Darrell Issa, meet Ronald Reagan

“I’d rather see Jackson in the Cabinet than any of the more than 100 characters in the Reagan-Bush administration who variously have been accused or convicted of wrongdoing, making it, in my view, the most corrupt administration in my [life].”

The quote is from a column that appeared in the October 17, 1996 Chicago Sun-Times. The columnist was Dennis Byrne, who at the time was a member of the Sun-Times editorial board. The quote was actually taken from a column that he had written a few years earlier that was in response to how upset Republicans were by the fact that then-presidential-candidate Michael Dukakis was considering naming Jesse Jackson Jr. to his Cabinet.

It’s no surprise that the GOP engages in the same type of high-minded hypocrisy today and that it’s magnified by sadistic amnesia, or at the very least an insidious form of ignorance. I was reminded of the quote when I heard that Republican Congressman Darrell Issa proclaimed that President Obama was “one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times.” Of course in the interest of self-serving civility he amended his original comment and said that he was actually referring to the Obama administration and not the President himself.

Mr. Issa’s remarks would be laughable if they were not so disgraceful and shameful in their disregard of history and truth. As Mr. Byrne mentioned in his column there were more than 100 members of the Reagan administration who had been either accused or convicted of wrongdoing.  According to Wikipedia, “The presidency of Ronald Reagan in the United States was marked by multiple scandals, resulting in the investigation, indictment, or conviction of over 138 administration officials, the largest number for any US president at the time.” That bears repeating: Over 138 officials that served in the Reagan administration were either investigated, indicted, or convicted of wrongdoing.

But of course you wouldn’t know that from all of the worship and praise that Reagan received during the recent celebration and commemoration of his 100th birthday that took place across the nation. The media’s hyperbolic hugging of the man was so omnipresent that you could be forgiven for thinking that he had died, been buried, and was resurrected on the third day.  

How can this be? How is it that a man who was at the helm of what has to be considered the most corrupt presidency in U.S. history be worshipped like a god in this country? I believe that the late Walter Karp- who was a journalist, historian, and contributing editor for Harper’s Magazine– can provide some perspective on how such a pervasive scope of malignant amnesty can be granted to the likes of a Ronald Reagan.

An article by Mr. Karp titled “All The Congressmen’s Men: How Capitol Hill Controls The Press” appeared in the July 1989 issue of Harper’s Magazine. Here’s an excerpt from that article:

On February 26, 1987, Reagan’s “special review board,” known as the Tower Commission, issued its long-awaited report on the Iran-Contra scandal. An hour’s reading revealed a President obsessively concerned with, and intensely curious about, Iran-Contra matters, and determined to keep those matters in the hands of close personal advisers. To the press, however, the three members of the commission said exactly the opposite. In public statements, interviews, television appearances, and private meetings with leading editors, they insisted that Reagan was victimized by a “management style” that kept him in complete ignorance of everything blameworthy. That disgraceful lie, which in effect accused the President of his own defense, was endorsed at once by Democratic leaders and duly became the day’s news, as if the report had never been written. When the Iran-Contra committees of Congress issued their report on the scandal, congressional leaders told the press at once that the whole sordid chapter was closed. The press did as instructed and closed the books at once on the most extraordinary abuse of power in presidential history. The report itself was ignored; a wealth of newsworthy information, impeccably “sourced,” sank into journalistic limbo. The report termed Reagan’s private war against Nicaragua “a flagrant violation of the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution,” but that grave charge, worthy of blazing headlines, was scarcely noticed in the press and ignored entirely by the Times. What rule of journalism dictates such base servility to the powerful? No rule save the rule of the whip, which political power cracks over the press’s head.

Again: The press did as instructed and closed the books at once on the most extraordinary abuse of power in presidential history.

Again: The report termed Reagan’s private war against Nicaragua “a flagrant violation of the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution,” but that grave charge, worthy of blazing headlines, was scarcely noticed in the press and ignored entirely by the Times. Mr. Karp is referring to the New York Times, the same paper with the motto “All The News That’s Fit to Print.”

I guess the fact that the president of the United States violated the very Constitution that he swore to uphold was not newsworthy or “Fit to Print”. It appears that the press (i.e. corporate media) has determined that it’s in their best interest to promote the worship of false gods rather than to expose the dangers of such worship. How does that saying about the blind leading the blind go again?

When The People Have Had Enough

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Everyone knows that Dr. King not only talked the talk, but he also walked the walk. His dedication to championing the concepts of justice and equality was surpassed only by his courage, which he punctuated profoundly when he stated that “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.” Dr. King was clearly a man who was willing to die for what he believed in because he could not live with the way things were.

It appears that the wave of protest and revolt that is currently surging across the Middle East was triggered by the supremely sacrificial act of a man who was willing to die because he could not live with the way things are in his beloved country Tunisia. I don’t know exactly what 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi believed in, but I believe that it’s safe to say that he had had enough.

Mohamed Bouazizi had a university degree but was unemployed. To make a living he sold fruit and vegetables, basically trying to survive as an unlicensed street vendor. One day the authorities in the small city of Sidi Bouzid where Mohamed lived seized his produce cart, essentially taking away his livelihood, his means of survival. It’s been reported that Mohamed became so angry that he set himself on fire. He died a couple of weeks later.

But the impact of his act was instantaneous. The incident enraged witnesses and rioting quickly spread throughout the town. Reuters reported that “Riots are extremely rare for Tunisia, a north African country of about 10 million people which is one of the most prosperous and stable in the region.” I guess the obvious question would be “prosperous and stable” for whom? A relative of Mohamed was quoted as saying, “People are angry at the case of Mohamed and the deterioration of unemployment in the region.”

The majority of Americans have absolutely no knowledge of the social, economic and political dynamics at the root of what is currently taking place in the Middle East, but there are millions of Americans who do know a little something about unemployment in a country that is “prosperous and stable” for a select few.

As a recent commentary in The Nation pointed out, “While 22 million were searching for jobs in the US this week, Goldman Sachs tripled Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein’s base salary and awarded him $12.6 million of stock, a 42 percent increase from ’09.”

Laura Flanders, who wrote the commentary, takes the position that it is the income inequality that exists in Egypt that has compelled people to take to the streets, pointing out that, “As in Tunisia, the protesters are driven by fury at poverty, lack of options and the looting of their state by the super-powerful.”

The income inequality that exists in America has been receiving major attention lately, especially during the recent tax cut spectacle. But what’s incredibly shocking and perverse in the comparison between the US and Egypt is that, as Ms. Flanders writes, “…the US actually has much greater inequality than Egypt—or Tunisia, or Yemen.”

That’s right, the income inequality in the most powerful nation in the world is worse than that of Egypt, Tunisia, or Yemen– countries located in a region of the world that at this very moment is being transformed by an unrelenting demand for the end of tyranny and the establishment of governments that are dedicated to the well-being of all citizens.

After hammering home the facts that the income disparity between the rich and the poor in this country is “anti-democratic” and that American democracy is “suffering,” Ms. Flanders concludes with the question, “What are we going to do about it?” For me the most significant question is: When will the people decide that they have had enough?

There’s a True Sheriff in Town

 

A couple of days after the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson AZ I was walking through the supermarket where I normally shop, observing the other shoppers going through the mundane motions of daily living and I wondered just how many of them really cared that Gabby, as she is affectionately called, was laying in a hospital bed fighting for her life. I wondered if they had an iota of an inkling of just how volatile the situation is in this country.

An article recently written about a cognitive study done by researchers at The University of Michigan- as reported in the Boston Globe newspaper- highlighted some of the findings of that study. The major point was that:

Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

The article goes on to say:

In light of these findings, researchers concluded that  a defense mechanism, which they labeled “backfire”, was preventing individuals from producing pure rational thought. The result is a self-delusion that appears so regularly in normal thinking that we fail to detect it in ourselves, and often in others: When faced with facts that do not fit seamlessly into our individual belief systems, our minds automatically reject (or backfire) the presented facts. The result of backfire is that we become even more entrenched in our beliefs, even if those beliefs are totally or partially false.

And here’s the cherry-on-top to sum it all up:

“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” said Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher of the Michigan study. 

During the news conference following the shooting Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik was stating facts when he said:

“I think it’s time as a country that we need to do a little soul-searching, because I think it’s the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business…that may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.” 

What Sheriff Dupnik was basically saying is that the confrontational, inflammatory, and hateful language present in the political discourse in this country these days has created the type of climate that can produce murderous acts such as the one that occurred in Tucson.

I am one of the many people who agree with him totally and see his candid and heartfelt remarks as heroic, especially in light of the pervasive cowardice and complicity that is being shrouded as objective commentary. Watching pundits and politicians tip-toe around the issue has been a deeply sickening experience. And watching individuals from the right engage in pathological partisanship is both infuriating and terrifying.

Anyone that even suggests that liberals or the left have engaged in the same level of divisiveness as the right is either irreparably ignorant or consciously wicked. The evidence to the contrary is so absolutely overwhelming that the contrast wouldn’t be worthy of discussion if the national psyche wasn’t so grotesquely fractured.

One question that I haven’t heard either asked or answered in the aftermath of the shooting is this: Can anyone truly say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Jared Loughner was not influenced in any way by the vitriolic rhetoric that Sheriff Dupnik was referring to? The answer is no, and that should be enough to trigger at least a modicum of human remorse or compassion. But human remorse or compassion is not the reaction coming from the right.

But that’s no surprise. As Mr. Nyhan pointed out, it’s absolutely threatening to admit that you’re wrong, especially when you’re engaged in a titanic struggle for control of the government of the most powerful country in the world. The question is: How can a society realistically hope to survive if facts and truth cease to have value to its citizens, especially those that have power or influence?

Again, thank you Sheriff Dupnik for telling it like it is.

My thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this horrible tragedy, their families, and everyone affected. May God have mercy on this nation.

Utter Hypocrisy: The tax cut spectacle

And to think there are some people who actually wonder why so many people don’t vote. As far as I’m concerned the tortuous discourse and analysis that took place recently regarding the tax cuts demonstrated just how wide the chasm is between many of the politicians in Washington and the people they are supposed to represent.

I came across an essay a while back that pointed out one of the problems with representative democracy, which is essentially what we have here in America. The author of the essay- Stephen Shalom, who teaches political science at William Paterson University in New Jersey- wrote that one of the problems with representative democracy is that “…representatives, for many reasons, don’t, in fact, represent their constituents. Representatives say one thing to get elected and then change their positions once in office. They have no real connection to the hundreds of thousands of people they represent. Their different life circumstances lead them to develop different interests from those of their constituents.”

One of the life circumstance changes that takes place is that prior to being elected the representatives say and do what they have to do to get elected, and then once elected, they say and do what they have to do to stay in office. In an article titled Obama Caves on Tax Cuts, Endorses ‘Bush-McCain Philosophy,’ Ari Berman, a contributing writer for The Nation magazine, points out:

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama said over and over that he was running to “put an end to the Bush-McCain philosophy.” Campaigning in Colorado just days before the election…Obama clearly stated his opposition to Bush-era economic policies and ridiculed the idea that “we should give more and more to millionaires and billionaires and hope that it trickles down on everybody else. It’s a philosophy that gives tax breaks to wealthy CEOs and to corporations that ship jobs overseas while hundreds of thousands of jobs are disappearing here at home.” 

Some argue that President Obama’s compromise on the tax cuts could turn out to be political suicide while some argue that the compromise could turn out to be political salvation. Political realties change, sometimes overnight. What doesn’t appear to change so quickly is the powerlessness of the electorate to affect real change. There’s a difference between having the power to put people in and out of office and the power to truly influence policy. 

In a representative democracy the ideal is to influence policy through the folks that we send to Washington or our state capitols to represent us. One of the most disturbing viewpoints that came out of all of the analysis that was taking place was presented by Mr. Berman when he wrote:

Obama and Congressional Democrats bungled the tax debate from the start, even though it was clearly a winning issue for the president and his party. Even though everyone knew the Bush tax cuts were set to expire at the end of this year, Democrats failed to develop an overall strategy for this issue last summer or force a vote in the Congress before the election…Democrats refused to put the GOP on the spot or talk about the tax cuts during the campaign, blurring what should have been a core distinction between the parties; Democrats for the middle class, Republicans for the rich. 

This assessment was echoed in a New York Times editorial, dated 12/8/10:

By temporarily extending income tax breaks for the richest Americans, and cutting estate taxes for the ultrawealthy, the deal will redistribute billions of dollars from job creation to people who do not need the money. But the Democrats should vote for this deal, because it is the only one they are going to get. The president, and particularly Congressional Democrats, might not be in this bind if they had fought harder against the high-end tax cuts before the midterm elections.

In other words, according to these assessments, the Americans that President Obama said were being held hostage by the Republicans were in that predicament because he and the Congressional Democrats allowed them to be taken as hostages, which begs the question: How thin is the line between compromise and hypocrisy?

A tale of two economies

“I’m sick and tired of people going to congress in Washington D.C. and making a living out of it while we starve to death.”

Those words were spoken by a resident of Newton Iowa during a segment of CBS’s 60 Minutes titled “Anger in the Land,” which aired on October 31, just days before the 2010 mid-term elections. The words were simple yet as savage as a sledgehammer striking at the foundation of the frustration shared by citizens across the land.

Newton is one of the small towns in America that has been decimated during the Great Recession. The 60 Minutes segment was devoted to capturing the mood in the country just before the elections that would be taking place in the midst of unrelenting economic hardship. A CBS/New York Times poll was cited that revealed that 80 percent of the people polled said they want most incumbents out of Congress regardless of whether that incumbent is a Democrat or Republican.

Though understandable, much can be said about the unsophisticated and suicidal aspects of this sentiment, which speaks to just how deep in the dark the majority of Americans are as it regards the jigsaw puzzle that is governance in this country. But in fairness to those of us who are languishing in the darkness, it’s extremely difficult to connect the pieces when we’re disconnected from the process. Note this exchange that took place during the 60 Minutes segment:

“What’s surprised you the most about this recession?” correspondent Scott Pelley asked business owner David McNeer.

“I think the depth of it, and the length of it. I think what surprised me the most about this one is it doesn’t wanna end,” he replied.

“You know, the economists say that the recession’s over,” Pelley pointed out.

“Really? They should come to Newton, Iowa,” McNeer replied.

But of course they won’t be coming to Newton because the people in Newton really don’t matter. They are no more a part of the economic recovery process that truly matters than they are a part of the political empowerment process that truly matters. And that goes for the majority of us living in America.

Robert Reich, former secretary of Labor under President Clinton, put it this way in a recent article:

There are two American economies. One is on the mend. The other is still coming apart.

The one that’s mending is America’s Big Money economy. It’s composed of Wall Street traders, big investors, and top professionals and corporate executives.

But there’s another American economy, and it’s not on the mend. Call it the Average Worker economy.

Simply put: There’s the American economy that matters to the folks that matter in Washington D.C. That’s the economy that’s composed of those that have the wealth and power to shape policy to their advantage. They are the ones that, for example, rule Wall Street and were able to contribute 15 million dollars to presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign and have the monetary muscle to lobby against any meaningful legislation to regulate the Wall Street investment banks “whose missteps caused a global financial crisis and economic slowdown two years ago,” as pointed out in an article that appeared in Bloomberg.com the other day. These are the people responsible for the economic catastrophe that has produced the suffering that is taking place in Newton IA and throughout the country and the world. 

Then there’s the Average Worker economy. The majority of us are plugged into the one that doesn’t really matter. Well, at least at the moment that’s the case. I’ll simply close with the ominous warning that Mr. Reich issued at the end of his article:

“…if nothing changes in the Average Worker economy, there will be hell to pay.”

Assassination in the real world



There is a scene from the movie Collateral, starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, that I believe beautifully sets the tone for this post. Cruise plays an assassin named Vincent and he’s just carried out a hit on someone and has hijacked the cab of Foxx’s character, Max, and has thrown the victim’s body into the trunk of Max’s cab.

Max feebly tries to chastise Vincent for what he just did, attempting to appeal to his conscience. Here is the exchange as it took place in the movie, picking up right after Max asked Vincent what had the murder victim done to deserve his fate:

VINCENT: What do you care? Ever hear of Rwanda?

MAX: Rwanda. Yeah.

VINCENT: Tens of thousands killed before sundown. Nobody’s killed people that fast since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Did you bat an eye, Max? Did you join Amnesty International, Oxfam or something? No. I off one Angeleno, you throw a hissy fit…

MAX: I don’t know Rwandans.

VINCENT: You don’t know the guy in the trunk, either.

Until recently I didn’t know who Anwar Al-Awlaki was and I’m almost certain that I was among millions of Americans who contribute to the collective ignorance of the existence of the Muslim cleric whom President Obama has targeted to be killed because of an alleged link to terrorist activities.

The focus of this post is not Al-Awlaki’s guilt or innocence or whether President Obama’s executive order is justified or not. I want to focus on the ignorance and indifference that Tom Cruise’s character Vincent touched on in the movie.

I’m sure that a lot of people who watched Countdown with Keith Olbermann on 4/7/2010 were stunned to hear that the President of the United States had issued an executive order to have anyone killed, let alone someone who is currently a U.S. citizen.

I can imagine many asking themselves: How can a nice and timid family man like President Obama give the OK to have someone killed? Because it’s not about personality, it’s about the nature of power in this country and the necessities born out of that nature. And it’s a nature that we are not taught about in history and civics classes in this country.

What President Obama did is unprecedented in terms of authorizing the assassination of an American citizen, but as it regards a U.S. President’s authorization of assassination, this is hardly anything new.

In an Associated Press story that appeared in the 11/19/93 Daily Herald it was revealed that the administration of President John F. Kennedy (today coincidentally is the 47th anniversary of his assassination) “…asked the CIA to develop a “standby capability” for carrying out assassinations of foreign leaders, according to newly declassified documents.” The story goes on to say that “…the Kennedy administration had inherited a plan to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro…”

The Associated Press story also refers to a 1967 report by the CIA inspector general, J.S. Earman, that “…covers the various well publicized CIA efforts to assassinate Castro during the 1960’s,” and

adds that those efforts “…were reviewed in considerable detail by a Senate committee in 1975, which concluded there were eight such attempts on Castro’s life.”

At this point Max the cab driver would probably ask: “What exactly did Castro do to deserve to be killed?”

The Senate committee that the story is referring to is the Church Committee, which held Congressional hearings that took place in 1975, a portion of which is shown in the second video in this post.

The focus of the video is Congressional testimony regarding a “heart attack gun” designed for the CIA for use for assassination. It sounds like something out of a James Bond movie or one of the Mission Impossible movies that Tom Cruise starred in, but again, this was discussed during Congressional testimony. On Capitol Hill. In Washington D.C. In America.

This was not part of a movie or make-believe. Nor was Keith Olbermann’s report. It seems that the majority of Americans are blissfully ignorant of these matters, and when they hear about atrocities that take place in far away lands they barely blink. This is the state of oblivion that the assassin Vincent was referring to in the movie and it could very well become a terminal condition for America if the citizens of this country do not become more appreciative and vigilant regarding our freedoms and also the freedoms of those in other countries as well.

Infected by the talking points puppets

As I watched Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Republican Representative Eric Cantor being interviewed on MSNBC last night I got the feeling that I was watching a really bad “B” horror movie, the type that comes on well after midnight when most people are asleep.

These two politicians’ robotic repetition of  inane and unconscionable talking points were such an affront to human intelligence that at one point, while he was interviewing Ms. Bachmann, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was compelled to ask her “Are you hypnotized?” I suppose that he couldn’t ask her if she was high. Of course the video of that exchange has gone viral.

But that’s not the only thing that has gone viral. The Matthews/Bachmann spectacle is indicative of what the political discourse in this country has degenerated to.  Though last night’s results were by and large typical by mid-term election standards, it’s obvious that the contagion of regurgitated rhetoric was prevalent enough to instigate a power shift in Washington that will more than likely result in gridlock over the next two years.

So, in all likelihood the mangled mindset that is illustrated in the “Hi, I’m a Tea Partier” video will play a major role in paralyzing the government of the United States, negatively impacting millions of citizens. Need I say more?

The Real Story of the 2010 Election

For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and they that are lead of them are destroyed.

Isaiah 9:16

I believe that it’s safe to say that if the absence of knowledge can lead to destruction, then the absence of truth almost assures it. The video pretty much speaks for itself; but I also want to share a newsletter that I received from Media Matters on Oct. 29, 2010, which I believe will provide relevant narration for the video.

The focus of the newsletter is Fox News and its “…massive influence over the coming elections…” It’s a scathing indictment which takes the position that the emergence of Fox News upon the national consciousness is “…perhaps the most significant development in the country’s political landscape over the past two years.”

And it’s hard to argue with that point, when you consider the present climate in this country and the fact that Fox News has the power to influence millions of citizens “…with shameless smears, lies, misrepresentations, and fabricated stories.” The danger underlying this development goes far deeper than the violation of journalistic ethics.

When you have blatant hatred and bigotry being openly and freely expressed under the guise of objective reporting and malignant messages that are reaching the hearts and minds of millions who, for whatever reason, are receptive to those messages, to simply dismiss all of it as the behavior of a bunch of buffoons and clowns would be error of the highest magnitude.

For those of us who truly cherish the freedoms that we enjoy in this country, that’s a level of error that we cannot afford to engage in…

Media Matters: The real story of the 2010 election By most accounts, the Democrats stand to lose seats in both the House and Senate this coming Tuesday. There are, of course, a wide range of explanations for why this is the case.However, in endeavoring to explain how the GOP has seemingly managed to reverse its political fortunes in such a short amount of time, media outlets would be remiss not to mention one of the most important factors. In fact, we don’t need to wait for Tuesday’s results to pinpoint perhaps the most significant development in the country’s political landscape over the past two years.One of the two major political parties in the country is run by a “news” network.Since President Obama’s inauguration, Fox News has transformed from simply the mouthpiece and oppo research shop of the Republican Party into its headquarters. For the GOP, Fox fundraises, campaigns, gives strategic advice, picks candidates (and then provides them a comfortable platform to reach millions of voters, free of charge), throws and promotes rallies, gets out the vote, and, perhaps most importantly, sets the narrative.They do all of this while continuing their time-honored tradition of tearing down liberal initiatives and politicians with shameless smears, lies, misrepresentations, and fabricated stories. But before we get to Fox’s massive influence over the coming elections, some back-story is necessary. Less than two months after Obama’s inauguration, Fox News senior vice president Bill Shine gave an interview with NPR about how the network’s ratings were soaring at the time. During the interview, Shine noted that some people were “rooting for [Fox] to go away” after the election, but “[w]ith this particular group of people in power right now and the honeymoon they’ve had from other members of the media, does it make it a little bit easier for us to be the voice of opposition on some issues?” Fox’s programming has effectively answered Shine’s rhetorical question with a forceful “yes.” Right out of the gate, Fox led the charge against the stimulus, eschewing the views of economists to attack deficit spending and rewriting history to attack FDR and the New Deal. The network was certainly “the voice of the opposition” on health care reform, spewing countless falsehoods about both our broken health care system and the proposals to fix it while promoting disruptions of health care town halls and GOP initiatives to kill reform. And of course, Fox operates as a perpetual dishonesty machine, trotting out a steady stream of overhyped scandals and faux-outrages to dent the administration and Democrats (mustard on Obama’s “fancy” hamburger, anyone?) The network was integral to fostering discontent with Democrats and the administration through their relentless promotion of the Tea Party movement. Fox gave the Tea Party a huge assist last year in the run-up to the original protests, which Fox took ownership of by sending several of their top hosts to throw “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.” Since then, Fox has shown that there is no Tea Party gathering too small to treat as a news event, and their personalities continue to regularly appear at Tea Party events around the country. But Fox has done far more this cycle than foster an environment conducive to a GOP electoral victory, having assumed a more hands-on role in Republican electioneering. In addition to Fox’s parent company donating $1.25 million to the Republican Governors Association and another million to the GOP-aligned Chamber of Commerce, more than thirty Fox Newsers have supported GOP candidates or organizations in more than 600 instances in at least 47 states, as we detailed in a report this week. While it would be nearly impossible to run through Fox’s influence in all of the individual races this year, their “coverage” of a select few races is indicative of the network’s complete transformation into GOP headquarters. The network tipped its hand for how it would handle covering elections in the “voice of the opposition” era during the run-up to January’s senate election in Massachusetts. Not only did Fox portray Scott Brown as a heroic Founding Father-like figure while smearing his opponent, it also actively aided Brown’s campaign by hosting him repeatedly in the days leading up the election and allowing him to direct viewers to his website so they could find out how to “help with donating and volunteering.” After Brown’s victory, the network was jubilant.   With the successful trial run out of the way, Fox copied the Brown blueprint in several other races around the country. In the Nevada Senate race, Fox has spent months promoting Sharron Angle and attacking Harry Reid. While Angle has mostly refused to grant interviews to news outlets, she has made an exception for Fox. In fact, their welcoming atmosphere led Angle to brag about how “friendly” outlets like Fox help her with fundraising. Fox personalities have also worked overtime to aid her race. Fox contributor Sarah Palin endorsed Angle and her PAC gave $2,500 to the campaign. Fox contributor Karl Rove’s GOP slush fund (aka American Crossroads) has indicated it will invest in GOTV efforts to aid Angle. It is also aired an ad targeting Reid. Fox’s Dennis Miller appeared at an October fundraiser for Angle. And then there’s Dick Morris. Fox’s human ethics scandal has repeatedly fundraised on Angle’s behalf while also touting on-air the anti-Harry Reid group that he’s advising. And as Election Day rapidly approaches, Fox kicked off this week by launching an evidence-free smear of Reid. After Reid’s office responded to Fox’s desperate attempts to create a new “political scandal,” Fox’s flagship news program, Special Report, deceptively quoted a statement from Reid’s office in order to continue to push the story.  And, just in case their blatant efforts to get Angle elected fail, Fox already has their backup plan in place. This week, Fox News has been hyping comically flimsy allegations of “voter fraud” in Nevada. As top Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston explained to a confused Bill Hemmer, the fraud allegations are merely a “preemptive” strike so the GOP can “cry fraud” in the event Angle loses. But a candidate doesn’t even need to be in a close race in order to receive the benefits of FoxPAC support. In Delaware, Fox News has thrown their full weight behind Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, Karl Rove’s short-lived detour questioning O’Donnell’s qualifications for office notwithstanding. Rove quickly got with the program and endorsed O’Donnell. He was joined by fellow Fox personalities Sarah Palin and Michelle Malkin. The network’s hosts have heaped praise on O’Donnell while playing dumb in order to claim her opponent has admitted to being a “bearded Marxist.” While it would be difficult to list all of the effusive O’Donnell praise, one characteristic outpouring of affection came from Fox Business host Stuart Varney, who labeled her precisely the kind of “new face, new blood that we need to get in there.” Following in Angle’s footsteps by bragging about the love she gets from Fox, Christine O’Donnell told GOP insiders at a strategy meeting that she has “got Sean Hannity in my back pocket, and I can go on his show and raise money by attacking you guys.” A host who was concerned about maintaining any credibility may have bristled at being portrayed this way, but Sean Hannity has long-since demonstrated his lack of concern for ethics. Far from being upset, Hannity is still welcoming O’Donnell on his show. The Ohio gubernatorial race features Republican candidate John Kasich, who just so happens to be a former Fox News host. Kasich repeatedly used his platform as a Fox host to position himself for a run, and continued to appear regularly as a Fox contributor and host from the time he announced that he was paving the way for a gubernatorial run in March 2008 until he officially declared his candidacy on June 1, 2009. Since declaring his candidacy, Kasich has continued to reap benefits from his cozy relationship with the network. Several Fox News personalities campaigned for him and openly root for him. Two Fox hosts – Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee — have told Kasich that they “love” him. Hannity has appeared at a fundraiser for Kasich, invited Kasich onto his show to plug his website, and reportedly “pledged to give $10,000 to Kasich’s campaign should he run, as well as have his wife give another $10,000.” Rupert Murdoch and his wife also donated $10,000 each to Kasich, and Murdoch initially explained News Corp.’s donation to the RGA as resulting from his “friendship” with Kasich. After Kasich’s opponent (accurately) criticized Fox as a “propaganda network” that is “committed to getting Republicans elected,” Bill O’Reilly responded by attacking him for “whining.” Those are just three races. I haven’t even detailed Fox’s love for “rock star” Marco Rubio, or the fact that Glenn Beck (along with the rest of the network) has transformed his show into a GOTV operation for the GOP. So when reporters sit down to explain the results of next Tuesday’s election, it’s important that they include the role of Fox News in shaping the outcome. And if you think the last few months were bad, just wait until Tuesday’s election wraps up and attention shifts to 2012 and the GOP’s presidential primary. Fox currently employs no fewer than five potential contenders for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, and things could get awkward as they try to figure out which of their friends they want to help elect. It looks like FoxPAC is just getting started. This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Ben Dimiero, a research fellow at Media Matters for America.

Obama: The complexity of hope



This video features some searing commentary from Cornel West, esteemed University Professor at Princeton University, who teaches in the Center for African-American Studies and also the Department of Religion.

Although the interview took place almost a year ago I doubt that any reasonable person will challenge its relevance to the conditions that exist today, particularly as it concerns the level of unemployment that exists among African-Americans.

Professor West is providing the type of sophisticated, straight-with-no-chaser analysis that is needed and that will challenge Obama supporters to embrace the complexity of hope as fervently as they embraced the audacity of hope.

This is not to discourage participation in the democratic process; it’s just reminder of how extraordinarily difficult it is to bring about meaningful, fundamental change in this country…

From www.thegrio.com on Dec 1, 2009

Educator Cornel West sat down with theGrio to discuss how unemployment is affecting African-Americans.

TheGrio asked West about national unemployment trends for African-Americans. He called on President Barack Obama to implement a comprehensive jobs policy — a program that would mirror former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, and focus primarily on creating jobs for people without a college education.

“[It’s] the same way we had an investment banker policy when they were in trouble,” West said of what he views as a double-standard in current economic policy. “All AIG needed was a push. So let’s help push these poor people, these working people into jobs with a living wage.”

West, who has been outspoken in both his support and criticism of Obama, said the current administration has not made poor people a priority.

“Obama has an economic team that’s composed of persons who have no history whatsoever of being concerned about poor people,” West said. “Obama’s been doing a good job of reassuring the establishment. But there’s many of us who believe the establishment is on our necks.”

The Princeton University professor is busy promoting his new book, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. The memoir is a departure from West’s previous books, where he focused primarily on issues such as race and social justice.



Conservatives: Osama Bin Laden’s favorite Americans?

This video is from Thom Hartmann’s show that took place on January 6, 2010.

Thom makes the point that, with his nationally televised address to the nation on July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter set America on a course towards ending its dependency on foreign oil. Thom adds that this country was just a year away from ending the importation of oil from the Persian Gulf.

What type of world would we be living in today if that effort had been successful? Unfortunately we will never know. And why is that? Because Ronald Reagan came into office the following year and the big money that came from oil compelled him to rollback Carter’s energy policy and send this country down a path that is costing human beings their lives and the American taxpayer massive amounts of money to this very day. 

As Hartmann succinctly points out, Reagan’s policy made this country more dependent on Mideast oil, dictating an American presence in the Middle East that led to the emergence of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda as social and political forces in the Middle East.

Notice that Thom’s guest- Dinesh D’Souza, former policy analyst for Ronald Reagan- tried to make the argument that America was only interested in establishing “stability” in the Middle East, which Hartmann easily shot down with some history points, particularly the U.S. government’s involvement in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953. This took place not long after Iran’s Prime Minister (Mohammad Mosaddegh) decided to kick American oil companies out of the country and exclusively control and benefit from the resources of their own land. 

Bin Laden’s stated goal is to “bankrupt America,” which he is pretty much succeeding in doing in collaboration with conservative and corporate profit-driven forces in this country. If Bin Laden is astute enough to recognize how easily these forces can be manipulated to the detriment of American citizens, then it’s imperative that we become even more astute…

Kanye West: Running away from the killer jackass

Sometimes the most precious lessons that we learn in life are the ones that almost destroy us. And if we don’t properly appreciate those near-death experiences (whether they be physical, spiritual, professional, etc) and learn from them, there’s always the possibility that the death that was delayed will burst forth like a violent echo that proclaims us as fools.

Without question Kanye West is a brilliant and gifted artist. I just finished watching his “Runaway” video on MTV, and also a portion of the interview that followed. Kanye has been blessed with extraordinary vision, along with the ability and fearlessness to express his vision in a way that inspires many. I truly respect that about him.

But here’s the thing about vision, especially here in America. Even the greatest vision is vulnerable to market forces, and having vision doesn’t necessarily assure your viability.

According to an article that I read today, in reference to the 2009 MTV VMA – Taylor Swift incident: “There is some evidence that West’s public appeal has not rebounded since VMA-gate. A recent analysis by e-Poll Market Research showed the percentage of people surveyed who currently have a positive view of West sits at 16 percent- down from a high of 58 percent in 2004.” 

That’s what some people refer to as falling from grace. It was the Taylor Swift incident that prompted President Obama to call Kanye a “jackass” in off-record remarks immortalized by ABC’s Terry Moran through Twitter. When the President of the United States calls you a “jackass” and most of the world nods in agreement, that’s a clue that there are things in this world that are bigger than any vision that you can ever hope to conceive.

To his credit Kanye has publicly apologized to Taylor Swift. But there are a couple of quotes in the article that indicate that he still hasn’t properly appreciated his near-death experience. He was quoted as saying, “I realized my importance only after my position was savagely taken away from me.” But as MTV personality Sway stated during a phone interview for the article, “Nobody took away his career…What they took away was his reality.”

We have to be careful about creating our own reality. Another quote from Kanye in the article: “Blogs are where people who could never be you try to tell you how to do you.” That’s real deep, Kanye. But the last time I checked the President doesn’t even have a blog…

Clipping Weezy’s Wings

Artists get inspiration from various sources, and they often augment their skills by escaping to a private world on the wings of their imagination, where creative freedom has no boundaries and they become empowered to birth their visions into reality.

This is what came to my mind as I read about Lil Wayne’s latest collision with reality at Riker’s Island, the jail complex where he is currently serving time after being convicted of attempted criminal possession of a weapon.

The 28-year old rapper was banished to solitary confinement after being accused of breaking jail rules after a pair of headphones and an MP3 player charger were found in his jail cell. I’m assuming that those were simply tools that he used to escape into his world of vision and creativity.

It’s amazing how often we as human beings don’t fully appreciate things until we lose them. And this is a human tendency that cuts across color, class, and cash.

Fame and fortune have a way of twisting logic and lives, whether it’s the lives of those who are famous, or the lives of their fans. We tend to forget that we are not of our own creation and that there are forces that are greater than ourselves.

When we lose sight of these fundamental facts we often bring chaos and disorder into our lives, as well as the lives of those that we influence. No human being is exempt from the consequences that come from abusing power and profit that are the rewards of gifts taken for granted.

Just how high can Weezy fly? High enough for President Obama to mention his name on a couple of different occasions during speeches that encouraged kids to stay in school, because not everybody can be like Lil Wayne.

Where I come from, to have your achievements recognized on that level is considered a blessing, and with that blessing comes opportunity and responsibility that no human being can run from without repercussions.

Lil Wayne recently released the video for his soon to be released single/album, “I Am Not A Human Being.” But he and all of his fans are very much human beings and that’s as inescapable as Riker’s Island.

(Louis Lanzano/AP Photo)