers.  So, as money around the world moves from the middle class to the upper class, how are the working poor surviving?  These are the individual people stories that need to be told.  What are American workers going through as the idea of becoming wealthy becomes out of their reach?  How do working families manage their daily lives and budgets?  Are the unemployed failing into deep, unreported holes?  Is the mental health of Americans suffering?  Are there any efforts from new companies to give their employees health care insurance and retirement savings?  Who is working for a return of worker benefits and who against?  What will become of the Baby Boomer generation as they reach retirement without the financial means to go on?  How are our children getting the money for an education?  And around the world, how are workers being expolited?  Are there nascent labor movements in developing countries?  Are there any governments ready, willing or able to share record wealth from oil and mineral resources with their poverty-striken populations?  Are we really headed for world economic collapse?

THE MEDIA:  Who Controls the Message?
After a burst of de-regulation, media companies have consolidated their holdings.  A handful of powerful conglomerates are now free to control the collection, production and disemmination of information.  This has inevitably led to an abuse of power, and a lot of intentional misinformation.  The temptation to control what the public hears and how they hear it is overpowering.  So, who controls the flow of information around the world?  Which individual owners have undue power over the message?  Are they telling the truth?  If not, why not?  What are their agendas?  Who are their propogandists?  What voices are being purposely drowned out?  Who are not being heard?  What truths are not getting told?

These stories are not easy to tell.  They take time, diligence and resources.  Their telling also takes courage.  But it is essential that you tell them if your news audiences are to understand their world and make intelligent choices as informed voters. Please, do YOUR job, so that the citizens of America can properly do theirs.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

David Guilbault
Retired (Too Early)

WEE, THE PEOPLE

The Republicans in Congress stood against every single initiative of the Democratic House, Senate and White House.  Their goal was to prevent the Obama administration from passing into law any solution to our nation's problems.  They wanted to ensure this administration would end in failure.

Because the Democrats, who were voted in to change the destructive and greedy policies of the Bush years, couldn't, or wouldn't, go it alone, we wound up with watered-down reforms.  We got no public option for health care, weakened financial regulations and not enough government juice to really get the economy going strong.  And we're still mired in two wars.

The Republicans think they were victorious.  But, truly, they have shot themselves in their sad marching-in-lock-step feet.

They painted the federal government as intrusive, socialistic, Islamic-loving, Constitution-hating, terrorist-coddling, big-spending, out-of-control elites.  The Republicans, their corporate sponsors and their media propagandists hoped to use these willful distortions to scare the citizenry into voting Republican in the next couple of elections.

But, they underestimated the stupidity of the voters they were wooing (and scaring).  Those voters aren't voting Republican in the primaries.  They are voting Tea Party.  They are standing behind regular folks, folks "just like them."

So, the Republicans have probably succeeded in getting lots of Democrats voted out of office.  But, they are also getting themselves voted out, as well.

What we may wind up with is a Congress populated by too many "representatives of the people" who don't have the experience to govern, or the intellects to understand and solve the great problems of our day.

That's what happens when you paint the government as an enemy of the people.  The people overthrow the government.  And you get Wee, the People.

JUST PLAIN STUPID

The sign on the bus said, “What will you do when this circuit learns your job?”  Someone scribbled in response, “brake the circuit.”  When I saw that illiterate and violent reaction, in 1962, as a high school student, I realized that violence comes from ignorance and that free-thinking people need to be worried about the actions of the ignorant.

I see this again today in America.  Too many citizens, who are uneducated, or undereducated, are full of ignorance and fear.  They are being kept in their place by the circuits of privilege and wealth who are out to break them.  They have been rendered illiterate and fearful by the rich and powerful.  The problem is, these voters are now “just too plain stupid” to understand these simple facts.

Today, economic power and political might rest in the hands of corporations.  Global industries are controlling the accumulation and preservation of wealth around the world.  Too many of their principal owners are unprincipled arbiters of world policy.  The very rich are very few and very powerful.  We are not really ruled by governments anymore, but, rather, controlled by the greedy dictators of the banking, energy, insurance, defense and pharmaceutical industries.

In order to continue their plunder of world treasure, these companies need to shed government regulation, eliminate worker benefits, skirt environmental protections, dismiss the sick and the elderly, exploit cheap labor and manipulate public debate.

They do this through the political and propagandist maneuverings of a cabal who will do their bidding.  Here, in America, that cabal would be the Republican Party, FOX News and conservative radio talk show hosts.  Their job is to obfuscate and keep the masses misinformed and fearful, keeping their eyes averted, while the corporations profit from the accumulation of the world’s resources.

In pursuit of that goal, the cabal gets the “just plain stupid” to look the wrong way.  They get them up in arms against “ground zero mosques”, “death panels”, terrorism, gun control, school prayer, illegal immigration, gay marriage and the like.  They make the misinformed think that they will lose their guns, their neighborhoods, their livelihoods, their liberties, their "way of life."  Of course, these are all canards, meant to distract, while those in control raid treasuries, reduce their own taxes and operate with abandon to increase their influence and wealth.

To keep the spotlight off their own shenanigans, the corporations and their puppets want the “just plain stupid” to think that government is their enemy, particularly a progressive federal government.

But, in fact, it is the corporations who are foreclosing on people’s homes, sending jobs overseas, raising health care costs.  Corporations have taken away worker benefits, fouled the atsmosphere, bankrupted pension funds and are now trying to end Social Security benefits.  The same companies and their political hatchet men are trying to end public education in favor of a so-called voucher system, which will, of course, benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, keeping the underclass undereducated.

Their greedy pursuit of more money at the expense of common workers and national economies has been relentless.  Their elimination of pensions and benefits has been planned.  Their reduction of the living wage for American workers in exchange for exploitation of cheap foreign labor has been purposeful.  Their abandonment of the sick and elderly has been cynical.  Their dishonest “dumbing down of America” has been incrementally successful and fruitful.

At the moment, they are working forcefully and diligently to all but eliminate taxes on the wealthy.  They say if the rich have to pay more taxes, they won’t invest in the economy.  They say small businesses will suffer and go broke.  They say more money in the pockets of the rich will trickle down and mean better lives for the middle class and the poor.  These are all lies, pure and simple.  When they are repeated loudly and often, they take on the ring of truth.  But, lies are still lies, no matter how loudly and repeatedly professed.

When the Republicans talk about “getting the government out of our lives”, they don’t mean the lives of the common person.  That's just a scare tactic making voters think that the big, bad, federal government is trying to control their health care decisions, personal relationships, ways of worship.  Again, all canards.  What the Republicans mean to protect from government control are their corporate benefactors.  They mean to set those companies free to exploit with no oversight or consequence.

But, it is government that protects the citizenry.   With no federal watchdogs, corporations will no longer be held responsible for paying decent wages, giving benefits to their workers, making safe products, protecting the environment, paying their fair share of taxes or taking responsibility for their actions.

It is a free and vibrant press, in turn, that keeps everyone honest.  So, attacking and destroying the credibility of journalism is another goal of the rich and powerful.  If they can make everyone question the veracity of legitimate news reports, then the atmosphere for their deception is rife.  Lies again become the truth, and the lives of the liars are enriched.

All of this should be painfully obvious to anyone with a decent intellect and a working knowledge of current events.

But, alas, more and more of the “just plain stupid” are believing misinformation, distortion and deception intentionally meant to manipulate them, frighten them and move them to angry outrage against gays, immigrants, Muslims, elites, progressives, government, intellectuals, media, whatever - all red herrings.

In short, the true enemies of the common man, the corporations and their cabals, have turned the ignorant masses against their natural benefactors - progressive governments and a free press.

So, how do we get the “just plain stupid” to understand that they have been snowed?  How do we get them to understand who is really on their side?  How do we get them to understand that they are being intentionally manipulated?  How do we “break the circuit” of deceit?  What should we do?

I guess we need to keep repeating, as convincingly as possible, the truths that should be self-evident.  And we need to reform and repair those public institutions that have been damaged or broken.  I suggest that these are things that should be done:

JOURNALISM:  A lie should be called out whenever and wherever it tries to destroy the truth.  Distortions should be countered with facts.  Journalists should reclaim their mantle of credibility and never allow a mis-truth to be spoken without challenge.

NEWS ORGANIZATIONS:  No company should be allowed to identify itself as a news organization if it contributes money or reportorial space in advocacy of any political party or cause.  All news and commentary should be separated, with all opinion clearly identified.

MEDIA COMPANIES:  No media company should be allowed to own the collection, creation and dissemination of information.  Each should be separate to prevent a monopoly on that information.

INTERNET:  The Internet should remain unregulated, un-owned, free and open for anyone and everyone to use as they see fit.  And, as a self-policing check and balance, everyone getting information off the Internet should fact check it before endorsing or disseminating it.

REGULATION:  No corporation should be allowed to endanger the population in any way.  Regulating the energy, financial, industrial, pharmaceutical, defense, insurance, medical industries is a must.

STOCK MARKET:  The buying and selling of financial instruments should be regulated, so as not to gamble away the capital wealth of honest investors and unwitting shareholders.

CORPORATE TAXES:  Corporate giants should not enjoy the benefits of unfair tax advantages while reaping obscene record profits.  The more they make, the more they should pay in taxes.

FAIR TAXES:  The tax codes should be rewritten so that everyone pays their fair share.    That is, very simply, again, the more you make, the more you pay.

JOBS:  Companies that operate on American soil should have an obligation to their communities.  There should be tax incentives for job creation here and tax penalties for sending jobs overseas.

LIVING WAGES:  Workers should be afforded a decent living.  Minimum wage requirements are, and should be, the purview of the government.  Labor unions should be encouraged to negotiate for better wages and benefits.

PENSIONS:  Workers who have given a lifetime of labor for the benefit of a company should, by law, be benefited in return by that same company.

HEALTH CARE:  Everyone should have the right to a healthy life.  Insurance companies should be prevented, by law, from purging their rolls of the sick and the elderly.  Doctors and hospitals should strive for lower medical costs.

ELDERLY CARE:  We should take good care of the senior members of our community.  Their health care costs should be lowered and subsidized with tax dollars.  And, Social Security, should continue to be funded by the government for this generation and all generations to come.

EDUCATION:  Public education needs to be funded by all tax payers instead of by property owners in a school district.  The current funding insures that rich neighborhoods turn out the well-educated and poor communities turn out the ill-educated.  We owe all our children an equal education.

MARRIAGE:  Anyone, anywhere, anytime should be able to profess their love for another and marry them.  Period.

IMMIGRATION:  We should be the most welcoming country on earth for immigrants.  Those who have come here illegally to benefit themselves and their families should be given an opportunity to present themselves and become resident workers or U.S. citizens.

GUNS:  Those who have hunting rifles or personal handguns should register them.  No one, outside law enforcement, should own an assault weapon.

TERRORISM:  We should stop treating terrorism as a war and, instead, use our law enforcement and intelligence community resources to identify, target and eliminate those we have proven intend to do us harm.

WARS:  No war should be waged without a declaration of  The Senate of the United States, as defined in The Constitution.  The unlawful wars being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan, meant to change Islamic & Arab cultures, garner oil resources and support the energy and defense industries, are misguided and unsustainable.  We should bring our troops home promptly.

VETERANS:  All veterans, by law, should have their service honored with full education and health care for life, paid for with tax revenues.

RELIGION:  Everyone should be free to believe or disbelieve whatever religious philosophy they choose.  And, by law, no one should be allowed to prevent anyone else  from practicing their religion when and where they choose.  By the same token, by law, no one should be forced to endure the preachings of any religion in a government or public space.

BUDGET:  Our federal government should be prudent and efficient in its collection and spending of tax monies.  The Obama administration should develop a thoughtful and just plan to reduce the current deficit, irresponsibly created by the Bush administration, with the goal of returning to the budget surplus of the Clinton administration.

FEDERAL SPENDING:  Defense spending should be reduced, as it has always been larger than necessary.  Seed money for university research and development in the fields of energy and medicine should be greatly increased.  A plan to keep Social Security solvent ad infinitum should be developed and put in place.  Money for unemployment benefits should be earmarked and set aside.  Unjust tax breaks for the wealthy should be eliminated.  Tax incentives for businesses to create new jobs and industries in the United States should be written into law.  Federal money should be earmarked to help states repair and improve the nation's electrical and transportation infrastructure.

ELECTIONS:  Congress should pass a law over-ruling the Supreme Court’s decision to allow corporations unlimited spending on political messaging.  No person or entity, by exercising their First Amendment rights, should be able to use the might of financial power to wield undue, monopolistic influence over political discourse and, thus, election results.

All in all, we need to call out the lies and defend the truth.  No one in America should make important voting decisions based on information intentionally meant to deceive and manipulate.  That would be "just plain stupid."

HEALTHY DEBATE

LUNTZ THE LIAR

Once again, the chief propagandist of the right, Frank Luntz, is advising Republicans how to kill any financial reform by manipulating the language of the debate.  He successfully led the distorted attack on health care reform with a memo called, "The Language of Health Care 2009."  Now, he aims to repeat his damaging tactics with "The Language of Financial Reform."  As the slogan of his company, The Word Doctors, proclaims: "It's not what you say, it's what people hear."  And you can bet, you will hear his false words, meant to demean, discredit and destroy true reform, oft repeated by congressional Republicans in the days and weeks to come.  Please read his memo and understand the verbal disinformation that is once again meant to misinform and manipulate the voters.

 

INTO THE LIONS' DEN

CONTENT OF CHARACTER

LIKE IT IS

The Same Old Washington Blame Game

Posted by Dan Pfeiffer on December 30, 2009 at 03:34 PM EST

There has been a lot of discussion online and in the mainstream media about our response to various critics of the President, specifically former Vice President Cheney, who have been coming out of the woodwork since the incident on Christmas Day.  I think we all agree that there should be honest debate about these issues, but it is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers. Unfortunately too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer.

First, it’s important that the substantive context be clear: for seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq – a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion – Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States. Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years.  It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda – more than doubling our troops in Afghanistan, and building partnerships to target al Qaeda’s safe-havens in Yemen and Somalia.  And in less than one year, we have already seen many al Qaeda leaders taken out, our alliances strengthened, and the pressure on al Qaeda increased worldwide.

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.

Second, the former Vice President makes the clearly untrue claim that the President – who is this nation’s Commander-in-Chief – needs to realize we are at War. I don’t think anyone realizes this very hard reality more than President Obama. In his inaugural, the President said “our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” In a recent speech, Assistant to the President for Terrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan said “Instead, as the president has made clear, we are at war with al-Qaida, which attacked us on 9/11 and killed 3,000 people. We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al-Qaida’s murderous agenda. These are the terrorists we will destroy; these are the extremists we will defeat.” At West Point, the President told the nation why it was “in our vital national interest” to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to fight the war in Afghanistan, adding that as Commander in Chief, “I see firsthand the terrible wages of war.” And at Oslo, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the President said, “We are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land.”

There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered.

Dan Pfeiffer is White House Communications Director

PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP

Tonight, President Obama delivered a fearless, truthful speech on health care reform to Congress and the nation.  He once again demostrated his courage, conviction and charisma.  While he passionately outlined what needed to be done to ensure good health for all Americans, his Republican opponents, obstructionist pawns of the insurance industry, sat silent and stone-faced.  They are doing everything they can to obfuscate the debate in the service of their moneyed patrons.  They seek nothing less than to kill any reform in its infancy.  But, Obama was having none of it.  He is determined to pass a bill that provides affordable health care for all citizens.  Seek the truth in this debate.  Expose the lies.  Support this President, as he considers workable options, builds a consensus, respects proper legislative deliberations, leads the moral debate and gets the job done.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Congressional Republicans and health insurance lobbyists are lying to the American people - knowingly and cynically - to protect their greedy entrenched interests by killing health care reform.  That's the truth, pure and simple.

"The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems."

- Steven Pearlstein, The Washington Post

I have not had much faith in the political leadership of House leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Harry Reid in the health care reform debate.  Today, Pelosi, finally got some guts and laid the blame for our broken, greedy system at the feet of the real obstructionists of reform - the health insurance industry.  Some of her comments today:

Pelosi: Health Insurance Companies the Real Villains

"They are the villains in this. They have been part of the problem in a major way," Pelosi said of the insurance industry after her weekly press conference. "It's almost immoral, what they are doing," she said, referring to industry lobbying against a public insurance plan option. "Of course, they've been immoral all along. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening, and the public has to know about it."

The current system works so well for insurers that they don't even want subsidies, Pelosi claimed. "They've had a good thing going for a long time at the expense of the American people and the health of our country," she said, adding that it will be tough to keep them from getting their way. "This is the fight of our lives."

- Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House

The New York Times' Op-Ed columnist Frank Rich has it exactly right about the importance of Walter Cronkite in his piece, "And That's Not the Way It Is."

"What matters about Cronkite is that he knew when to stop being reassuring Uncle Walter and to challenge those who betrayed his audience’s trust. He had the guts to confront not only those in power but his own bosses. Given the American press’s catastrophe of our own day — its failure to unmask and often even to question the White House propaganda campaign that plunged us into Iraq — these attributes are as timely as ever.

That’s why the past week’s debate about whether there could ever again be a father-figure anchor with Cronkite’s everyman looks and sonorous delivery is an escapist parlor game. What matters is content, not style. The real question is this: How many of those with similarly exalted perches in the news media today — and those perches, however diminished, still do exist in the multichannel digital age — will speak truth to power when the country is on the line? This journalistic responsibility cannot be outsourced to Comedy Central and Jon Stewart. ...

Watching many of the empty Cronkite tributes in his own medium over the past week, you had to wonder if his industry was sticking to mawkish clichés just to avoid unflattering comparisons. If he was the most trusted man in America, it wasn’t because he was a nice guy with an authoritative voice and a lived-in face. It wasn’t because he “loved a good story” or that he removed his glasses when a president died. It was because at a time of epic corruption in the most powerful precincts in Washington, Cronkite was not at the salons and not in the tank."

- Frank Rich, The New York Times

The secretive dirty deeds of the Cheney-Bush administration need to be investigated.  Let's see if the mainstream media spend anywhere near the time and resources on this story as they have on investigating the death, familial dramas and peculiarities of Michael Jackson.

"Cheney is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project"
Scott Shane, The New York Times

"Cheney Linked to Secrecy of CIA Program"
Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times

"CIA Had Secret Al Qaeda Plan"
Siobhan Gorman, The Wall Street Journal

"Bush Anti-Terror Policies Get Reluctant Revisit"
Carrie Johnson & Joby Warrick, Washington Post

In her column, "A Farewell to Harms", Peggy Noonan writes why Sarah Palin was (and is) bad for the Republicans, and the republic.

"In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying....

Here's why all this matters. The world is a dangerous place. It has never been more so, or more complicated, more straining of the reasoning powers of those with actual genius and true judgment. This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think.

Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.

The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.

It's not a time to be frivolous, or to feel the temptation of resentment, or the temptation of thinking next year will be more or less like last year, and the assumptions of our childhoods will more or less reign in our future. It won't be that way.

We are going to need the best.

- Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal

Sarah Palin steps down.  Here's her speech - Huh?   It's a rambling, incoherent, clearly insincere performance.  And, she's clearly lying through her gleaming white teeth.  Something's up. Every time I hear this buffoon speak, I think the same thing, "Oh ... my ... God."

"We're fishermen. We know only dead fish go with the flow."
- Gov. Sarah Palin

SARAH'S STRAIGHT TALK

"Truly, Sarah Palin has come a long way. When she ran for vice president, she frequently became disjointed and garbled when she departed from her prepared remarks. Now the prepared remarks are incoherent, too.

“And a problem in our country today is apathy,” she said on Friday as she announced that she would resign as governor of Alaska at the end of the month. “It would be apathetic to just hunker down and ‘go with the flow.’ Nah, only dead fish ‘go with the flow.’ No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time ... to BUILD UP.”

Basically, the point was that Palin is quitting as governor because she’s not a quitter. Or a deceased salmon.

Sarah Barracuda made her big announcement Friday afternoon on the lawn of her home to an audience that appeared to include only Todd, the kids and the next-door neighbors. Smiling manically, she looked like a parody of the woman who knocked the Republicans dead at their convention. She babbled about her parents’ refrigerator magnet, which apparently had a lot of wise advice. And she recalled her visit with the troops in Kosovo, whose dedication and determination inspired her to ... resign."

- Gail Collins, The New York Times

PALIN AND HER ENEMIES

"If Palin were exactly what her critics believe she is — the distillation of every right-wing pathology, from anti-intellectualism to apocalyptic Christianity — then she wouldn’t be a terribly interesting figure. But this caricature has always missed the point of the Alaska governor’s appeal — one that extends well outside the Republican Party’s shrinking base.

In a recent Pew poll, 44 percent of Americans regarded Palin unfavorably. But slightly more had a favorable impression of her. That number included 46 percent of independents, and 48 percent of Americans without a college education.

That last statistic is a crucial one. Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard"

- Ross Douthat, The New York Times

I’m grieving.  My car has died.  My poor car.  I’ve owned this wonderful Nissan NX 2000 for 17 years, since buying it new in 1992 in Chicago.  It has a little over 91,000 miles on it.

It’s death is not an insignificant event.  That car was as much a part of me as my breath.   Now, it breathes no more.  In it’s last throes it has been trying to speak to me.  It’s been telling me that life is running out.

That car represented a hold on hope.  It kept me going - literally and figuratively.  I poured hundred of dollars into it in the last two years, trying desparately to keep it on the road, and on the mend.  I paid for overdue parking fines and overpriced parking spaces.  I put new tires, brakes and  radiator into it.  I nursed it like a loved one.

But, it would keep failing on me.  During those times without transportation, I was off my game.  I felt trapped and powerless.  When it was running, I felt I had options, the possibility of freedom and prosperity - maybe even, perish the thought, happiness.

My poor car has endured the travails of my life.  It has carried me through good times and bad, surviving blow after blow.  It has been a faithful mechanical steed.

Now, it has given up the ghost - given away for scrap parts.  Rest in peace, my friend.

As the volatile situation in Iran develops, we should all be wary of reports circulating around the Internet, on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.  Nevertheless, we should also be grateful that there are means to get the word out on what is happening in that press-restricted country.  But beware imposters spreading false information.

The New York Times, in its news blog, The Lede, is doing the best it can to filter through a multitude of sources to try and piece together what is actually happening.  It's worth monitoring.

The chief disinformation operative of the Republican party is leading a propaganda campaign against national health care reform.  He is Frank Luntz. 

He has crafted a 28-page talking points memo for Conservatives, called "The Language of Health Care 2009," to trumpet the dishonest accusation of a "Washington takeover of healthcare."  It is cynical, distorted, fear mongering self-interest at its worst.

Luntz advises opponents of universal health care to make the debate about "politicians," "bureaucrats," and "Washington," and to highlight "horror stories" about "government takeover."  He tells them to play on the fear the public has of "denied treatment."

Luntz writes, "The best approach is to empathize with the fear, anxiety and financial pain people are clearly feeling right now. So instead of dismissing their concerns, acknowledge them – up front – and then pivot to your solution. Some conservatives will undoubtedly find this distasteful. But failure to connect on a personal level at the beginning will lead to communication failure at the end."

Later he writes, "It is essential that “deny” and “denial” enter the conservative lexicon immediately because it is at the core of what scares Americans most about a government takeover of healthcare. Then add to it the source of that denial and you have the perfect anti-government, anti-Washington and anti-Democratic message."

So, you will hear this mantra repeated from Republican after Republican:

“No Washington bureaucrat or healthcare lobbyist should stand between your family and your doctor. The Democrats want to put Washington politicians in charge of YOUR healthcare. We can and must do better. Say no to a Washington takeover of healthcare and say yes to personalized patient-centered care.”

Of course, "personalized patient-centered care" is code for health insurance company control. That is the powerful industry Luntz and his cohorts are trying to protect.

Luntz and his associates are the premier manipulators of language for selfish, partisan ends.

Read one of his mission statements from their web site (emphasis is mine): 

Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research

"Our focus is on language. We believe that every word you use matters.  Luntz, Maslansky is known across the nation for how we reframe issues.  From changing the “estate tax” to the “death tax,” “tax cuts” to “tax relief,” “global warming” to “climate change” – time after time we have succeeded in changing the course of the debate.  By focusing on how to communicate your message, Luntz, Maslansky helps you reframe the issue using your side’s words and messages.  Our unique research methodology allows us to precisely gauge public opinion and develop the most effective approach and language to take control of the issue.  We know how to change hearts and minds and motivate people to act."

from Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research website

Their goal is to help "virtually every major industry" to distort their message and mask their true agenda.  Another quote from their web site:

"In the political arena, our CEO, Dr. Frank Luntz, is known for helping change the public vocabulary – he transformed the "estate tax" into the "the death tax," moved the public debate from "school vouchers" to "opportunity scholarships," and re-cast "drilling for oil" as "exploring for energy."  ...  In the corporate arena, Luntz, Maslansky currently works for clients in virtually every major industry: pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, energy, health care, transportation, sports, entertainment, travel and tourism, shopping centers, grocery stores, restaurants, food, and beverages."

If Frank Luntz is involved in a public campaign, you may assume the goal is to "pull the wool over your eyes."

And, so then, is his mission in the health care debate.

Photo Credit:  Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

President Barack Obama delivered an honest and brilliant speech today in Cairo about peace and religion.  Take an hour out of your day to watch and listen.

"When President Bush spoke in the months and years after Sept. 11, 2001, we often — chillingly — felt as if we didn’t recognize the United States. His vision was of a country racked with fear and bent on vengeance, one that imposed invidious choices on the world and on itself. When we listened to President Obama speak in Cairo on Thursday, we recognized the United States.

Mr. Obama spoke, unwaveringly, of the need to defend the country’s security and values. He left no doubt that he would do what must be done to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban, while making it clear that Americans have no desire to permanently occupy Afghanistan or Iraq.

He spoke, unequivocally, of the United States’ “unbreakable” commitment to Israel and of why Iran must not have a nuclear weapon. He was also clear that all of those listening — in the Muslim world and in Israel — must do more to defeat extremism and to respect the rights of their neighbors and their people.

Words are important. Mr. Obama was right when he urged leaders who privately speak of moderation and compromise to dare to say those words in public. But words are not enough. Mr. Obama, who, after all, has been in office for less than six months, has a lot to do to fulfill this vision. So do others. ...

Before Thursday’s speech, and after, Mr. Obama’s critics complained that he has spent too much time apologizing and accused him of weakening the country. That is a gross misreading of what he has been saying — and of what needs to be said. After eight years of arrogance and bullying that has turned even close friends against the United States, it takes a strong president to acknowledge the mistakes of the past. And it takes a strong president to press himself and the world to do better."

- Editorial, The New York Times

PHOTO CREDIT: Stephen Crowley, The New York Times

"Truth Sessions: Insights on the Common Struggles of Life" (A journalistic jazz piece) from David Guilbault on Vimeo

We all have stories to tell. We all need and want to be heard. But many of us are invisible members of our own communities. Because we may be poor, downtrodden, struggling with mental conditions or fighting addictions, our opinions and observations are largely ignored.

But our experiences and insights are valuable. Like everyone, we’re coping the best we can with the challenges of life. This ongoing project is intended to give voice to those struggles.

"Truth Sessions" is a multimedia storytelling project by filmmaker David Guilbault, photographer Doug Vann, painter Keven Furiya and composer Andy Zadrozny.

The first session features ten people living in a low income apartment building in Seattle, across the street from the artist lofts where David, Doug, Keven & Andy live and work.

These ten interviews are the first in a series of sessions. Our intention is to hear from a range of our neighbors from disparate cultural, economic, ethnic, educational, racial and spiritual backgrounds. This is just the beginning of the conversation. The stories continue.

(To see the complete multimedia work, please visit www.truthsessions.tv)

I invite you all to a fundraiser for a wonderful work-in-progress, "Walk Right In", on April 24th, at 7:00p at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.  Details on the film and a trailer are below:

"Walk Right In" captures the stories of a unique educational experiment at Yale University through interviews with its participants 40 years later.

Created as part of the war on poverty with a mandate to address issues of social and economic injustice, The Yale Summer High School brought underprivileged kids from across the nation to the Yale Divinity School during the 1960s. In 1968, as American cities were rife with protest, racial rioting and civil disorder, a small group of educators redefined the enterprise, creating a living laboratory in the problems and promise of the American democracy. Drawing on the 'Great Books' of Western literature, the school made these classics relevant to the times and lives of its students, bringing sensitive issues of race, tolerance and personal identity to the fore. From Sophocles' "Antigone" to Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," they searched together for that which eluded the nation--a working definition of "community"--the shared values that ground people and bind them together.

Four decades after leaving Yale, Larry Paros--former Director of the Yale Summer High School--traveled the country to interview more than two dozen of his fellow teachers, tutors and students about how they each experienced the Summer High School in 1968.

A compelling and deeply personal narrative of education and individual transformation, "Walk Right In" recreates the summer of '68 through first hand accounts, following students from their moment of selection and their arrival on campus to the culmination of the program and where they are today, reminding us of the importance of inclusive and effective education and the impact it has across generations.

The Writer

by Richard Wilbur

In her room at the prow of the house

Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,

My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing

From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys

Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff

Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:

I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,

As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.

A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,

And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor

Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling

Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;

How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;

And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,

We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature

Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove

To the hard floor, or the desk-top,

And wait then, humped and bloody,

For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits

Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,

Beating a smooth course for the right window

And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,

Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish

What I wished you before, but harder.

Richard Wilbur, “The Writer” from Collected Poems 1943-2004. Copyright © 2004 by Richard Wilbur. Reprinted with the permission of Harcourt, Inc. This material may not be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Source: Collected Poems, 1943-2004 (Harcourt, Inc., 2004).

As I search for vindication and validation, I ponder the words of Mickey Rourke to Barbara Walters on the Oscar award:  "You can't eat it.  You can't fuck it.  And it won't get you into heaven."

 

Can anyone listen to and watch Ingrid Michaelson without smiling?

W. Mark Felt, Watergate Deep Throat, Dies at 95
By Tim Weiner, The New York Times

"W. Mark Felt, who was the No. 2 official at the F.B.I. when he helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon by resisting the Watergate cover-up and becoming Deep Throat, the most famous anonymous source in American history, died Thursday. He was 95 and lived in Santa Rosa, Calif. ...

Mr. Felt played a dual role in the fall of Nixon. As a secret informant, he kept the story alive in the press. As associate director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he fought the president’s efforts to obstruct the F.B.I.’s investigation of the Watergate break-in.

Without Mr. Felt, there might not have been a Watergate — shorthand for the revealed abuses of presidential powers in the Nixon White House, including illegal wiretapping, burglaries and money laundering. Americans might never have seen a president as a criminal conspirator, or reporters as cultural heroes, or anonymous sources like Mr. Felt as a necessary if undesired tool in the pursuit of truth."

'Deep Throat' Mark Felt Dies at 95 - Patricia Sullivan, The Washington Post
How Mark Felt Became 'Deep Throat' - Bob Woodward, The Washington Post

I want to thank staff reporter Cydney Gillis of Real Change newspaper in Seattle for her cover story featuring the 'Truth Sessions' multimedia storytelling project I co-authored with photographer Doug Vann, painter Keven Furiya and composer Andy Zadrozny.  The newspaper's mission is "to create opportunity and a voice for low-income people while taking action to end homelessness and poverty."

Photo: Doug Vann

Well, the blogosphere and some of the mainstream media have been embarrassed again for publishing supposedly inside McCain campaign information from what turns out to be a hoaxster.  Read the story, 'A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence', on The New York Times website.

"We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we’ve been told that we’re not ready, or that we shouldn’t try, or that we can’t, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people.

Yes we can.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom through the darkest of nights.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.

Yes we can heal this nation.

Yes we can repair this world.

Yes we can."

- Barack Obama, January 8, 2008

We all have stories to tell.  We all need and want to be heard.  But many of us are invisible members of our own communities.  Because we may be poor, downtrodden, struggling with mental conditions or fighting addictions, our opinions and observations are largely ignored.

But our experiences and insights are valuable.  Like everyone, we're coping the best we can with the challenges of life.  This ongoing project is intended to give voice to those struggles.

'Truth Sessions' is a multimedia storytelling project by filmmaker David Guilbault, photographer Doug Vann, painter Keven Furiya and composer Andy Zadrozny.  The first session features ten people living in a low income apartment building across the street from the artist lofts where David, Doug, Keven and Andy live and work.

These ten interviews are the first in a series of sessions.  Our intention is to hear from a range of our neighbors from disparate cultural, economic, ethnic, ediucaltional, racial and spiritual backgrounds.  This is just the beginning of the conversation.  The stories continue.

Bruce Springsteen at a Vote for Change rally in Philadelphia:

"I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no health care, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities, the distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful. I believe Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his work. I believe he understands, in his heart, the cost of that distance, in blood and suffering, in the lives of everyday Americans. I believe as president, he would work to restore that promise to so many of our fellow citizens who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning. ...

Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama's understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again. But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. That is where our future lies. We will rise or fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back."

 - Bruce Springsteen

In his recent stump speeches, John McCain is demonstrating a classic example of Freudian Projection, "A defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits."

Speaking in Albuquerque today, John McCain directly attacked Barack Obama's character.  McCain painted Obama as risky, touchy, secretive, dishonest, aloof, misleading, reckless and angry.  All of these are exactly the adjectives that describe McCain's fundamental personality.  It is, as I've said, classic psychological projection.

Larry Rohter, of The New York Times has a blog called 'Drilling Down on the Facts in McCain's Speech' that puts the lie to most of what McCain had to say about Obama.

Likewise, Sarah Palin, today and yesterday, has been out spreading untruths about Obama,  saying that Obama was 'palling around with terrorists'.  The New York Times also put the lie to that in their in-depth article exploring the relationship between Obama and Weather Underground founder, turned education professor, William Ayers.

"A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

- Scott Shane, The New York Times

All of these attacks from the McCain campaign are of course coming as the voters' opinions of the two candidates are solidifying and the poll numbers between the gaining Obama and the declining McCain are widening.

Standing by salivating, already 'taking the gloves off', are all those Pavlovian Rovian attack dogs, like William Kristol, ready and willing to re-stir the Rev. Jeremiah Wright pot.

Hopefully, the thinking American electorate will see this dishonest guilt-by-association ruse for the slander it is.

It is now when we see the measure of the man. John McCain shows himself be a self-deluded, desperate, ambitious phony who will say and do anything to get elected, by hook or by crook.

The foul candidate that John McCain is describing, on the last legs of his lifelong ambition to be president, is himself.

Photo Credit:  Todd Heisler/The New York Times

I was a news producer at ABC News, mostly working on the evening news programs, for over 20 years. Working my way up from copy boy to producer, I worked on the newscasts anchored by Howard K. Smith, Harry Reasoner, Barbara Walters, Frank Reynolds, Max Robinson and Peter Jennings.

I was in network news during some of its best days, post Watergate, learning from and admiring true broadcast journalists.

Came a time, I produced news reports for 'World News Tonight with Peter Jennings'.  There, I had a reputation for being able to work with 'challenging' correspondents and was thought to have the ability to bring out their best.

One of the network's correspondents was Bill O'Reilly.  I was assigned as producer on several of his stories.  They were painful experiences.

Firstly, at that time, network news producers usually took the lead role in outlining a story and setting up its elements, in coordination with the correspondent and the senior producers.  For the few stories I produced with O'Reilly, he did most of the set up.  Not knowing him or his sources, that made me uncomfortable.  But, the stories were innocuous and I never suspected or detected any bias or dishonesty in his reporting.

However, I did find him to be the single most self-centered person I had ever worked with.  He literally talked about himself non-stop.  I spent hours and hours with him on the road and the conversation never strayed away from the topic of Bill O'Reilly.  He showed me that his was an ego of uncontrollable expansion.

He was always bemoaning that others were getting undeserved breaks.  Forrest Sawyer and Stone Philips were rising stars at ABC News when O'Reilly was there.  He kept saying you have to be an inanimate object, like a forest or a stone, to make it at the network.  His jealousy and underlying insecurity was always evident.  He hated those that he felt were less deserving than he.

He couldn't survive in an atmosphere where he was not the be-all and end-all.  So, he left the network for syndication anchor positions where he was the headliner.  Then, finally to FOX News where his transformation was complete.

I've watched Mr. O'Reilly, now, over the years, turn into a monster.  And I've always held my tongue.

But, watching his latest bullying attack on Barney Frank has pushed me to comment.

Bill O'Reilly has no business on the public airwaves.  He is belligerent and ignorant.  And I mean those adjectives in the most negative light.  He abuses the very air over which he is heard.   As Rep. Frank said in response to O'Reilly's shouting, 'Your stupidity gets in the way of rational discussion'.

There is nothing rational about the way O'Reilly conducts himself.  Because he is popular, on TV, radio, and in print, he gets away with his unconscionable tirades.  He is dangerously powerful and powerfully dangerous.

As he has no respect for intelligent discourse or common decency, he should be shown no respect in return and held in derision.  To mock his most recent self-aggrandizing book, he is 'A Bold Fresh Piece of Shit'.

Wise and relevant quotes from Abraham Lincoln, pertinent to the failings of today's journalism, the belligerence of the Bush administration, the greed of corporate America, the dangers of misgovernment and the cynicism of politics:

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed."

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to  tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will  endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until  the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed."

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people."

"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure."

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disentrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?"

"Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap -- let it be taught in schools, in seminaries,  and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;  -- let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and  enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave  and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars."

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

Photo Credit:  Matthew Brady

Missive Twelve
To My Darling Children

Here's the truth, my darling children.  The differences between Democrats and Republicans are the differences between right and wrong.

It's pretty simple, really.  Republicans want little or no government.  And so, they have always done all they can to starve it to death, with massive tax breaks for the wealthy and taxpayer-funded giveaways to big business.  They can't stand that the federal government has taken any of their money.  So, they want it back.

You see, they want to be able to make money without interference, with no governmental regulations or restrictions.  They don't want to answer to anyone, particularly Washington, as they build their wealth.

In order for them to grow that wealth, they need to keep wages low and benefits meager.

The bottom line is that the bottom line is all that matters to them.  It's their money, and they will decide how they get it, how they keep it, and how they'll use it.

They are on a crusade to stop funding any and all social safety nets, like Social Security and Medicaid.  They are on a mission to bring an end to worker pension funds.

They don't care if American workers lose their livelihoods and, in some cases, their lives, as they send jobs overseas for a pittance.

The only thing that gets their unbridled funding is an all-powerful military-industrial complex.  That's so they can wield their muscle around the world, maintain their hold on power and protect their monied, corporate interests.

If you were privileged enough, or clever enough, or lucky enough, or educated enough, or connected enough or unscrupulous enough to become wealthy, then you are in their club.  And club members look out for one another.

If you were underprivileged, uneducated, poverty-stricken, discriminated against, born into a cycle of despair or just plain unlucky, then you are really not their problem.  You are on your own.  They feel they owe you nothing, except charity.

Forget that institutional racism, sexism and classism have always been alive and well in this country.  Forget that hard-working people across this nation struggle with low-paying jobs, inadequate education, dangerous working conditions, no health care, crippling debt, diminishing opportunities, mortgage foreclosures and no savings for the future.

Republicans accept those poor souls as the price of doing business.  Let the churches feed and cloth those ne'er-do-wells with hand-me-down Republican threads.

But, do NOT tax the Republicans to provide a working government with laws to protect a decent minimum wage, universal health coverage, earned retirement, a safe and sustainable environment, worker rights and safety, an equal public education system, discrimination-free housing or a fair justice system. 

Those are the right things that Democrats work to build and maintain.

I no longer accept the argument that both Republicans and Democrats are good people, just with differing policies on how to tackle the problems of the world.  Bullshit.  Republicans who are out for themselves and who are complicit in allowing the less fortunate to fend for themselves are bad people - period.

The 40 most party-loyal House Republicans, according to the Washington Post.

On election night, 2004, I wrote the following email to my friends and family:

My fellow Americans,
We have doomed a great nation to its demise.
Bush's second term will be calamitous.
The treasury will be raided by the influential rich.
A towering national debt will be left to our progeny to fund corporate and defense build-up.
Corporate power will grow unchecked around the world.
Protections for our natural wildernesses will be abolished.
Our personal rights will be weakened.
Our privacy will be increasingly violated.
The invocation of gods against gods will cause devastating worldwide conflict.
Environmental regulation will be pushed-back, opening the landscape to be stripped of its resources for profit.
Social Security will be decimated under the dishonest guise of privatization.
Over-heated patriotic bravado will lead to more bloodshed.
Misunderstanding of the rest of the world will lead to continued hatred of the U.S.
American workers will increasingly lose whatever benefits they have left.
The right to dissent will be ridiculed and attacked.
The nation will become more bitterly divided.
Verbal bullies will dominate public discourse.
Critical questioning by the media, already mistrusted, will be stifled.
Opposition positions will be countered and quelled by personal attacks.
A Republican-controlled legislature will ram-rod its agenda into law.
The culture wars will poison civil, intelligent, political conversation.
The ability to see and understand nuance will be falsely mocked as vacillation.
Lies will be told boldly, loudly and repeatedly until they are wrongly accepted as truth.
Policy makers, who have little knowledge or regard for other cultures, will make blunderous decisions.
Undeterred terrorism will be bred around the globe.
Issues will be framed simplistically in black and white, right and wrong, good and evil.
More of our children will die for the wrong reasons.
We will all rue the day a jingoistic electorate gave carte blanche to the puppet masters Rove, Hughes, Cheney, Wolfkowitz, Rumsfeld, Frist and their corporate cronies.
I wish you and yours all the best.
David.
I despair for us all.

And, so, most came to pass. Please, please do NOT elect John McCain for four more years of the same.

On this date, August 28th, in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his conscience-raising 'I Have a Dream ' speech in Washington, D.C.  Tonight, on the anniversary of Dr. King's call for justice, Barack Obama will deliver another momentous address on hopes and dreams.

In 1963, Dr. King said, 'Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.'

Tonight, Sen. Obama has an opportunity to emblazon another moment, speaking as the first African-American nominee of a major party for President of the United States.  It is a long overdue triumph that should be shared by all Americans, regardless of political leanings.

As Barack Obama said in his thoughtful oration on race in Philadelphia earlier this year, 'In the end, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.'

Before we watch Obama's speech tonight, it would do us well to watch again the righteous words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., from 45 years ago.

Let's live in the truth.  The truth is that too many people in this country are just plain stupid.  They are ill-informed and easily misled.  They buy into simplistic perversions of the facts.  They know too little, think too little and they listen to those that know how to influence their little minds.  They can be made to be fearful and hateful and, thus, politically useful.  They are dangerously ignorant - and they vote.

These are the people that Karl Rove and his ilk target to mobilize against progressive candidates.

This week, John McCain has played to these voters with two outrageously disgusting campaign ads against Obama.  One compares his celebrity to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and mocks his overseas trip, where he was greeted by throngs of enthusiastic foreign admirers.  A second uses Obama soundbites, distorted and taken out of context, to paint the man as messianic.

The McCain camp undoubtedly knows that these ads are puerile and unconscionable.  But, they also know that 'just plain stupid' people will eat them up.  Both obnoxious ads - Celeb' 'and 'The One' - are proudly displayed on the McCain website. 

The ads have been roundly criticized from most quarters for the mud that they are.  Yet, McCain and his handlers, knowing they can't possibly win the election on the strength of their candidate or the failed policies he represents, continue to try and paint their charismatic and visionary opponent as a demon, in hopes of getting those easily persuaded 'just plain stupid' people mobilized against him.

It's sad to watch this repulsive display of dirty politics and even more frightening to consider that it might likely work.

 

 

'CELEB' - McCain Campaign Ad

 

 

'THE ONE' - McCain Campaign Ad

 

 

'LOW ROAD' - Obama Campaign Ad

'A World That Stands as One'

'I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived – at great cost and great sacrifice – to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom – indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares.

What has always united us – what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America’s shores – is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.'

Barack Obama, Berlin, July 24, 2008

It saddens me greatly to hear the phrase, over and over, 'That's why I don't watch the news'.  As a life-long broadcast journalist it pains me to know that too many people have given up, for whatever reason, on following the events of the world.  Ignorance is not bliss.  The undeniable truth is that powers of ill-will thrive when citizens hide their heads in the sand.

Missive Ten
To My Darling Children

This country has a shameful past, a past that too many Americans willingly or blindly ignore - the forced migration and genocide of Native Americans and the capture and enslavement of African-Americans.  These are hard facts, painful to accept, but necessary to recognize.

One cannot love one's country without admitting to its sins.

I think it is time for a government sponsored Truth and Reconciliation Commission to codify past injustices and officially apologize to the ancestors of those wronged by this country.

President Clinton took a step in that direction in 1997 when he apologized on behalf of the United States for the immoral Tuskegee Experiment that deliberately let 399 African-American men go untreated with syphilis.  Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Alabama and New Jersey have apologized for slavery. And the Congress apologized in 1988 for the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

But, it is long past time for the nation to officially atone for its crimes.

There is some movement in the Congress this year to apologize for slavery.

And there is Joint Resolution H.J.RES.3 in Congress - 'To acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the United States Government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.'

Of course, the argument against official apologies is the high cost of reparations.  I won't entertain the merits of that debate here.  Suffice it to say that wrongs should be remedied and justice should take its due course.  It is a cop-out to say, 'Well, it wasn't me' and sweep the dastardly governmental acts of those that came before us under the rug.

This government, like all governments, is capable of unthinkable acts against its citizenry and its enemies.  It is up to each and every member of society to stand guard against immoral acts taken in the name of the electorate by the ruling government.  That goes too for the waging of  immoral and illegal wars, and for the abolition or restriction of inherent human rights.

These outrages are not just historical artifacts. One only has to look at the sanctioned abuses at U.S. detention centers at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to see that 'crimes against humanity' are alive and well.

Now, in America, we are witnessing the nascent, ill-informed and hateful intolerance against Muslims and those that practice the faith of Islam.

A sad truth is that many Americans can't distinguish between Sunnis and Shias and Arabs and Persians and Muslims and Islamists.  They don't know the differences between an ethnicity, a culture or a religion.  Too many are quick to suspect that those who are 'other' than themselves are 'islamofacists' or 'terrorists'.

And so, there is the so-called USA Patriot Act - 'To deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes' - which is being used by the Bush administration to circumvent protections in the Constitution against spying on Americans and to justify torture against anyone they designate an 'enemy combatant'.

Intolerance is rife in the land.  We must be diligent in admitting to the errors of our ways and guarding against their repetitions, especially under the imprimatur of our government.

Painting: 'Trail of Tears' by Robert Lindneux

Paul Krugman has a spot-on opinion piece in today's New York Times.  Again, and again, words in the political barrage are purposely misrepresented to tack a point or attack a foe.

Rove's Third Term

'Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet. Howard Dean didn’t scream. Hillary Clinton didn’t say she was staying in the race because Barack Obama might be assassinated. And Wesley Clark didn’t impugn John McCain’s military service. ...

The latest fake scandal fits the usual pattern as an awkwardly phrased remark, lifted out of context and willfully misinterpreted, exploded across the airwaves.

What General Clark actually said was that Mr. McCain’s war service, though heroic, didn’t necessarily constitute a qualification for the presidency.  It was a blunt but truthful remark, and not at all outrageous — especially given the fact that General Clark is himself a bona fide war hero.

Yet the Clark affair did reveal something important — not about General Clark, but about Mr. McCain. Now we know what a McCain administration would represent: namely, a third term for Karl Rove.'

Paul Krugman, The New York Times, July 4, 2008

Today, from personal experience that I won't share here, I am once again reminded of the value and paucity of truth. And on a day when there are reports of finding the archeological remains of George Washington's boyhood home, I invite one and all to read The Fable of George Washington and the Cherry Tree, from 'The Life of Washington' by Mason Locke Weems, 1809.

UNHEALTHY LIES

Congressional Republicans and health insurance lobbyists are lying to the American people - knowingly and cynically - to protect their greedy entrenched interests by killing health care reform.  That's the truth, pure and simple.

"The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems."

- Steven Pearlstein, The Washington Post

HEALTH REFORM VILLAINS

I have not had much faith in the political leadership of House leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Harry Reid in the health care reform debate.  Today, Pelosi, finally got some guts and laid the blame for our broken, greedy system at the feet of the real obstructionists of reform - the health insurance industry.  Some of her comments today:

Pelosi: Health Insurance Companies the Real Villains

"They are the villains in this. They have been part of the problem in a major way," Pelosi said of the insurance industry after her weekly press conference. "It's almost immoral, what they are doing," she said, referring to industry lobbying against a public insurance plan option. "Of course, they've been immoral all along. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening, and the public has to know about it."

The current system works so well for insurers that they don't even want subsidies, Pelosi claimed. "They've had a good thing going for a long time at the expense of the American people and the health of our country," she said, adding that it will be tough to keep them from getting their way. "This is the fight of our lives."

- Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House

RIGHT ON CRONKITE

The New York Times' Op-Ed columnist Frank Rich has it exactly right about the importance of Walter Cronkite in his piece, "And That's Not the Way It Is."

"What matters about Cronkite is that he knew when to stop being reassuring Uncle Walter and to challenge those who betrayed his audience’s trust. He had the guts to confront not only those in power but his own bosses. Given the American press’s catastrophe of our own day — its failure to unmask and often even to question the White House propaganda campaign that plunged us into Iraq — these attributes are as timely as ever.

That’s why the past week’s debate about whether there could ever again be a father-figure anchor with Cronkite’s everyman looks and sonorous delivery is an escapist parlor game. What matters is content, not style. The real question is this: How many of those with similarly exalted perches in the news media today — and those perches, however diminished, still do exist in the multichannel digital age — will speak truth to power when the country is on the line? This journalistic responsibility cannot be outsourced to Comedy Central and Jon Stewart. ...

Watching many of the empty Cronkite tributes in his own medium over the past week, you had to wonder if his industry was sticking to mawkish clichés just to avoid unflattering comparisons. If he was the most trusted man in America, it wasn’t because he was a nice guy with an authoritative voice and a lived-in face. It wasn’t because he “loved a good story” or that he removed his glasses when a president died. It was because at a time of epic corruption in the most powerful precincts in Washington, Cronkite was not at the salons and not in the tank."

- Frank Rich, The New York Times

EXHUME CHENEY-BUSH DEEDS

The secretive dirty deeds of the Cheney-Bush administration need to be investigated.  Let's see if the mainstream media spend anywhere near the time and resources on this story as they have on investigating the death, familial dramas and peculiarities of Michael Jackson.

"Cheney is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project"
Scott Shane, The New York Times

"Cheney Linked to Secrecy of CIA Program"
Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times

"CIA Had Secret Al Qaeda Plan"
Siobhan Gorman, The Wall Street Journal

"Bush Anti-Terror Policies Get Reluctant Revisit"
Carrie Johnson & Joby Warrick, Washington Post

WADING IN ON SARAH

In her column, "A Farewell to Harms", Peggy Noonan writes why Sarah Palin was (and is) bad for the Republicans, and the republic.

"In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying....

Here's why all this matters. The world is a dangerous place. It has never been more so, or more complicated, more straining of the reasoning powers of those with actual genius and true judgment. This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think.

Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.

The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.

It's not a time to be frivolous, or to feel the temptation of resentment, or the temptation of thinking next year will be more or less like last year, and the assumptions of our childhoods will more or less reign in our future. It won't be that way.

We are going to need the best.

- Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal

A RAMBLING FOOL

Sarah Palin steps down.  Here's her speech - Huh?   It's a rambling, incoherent, clearly insincere performance.  And, she's clearly lying through her gleaming white teeth.  Something's up. Every time I hear this buffoon speak, I think the same thing, "Oh ... my ... God."

"We're fishermen. We know only dead fish go with the flow."
- Gov. Sarah Palin

SARAH'S STRAIGHT TALK

"Truly, Sarah Palin has come a long way. When she ran for vice president, she frequently became disjointed and garbled when she departed from her prepared remarks. Now the prepared remarks are incoherent, too.

“And a problem in our country today is apathy,” she said on Friday as she announced that she would resign as governor of Alaska at the end of the month. “It would be apathetic to just hunker down and ‘go with the flow.’ Nah, only dead fish ‘go with the flow.’ No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time ... to BUILD UP.”

Basically, the point was that Palin is quitting as governor because she’s not a quitter. Or a deceased salmon.

Sarah Barracuda made her big announcement Friday afternoon on the lawn of her home to an audience that appeared to include only Todd, the kids and the next-door neighbors. Smiling manically, she looked like a parody of the woman who knocked the Republicans dead at their convention. She babbled about her parents’ refrigerator magnet, which apparently had a lot of wise advice. And she recalled her visit with the troops in Kosovo, whose dedication and determination inspired her to ... resign."

- Gail Collins, The New York Times

PALIN AND HER ENEMIES

"If Palin were exactly what her critics believe she is — the distillation of every right-wing pathology, from anti-intellectualism to apocalyptic Christianity — then she wouldn’t be a terribly interesting figure. But this caricature has always missed the point of the Alaska governor’s appeal — one that extends well outside the Republican Party’s shrinking base.

In a recent Pew poll, 44 percent of Americans regarded Palin unfavorably. But slightly more had a favorable impression of her. That number included 46 percent of independents, and 48 percent of Americans without a college education.

That last statistic is a crucial one. Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard"

- Ross Douthat, The New York Times

MY POOR CAR

I’m grieving.  My car has died.  My poor car.  I’ve owned this wonderful Nissan NX 2000 for 17 years, since buying it new in 1992 in Chicago.  It has a little over 91,000 miles on it.

It’s death is not an insignificant event.  That car was as much a part of me as my breath.   Now, it breathes no more.  In it’s last throes it has been trying to speak to me.  It’s been telling me that life is running out.

That car represented a hold on hope.  It kept me going - literally and figuratively.  I poured hundred of dollars into it in the last two years, trying desparately to keep it on the road, and on the mend.  I paid for overdue parking fines and overpriced parking spaces.  I put new tires, brakes and  radiator into it.  I nursed it like a loved one.

But, it would keep failing on me.  During those times without transportation, I was off my game.  I felt trapped and powerless.  When it was running, I felt I had options, the possibility of freedom and prosperity - maybe even, perish the thought, happiness.

My poor car has endured the travails of my life.  It has carried me through good times and bad, surviving blow after blow.  It has been a faithful mechanical steed.

Now, it has given up the ghost - given away for scrap parts.  Rest in peace, my friend.

MISTRUSTED SOURCES

As the volatile situation in Iran develops, we should all be wary of reports circulating around the Internet, on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.  Nevertheless, we should also be grateful that there are means to get the word out on what is happening in that press-restricted country.  But beware imposters spreading false information.

The New York Times, in its news blog, The Lede, is doing the best it can to filter through a multitude of sources to try and piece together what is actually happening.  It's worth monitoring.

SICK TALK ON HEALTH CARE

The chief disinformation operative of the Republican party is leading a propaganda campaign against national health care reform.  He is Frank Luntz. 

He has crafted a 28-page talking points memo for Conservatives, called "The Language of Health Care 2009," to trumpet the dishonest accusation of a "Washington takeover of healthcare."  It is cynical, distorted, fear mongering self-interest at its worst.

Luntz advises opponents of universal health care to make the debate about "politicians," "bureaucrats," and "Washington," and to highlight "horror stories" about "government takeover."  He tells them to play on the fear the public has of "denied treatment."

Luntz writes, "The best approach is to empathize with the fear, anxiety and financial pain people are clearly feeling right now. So instead of dismissing their concerns, acknowledge them – up front – and then pivot to your solution. Some conservatives will undoubtedly find this distasteful. But failure to connect on a personal level at the beginning will lead to communication failure at the end."

Later he writes, "It is essential that “deny” and “denial” enter the conservative lexicon immediately because it is at the core of what scares Americans most about a government takeover of healthcare. Then add to it the source of that denial and you have the perfect anti-government, anti-Washington and anti-Democratic message."

So, you will hear this mantra repeated from Republican after Republican:

“No Washington bureaucrat or healthcare lobbyist should stand between your family and your doctor. The Democrats want to put Washington politicians in charge of YOUR healthcare. We can and must do better. Say no to a Washington takeover of healthcare and say yes to personalized patient-centered care.”

Of course, "personalized patient-centered care" is code for health insurance company control. That is the powerful industry Luntz and his cohorts are trying to protect.

Luntz and his associates are the premier manipulators of language for selfish, partisan ends.

Read one of his mission statements from their web site (emphasis is mine): 

Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research

"Our focus is on language. We believe that every word you use matters.  Luntz, Maslansky is known across the nation for how we reframe issues.  From changing the “estate tax” to the “death tax,” “tax cuts” to “tax relief,” “global warming” to “climate change” – time after time we have succeeded in changing the course of the debate.  By focusing on how to communicate your message, Luntz, Maslansky helps you reframe the issue using your side’s words and messages.  Our unique research methodology allows us to precisely gauge public opinion and develop the most effective approach and language to take control of the issue.  We know how to change hearts and minds and motivate people to act."

from Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research website

Their goal is to help "virtually every major industry" to distort their message and mask their true agenda.  Another quote from their web site:

"In the political arena, our CEO, Dr. Frank Luntz, is known for helping change the public vocabulary – he transformed the "estate tax" into the "the death tax," moved the public debate from "school vouchers" to "opportunity scholarships," and re-cast "drilling for oil" as "exploring for energy."  ...  In the corporate arena, Luntz, Maslansky currently works for clients in virtually every major industry: pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, energy, health care, transportation, sports, entertainment, travel and tourism, shopping centers, grocery stores, restaurants, food, and beverages."

If Frank Luntz is involved in a public campaign, you may assume the goal is to "pull the wool over your eyes."

And, so then, is his mission in the health care debate.

Photo Credit:  Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

PEACE BE UPON YOU

President Barack Obama delivered an honest and brilliant speech today in Cairo about peace and religion.  Take an hour out of your day to watch and listen.

"When President Bush spoke in the months and years after Sept. 11, 2001, we often — chillingly — felt as if we didn’t recognize the United States. His vision was of a country racked with fear and bent on vengeance, one that imposed invidious choices on the world and on itself. When we listened to President Obama speak in Cairo on Thursday, we recognized the United States.

Mr. Obama spoke, unwaveringly, of the need to defend the country’s security and values. He left no doubt that he would do what must be done to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban, while making it clear that Americans have no desire to permanently occupy Afghanistan or Iraq.

He spoke, unequivocally, of the United States’ “unbreakable” commitment to Israel and of why Iran must not have a nuclear weapon. He was also clear that all of those listening — in the Muslim world and in Israel — must do more to defeat extremism and to respect the rights of their neighbors and their people.

Words are important. Mr. Obama was right when he urged leaders who privately speak of moderation and compromise to dare to say those words in public. But words are not enough. Mr. Obama, who, after all, has been in office for less than six months, has a lot to do to fulfill this vision. So do others. ...

Before Thursday’s speech, and after, Mr. Obama’s critics complained that he has spent too much time apologizing and accused him of weakening the country. That is a gross misreading of what he has been saying — and of what needs to be said. After eight years of arrogance and bullying that has turned even close friends against the United States, it takes a strong president to acknowledge the mistakes of the past. And it takes a strong president to press himself and the world to do better."

- Editorial, The New York Times

PHOTO CREDIT: Stephen Crowley, The New York Times

TRUTH SESSIONS

"Truth Sessions: Insights on the Common Struggles of Life" (A journalistic jazz piece) from David Guilbault on Vimeo

We all have stories to tell. We all need and want to be heard. But many of us are invisible members of our own communities. Because we may be poor, downtrodden, struggling with mental conditions or fighting addictions, our opinions and observations are largely ignored.

But our experiences and insights are valuable. Like everyone, we’re coping the best we can with the challenges of life. This ongoing project is intended to give voice to those struggles.

"Truth Sessions" is a multimedia storytelling project by filmmaker David Guilbault, photographer Doug Vann, painter Keven Furiya and composer Andy Zadrozny.

The first session features ten people living in a low income apartment building in Seattle, across the street from the artist lofts where David, Doug, Keven & Andy live and work.

These ten interviews are the first in a series of sessions. Our intention is to hear from a range of our neighbors from disparate cultural, economic, ethnic, educational, racial and spiritual backgrounds. This is just the beginning of the conversation. The stories continue.

(To see the complete multimedia work, please visit www.truthsessions.tv)

WALK RIGHT IN

I invite you all to a fundraiser for a wonderful work-in-progress, "Walk Right In", on April 24th, at 7:00p at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.  Details on the film and a trailer are below:

"Walk Right In" captures the stories of a unique educational experiment at Yale University through interviews with its participants 40 years later.

Created as part of the war on poverty with a mandate to address issues of social and economic injustice, The Yale Summer High School brought underprivileged kids from across the nation to the Yale Divinity School during the 1960s. In 1968, as American cities were rife with protest, racial rioting and civil disorder, a small group of educators redefined the enterprise, creating a living laboratory in the problems and promise of the American democracy. Drawing on the 'Great Books' of Western literature, the school made these classics relevant to the times and lives of its students, bringing sensitive issues of race, tolerance and personal identity to the fore. From Sophocles' "Antigone" to Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," they searched together for that which eluded the nation--a working definition of "community"--the shared values that ground people and bind them together.

Four decades after leaving Yale, Larry Paros--former Director of the Yale Summer High School--traveled the country to interview more than two dozen of his fellow teachers, tutors and students about how they each experienced the Summer High School in 1968.

A compelling and deeply personal narrative of education and individual transformation, "Walk Right In" recreates the summer of '68 through first hand accounts, following students from their moment of selection and their arrival on campus to the culmination of the program and where they are today, reminding us of the importance of inclusive and effective education and the impact it has across generations.

STILL THE TRUTH

TO MY DARLING CHILDREN

The Writer

by Richard Wilbur

In her room at the prow of the house

Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,

My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing

From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys

Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff

Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:

I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,

As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.

A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,

And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor

Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling

Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;

How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;

And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,

We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature

Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove

To the hard floor, or the desk-top,

And wait then, humped and bloody,

For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits

Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,

Beating a smooth course for the right window

And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,

Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish

What I wished you before, but harder.

Richard Wilbur, “The Writer” from Collected Poems 1943-2004. Copyright © 2004 by Richard Wilbur. Reprinted with the permission of Harcourt, Inc. This material may not be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Source: Collected Poems, 1943-2004 (Harcourt, Inc., 2004).

VINDICATION AND VALIDATION

As I search for vindication and validation, I ponder the words of Mickey Rourke to Barbara Walters on the Oscar award:  "You can't eat it.  You can't fuck it.  And it won't get you into heaven."

 

YA GOTTA LOVE INGRID

Can anyone listen to and watch Ingrid Michaelson without smiling?

BLESS THE WHISTLEBLOWERS

W. Mark Felt, Watergate Deep Throat, Dies at 95
By Tim Weiner, The New York Times

"W. Mark Felt, who was the No. 2 official at the F.B.I. when he helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon by resisting the Watergate cover-up and becoming Deep Throat, the most famous anonymous source in American history, died Thursday. He was 95 and lived in Santa Rosa, Calif. ...

Mr. Felt played a dual role in the fall of Nixon. As a secret informant, he kept the story alive in the press. As associate director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he fought the president’s efforts to obstruct the F.B.I.’s investigation of the Watergate break-in.

Without Mr. Felt, there might not have been a Watergate — shorthand for the revealed abuses of presidential powers in the Nixon White House, including illegal wiretapping, burglaries and money laundering. Americans might never have seen a president as a criminal conspirator, or reporters as cultural heroes, or anonymous sources like Mr. Felt as a necessary if undesired tool in the pursuit of truth."

'Deep Throat' Mark Felt Dies at 95 - Patricia Sullivan, The Washington Post
How Mark Felt Became 'Deep Throat' - Bob Woodward, The Washington Post

HARD LUCK AND HOPE

I want to thank staff reporter Cydney Gillis of Real Change newspaper in Seattle for her cover story featuring the 'Truth Sessions' multimedia storytelling project I co-authored with photographer Doug Vann, painter Keven Furiya and composer Andy Zadrozny.  The newspaper's mission is "to create opportunity and a voice for low-income people while taking action to end homelessness and poverty."

Photo: Doug Vann

UNCHECKED SOURCES

Well, the blogosphere and some of the mainstream media have been embarrassed again for publishing supposedly inside McCain campaign information from what turns out to be a hoaxster.  Read the story, 'A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence', on The New York Times website.

YES WE CAN

"We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we’ve been told that we’re not ready, or that we shouldn’t try, or that we can’t, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people.

Yes we can.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom through the darkest of nights.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.

Yes we can heal this nation.

Yes we can repair this world.

Yes we can."

- Barack Obama, January 8, 2008

TRUTH SESSIONS

We all have stories to tell.  We all need and want to be heard.  But many of us are invisible members of our own communities.  Because we may be poor, downtrodden, struggling with mental conditions or fighting addictions, our opinions and observations are largely ignored.

But our experiences and insights are valuable.  Like everyone, we're coping the best we can with the challenges of life.  This ongoing project is intended to give voice to those struggles.

'Truth Sessions' is a multimedia storytelling project by filmmaker David Guilbault, photographer Doug Vann, painter Keven Furiya and composer Andy Zadrozny.  The first session features ten people living in a low income apartment building across the street from the artist lofts where David, Doug, Keven and Andy live and work.

These ten interviews are the first in a series of sessions.  Our intention is to hear from a range of our neighbors from disparate cultural, economic, ethnic, ediucaltional, racial and spiritual backgrounds.  This is just the beginning of the conversation.  The stories continue.

FROM THE BOSS

Bruce Springsteen at a Vote for Change rally in Philadelphia:

"I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no health care, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities, the distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful. I believe Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his work. I believe he understands, in his heart, the cost of that distance, in blood and suffering, in the lives of everyday Americans. I believe as president, he would work to restore that promise to so many of our fellow citizens who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning. ...

Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama's understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again. But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. That is where our future lies. We will rise or fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back."

 - Bruce Springsteen

FOUL CANDIDATE

In his recent stump speeches, John McCain is demonstrating a classic example of Freudian Projection, "A defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits."

Speaking in Albuquerque today, John McCain directly attacked Barack Obama's character.  McCain painted Obama as risky, touchy, secretive, dishonest, aloof, misleading, reckless and angry.  All of these are exactly the adjectives that describe McCain's fundamental personality.  It is, as I've said, classic psychological projection.

Larry Rohter, of The New York Times has a blog called 'Drilling Down on the Facts in McCain's Speech' that puts the lie to most of what McCain had to say about Obama.

Likewise, Sarah Palin, today and yesterday, has been out spreading untruths about Obama,  saying that Obama was 'palling around with terrorists'.  The New York Times also put the lie to that in their in-depth article exploring the relationship between Obama and Weather Underground founder, turned education professor, William Ayers.

"A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

- Scott Shane, The New York Times

All of these attacks from the McCain campaign are of course coming as the voters' opinions of the two candidates are solidifying and the poll numbers between the gaining Obama and the declining McCain are widening.

Standing by salivating, already 'taking the gloves off', are all those Pavlovian Rovian attack dogs, like William Kristol, ready and willing to re-stir the Rev. Jeremiah Wright pot.

Hopefully, the thinking American electorate will see this dishonest guilt-by-association ruse for the slander it is.

It is now when we see the measure of the man. John McCain shows himself be a self-deluded, desperate, ambitious phony who will say and do anything to get elected, by hook or by crook.

The foul candidate that John McCain is describing, on the last legs of his lifelong ambition to be president, is himself.

Photo Credit:  Todd Heisler/The New York Times

BILL O'REILLY

I was a news producer at ABC News, mostly working on the evening news programs, for over 20 years. Working my way up from copy boy to producer, I worked on the newscasts anchored by Howard K. Smith, Harry Reasoner, Barbara Walters, Frank Reynolds, Max Robinson and Peter Jennings.

I was in network news during some of its best days, post Watergate, learning from and admiring true broadcast journalists.

Came a time, I produced news reports for 'World News Tonight with Peter Jennings'.  There, I had a reputation for being able to work with 'challenging' correspondents and was thought to have the ability to bring out their best.

One of the network's correspondents was Bill O'Reilly.  I was assigned as producer on several of his stories.  They were painful experiences.

Firstly, at that time, network news producers usually took the lead role in outlining a story and setting up its elements, in coordination with the correspondent and the senior producers.  For the few stories I produced with O'Reilly, he did most of the set up.  Not knowing him or his sources, that made me uncomfortable.  But, the stories were innocuous and I never suspected or detected any bias or dishonesty in his reporting.

However, I did find him to be the single most self-centered person I had ever worked with.  He literally talked about himself non-stop.  I spent hours and hours with him on the road and the conversation never strayed away from the topic of Bill O'Reilly.  He showed me that his was an ego of uncontrollable expansion.

He was always bemoaning that others were getting undeserved breaks.  Forrest Sawyer and Stone Philips were rising stars at ABC News when O'Reilly was there.  He kept saying you have to be an inanimate object, like a forest or a stone, to make it at the network.  His jealousy and underlying insecurity was always evident.  He hated those that he felt were less deserving than he.

He couldn't survive in an atmosphere where he was not the be-all and end-all.  So, he left the network for syndication anchor positions where he was the headliner.  Then, finally to FOX News where his transformation was complete.

I've watched Mr. O'Reilly, now, over the years, turn into a monster.  And I've always held my tongue.

But, watching his latest bullying attack on Barney Frank has pushed me to comment.

Bill O'Reilly has no business on the public airwaves.  He is belligerent and ignorant.  And I mean those adjectives in the most negative light.  He abuses the very air over which he is heard.   As Rep. Frank said in response to O'Reilly's shouting, 'Your stupidity gets in the way of rational discussion'.

There is nothing rational about the way O'Reilly conducts himself.  Because he is popular, on TV, radio, and in print, he gets away with his unconscionable tirades.  He is dangerously powerful and powerfully dangerous.

As he has no respect for intelligent discourse or common decency, he should be shown no respect in return and held in derision.  To mock his most recent self-aggrandizing book, he is 'A Bold Fresh Piece of Shit'.

LINCOLNIAN TRUTHS

Wise and relevant quotes from Abraham Lincoln, pertinent to the failings of today's journalism, the belligerence of the Bush administration, the greed of corporate America, the dangers of misgovernment and the cynicism of politics:

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed."

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to  tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will  endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until  the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed."

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people."

"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure."

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disentrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?"

"Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap -- let it be taught in schools, in seminaries,  and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;  -- let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and  enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave  and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars."

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

Photo Credit:  Matthew Brady

BAD PEOPLE

Missive Twelve
To My Darling Children

Here's the truth, my darling children.  The differences between Democrats and Republicans are the differences between right and wrong.

It's pretty simple, really.  Republicans want little or no government.  And so, they have always done all they can to starve it to death, with massive tax breaks for the wealthy and taxpayer-funded giveaways to big business.  They can't stand that the federal government has taken any of their money.  So, they want it back.

You see, they want to be able to make money without interference, with no governmental regulations or restrictions.  They don't want to answer to anyone, particularly Washington, as they build their wealth.

In order for them to grow that wealth, they need to keep wages low and benefits meager.

The bottom line is that the bottom line is all that matters to them.  It's their money, and they will decide how they get it, how they keep it, and how they'll use it.

They are on a crusade to stop funding any and all social safety nets, like Social Security and Medicaid.  They are on a mission to bring an end to worker pension funds.

They don't care if American workers lose their livelihoods and, in some cases, their lives, as they send jobs overseas for a pittance.

The only thing that gets their unbridled funding is an all-powerful military-industrial complex.  That's so they can wield their muscle around the world, maintain their hold on power and protect their monied, corporate interests.

If you were privileged enough, or clever enough, or lucky enough, or educated enough, or connected enough or unscrupulous enough to become wealthy, then you are in their club.  And club members look out for one another.

If you were underprivileged, uneducated, poverty-stricken, discriminated against, born into a cycle of despair or just plain unlucky, then you are really not their problem.  You are on your own.  They feel they owe you nothing, except charity.

Forget that institutional racism, sexism and classism have always been alive and well in this country.  Forget that hard-working people across this nation struggle with low-paying jobs, inadequate education, dangerous working conditions, no health care, crippling debt, diminishing opportunities, mortgage foreclosures and no savings for the future.

Republicans accept those poor souls as the price of doing business.  Let the churches feed and cloth those ne'er-do-wells with hand-me-down Republican threads.

But, do NOT tax the Republicans to provide a working government with laws to protect a decent minimum wage, universal health coverage, earned retirement, a safe and sustainable environment, worker rights and safety, an equal public education system, discrimination-free housing or a fair justice system. 

Those are the right things that Democrats work to build and maintain.

I no longer accept the argument that both Republicans and Democrats are good people, just with differing policies on how to tackle the problems of the world.  Bullshit.  Republicans who are out for themselves and who are complicit in allowing the less fortunate to fend for themselves are bad people - period.

The 40 most party-loyal House Republicans, according to the Washington Post.

AND IT CAME TO PASS

On election night, 2004, I wrote the following email to my friends and family:

My fellow Americans,
We have doomed a great nation to its demise.
Bush's second term will be calamitous.
The treasury will be raided by the influential rich.
A towering national debt will be left to our progeny to fund corporate and defense build-up.
Corporate power will grow unchecked around the world.
Protections for our natural wildernesses will be abolished.
Our personal rights will be weakened.
Our privacy will be increasingly violated.
The invocation of gods against gods will cause devastating worldwide conflict.
Environmental regulation will be pushed-back, opening the landscape to be stripped of its resources for profit.
Social Security will be decimated under the dishonest guise of privatization.
Over-heated patriotic bravado will lead to more bloodshed.
Misunderstanding of the rest of the world will lead to continued hatred of the U.S.
American workers will increasingly lose whatever benefits they have left.
The right to dissent will be ridiculed and attacked.
The nation will become more bitterly divided.
Verbal bullies will dominate public discourse.
Critical questioning by the media, already mistrusted, will be stifled.
Opposition positions will be countered and quelled by personal attacks.
A Republican-controlled legislature will ram-rod its agenda into law.
The culture wars will poison civil, intelligent, political conversation.
The ability to see and understand nuance will be falsely mocked as vacillation.
Lies will be told boldly, loudly and repeatedly until they are wrongly accepted as truth.
Policy makers, who have little knowledge or regard for other cultures, will make blunderous decisions.
Undeterred terrorism will be bred around the globe.
Issues will be framed simplistically in black and white, right and wrong, good and evil.
More of our children will die for the wrong reasons.
We will all rue the day a jingoistic electorate gave carte blanche to the puppet masters Rove, Hughes, Cheney, Wolfkowitz, Rumsfeld, Frist and their corporate cronies.
I wish you and yours all the best.
David.
I despair for us all.

And, so, most came to pass. Please, please do NOT elect John McCain for four more years of the same.

HOPES AND DREAMS

On this date, August 28th, in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his conscience-raising 'I Have a Dream ' speech in Washington, D.C.  Tonight, on the anniversary of Dr. King's call for justice, Barack Obama will deliver another momentous address on hopes and dreams.

In 1963, Dr. King said, 'Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.'

Tonight, Sen. Obama has an opportunity to emblazon another moment, speaking as the first African-American nominee of a major party for President of the United States.  It is a long overdue triumph that should be shared by all Americans, regardless of political leanings.

As Barack Obama said in his thoughtful oration on race in Philadelphia earlier this year, 'In the end, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.'

Before we watch Obama's speech tonight, it would do us well to watch again the righteous words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., from 45 years ago.

JUST PLAIN STUPID

Let's live in the truth.  The truth is that too many people in this country are just plain stupid.  They are ill-informed and easily misled.  They buy into simplistic perversions of the facts.  They know too little, think too little and they listen to those that know how to influence their little minds.  They can be made to be fearful and hateful and, thus, politically useful.  They are dangerously ignorant - and they vote.

These are the people that Karl Rove and his ilk target to mobilize against progressive candidates.

This week, John McCain has played to these voters with two outrageously disgusting campaign ads against Obama.  One compares his celebrity to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and mocks his overseas trip, where he was greeted by throngs of enthusiastic foreign admirers.  A second uses Obama soundbites, distorted and taken out of context, to paint the man as messianic.

The McCain camp undoubtedly knows that these ads are puerile and unconscionable.  But, they also know that 'just plain stupid' people will eat them up.  Both obnoxious ads - Celeb' 'and 'The One' - are proudly displayed on the McCain website. 

The ads have been roundly criticized from most quarters for the mud that they are.  Yet, McCain and his handlers, knowing they can't possibly win the election on the strength of their candidate or the failed policies he represents, continue to try and paint their charismatic and visionary opponent as a demon, in hopes of getting those easily persuaded 'just plain stupid' people mobilized against him.

It's sad to watch this repulsive display of dirty politics and even more frightening to consider that it might likely work.

 

 

'CELEB' - McCain Campaign Ad

 

 

'THE ONE' - McCain Campaign Ad

 

 

'LOW ROAD' - Obama Campaign Ad

CITIZENS OF THE WORLD

'A World That Stands as One'

'I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived – at great cost and great sacrifice – to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom – indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares.

What has always united us – what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America’s shores – is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.'

Barack Obama, Berlin, July 24, 2008

SEE NO EVIL ...

It saddens me greatly to hear the phrase, over and over, 'That's why I don't watch the news'.  As a life-long broadcast journalist it pains me to know that too many people have given up, for whatever reason, on following the events of the world.  Ignorance is not bliss.  The undeniable truth is that powers of ill-will thrive when citizens hide their heads in the sand.

TRUTH & RECONCILIATION

Missive Ten
To My Darling Children

This country has a shameful past, a past that too many Americans willingly or blindly ignore - the forced migration and genocide of Native Americans and the capture and enslavement of African-Americans.  These are hard facts, painful to accept, but necessary to recognize.

One cannot love one's country without admitting to its sins.

I think it is time for a government sponsored Truth and Reconciliation Commission to codify past injustices and officially apologize to the ancestors of those wronged by this country.

President Clinton took a step in that direction in 1997 when he apologized on behalf of the United States for the immoral Tuskegee Experiment that deliberately let 399 African-American men go untreated with syphilis.  Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Alabama and New Jersey have apologized for slavery. And the Congress apologized in 1988 for the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

But, it is long past time for the nation to officially atone for its crimes.

There is some movement in the Congress this year to apologize for slavery.

And there is Joint Resolution H.J.RES.3 in Congress - 'To acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the United States Government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.'

Of course, the argument against official apologies is the high cost of reparations.  I won't entertain the merits of that debate here.  Suffice it to say that wrongs should be remedied and justice should take its due course.  It is a cop-out to say, 'Well, it wasn't me' and sweep the dastardly governmental acts of those that came before us under the rug.

This government, like all governments, is capable of unthinkable acts against its citizenry and its enemies.  It is up to each and every member of society to stand guard against immoral acts taken in the name of the electorate by the ruling government.  That goes too for the waging of  immoral and illegal wars, and for the abolition or restriction of inherent human rights.

These outrages are not just historical artifacts. One only has to look at the sanctioned abuses at U.S. detention centers at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to see that 'crimes against humanity' are alive and well.

Now, in America, we are witnessing the nascent, ill-informed and hateful intolerance against Muslims and those that practice the faith of Islam.

A sad truth is that many Americans can't distinguish between Sunnis and Shias and Arabs and Persians and Muslims and Islamists.  They don't know the differences between an ethnicity, a culture or a religion.  Too many are quick to suspect that those who are 'other' than themselves are 'islamofacists' or 'terrorists'.

And so, there is the so-called USA Patriot Act - 'To deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes' - which is being used by the Bush administration to circumvent protections in the Constitution against spying on Americans and to justify torture against anyone they designate an 'enemy combatant'.

Intolerance is rife in the land.  We must be diligent in admitting to the errors of our ways and guarding against their repetitions, especially under the imprimatur of our government.

Painting: 'Trail of Tears' by Robert Lindneux

STRAIGHT TALK DISTRESSED

Paul Krugman has a spot-on opinion piece in today's New York Times.  Again, and again, words in the political barrage are purposely misrepresented to tack a point or attack a foe.

Rove's Third Term

'Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet. Howard Dean didn’t scream. Hillary Clinton didn’t say she was staying in the race because Barack Obama might be assassinated. And Wesley Clark didn’t impugn John McCain’s military service. ...

The latest fake scandal fits the usual pattern as an awkwardly phrased remark, lifted out of context and willfully misinterpreted, exploded across the airwaves.

What General Clark actually said was that Mr. McCain’s war service, though heroic, didn’t necessarily constitute a qualification for the presidency.  It was a blunt but truthful remark, and not at all outrageous — especially given the fact that General Clark is himself a bona fide war hero.

Yet the Clark affair did reveal something important — not about General Clark, but about Mr. McCain. Now we know what a McCain administration would represent: namely, a third term for Karl Rove.'

Paul Krugman, The New York Times, July 4, 2008

I CAN'T TELL A LIE, PA

Today, from personal experience that I won't share here, I am once again reminded of the value and paucity of truth. And on a day when there are reports of finding the archeological remains of George Washington's boyhood home, I invite one and all to read The Fable of George Washington and the Cherry Tree, from 'The Life of Washington' by Mason Locke Weems, 1809.