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Posts Tagged ‘DIXIE CHICKS’

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SCRAPPING–OR REVISING–OBAMACARE: PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 9, 2016 at 12:04 am

Barack Obama is one of one of the most highly educated Presidents to occupy the White House.

When he took office, he intended to make healthcare available to all Americans–and not just the wealthiest 1%.

President Barack Obama

But he made a series of deadly mistakes:

  • In crafting the Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare);
  • In building public support for it; In underestimating the venom and opposition of his Right-wing enemies;
  • In underestimating the opposition of the business community in complying with the law; and
  • In allowing himself to be cowed by his political enemies.

Obama is by nature a supreme rationalist and conciliator–not a rough-and-tumble street fighter.  

And his career before becoming President in 2008–or even the United States Senator from Illinois in 2004–greatly strengthened this predisposition.  

From 1985 to 1988, Obama worked as a community organizer, setting up a job-training program, a college preparatory tutoring program and a tenants’ rights organization.  

Such activities demand skills in building consensus, not confrontation.

He then taught at the University of Chicago Law School for 12 years–as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, teaching Constitutional law.  

File:Medium chicagoreflection.jpg

University of Chicago Law School

Law professors spend their time in clean, civil classrooms–far removed from the rough-and tumble of criminal defense/prosecution.

If Obama had accused President George W. Bush of conspiring with Al Qaeda–as Republicans have repeatedly accused Obama–retribution would have been swift and brutal.  

(On March 10, 2003, nine days before Bush ordered the unprovoked invasion of Iraq, Natalie Maines, the lead singer of the country music band, the Dixie Chicks, told a London concert audience: “We don’t want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.”  

(A Republican-approved boycott of Dixie Chicks music followed, as well as death threats  DJs refused to play their music, and President Bush refused to criticize the KGB-like tactics of his Right-wing supporters.) 

 Natalie Maines, left, of the Dixie Chicks 

But Obama could not–or would not–bring himself to attack his sworn enemies by attacking their own patriotism or invoking Federal criminal statutes against their extortionate and terrorist threats.  

In short: Obama–who believes in reason and conciliation–paid the price for allowing his sworn enemies to insult and obstruct him.

Obama Mistake No. 6: Failing to closely study his proposed legislation.

Throughout his campaign to win support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Obama had repeatedly promised: “If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  Period.”  

But, hidden in the 906 pages of the law, was a fatal catch for the President’s own credibility.

The law stated that those who already had medical insurance could keep their plans–so long as those plans met the requirements of the new healthcare law.

If their plans didn’t meet those requirements, they would have to obtain coverage that did.

It soon soon turned out that many Americans wanted to keep their current plan–even if it did not provide the fullest possible coverage.

Suddenly, the President found himself facing a PR nightmare–charged and ridiculed as a liar. Even Jon Stewart, who on “The Daily Show,” had supported the implementation of “Obamacare,” ran footage of Obama’s “you can keep your doctor” promise. 

Jon Stewart

The implication: You said we could keep our plan/doctor; since we can’t, you must be a liar.  

As a result, the President found his reputation for integrity–long his greatest asset–shattered.  

All of which points to a final warning offered by Niccolo Machiavelli:

Whence it may be seen that hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil….  

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that, if she’s elected President, she will push for incremental changes in the ACA.  

Vermont United States Senator Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has called for the implementation of a single-payer plan. This, in effect, would accomplish what Republicans have spent the last seven years trying to do: Repeal “Obamacare.”  

A single-payer plan would prove simpler and more comprehensive than the ACA. But the chances of its passing a Republican-dominated Congress are absolutely zero.  

The passage of the ACA was–as the Duke of Wellington said of Waterloo–“a damned, close-run thing.”

Right-wingers like former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin flat-out lied that the ACA would create “death panels.” And millions of reactionaries, furious that a black man now occupied the Oval Office, eagerly believed it.

When Democratic politicians organized town meetings for public discussion of the Act, Rightist hooligans often used violence to break them up.

Republicans remained silent while President George W. Bush lied the nation into a bloody, budget-busting war in Iraq. But they have repeatedly damned the ACA as a lethal drain on the American taxpayer.  

Thus, any changes to come in the ACA will have to come as Hillary Clinton proposes, on an incremental basis.

The only thing that can be said with certainty about the ACA is this:

If any Republican wins the Presidency in 2016, the Republican-dominated House and Senate will send him legislation decreeing the death of affordable healthcare for all Americans.  And he will of course sign it.

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REVISING–OR SCRAPPING–OBAMACARE: PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics on February 8, 2016 at 12:15 am

On July 2, 2013, the Treasury Department announced a major change in the application of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), more popularly known as “Obamacare”:  

“We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively…We have listened to your feedback.  And we are taking action.  

“The Administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin.” 

[Boldface in the original document.]  

In short: The administration allowed employers an additional year to refuse providing healthcare to their employees–or to face fines for not doing so.  

And how did Obama’s self-declared enemies react to this effort at compromise?

On July 30, 2013, House Republicans voted to proceed with a lawsuit against the President–for failing to enforce the Affordable Care Act.

“In 2013, the president changed the health care law without a vote of Congress, effectively creating his own law by literally waiving the employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it,” House Speaker John A. Boehner said in a statement.

“That’s not the way our system of government was designed to work. No president should have the power to make laws on his or her own.”

John Boehner

Thus, Boehner intended to sue the President to enforce the law that the House had voted 54 times to repeal, delay or change.

Obama Mistake No. 5: Believing that public and private employers would voluntarily comply with the law.  

The ACA requires employers to provide insurance for part-time employees who work more than 30 hours per week. Yet many government employers claim they can’t afford it–and have thus limited part-time workers’ hours to 29 per week instead.  

Among those states affected:

  • “Our choice was to cut the hours or give [employees] health care, and we could not afford the latter,” Dennis Hanwell, the Republican mayor of Medina, Ohio, said in an interview with The New York Times.  
  • Lawrence County, in western Pennsylvania, reduced the limit for part-time employees to 28 hours a week, from 32.  
  • In Virginia, part-time state employees are generally not allowed to work more than 29 hours a week on average over a 12-month period.  

President Obama and those who crafted the Act may have been surprised at what happened.  But they shouldn’t have been.

Greed-addicted officials will always seek ways to avoid complying with the law–or achieve minimum compliance with it. And what goes for public employers goes for private ones, too.

The Act doesn’t penalize a company for failing to provide health insurance coverage for part-time employees who work fewer than 30 hours.  

The result was predictable. And its consequences are daily becoming more clear:

  • Increasing numbers of employers are moving fulltime workers into part-time positions; 
  • Refusing to provide their employees with medical insurance; and
  • Avoiding fines for non-compliance with the law.

Some employers have openly shown their contempt for President Obama–and the idea that employers have an obligation to those who make their profits a reality.

One of these is John Schnatter, CEO of Papa John’s Pizza, who has been quoted as saying:

  • The prices of his pizzas will go up–by 11 to 14 cents per pizza, or 15 to 20 cents per order; and
  • He will pass along these costs to his customers.  

 John Schnatter

“If Obamacare is in fact not repealed,” he told Politico, “we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders’ best interests.”  

If President Obama were truly a student of Realpolitick, he would have predicted that most businesses would try to avoid compliance with the ACA.  

And the remedy would have been simple: Require all employers to provide insurance coverage for all of their employees, regardless of their fulltime or part-time status.  

This, in turn, would have produced two substantial benefits:

  1. All employees would have been able to obtain medical coverage; and
  2. Employers would have been encouraged to provide fulltime positions rather than part-time ones.  

The reason: Employers would feel: “Since I’m paying for fulltime insurance coverage, I should be getting fulltime work in return.”  

If the President ever considered the merits of this, he decided against pressing for such a requirement.

Obama is one of the most rational and educated men to occupy the White House. So why did he fail to expect the worst in people–especially his self-declared enemies–and arrange to counter it?

Niccolo Machiavelli provides a shrewd insight into the repeated failures of the Obama Presidency.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Writing in The Prince, his classic work on the realities of politics, Machiavelli states:

…He is happy whose mode of procedure accords with the needs of the times, and similarly, he is unfortunate whose mode of procedure is opposed to the times….

If it happens that time and circumstances are favorable to one who acts with caution and prudence he will be successful  But if time and circumstances change he will be ruined, because he does not change the mode of this procedure. 

Put another way: A conciliator will prosper so long as he works with others willing to compromise. But facing uncompromising fanatics, he will be defeated–unless he can exchange conciliation for confrontation. 

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REVISING–OR SCRAPPING–OBAMACARE: PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 5, 2016 at 12:08 am

President Barack Obama came into office determined to find common ground with Republicans.  

But they quickly made it clear to him that they only wanted his political destruction. At that point, he should have put aside his hopes for a “Kumbaya moment” and re-read what Niccolo Machiavelli said in The Prince on the matter of love versus fear:

From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved or feared, or feared more than love. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved.

For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger and covetous of gain.  

As long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours: they offer you their blood, their goods, their life and their children, when the necessity is remote.  But when it approaches, they revolt….

And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.  

Moreover, Machiavelli warns that even a well-intentioned leader can unintentionally bring on catastrophe.

This usually happens when, hoping to avoid conflict, he allows a threat to go unchecked.  Thus:

A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must inevitably come to grief among so many who are not good.  And therefore it is necessary, for a prince who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.

For Obama, such a moment came in 2011, when House Republicans threatened to to destroy the credit rating of the United States unless the President agreed to scrap Obamacare.  

Obama, a former attorney, heatedly denounced House Republicans for “extortion” and “blackmail.”  

Unless he was exaggerating, both of these are felony offenses that are punishable under the 2001 USA Patriot Act and the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act of 1970.

RICO opens with a series of definitions of “racketeering activity” which can be prosecuted by Justice Department attorneys. Among those crimes: Extortion. 

Extortion is defined as “a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.” 

The RICO Act defines “a pattern of racketeering activity” as “at least two acts of racketeering activity, one of which occurred after the effective date of this chapter and the last of which occurred within ten years…after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity.” 

And if President Obama believed that RICO was not sufficient to deal with extortionate behavior, he could have relied on the USA Patriot Act, passed in the wake of 9/11. 

In Section 802, the Act defines domestic terrorism. Among the behavior that is defined as criminal: 

“Activities that…appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [and]…occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” 

The remedies for punishing such criminal behavior were legally in place.  President Obama could have directed the Justice Department to apply them.

If violations had been discovered, indictments could have quickly followed–and then prosecutions. The results of such action could be easily predicted:

  • Facing lengthy prison terms, those indicted Republicans would have first had to lawyer-up.
  • This would have imposed huge monetary costs on them, since good criminal attorneys don’t come cheap.  
  • Obsessed with their personal survival, they would have had little time to engage in more of the same thuggish behavior that got them indicted. In fact, doing so would have only made their convictions more likely.
  • Those Republicans who hadn’t (yet) been indicted would have feared; “I could be next.” This would have produced a chilling effect on their willingness to engage in further acts of subversion and extortion.  
  • The effect on Right-wing Republicans would have been the same as that of President Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers: “You cross me and threaten the security of this nation at your own peril.”

It would no doubt have been a long time before Republicans dared to engage in such behavior–at least, while Obama held office.  

So: Why didn’t President Obama act to punish such criminal conduct?

Obama Mistake No. 4: He allowed himself to be cowed by his enemies.

In The Prince, Machiavelli laid out the qualities that a successful ruler must possess. There were some to be cultivated, and others to be avoided at all costs. For example:

Niccolo Machiavelli

He is rendered despicable by being thought changeable, frivolous, effeminate, timid and irresolute–which a prince must guard against as a rock of danger….  

[He] must contrive that his actions show grandeur, spirit, gravity and fortitude. As to the government of his subjects, let his sentence be irrevocable, and let him adhere to his decisions so that no one may think of deceiving or cozening him.  

So how has Obama fared by this standard?

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REVISING–OR SCRAPPING–OBAMACARE: PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 4, 2016 at 12:10 am

One of the major differences between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton lies in their views about what should be the future of “Obamacare.”  

Sanders, the longtime independent Senator from Vermont, wants to scrap The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and replace it with a single-payer plan.  

Clinton, the former Secretary of State, wants to make “incremental” changes in the Act.  

The Sanders plan promises greater simplicity and comprehensiveness in providing benefits to those millions of Americans who previously could not obtain medical insurance.  

The Clinton approach promises to keep the best features of “Obamacare” and improve those that need changing.  

But neither Sanders nor Clinton has directly addressed certain unpalatable truths about the ACA.  

These stem not from any intended evil on the part of its chief sponsor, President Barack Obama. Instead, they spring from his idealistic belief that reasonable men could always reach a compromise.  

As a result, much of the Act remains seriously flawed. Here are the six reasons why.  

Barack Obama is easily one of the most highly educated Presidents in United States history. He is a graduate of Columbia University (B.A. in political science in 1983).  

In 1988, he entered Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude–“with great honor”–in 1991.  

He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year, and president of the journal in his second year.

President Barack Obama

He then taught Constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for 12 years–as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004.  

So where did he go wrong? Several ways:

Obama Mistake No. 1: Putting off what people wanted while concentrating on what they didn’t.

Obama started off well when he took office. Americans had high expectations of him. This was partly due to his being the first black to be elected President.

And it was partly due to the disastrous legacies of needless war and financial catastrophe left by his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Obama entered office intending to reform the American healthcare system, to make medical care available to all citizens, and not just the richest.  But that was not what the vast majority of Americans wanted him to concentrate his energies on.  

With the lost of 2.6 million jobs in 2008, Americans wanted Obama to find new ways to create jobs. This was especially true for the 11.1 million unemployed, or those employed only part-time.  

Jonathan Alter, who writes sympathetically about the President in The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, candidly states this.  

But Obama chose to spend most of his first year as President pushing the Affordable Care Act (ACA)–which would soon become known as Obamacare–through Congress.  

The results were:

  • Those desperately seeking employment felt the President didn’t care about them.  
  • The reform effort became a lightning rod for Right-wing groups like the Koch-brothers-financed Tea Party.  
  • In 2010, a massive Rightist turnout cost the Democrats the House of Representatives, and threatened Democratic control of the Senate.  

Obama Mistake No. 2: He underestimated the amount of opposition he would face to the ACA.

For all of Obama’s academic brilliance and supposed ruthlessness as a “Chicago politician,” he displayed an incredible naivety in dealing with his political opposition.

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), the Florentine statesman and father of modern politics, could have warned him of the consequences of this–through the pages of The Prince, his infamous treatise on the realities of politics.

Niccolo Machiavelli

And either Obama skipped those chapters or ignored their timeless advice for political leaders.

He should have started with Chapter Six: “Of New Dominions Which Have Been Acquired By One’s Own Arms and Ability”:

…There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things.  

For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.  

This proved exactly the case with the proposed Affordable Care Act.

Its supporters–even when they comprised a majority of the Congress–have always shown far less fervor than its opponents.  

This was true before the Act became effective on March 23, 2010. And it has remained true since, with House Republicans voting more than 60 times to repeal, delay or revise the law.  

So before President Obama launched his signature effort to reform the American medical system, he should have taken this truism into account.  

Obama Mistake No. 3: Failing to consider–and punish–the venom of his political enemies.  

The ancient Greeks used to say: “A man’s character is his fate.”  It is Obama’s character–and America’s fate–that he is by nature a man of conciliation, not conflict.  

Richard Wolffe chronicled Obama’s winning of the White House in his 2009 book, Renegade: The Making of a President. He noted that Obama was always more comfortable when responding to Republican attacks on his character than he was in making attacks on his enemies.

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BUREAUCRATS AS ASSASSINS–PART FIVE

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics on January 10, 2011 at 10:16 pm

“The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat, in order to attain that.”
–President Ronald Reagan, on the leaders of the Soviet Union, January 29, 1981

Increasingly, Republicans have repeatedly aimed violent–and violence-arousing–rhetoric at their Democratic opponents. This is not a case of careless language that is simply misinterpreted, with tragic results.

Republicans like Sarah Palin fully understand the constituency they are trying to reach: Those masses of alienated, uneducated Americans who live only for their guns and hardline religious beliefs–and who can be easily manipulated by perceived threats to either.

If one of these “nutcases” types assaults a Democratic politician and misses, then the Republican establishment claims to be shocked–shocked!–that such a thing could have happened.

And if the attempt proves successful–as the January 8 Tucson shootings did–then Republicans weep crocodile tears for public consumption. The difference is that, in this case, they rejoice in knowing that Democratic ranks have been thinned and their opponents are even more on the defensive, for fear of the same happening to them.

The most important target of these intended assaults is, of course, President Barack Obama.

Ominously, in August, 2009, about a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside a Phoenix convention center where President Obama was giving a speech.

A week earlier, during Obama’s healthcare town hall in New Hampshire, a man carrying a sign reading “It is time to water the tree of liberty” stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.

Fred Solop, a Northern Arizona University political scientist, said the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona could signal the beginning of a disturbing trend.

“When you start to bring guns to political rallies, it does layer on another level of concern and significance,” Solop said. “It actually becomes quite scary for many people. It creates a chilling effect in the ability of our society to carry on honest communication.”

The way to prevent such tragedies in the future is to hold fully accountable not just the shooters but those who deliberately point them toward their targets and repeatedly scream: “Kill the traitors!”

Americans must shed their naive belief that “America is exempt from the political corruption of other countries.” And they must see the Republicans’ lust for absolute power at any price as the danger it presents to the future of the Republic.

Among the steps that need to be taken:

First, the families and friends of the Tucson massacre victims should file civil lawsuits against Sarah Palin and every other Republican who can be proved to have created the firestorm of hate that consumed 20 people on January 8.

A legal precedent for such lawsuits emerged 21 years ago, and still remains viable.

On November 13, 1988 in Portland, Oregon, three white supremacist members of East Side White Pride and White Aryan Resistance (WAR) beat to death Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian man who came to the United States to attend college.

Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a civil suit (Berhanu v. Metzger) against Tom Metzger, founder of WAR. They argued that WAR influenced Seraw’s killers by encouraging their group, East Side White Pride, to commit violence.

At the trial, WAR national vice president Dave Mazzella testified how the Metzgers instructed WAR members to commit violence against minorities.

Tom and John Metzger were found civilly liable under the doctrine of vicarious liability, in which one can be liable for a tort committed by a subordinate or by another person who is taking instructions.

In October 1990, the jury returned the largest civil verdict in Oregon history at the time—$12.5 million—against Metzger and WAR. The Metzgers’ house was seized, and most of WAR’s profits go to paying off the judgment.

Second, the FBI and Justice Department should launch an all-out investigation into not simply right-wing hate groups but those political leaders who openly or secretly encourage and support their activities. Those who are found doing so should be indicted and prosecuted under the anti-terrorism statutes now aimed at Islamic terrorists.

Third, the Secret Service should immediately adopt the policy that no one but sworn law enforcement officers will be allowed to carry firearms within the immediate vicinity of the President. And it should enforce that policy through its elite countersniper teams.

Finally, President Obama should do what President Clinton failed to do at the time of the truck-bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building: He should publicly condemn those Republicans who give “aid and comfort” to the right-wing extremists whose support they openly court.

Unless such steps are taken, outrages such as the Tucson slaughter will continue to remain a needless “mystery.” And those outrages will continue until a Republican version of the swastika permanently flies over the capitol dome and the White House.

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BUREAUCRATS AS ASSASSINS–PART FOUR

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics on January 10, 2011 at 8:58 pm

Having failed to defeat Bill Clinton in 1992, the Republicans sought to discredit him as a leader. As the first Democrat elected to the White House since 1976, he had broke an 12-year winning streak by Republicans.

This, in turn, made him a usurper in the eyes of Republicans generally. If they could not prevent him from reaching the White House, perhaps they could reduce him to impotence by destroying his legitimacy as President.

Republicans pressed for a special prosecutor to investigate a failed Arkansas land deal called Whitewater. But, over time, they kept adding new subjects for investigation, hoping at each turn to find a way to secure his indictment.

In January, 1998, news broke of Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Republicans saw a chance to drive him from the White House via impeachment. But their effort failed, and Clinton served out the rest of his term.

Republicans won the White House in 2000, and again in 2004. But in 2008 the prospect of a black man becoming President frightened and infuriated not only many Republican leaders but their rightist supporters.

Republicans encouraged right-wing groups to spread the word that Obama was not born in Hawaii, but in Kenya. The purpose of this was to strip Obama of legitimacy as a leader.

Republican supporters–brandishing photos of President Obama painted with a Hitler forelock and toothbrush mustache–have claimed he intends to set up concentration camps for those who disagree with him.

Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House, charged that Obama was pursuing a socialist agenda via his legislation to reform healthcare and provide an economic stimulus to the stalled economy.

In his book, To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine, Gingrich claimed that Obama’s policy agenda was as “great a threat to America as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.”

On April 20, 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank about 40 miles southeast off the Louisiana coast. The resulting oil spill pumped millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

When Obama began taking a tough line with BP, Rand Paul, the Republican candidate for Senator from Kentucky, declared the President was “really un-American in his criticism of business.”

Almost immediately after Obama took the oath of office, he came in for demonization by an industry of anti-Obama books by right-wing authors. The views they sought to popularize about the President can be quickly gleamed by a review of their titles:

• Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda by Sean Hannity
• The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists,Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists by Aaron Klein
• The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency by Ken Blackwell
• Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress and the Special Interests Are Transforming…a Slump into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism and a Disaster into a Catastrophe….And How to Fight Back by Dick Morris
• The War On Success: How the Obama Agenda Is Shattering the American Dream by Tommy Newberry
• Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policicies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America by Christopher C. Horner
• How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine Our Elections by John Fund
• Obama’s Radical Transformation of America: Year One by Joshua Muravchik
• Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Self-Serving Congress, Companies That Help Iran, and Washington Lobbyists for Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us…and What to Do About It by Dick Morris

(Morris’ book, Fleeced, contains possibly the longest subtitle of any political book since Adolf Hitler wanted to call his autobiography: Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice. Knowing that so long a title would be a disaster, Hitler’s publisher settled for Mein Kampf, which, in German, means “My Struggle.”)

Increasingly, Republicans have repeatedly aimed violent–and violence-arousing–rhetoric at their Democratic opponents. This is not a case of careless language that is simply misinterpreted, with tragic results.

Republicans like Sarah Palin fully understand the constituency they are trying to reach: Those masses of alienated, uneducated Americans who live only for their guns and hardline religious beliefs–and who can be easily manipulated by perceived threats to either.

As Adolf Hitler, the master of 20th century propaganda advised in Mein Kampf: “Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”

Thus, Palin and her fellow Republicans repeatedly use code-words like, “Don’t retreat, reload,” and draw up maps showing Democrats targeted with cross-hairs. (The map, posted on her website at “SaraPAC,” was taken down only on the day of the shootings.)

They know full well that there’s a good chance those words and images will take root in the hearts of such an unacknowledged constituency. And this, in turn, gives Republicans a chance to win with the bullet what they could not win at the ballot box.

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BUREAUCRATS AS ASSASSINS–PART THREE

In Bureaucracy, History, Law on January 10, 2011 at 6:42 pm

Many Americans–-especially Republicans–claim they can’t understand the tragic January 8 shootings in Tuscon that claimed the lives of six people and left 14 others wounded.

Far from being a mystery, that violence is fully understandable. All we need do is accept that Republicans have spent a half-century slandering government and soliciting the support of violent extremists.

On April 19, 1993, David Koresh and 86 Branch Davidians, including up to 24 children, chose death by self-immolation rather than surrender to FBI agents who had besieged their compound in Waco, Texas, for 51 days.

High-ranking Republicans immediately sought to turn the needless mass suicide into a second Alamo. The FBI–normally revered by Republicans when they command the Justice Department–became a target for repeated Congressional hearings and slanderous attacks.

Totally ignored were the four agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who were killed by the Davidians in the initial February 28 attempt to serve arrest and search warrants at the compound for illegal arms and ammunition. Another 20 were wounded.

The clear implication was that the FBI should have allowed the Davidians to go un-arrested for their killings and woundings of sworn Federal law enforcement officers.

Republicans used the Davidians’ self-immolation to solicit support among the heavily-armed, right-wing militia movement.

Said Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House: “”We have to understand that there is, in rural America, a genuine– particularly in the West–a genuine fear of the Federal Government and of Washington, D.C., as a place that doesn’t understand their way of life and doesn’t understand their values.”

Two years later, on April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, a member of the militia movement, detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring 450. It was the deadliest act of terrorism within the United States prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks. His primary motive for doing so was to “avenge” the Davidians who had died in Waco.

Suddenly, Republican leaders found themselves on the defensive. They had spent decades slandering the Federal Government–claiming, for example:

• there was a plot by Democrats to “take away your guns,”
• that flouridation was a Communist plot to “pollute our precious bodily fluids,”
• that Democrats were “Godless” and wanted to enforce athiesm on believing Christians,
• and that Democrats would allow United Nations “black helicopters” to stage a military takeover of the United States.

Now at least three members of one of their core constituency groups–the militia movement–had acted on that rhetoric. Republicans genuinely feared that President Bill Clinton would address the nation and lay blame squarely on those who had spent decades slandering government as a threat to the very liberties of those it was meant to serve.

Instead, Clinton gave a consoling address where he praised the men and women who had died in the blast. The closest he came to naming–and condemning–those truly responsible for the tragedy came near the end of his address:

“There are forces that threaten our common peace, our freedom, our way of life. Let us teach our children that the God of comfort is also the God of righteousness. Those who trouble their own house will inherit the wind. Justice will prevail.

“Let us let our own children know that we will stand against the forces of fear. When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it. In the face of death let us honor life.”

But Clinton never blamed the Republicans for “giving aid and comfort” to the right-wing militia movement whose members carried out this slaughter.

Republicans won the White House in 2000, and again in 2004. But in 2008 the prospect of a black man becoming President frightened and infuriated not only many Republican leaders but their rightist supporters.

At one rally for Republican nominee John McCain, a woman screamed, “Obama! Osama!”–a clear reference to Republican accusations that Barack Obama was a closet Muslim, if not an outright supporter of Islamic terrorism.

Republicans encouraged right-wing groups to spread the word that Obama was not born in Hawaii, but in Kenya. The purpose of this was to strip Obama of legitimacy as a leader.

In 1988, while working as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama was formally baptized as a Christian at the Trinity United Church of Christ. Obama now worships in services at Camp David.

Despite this, Republicans and their right-wing supporters continue to assert that he is a secret Muslim. And this has led increasing numbers of Americans to believe he is.

The number of Americans who say President Obama is a Muslim has nearly doubled since March 2009, according to an August, 2010 poll from Pew. The poll finds that 18% of Americans say the president is a Muslim.

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BUREAUCRATS AS ASSASSINS–PART TWO

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics on January 10, 2011 at 11:31 am

“An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a statement on the January 8 shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). “Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society. …This is a sad day for our country.”

This from the man who, upon assuming the Speakership, said his first priority was repealing President Obama’s healthcare reform bill. It was this bill that Giffords had supported against bitter attacks and death threats from Republican Tea Party members.

And from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin–whose SarahPAC page, until the day of the shooting, depicted a map featuring cross-hairs over Giffords’ district: “My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona. On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.”

The shooting of Giffords–or some other Democratic legislator– was, in fact, entirely predictable. Among those who warned of such needless tragedy was Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.).

“When Sarah Palin uses gun analogies and gun imagery when she makes her political point, she may believe that she’s engaging in metaphor,” said Weiner, who received an envelope of suspicious powder at his office. “But there are too many people who have twisted minds who might think that she’s being literal.”

Giffords may have seen the spectre of violence closing in on her. In April, 2010, she supported Rep. Raúl Grijalva after he had to close two offices when he and his staff received threats. He had called for a boycott of Arizona businesses in opposition to the state’s controversial immigration law.

“I am deeply troubled about reports that Congressman Grijalva and members of his staff have been subjected to death threats,” Giffords said. “This is not how we, as Americans, express our political differences. Intimidation has no place in our representative democracy. Such acts only make it more difficult for us to resolve our differences.”

But intimidation–and worse–does have a place among the tactics used by influential Republicans in the pursuit of absolute power:

• Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.) yelled “baby killer” at Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) on the House floor.
• Florida GOP Congressional candidate Allen West, referring to his Democratic opponent, Rep. Ron Klein, told Tea Party activists: “You’ve got to make the fellow scared to come out of his house. That’s the only way that you’re going to win. That’s the only way you’re going to get these people’s attention.”
• Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said Tea Partiers had “every right” to use racist and homophobic slurs against Democrats, chalking it all up to Democrats’ “totalitarian tactics.”
• Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she wants her constituents “armed and dangerous” against the Obama administration.
• Sarah Palin told her supporters: “Get in their face and argue with them. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!”
• Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.”
• Senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.): “We’re going to keep building the party until we’re hunting Democrats with dogs.”
• Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families.
• Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) the highest-ranking black lawmaker in the House, said he received an anonymous fax showing the image of a noose.

For more than 50 years, Republicans have vilified government–except, of course, when they are running it. (Then they have demanded absolute obedience and utmost devotion. When a member of the Dixie Chicks said she was ashamed that George W. Bush came from her home state of Texas, the group found itself facing boycotts and death threats.)

They have sought to convince Americans that Democrats are at least potential traitors, if not actual ones, ready to sell out the nation to the Communist menace.

(During the 1992 Presidential election, Republicans sought to paint Bill Clinton as a brainwashed “Manchurian candidate,” owing to a visit he had taken to the Soviet Union during his college years.)

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, they tried to persuade voters that the Democrats were “soft on crime.” When riots flared in 1992 after the acquittal of the LAPD officers who had savagely beaten Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush blamed the carnage on the “Great Society” programs of the Lyndon Johnson era.

When President Barack Obama set out to provide healthcare fo all Americans–and not simply the wealthy–Republicans tried to convince voters that he would use healthcare reform to murder vast numbers of their fellows (via “death panels,” in Sarah Palin’s infamous phrase).

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BUREAUCRACTS AS ASSASSINS–PART ONE

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics on January 9, 2011 at 3:45 pm

Many Americans–especially Republicans–claim they can’t understand the tragic shootings in Tucson that claimed the lives of six people and left 13 others wounded.

Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head on January 8 while meeting with constituents outside a grocery store. She is fighting for life at University Medical Center in Tucson.

Also killed was Arizona’s chief U.S. District judge, John Roll, who had just stopped by to see his friend Giffords after celebrating Mass.

Far from being a mystery, yesterday’s violence becomes entirely understandable–if we are willing to put aside our cherished notion that “things like this happen only in other countries; they don’t happen here.”

A good starting point is the 1968 movie “Z”, whose summary follows:

Set in Greece in 1963, the film re-creates the events surrounding the assassination of democratic Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis, who is played by Yves Montand.

Lambrakis (who is referred to only as “the Deputy” throughout the movie) is clearly out of step with the right-wing militarists who run the country.

He is scheduled to give a night-time speech advocating nuclear disarmament. But Lambrakis’ opponents intend to prevent this. Right-wing goon squads gear up for a rally at the site where the Deputy is to appear.

Under pressure by the military and police, the site has been changed to a much smaller hall and right-wing mobsters now threaten those who call for peace. As the Deputy crosses the street from the hall after giving his speech, a delivery truck speeds past him and a man on the open truck bed crushes his head with a club.

The injury eventually proves fatal, and by that time it is already clear that the police have coerced witnesses to claim that the victim was simply run over by a drunk driver.

* * * * *

Now, fast-forward to 2011 and the tragedy in Arizona.

Giffords, 40, is a moderate Democrat who narrowly wins re-election in November against a Republican Tea Party candidate. Her support of President Obama’s health care reform law has made her a target for violent rhetoric–especially from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

In March, 2010, Palin releases a map featuring 20 House Democrats that uses crosshairs images to show their districts. In case her supporters don’t get the message, she later writes on Twitter: “‘Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!'”

As the campaign continues, Giffords finds her Tucson office vandalized after the House passes the overhaul in March.

Giffords senses that she has become a target for removal–in more than political terms. In an interview after the vandalizing of her office, she refers to the animosity against her by conservatives. She specifically cites Palin’s decision to list her seat as one of the top “targets” in the midterm elections.

“For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action,” Giffords tells MSNBC.

At one of her rallies, her aides call the police after an attendee drops a gun.

Now let’s examine the case of Federal Judge John Roll. Named Arizona’s chief federal judge in 2006, he wins wide acclaim as a respected jurist and leader who pushes to beef up the court’s strained bench to handle a growing number of border crime-related cases.

In 2009, he becomes a target for threats after allowing a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit by illegal aliens to proceed against a local rancher. The case arouses the fury of local talk radio hosts, who encourage their audiences to threaten Roll’s life.

In one afternoon, Roll logs more than 200 threatening phone calls. Callers threaten the judge and his family. They post personal information about Roll online.

Roll and his wife are placed under fulltime protection by deputy U.S. marshals. Roll finds living under security “unnerving and invasive.” Authorities identify four men believed responsible for the threats. But Roll declines to press charges on the advice of the Marshals Service.

So much for exploring the “what happened” part of the shootings in Tucson. In the next post, we will explore the “why.”

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