Category Archives: War

Let’s Have A Real Debate About Drone Strikes And Torture.

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Over the past decade, our “war on terror” has led to two highly contentious policies. Extraordinary rendition (AKA torture) involving the US and 50 nations which acted in defiance of the Geneva Conventions’ ban on torture, and unmanned drone strikes (AKA assassination by remote control). These two policies were created and undertaken by the CIA and the US military without open debate.

It’s long past time for that debate to take place.

Today, Congress will have what promises to be a highly partisan circus of self-righteous statements by both parties during the confirmation hearing for the position of CIA Director. But it’s unlikely that we’ll learn anything from the hyperbolic statements of partisanship.

What we need is a series of non-partisan Congressional hearings and a public debate on both policies at the same time. After all, torture was authorized by the Bush administration and drone strikes by the Obama administration.

By addressing both policies simultaneously, we might see an honest debate without the usual posturing for the media that accompanies most Congressional hearings these days.

Admittedly, it’s unlikely that anything will actually be accomplished by such a debate other than focusing public attention on the issues. But at least voters would be informed and could make their opinions known to our elected representatives. Then, and only then, our elected officials might arrive at workable constraints that control these policies.

Better yet, they might prohibit the policies entirely. There simply must be better methods of pursuing terrorists and stopping them before they strike.

Torture and assassinations without due process have no place in modern society.

America’s Gun Culture.

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At halftime of an NFL game, Bob Costas incurred the wrath of gun nuts by raising the issue of this nation’s out of control gun culture. His comments followed a tragic murder/suicide committed by an NFL player. And he recently expanded on those comments during a guest appearance on The Daily Show.

Although Costas was much more eloquent in addressing the issue than I am, I will try my best to summarize it here.

Unlike those who blame gun violence on the availability of specific types of firearms, on the lack of gun registration, on mental illness, on movies and on video games, Costas points to a culture that glorifies guns; a culture of paranoia that causes ordinary citizens to carry guns; a culture that too quickly resorts to gunfire in order to settle disputes.

So how did we get here? How did we get from Mayberry RFD to Newtown?

Our gun culture is even older than our nation. We stole the land from Native Americans with the gun. We won our independence with guns. We conquered the continent with guns. And we’ve used guns to impose our will on the rest of the world.

Of course, our gun culture has evolved. In years past, every farmer and rancher had guns. But they were merely tools for hunting or for shooting predators that preyed on their livestock. Men…especially those who returned from World War II and Korea…viewed guns as tools only for hunting. They never considered using them to shoot another American.

Since movies tend to chronicle our culture, it’s easy to see how the role of guns has changed. In old-time movies the guns were primarily six-shooters, heroes were slow to anger and they only shot in self-defense. More important, the early movie and television plots used violence to teach lessons in ethics and morality. There was no gratuitous violence merely to whet the reptilian appetites of rebellious boys and frustrated, angry men.

But the movies of recent years feature ever larger and more lethal weapons. Violent scenes have become more bloody and more senseless. Our most popular video games focus on warfare and crime. Decades of war in which soldiers have been ordered to shoot first and ask questions later have impacted our psyche. So have poverty and social injustice.

Hip-hop music screams of violence and anger. Angry old white men carry firearms to fulfill their self-image of modern-day cowboy, Rambo or Dirty Harry. “Preppers” egged on by right wing radio hosts and politicians stockpile large caches of weapons and ammo so they’ll be ready to fight our government or their neighbors following what they consider an inevitable government coup or natural disaster.

Even churches foment paranoia by quoting the Book of Revelations and warning members of the “end times.” 

If we’re serious about ending mass shootings and reducing gun violence, we must accept that it won’t happen overnight. Gun registration, limits on ammunition clips and bans of military-style weapons will help. But these measures are only a start. Real change will only come from changing our entire culture.

No Such Thing As Partial Equality.

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Although I’m not excited at the prospects of young women being involved in combat (I’m actually not fond of anyone being involved in combat), I applaud the decision. It means that our government is finally addressing inequality.

We have a long way to go. There’s still discrimination with regard to women’s salaries, GLBT rights, economic inequality for racial minorities, even inequality with regard to religion.

Many women are paid less for doing the same job as a man. Our laws still do not recognize gay and lesbian marriage. After centuries of slavery and discrimination, racial minorities often begin their lives with fewer opportunities for a good education, economic advancement and personal security. Religions try to impose their beliefs on our laws and individual behavior. And those who do not participate in organized religion are forced to subsidize those who do through tax exemptions for church property.

It has taken far too long for our nation to achieve true equality. It took nearly a century to end slavery. It took far longer to grant suffrage to women. It took longer still to end Jim Crow laws. And after more than 200 years, it would seem that many Americans do not yet understand the meaning of Democracy; of equality and of freedom with responsibility.

If, one day, all American citizens are to be equal, we must recognize the inequalities that still exist. And we must do everything in our collective power to address inequality whenever and wherever we encounter it. Equality is, after all, absolute. Our citizens are either equal in every regard. Or they’re not. There is no middle ground.

Are We Willing To Settle For This America?

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There are those, particularly on the political right, who are satisfied with the way things are in the US. They truly believe that everything about the US is better than any other country in the world. And they believe it’s unpatriotic to criticize our faults.

But can we really settle for the way things are in the US?

Can we accept a nation where freedom and opportunity are still not shared equally? Are we willing to allow large, multinational corporations to buy elections, dictate government policy and send our jobs off-shore? Can we afford to watch our nation fall farther behind in education and technology?

Can we afford to allow our infrastructure to continue to crumble? Can we afford to have corporations devastate our environment in search of ever-larger profits? Are we content to allow military-style weapons to fall into the hands of the paranoid and the criminally insane? Can we watch more Aurora and Newtown-style massacres and do nothing?

Can we afford to be perpetually at war? Are we willing to accept that more of our soldiers now die from suicides than firefights? Can we settle for being the only advanced nation in the world that doesn’t provide healthcare to all of its citizens?

Can we accept ever-higher education costs and ever-lower salaries for our youth? Are we willing to cut pensions and retirement plans for our elderly in order for large corporations to avoid taxes? Are we content to put drug users and petty thieves in prison and let the bankers who stole trillions continue to walk free?

Can we any longer listen to those who demand “a return to Christian values” then turn their backs on the starving, the wounded and the infirm?

At his inauguration, President Obama spoke passionately of his vision for America. An America at peace. An America with freedom and equality for everyone. An America based on a growing and prosperous middle class. An America that provides opportunity for everyone. An America that is, once again, a true leader in the world.

It’s time to for all Americans to follow our president’s vision and stop settling.

The Etch-A-Sketch Debate.

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We should have seen it coming.  For months, Mitt Romney ran further and further to the right.  Then during last night’s debate with President Obama, Romney did an about face.  Living up to the Etch-A-Sketch strategy that Mitt’s campaign manager promised following the Teapublican primaries, he abandoned most of the right wing rhetoric and ideas he promoted in the primaries and promised to be a moderate healer, instead.

Defying arithmetic, he promised to increase spending for the military, cut taxes for everybody, cut healthcare costs while repealing Obamacare, increase spending for education and student loans, increase spending for Medicare and Medicaid, maintain Social Security and create 12 million jobs.

Whew!

And, of course, while doing all that, he promises to cut the deficit and the national debt – all without revealing a single detail or plan other than to say he would cut funding for PBS and Big Bird.

Disregarding the fact that there is no possible way to pay for his promises, has he forgotten that he’s living in the 21st century?  We have an endless number of video recordings which show him saying that he will privatize Social Security, voucherize Medicare, slash Medicaid spending, eliminate the Department of Education, cut taxes for the wealthy, cut taxes for businesses, eliminate tax deductions for the middle class, cut Pell grants for students and turn back the clock on healthcare.

About the only thing consistent with his statements in previous speeches and debates was the promise to increase defense spending even more than the Department of Defense has asked for.

Of course, political pundits have already concluded that Romney won the first debate.  If so, it was only because President Obama couldn’t tell who he was debating.  It wasn’t Mitt.  It was some guy who looks like Mitt but who was espousing a completely different platform from the plutocrat who won the Teapublican nomination.  That Mitt was decidedly anti-middle class, anti-woman, anti-health reform, anti-green energy, anti-small business, anti-entitlement, anti-education, anti-government, anti-environment, and pro-war.

It’s not easy debating someone who’s willing to lie about absolutely anything and everything to get elected.

A License To Sin.

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As I passed by a church recently, I spotted the following on its bulletin board:  “It is by grace that you will be saved.  Not by works, but by faith.”

This highly questionable translation of Ephesians 2:8 is a great excuse for people to do whatever they want.

Want to steal from someone?  Go ahead.  Want to lie, cheat and steal to win an election?   That’s okay.  Want to fabricate evidence to take your nation to war?  You can simply pray your sins away.  Have faith and ye will be saved.

What ever happened to the 10 Commandments?  And the Golden Rule?

If this is what many of our Christian brethern now believe, is it any wonder that there is so much anger and violence in the world?  Is it any wonder that much of the Christian right is now armed to the teeth?  Is it any wonder that so many Christian televangelists have run off with their congregation’s hard-earned money? Is it any wonder the Bible is being used to justify the denial of rights to gays, lesbians and others?  Is it any wonder that the so-called faithful have memorized Bible verses to justify their own narrow-minded agenda. 

In doing so, they’ve overlooked the core teachings of their savior.

That’s the very convenient thing about the Bible.  You can find a verse to justify almost anything you want to do or believe.

In The Public Interest?

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In 1934, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was given the power to license wire and broadcast communications, demanding that licensees prove they operate “in the public interest.” Not long afterward, the FCC implemented The Fairness Doctrine, which required licensees to present issues of public importance and do so in a manner that was deemed “honest, equitable and balanced.”

Unfortunately, the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated in 1987, following years of attacks by the political right beginning with Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. Since then, our media has failed on almost every level…except for generating massive amounts of money.

It’s no coincidence that, following the end of the Fairness Doctrine, broadcast stations and networks have been swallowed up by large media conglomerates.  To maximize profits, the new owners diminished long-established news-gathering organizations, such as the once-proud CBS News which was home to legendary newsmen like Edward R. Murrow, Douglas Edwards, Walter Cronkite, Eric Severeid, and far too many others to mention.

At the same time, radio was hijacked by blathering, angry wingnuts such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.  And the newspaper industry has been virtually replaced by on-line “news” sites that provide a few headlines with little depth or context.

The result of all this is that we no longer have in-depth reporting, especially with regard to politics.  TV networks are filled with “human interest” and are almost devoid of “public interest.”  The most popular cable news network is little more than a megaphone for Teapublican talking points.  Radio is filled with conservative lies.  And newspapers have redirected their efforts toward local news gathering.

(Ironically, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones and Vanity Fair, which were once special interest magazines, are now doing more in-depth investigative reporting on national and international issues than nearly all of the so-called “news” media combined.)

It is precisely this news void that has allowed the Republican Party, the Tea Party and its unscrupulous candidates, such as George W. Bush, Richard “The Dick” Cheney, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to become serial liars. And we’re all paying a price for it through tax cuts for billionaires and tax subsidies for large corporations, resulting in enormous deficits and endless wars of choice.

What can you do about it?

For one thing, you can ask your Congressional Representative and Senators to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. You can demand your state universities teach students that journalism is more than mere reporting; it’s a never-ending search for the truth. You can call out candidates whenever you hear them lie. And you can support the few media left that actually practice real journalism.

Are We Better Off Than 4 Years Ago? Let Me Count The Ways.

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What an utterly ridiculous question!  As a campaign technique, it may have worked in 1980 against Jimmy Carter and in 1984 against Walter Mondale.  But it’s completely absurd now.

At the end of the Bush administration, the US was losing 800,000 jobs a month.  Since President Obama took office, those losses have stopped and our economy has added private sector jobs for 29 straight months.

On December 31, 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 8,776, resulting in devastating losses for pension funds and Individual Retirement Accounts.  Today, the Dow has soared to more than 13,300.

When President Obama took office, General Motors and Chrysler were on the verge of bankruptcy, jeopardizing more than a million jobs. Now both automakers are thriving, and General Motors has reclaimed the title of world’s largest automaker.

Four years ago, we were immersed in two lengthy and costly wars.  Since then, President Obama has ended the war in Iraq, ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden, and placed an end date on the war in Afghanistan.

In 2008, healthcare costs were soaring out of control, sending many American families into bankruptcy and costing those who could not afford insurance their lives.  In 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act which has stemmed the rising cost of healthcare and given more than 30 million people access to health insurance.

I could go on.  But, seriously, do I really need to?

If you can’t see that our nation is a whole lot better off since the beginning of the Obama administration, you’ve been spending far too much time watching the Fox News Channel and listening to conservative hate radio.

America’s Collective Amnesia.

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It seems many Americans have forgotten what happened in 2008.  They can’t remember who was at the wheel when our economy was driven into a ditch.  They can’t remember who led us into an unnecessary and unfunded war.  They’ve blanked out the memory of the second-largest stock market crash in history.  They can no longer picture the deer-in-the-headlights look of the Bush administration when the housing bubble burst.

As a result, many Americans seem to accept the latest assortment of conservative lies.

Despite the fact that President Obama rescued our economy from the abyss, many voters seem to accept Teapublican claims that his policies have failed.  Despite unprecedented obstruction by Teapublicans, voters seem inclined to reward them for their disgusting behavior.

Nevermind that it was decades of “conservative” policies that resulted in the loss of American jobs and growing disparity between the rich and the middle class.  Nevermind that Republicans squandered the surpluses of the Clinton administration in order to give tax breaks to the wealthy.  Nevermind that Romney intends to reinstate many Bush administration policies, voters are considering giving him a chance to repeat the same failures.

(Sure, trickle-down economics and free-market ideologies have repeatedly failed in the past, but maybe they’ll work this time.)

President Obama has not only guided our nation back to solid economic footing.  He has restored America’s reputation throughout the world.  He has earned another four year term.

Indeed, if voters sought the truth, this coming election wouldn’t even be close.  But Teapublican lies seem to have placed the outcome in doubt.  Teapublicans seem to have convinced voters that the path to prosperity isn’t the high road after all.  It’s back through the same ditch they drove us into more than four years ago.

Why You Should Hate Teapublicans. Let Me Count The Reasons.

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1 – Richard Nixon’s Watergate break-in intended to literally steal an election. 

2 – The “Southern strategy” in which the GOP embraced racists. 

3 – The “Moral Majority” in which the Party embraced “social” issues. 

4 – Reagan’s union-busting. 

5 – Elimination of loan interest deductions resulting in huge tax increases for the middle class.

6 – Cuts to capital gains taxes and estate taxes on the wealthy. 

7 – Reagan’s Iran-Contra plan which financed Central American death squads.

8 – Deregulation of Savings and Loan institutions resulting in the loss of billions.  

9 – Gun laws putting military-style weapons in the hands of millions. 

10 – $60 million witch hunt and impeachment of President Clinton. 

11 – Massive voter suppression giving the 2000 election to George W. Bush. 

12 – Bush’s failure to act on warnings of a 2001 terrorist attack. 

13 – The Bush tax cuts.

14 – The unnecessary and completely unfunded war in Iraq. 

15 – “Swift-boating” of Vietnam War Hero, Sen. John Kerry. 

16 – Richard “The Dick” Cheney. 

17 – The outsourcing of our military to corporations. 

18 – Awarding government contracts to corporations with offshore “headquarters.” 

19 – Deregulation of banks resulting in mortgage fraud.

20 – The Great Recession.

21 – Subsidies and tax breaks for corporations that send jobs offshore.

22 – Fox News Channel and right-wing hate radio. 

23 – Unsubstantiated claims about President Obama’s birthplace and religion. 

24 – The Tea Party.

25 – Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, Steve King and Paul Ryan. 

26 – Attacks on women’s rights. 

27 – Attacks on the LGBT community. 

28 – Plans to repeal The Affordable Care Act. 

29 – Assaults on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. 

30 – Obstruction of hundreds of President Obama’s appointments. 

31 – Filibusters. 

32 – Buckley v. Valeo resulting in a ruling that money is free speech.

33 – Citizen’s United which gave corporations the same rights as people.  

34 – Voter ID laws intended to steal the coming election.

35 – Attacks on Public Broadcasting, education and the environment.

36 – Blaming the poor and the unemployed for our deficit.

37 – Blaming teachers and first responders for our deficit.

38 – Trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.

39 – Vilifying immigrants to get votes.

40 – The debt ceiling debate.

41 – Embrace of Ayn Rand’s self-centered philosophy.

42 – Lies, lies and more lies.

Learn more in The Teapublican Book of Lies available from Amazon.com and other on-line bookstores