The ancient tradition of Hallowe’en

The ancient Celts/Gaels and the Druid priests who guided them called the day Samhain (Sowain).  For them, it was the gathering of the harvest, the changing of the seasons and a pleading to the Godsin ritual for a bountiful harvest of the next year.  Post Druidic history and with the advent of Christianity;  it was claimed by Christians that Druids would lead a party of fearful pagans around with lighted gourds (pumpkins) to scare off the spirits at this time of year.  Granted that with the changing of the seasons, it was indeed believed by primitive man that spirits could roam at will with the thinning of the walls between their world and the worlds that could be found in other realms, but that not all spirits were the ghosts of ancestral past.  And that some spirits came from realms beyond their ken.  Such as the Sidh.

The trick or treat saga has its beginnings with factually propitiating the Sidh so that they wouldn’t trick you at the time of Samhain.  By asking them to share in your bounty with gifts of food, they would honor your hospitality by leaving you and your household very much alone.  Just as gifts of bounty from your harvest was also left out for the prior dead as a remembrance for the family members who had gone before you.  Today, children who dress up in costumes and go door to door looking for candy are factually continuing the tradition of the Sidh who trick the people who refuse to share their bounty and honor the people who do.  That is the only continuing “pagan” relationship to Hallowe’en.

Today, Hallowe’en carries other more scary traditions; precisely, those created by Christians.  Samhain has become All Hallows eve, or the Devil’s night out.  It is no longer about the final gathering of the harvest but about the ghoulies and ghosties and all other things that go bump in the night.  In short, we could keep man’s fear of other realms beyond his ken and remember nothing about what this time of year was all about, the gathering of the harvest.  Until of course, politically speaking; Christians would turn to Samhain and try to claim a Druidic tradition as their own.  And only that part of the Druidic tradition that most pleased them, without of course adding visits from the Sidh or one’s dead relatives to the mix.  In the process; devaluing completely their own rich Hallowe’en tradition while creating an empty shadow of more ancient and “pagan” beliefs.

It has to be remembered that the werewolf, the vampire, and other demonic creatures that crowded mens’ fears of the dark could survive very well into the Christian era because the church itself found a great use for them.  If a frightened people led by Christian priests could search out graves and put stakes in the hearts of the recently buried  dead because it was feared that grand dad had come back and was now feeding on my kids’ blood; well, the church wasn’t likely to correct this violation of the sanctity of the grave or to presume that grand dad might have actually been a righteous man in his lifetime.  From the perspective of the church, you were suspect from birth to death and beyond.  And just how many indulgences could you proffer to the church coffers to take you off the suspect list?  No where in the bible do you find actual tales of the vampire.  But from the Christian tradition, you do find pre-Christian fears of the supernatural crowding the pantheon of Christian terrors.  It was quite remarkable really, a church that claims an association with a Jewish Rabbi that was supposed to lead them to a new light and a new hope would instead for centuries afterwards, walk the path of dark fear.  Just how many ordinary humans died by being mistaken for werewolves?  Just how many Christian women died by being mistaken for witches?  By some counts, in the thousands to millions.

Today, we make a fiction of these dark fears.  We write novels and short stories about werewolves and vampires; the terrors of dark powers from evil witches.  We even put our fears of the evil dead into such films as Chucky who becomes a murderous toy doll.  And when our demons out of our long past weren’t enough to scare us silly, simply try the absolutely demented human such as Hannibal the cannibal.  Slaughter films such as the Hallowe’en series or “Scream.”  Then go beyond twisted with “Saw…”

We like being frightened to death  We haven’t moved away as a human race refusing to  keep company with the many forms of demonic forces—both human and beyond human.  And so today’s Christianized version of Samhain would strive to do just that.  To sanitize us of our fears that Christians had themselves only exploited over many centuries.  Unless of course, Hallowe’en can be yet politically exploited to demonize “the other” who is the opposition.  And Christians produced the political “Hell Houses” where they could have those of their ilk cheering on the dragging into hell the woman who had an abortion (she might have miscarried and required a doctor’s care).  Whether Christians of today like it or not, they continue to carry on the ancient church tradition of putting their fellow man on the suspect list from birth to death and beyond.

So what indulgences should a person put in the church coffers of today to not only fund a harvest bounty that excludes hospitality and not be a caricature of the miserable hell bound in a church hell house?

Quite frankly, I’d prefer the company of the Sidh; they are far more predictable and delight in the hospitality that you provide them through your bounty.  The critters beyond our ken that are also easy to please.

Oh! NOW you care about granny?

When it is possible to turn the elderly into political fodder in order to win a political majority

After wading through the fluff and nonsense, the nasty attacks, the nastier signs, the screaming and shouting, that has taken the place of any open and honest “debate” on health care reform, it takes a Ms.  Kathleen Parker column to help clarify the issue.  I’ll agree with her on the current language of “end of life care” that if Medicare is required to fund it, it should be an option.  Available only if desired.  But, not mandatory.

That being said, I expect it has taken an act of Congress to even deal with an issue that has actually been going on in this nation for decades:  what happens when you are terminally ill?  Not just an “elderly burden to the family,” which I’ll also address in this blog.  Hospice sprang into existence as an advocate for compassionate “end of life” care.  Not having ever made use of their services, not knowing how much they charge, but what doesn’t enter into the debate—whether one is deliberately disrupting a townhall meeting orchestrated by members of Congress trying to let the public know what’s in the overall health care reform or carrying signs that portray Obama as “Hitler”—is whether Hospice as an “end of life care” organization could get Medicare reimbursement.  Seems we are leaving behind the organizations that might actually do some good in that mad frenzy to unseat the current Dem majority.  Let’s whip of hysteria over what one presumes is in that bill as opposed to what actually is in that bill, vague language that Ms. Parker can rationally complain about notwithstanding.  A manufactured set of myths to cause the crazies to go even wilder and then get their 15 minutes of further exposure on Fox News (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart).  But let us actually forget the actual situation that granny was facing prior to Obama becoming president.

Big Pharma can sure charge a lot for “name brand pills” for every possible “condition” under the sun; even if it is a “condition” that doctors hadn’t heard about and one literally invented by Big Pharma so that they can advertise pills that sure as hell could and will create medical problems for you if you take that “Doctor’s prescription.”  After of course being told to “ask your doctor about…”  As long as Big Pharma “was playing God,” with plenty of advertisements on TV, very expensive advertisements on TV, Cal Thomas wasn’t whining about a “health care” that would usurp God.  But then, he has been very much in the pocket of the get rich quick private sector from the beginning.  We just don’t want a “Dem majority” usurping God.  How about that “Medicare reform” that the GOP pushed through and GW signed that “usurped God?”  I guess that met with Thomas approval.  Because there sure were some wild rantings about the pills that grandma could cut in half (after the “Medicare reform” legislation passed into law, natch); or having to decide between her hundreds of dollars in medicine v her heating expenses.  Or her hundreds of dollars in medicine v her monthly food bill.  But only the (old) left was prepared to actually discuss those particular horror stories, but not the GOP.  While the GOP were in the majority, granny was left to fare the best she could (or not) on her own.  As for Medicare itself, it was an “entitlement” that many a GOP (writing letters to the editor) would rather not pay into.  Even though (like Social Security) they would stand to benefit from such taxation in their elderly years.  In short, “screw granny.”  That is, until “granny” could become useful as a means by the GOP to become a majority party by 2010.  The problem now however, is that it has quite simply gotten out of hand.  Especially when a guy carrying a real threat, a loaded pistol, visits a townhall meeting and then gets featured on Fox News.  The GOP helped break the health care system in this nation by declaring that it was a “for profit” private enterprise and part of the “free market.”  That they don’t want to see changed at all.  But the other problem is, because health care has become a for profit private enterprise, the “death panels” already exist, rationed care already exists; and this nation has only been living with that fact for years.  (With reference to the Spokesman Review blogs.)  It just has never entered the “public radar” until the GOP exploited it for the purposes regaining power.

Consider organ donation, who decides if your grand dad might get a liver transplant?  Bet he could be on a “waiting list” forever until the day he dies.  On a very expensive dialysis machine until the day he dies.  On the other hand, a retired head of corporation with lotsa moolah could step to the head of the line and gets the liver that your grand dad died waiting for.  That looks very “death panel” from here.  Strange that this just never gets discussed by the GOP and the frenzies that they just had to whip into mad fury at the various townhall meetings.  How would I know about the preceding?  The news, of course.  You could indeed apply a “Hitler” face all right, and it would correctly find its way to the free market.  The situation is, the GOP had to know all about what was going on prior to Obama’s election, prior to the Dems gaining a super majority in Congress, and refused to gnash their teeth over it.  After all, private enterprise, “the free market;” that was where they were really at as to party platform and etc.  Until the situation they actually agreed with prior to Obama becoming president and began enacting health care reform could be exploited to destroy any valid attempts at reform and keep already existing “death panels” (for profit in the private sector) and rationed care (courtesy of “health insurance companies”) firmly in their grip.  And your granny can go on suffering.

Now as to the “burdensome elderly.”  Don’t we already have nursing homes for the “burdensome elderly?”  Haven’t they proven highly spendy?  Has there not been puhlenty of horror stories about such facilities?  One could read and watch the news about how much God is usurped when it comes to this issue as well.  But until the GOP could exploit the “burdensome elderly” on the national stage…  You just didn’t see them wasting one breath on the matter.

I regard what the GOP are doing as the worst sort of cynical exploitation and they need to be exposed for having done so.  Speaking of socialism and communism; looks like the GOP are doing just fine as the new lefties making every use of all elements thereof.

Joe Heller cartoon republished in the 13 August 2009 Spokesman-Review, the GOP shackled to the following:  the birther movement, the townhall disruption movement, and the “Christian” crazies shouting that Obama is a Muslim socialist.  Asking for Bill Clinton’s assistance to free them from the kind of people that they only catered to in trying to win elections.  Funny really, for all the intended irony.

The Tale of Two Editorials…and comedians

Obama’s poll numbers are dropping! Obama’s poll numbers are dropping! If you are a new left Republican of course you would be dancing with joy that so soon (7 months now) of Obama entering office as president, he is already going through some very tough times as president.  However, I can expect Obama’s poll numbers to change with the flick of a light switch depending on whom you poll.  What I don’t expect, is that the American government reinvesting billions of dollars in this country with a trillion dollar deficit (as recently reported on the CBS News) to have an overnight or instant success in putting the economy back on track.  Won’t happen.  For anyone with a short term memory loss of the primary season 08; Obama said at the time (on his way to becoming president) that it took years to accomplish a wrecked economy and that it would take years to fix it.  But if you are a news media not in the tank for Obama (after all) and don’t want to refer to what the man said at the time and the facts as they existed then and now then you can do the following poll:  Did you want the stimulus plan to be instantly successful?  Yes Ο No Ο.  If you checked Yes then went on with the next caveat how do you feel about continued job losses?  Upon that would hinge whether or not Obama’s poll numbers would stay in the stratosphere or come down significantly.

What the news media who do such polls don’t wish to recall is that job losses were exceedingly high in this country over the last 8 years.  The jobs growth (?) reported by business interests to the federal gvt as well as the GDP (business profits but not worker productivity) was not one that benefited the American workforce nor those businesses that most depended upon the American consumer.  So, when you willingly go along with the propaganda put out by a Republican administration then there is no question that you can skew so called “random” polling of a few thousand individuals accordingly.  The economy started its downward slide for real (not with the dot com bubble burst) upon the discovery that Enron was exploiting greed and a lack of real regulation and proper oversight of its business dealing to literally cost businesses to go into a state of collapse.  Of creating energy prices so high, along with rolling black outs that greatly effected the state of California…  California wanted a timid Republican administration to do something about the looming Enron caused catastrophe.  But, GW bowed to the pressure of business interests and lobbyists and refused to act.  Veep Cheney was prepared to put the scandal plagued company on a preferred status of getting gvt handouts as part of an energy task force—taxpayer funded—package.  Perhaps if that package hadn’t come acropper at the hands of Congress, it might have prevented Enron’s financial collapse for a little while longer. But, it wouldn’t have prevented Enron from ultimately collapsing from its weight of pure greed…

But it isn’t the prior Republican administration that Cal Thomas wants to point to as “timid.”

However, without a doubt, Bill Maher had this in mind when (Comedy Central 13 July 2009) he had an hour long commentary about “The Decider” and the fact that not only did Congress become a wholy owned subsidiary of varied business companies esp. big pharma, but also the White House itself.  When you are a wholy owned subsidiary of the private sector you are indeed going to be timid in your dealings with them nor will you be decisive in acting on the behalf of the people being hurt by this same private sector.

Enron set the stage for the train wreck that the economy would become.  And it took all of 8 years before the economy reached the point where GW’s “base of support” got to feeling the pinch and a significant number of them simply did not vote for McCain by 4 November 2008.  A timid president is what we had the last time.  Yet, for all of his timidity he had remarkably high poll numbers didn’t he?  Well, if you knew who his “base” happened to be and where they lived, you could indeed keep his poll numbers artificially high, even as our timid president couldn’t be the decider to keep a nation economically healthy.  We could go to war in large part to keep business interests like Haliburton economically healthy.  We could drain the treasury of tax $$$ to fund two wars and keep the very wealthy and the most wealthiest of businesses rolling in even more dough.  We could encourage, couldn’t we, the arguments given by business interests that they simply “couldn’t compete” unless they hired all those illegal aliens or outsourced as much labor as possible, or even imported legal and far cheaper foreign labor.  But the unemployed pay no taxes.  And if they pay no taxes then the states are going to feel the pinch as to the services they can provide, the cut backs that will have to commence, the loss to education, public safety and public health just because of it.  Nor do the unemployed buy anything.  With the net result, that retail chains started suffering because of the drop in consumer spending.  Some small businesses went out of business.  Various mall owners started facing bankruptcy.  Our timid previous president wasn’t concerned with the actual GDP of profit losses that business suffered from because of the increasing lack of consumer buying.  He was all about fudging the numbers.  Of a very creative propaganda about where this nation economically stood when in fact no one could have in reality have been able to paint such a rosy picture.  Because to be actually decisive and tell the truth was a much too frightening prospect.

Where GW stood on domestic matters, you can be just as certain that he was equally timid on foreign policy as well.  Whether it had to do with Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea and Iran.  He could take us to war, all right; but he kept shifting the goal posts on decisively dealing with any of the above nations in a non war capacity.  Only a timid president would do that.

So, where did Thomas come up with the idea that Obama was “timid” in attempting to keep his well-known campaign promises as a matter of foreign policy?  To put it bluntly, Thomas hates the fact that there isn’t now a GOP for president.  That’s the main crux of his argument.  But would a hypothetical President McCain have done a better job?  Not if he agreed with GW 90% or better during the primary season.  And only followed in the footsteps of the previous timid president.  But, McCain wouldn’t have been attacked for 1.) Doing too much.  2.) Not doing too much.  3.) Spending too much.  4.) Not spending enough.  5.) Having the wrong foreign policy.  6.) Not having the wrong foreign policy.  7.) Trying to fix what is broken with the potential for a trillion dollar deficit.  8.) Refusing to fix what is broken just because of a potential for a trillion dollar deficit.  Unless you happen to be a “liberal” of course.  Everyone else, happy to have a Republican in the highest office in the land would have floated on past what went wrong and what went right about his administration.

Barney Frank was on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”  He explained the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fiasco that ultimately fringe Republicans wanted to hang on him and other Democrats during the primary season and during the general election campaign.  Seems that the GOP wanted Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to finance subprime lending to guarantee home ownership for people who actually couldn’t have afforded that type of mortgage to begin with. He wanted Fannie and Freddie to stick with affordable renting.  So, let us put it bluntly, that if Frank is correct in what he said, then the collapse of housing, Countrywide, banks, and the rise of foreclosures in this nation (after all, part of the taxes taken in by the state comes from property as well) can now be handed entirely to the GOP.  The people who seemed to have fully wrecked the free market they were supposed to be fully in love with.

Kinsley being published a day before Thomas (Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington) had quite an argument about what Obama should do to push for health care reform.  Begin only reforming and in small chunks that which was most affordable and therefore most palatable to Congress.

Then again, when watching Bill Maher on Comedy Central last night; he had quite a stand up routine on big pharma.  Correct as far as it goes that big pharma seems hell bent on producing pills these days that might kill you before they can cure you.  And inventing diseases in order to push the pill onto the market.  And inventing those highly spendy national ads to push the pills for diseases that most doctors might never have heard of.  And requiring of the consuming public that they knew better what their symptoms were and therefore should ask their doctor if the recently advertised pill was right for them.  Shouldn’t the doctor tell me?  That was one thing I could find myself in complete agreement with Maher over, ask your undertaker if ___________________ is right for you.

Kinsley did not get into discussing how big pharma could control costs.  Quit introducing fad pills that creates more medical problems than it solves.  Quit advertising those fad pills that results in people getting sick and dying for having taken them.  Of course not.  But a percentage of out of control health care has to do with people seeking profits long before they consider actually helping people with their products.  Let’s put it bluntly, health care as a “free market” attitude isn’t going to put health first.  Nor will costs be controlled while $$$ are at stake.  A lot more would have to be changed than say replacing a faucet on a leaky pipe while the water gushes somewhere else.  Or putting pipe fittings here and there willy nilly.  Attitudes have to change, for the health care system to begin to function again.

Thomas, one of his last comments had to do with the “timidity” of the current president that would allow this country’s economy to go into another wreck.  It hasn’t recovered from the first one.  Nor will it, for awhile.  But while Thomas wants to hang the economy as an Albatross on Obama’s neck, Frank had this to say as well, just how much the GOP were opposed to the extra 40 billion going to the states…  Yeah, the GOP timidity in actually doing anything at all for the people who put them in office.  Sorry, everything can’t be blamed on the current president.

The not so successful party

In the 18 May 2009 edition of the Spokesman-Review an “In their words” quotation:

“Notre Dame is arresting a priest. Why are you arresting a priest for trying to stop the killing of a baby? You’ve got it all backward.”—The Rev. Norman Weslin founder of the Lambs of Christ abortion protest group, addressing police who arrested 21 people, including a priest, at a disruption Friday to protest President Barack Obama’s weekend commencement address at Notre Dame University.

On one of this week’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” a depiction of one of these “Lambs of Christ” literally verbally attacking the President with shouts over and over again, “Baby killer,” “baby killer.”  So how do shouts of “baby killer,” save a child’s life?  Or for that matter, prove how “Christian” a person is?

I do believe that on the same show Jon Stewart had as a guest, Newt Gingrich.  Of course Mr. Gingrich former Speaker of the House engaged in the usual partisan hack job.  But the reason for his being on the show had to do with his writing a book.  But for about 10 minutes Gingrich vented about Obama as a “socialist,” of course and Stewart had to pointedly remind him of what had taken place in the last year of GW’s presidency.  Such as the gvt under GW taking over AIG.  Which now brings to mind a most pertinent argument about what ought to be called “socialism,” an accusation that is only valid when you aren’t the party in power.

Newt Gingrich had to make at least one concession, where the GOP had begun to act too much like Democrats in the spending dept at least.  And as far as Gingrich was concerned, when the people voted on 4 November 2008, why vote for the GOP who behaved too much like the Dems when they could simply vote for the real thing.  How about that.  But it wasn’t just the spending that McCain was promising.  Even he was promising too much gvt.  But only Obama can be accused of “socialism.”  But after such a concession was made, Gingrich still seemed to have a problem wrapping his head around a particular reality; and that was, that the last administration set the stage for the economic fiasco that this nation now faces.

You ever hear of giving someone too much of a good thing?  On “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” this evening, I managed to catch an episode of “Common $en$e” where the fellow doing the reporting discusses what happens to bad banks for example and what solutions might be had to make them solvent “good banks.”  This evening, he showcased a fellow who managed to get himself deep into debt.  And this guy was actually a reporter for the New York Times.  He’d gotten a couple of mortgages on his new home and ran up a massive credit card debt besides.  He should have been smart enough to “know better” right?  He even admits to it.  At the same time he informed the PBS viewership, he got a green light all the way.  Well yes, GW’s infamous “ownership society.”  To live large, spend, spend, spend and keep the economy working during a time of a War on Terror.  It broke the bank all right, this same New York Time employee finds himself facing foreclosure and is 7 months behind on payments of his debt.  He wrote a book and hopes people will buy it to enable him to pay his way out of debt.  In a truly conservative world, any mortgage broker would want to make certain that person applying for the loan actually had the finances available to pay it back.  That is, to exercise caution before okaying such a mortgage.  But, as was documented, even the mortgage company threw caution to the wind while waving a lot of green stuff in the guy’s face.  Then I don’t think you can call what happened in the last 8 years, “conservative.”  For the gvt to finally have to take it over; well, I suspect it is inevitable.  And a little late for the GOP to suddenly want to return to their “private enterprise” roots.  Deregulation helped to create this mess.  The anarchy that followed created the sort of situation ultimately documented on “The News Hour.”  Either you are pro-anarchy—in which case you really can’t call yourself “conservative,” or you are supportive of reasonable rules and regs that keeps the marketplace humming healthfully along.  Which would mean that some amount of gvt is going to be necessary.

Now back to the abortion issue that had a priest on camera screaming “baby killer” at the President of the United States.  Yeah, Obama is pro-choice, how about that.  He also made some comments to the graduating class of Notre Dame very remnicient of former President Clinton, of making legal abortions rare and providing women with other options than just abortion.  Yeah, pro-choice.  For what he said, he was still attacked as a “baby killer.”  If that can tell you anything, the disruptive priest (probably the one who ultimately got arrested) seemed to have become extremely hard of hearing as he chose to listen to his own strident screams over that of the POTUS address. Yeah, I guess he could be arrested.  Too bad there isn’t a criminal charge out there for misrepresenting one’s own belief.

Communism on the mind

The Spokesman-Review publishes once a  week, “Outside voices.”  a compendium of selected editorials from various newspapers.  Of the one editorial that I wish to address today, this is from Newsday and a column published on 7 May 2009.  Seems that Representative Joe Barton, R-Texas did not like how post-season bowl games were set up and broadcast on TV.  According to this editorial, he declared that it was like communism and totally unfair to smaller colleges.  So, in a session of Congress, seems Rep. Barton wants to set up rules for deciding what can truly be a legitimate championship bowl.

Not typically would I write about sports.  I have no interest, I don’t even much watch the games on TV, let alone being willing to shell out the big bucks for a game, pre-season, during the season, or even post -season.  However, to write about this, the implications to be had in the Newsday editorial, goes even beyond what Newsday itself was prepared to say, at least  in the published excerpt.

TV and College sports are part of the entertainment business, and yes, it actually is a business.  I will even further add that as a business it faces far more severe regulations than any other.  Nor do the GOP in particular find regulations of entertainment to be particularly offensive as they might where polluting industries get shackled by environmental laws.  Or mining companies get shackled by work place safety laws.  Or construction businesses who feel they can only be competitive if the home you buy wasn’t built by American labor.  Or you are convinced that the food you buy would “cost more” if picked by an American work force.  In the above cases, those industries at least should have as few regs as possible to encourage their competitiveness and continued operations.

So, I found it to be extraordinary indeed when Rep. Barton, Republican of Texas decides that he is going to take away from private industry the right to set the rules on how, when and whether they will cover post-season games or championship bowls.  And here is why:

I am sure that at one point Gonzaga U. of Spokane, Washington was a little known private college.  But the sports team and head coach spent a lot of time, energy and invested money toward making the football team there into a contender that could play against better known colleges and universities.  They did so on their own initiative, with a lot of effort and got the necessary respect and the television coverage to go with it; as they began to consistently win their games in various regional play offs.  They have fallen short, certainly, but they have been good contenders none the less.  Shouldn’t any lesser known college make use of the same initiative and all out effort to earn the same recognition without gvt setting the rules of coverage and etc.?

On the other hand, why make the effort if gvt does force the entertainment industry to cover their teams, no matter how poor they may be and how unlikely their teams might be to even enter regional play offs let alone championship bowls.

These were the implications that Newsday didn’t appear to get into.  Gonzaga U. might be considered a “small college” in comparison to other well-established colleges and universities.  But it didn’t need federal help to get proper television coverage.

Private enterprise:  Wouldn’t Barton have been among those GOP who would have waxed incensed that the Obama administration would simply fire GM’s CEO—by calling it Communism?  Or the federal $$$ flowing into the nation’s banks—by calling it Communism?  But here he wants to force some kind of “equality” among how college sports are covered and etc. by the rules that he personally writes through the legislation that he personally introduces.  As I understand this, a gvt that sets up these rules personally, that dictates how a private business  operates and how it personally works (the entertainment industry as an example) with labor and customers or even affiliated businesses; and in this case college football and what will constitute legitimate championships as defined by law; is deemed a command and control economy.  At least, that’s what the GOP were prepared to charge when the Democrats were in majorities in the House and Senate.  But now, we are seeing from this Republican member of Congress a willingness to add a dash of command and control so that small colleges, those lesser known will have an “equal shot” at post-season bowls.

Newsday was entirely right to ask why, with more pressing issues on Congressional plates why college football as “big business” would take priority over more pressing issues.  They could have gone further.  They could have asked why a GOP who would have argued against the collectivism of unions, minorities, and feminists; would suddenly be for the collectivism of minor league colleges.  This should have entered the lexicon of Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

Views on torture

Bugged by torture claims

Amy Goodman’s column “Torturers must be prosecuted” (April 23) misses the mark on several counts.

First, putting a person in a large box with a bug inside is not torture.  Putting a bamboo shoots under a person’s fingernails, or breaking his bones, is torture.

Second, from my limited discussions with “real” people, nobody (not even one) has had any problem at all with the Bush administration’s techniques.

Third, the media and Congress are like a dog on the bone about this so-called torture issue, but nobody’s publicizing  just what information was downloaded from the terrorists, and how many attacks were prevented and lives were saved.

Finally, in an unrelated article, Condaleeza  Rice has been  accused of verbally approving the so-called torture techniques.  Good for you, Ms. Rice, good for you!

Hal R. Dixon

Spokane

Well, well, well, Mr. Dixon in the letter published in the 26 April 2009 edition of the Spokesman-Review goes on record defining torture in accordance with bodily injury.  He doesn’t regard a man locked into a box with a bug as being torture.  Never mind that psychological torture can be defined as locking a man into a box with a bug—because the man is presumably afraid of bugs.  Psychological torture can in fact do as much damage to a human being as can torture that results in physical damage.  And just how reliable is such psychological torture in extracting useful information, IE attacks prevented and lives saved?  If Mr. Dixon doesn’t care to admit to psychological torture as effectively as real as any other type of torture to where it can be declared in opposition to the Geneva Conventions; then he has a much stricter definition of torture than the GW administration with whom and his buddies were never bothered by such techniques.  Considering that he must have talked to a very select few people whom he would have to know wouldn’t be bothered by the prior administration’s torture techniques.  Wonder what Mr. Dixon would say if he were a “terrorist suspect” locked in a box with an actual (but harmless) snake?  How many hours could he endure such a snake slithering all over him before he went crazy?  Esp. if he were told that it was deadly poisonous?  Only if you are not on the receiving end of torture would it be possible to never be bothered by it.  Hal Dixon, citizen of the land of the free and the home of the brave and totally opposed to human rights.

On the other side of the coin, two editorials appearing on the same day; one from Kathleen Parker and the other from David Broder.  Parker takes note of those released memos and would undoubtedly be appalled by Dixon’s position on the matter.  She has no delusions about what constitutes torture and for that, I applaud her.  On the other hand, Broder produces a problematic editorial when it comes President Obama”s not exactly being prepared to prosecute those who “interrogated” terrorist suspects.  Let us put it bluntly, that I would not regard it as vengeance to hold to account the last administration for voiding the constitution or circumventing international treaties or even acting against known laws ; I would call it justice.  No, we should not play political games with this issue.  But in the interests of cleaning up America’s image before the world; yes, we should hold the prior administration to account.  That is one profound disagreement that I do have with the Obama administration.

But what can you say about David Broder anyway?  He has spent a lot of time excusing and downplaying the GW administration’s less than savory characteristics, I’d never be surprised that Broder heaves a guarded sigh of relief if Obama would prefer to move this nation forward than continually look back to the past.  But if we did not address the last 8 years and the failure of policy of the last administration, it would surely come back to haunt us.

Broder in particular seems to think that we the people don’t recall the post 9/11/2001 mindset.  Uh, excuse me; but some of us still do.  And some of us also recall in the year before the 2002 off year election that “fear of new terrorist threats, vague but credible” hit the TV screens once a week.  How quickly GW was prepared to politically manipulate terrorism to reduce the Dems to a quivering minority and achieve an electoral victory in his run for the White House in  2004.  But for how long can anyone manipulate terrorism to achieve political aims?  Only as long as you aren’t dealing with Hurricane Katrina then home foreclosures, failing banks, the credit card bubble and etc.  I remember the mindset of 2001 very well.  The American populace being stampeded into buying duct tape and plastic sheeting to make their homes “WMD proof.”  Which would not have worked at all.  Just as I recall that Islam in particular and Muslims in general were becoming the new fad for haters.  America had entered a truly ugly period indeed.

But, should a war on terrorism become a war against American citizens?  GW seemed to think so.  And circumvented laws to implicitly accuse Americans in the thousands over a several year period of desiring to contact Osama bin Laden by wiretapping their phones without a warrant.  Of course, that wouldn’t seem to bother Michael Ramirez much when his latest anti-Obama tirade declares that terrorists are being released and those who interrogated them would be prosecuted.  Where the people engaging in the discussion are on board the plane, “Politics One.”  Really?  Never mind that the facts are probably otherwise.  But then, Ramirez hasn’t always loved basing his “cartoons” on the facts.  I wonder if his phone ever got tapped?

The harmonic convergence

Jim Camden writing in the Spokesman-Review 19 April 2009 concerning the Tax Day Protests was being fair and balanced enough to warn Democrats against being too dismissive of the protesters and the Republicans if they thought they could make too much of it.  I’ll have to disagree with Camden to an extent.  There are in fact reasons to be highly dismissive of the Tea Party goers.  Nor do you have to be a Democrat to do so.  Consider two letters found in the same paper same day:  Kathy Swehla of Spokane, Washington extolls the virtues of paying taxes.  Taxes, she loves them.  In fact she knows what she is getting for paying her taxes instead of protesting them.  She gets a variety of services that must surely include the city parks she walks in, the police in the event she became a victim, a fire dept if her house caught on fire, a National Guard to help during a time of emergencies and natural disasters, the roads and bridges she uses.  The list of things she loves paying taxes for can be considered long indeed.  Which brings to mind the “anti-taxers” among the Tea Party goers, they want all the same services.  Indeed, they wouldn’t mind the gvt handing them something in special interest money.  But, they don’t want to ultimately pay for what they get.  Anti-taxers, the other welfare recipients.  I don’t like to have to pay taxes, nor do I care to have my customers pay sales taxes on the merchandize they buy.  However, like Swehla, I know what I get for the money I send to the Governor and Uncle Sam.

Allan deLaubenfels of Spokane Valley had a decent account of the silliness of the tax protesters.    He saw it in these terms:  “What is mine is mine, what is yours is negotiable.”  Good point.  But to call the innate greed at the base of such protests as being “conservative,” is to render an immorality an aura of legitimacy.  Which lends itself to another argument:  at one time, the GOP called the Dems the party of immorality on the basis of abortion, being “soft on crime,” and other wedge issues.  But tolerance of and for immorality would seem to be a highly bipartisan problem.  The GOP—inclusive of Fox News Channel who wants to cheerlead what amounts to pure greed have a problem confusing a rational fear of what long term debt can do to this nation with the non desire to actually do something about it.  In short, what’s mine is mine, regardless of the consequences to everyone else.  He also goes on to describe the biblical golden rule as a moral code of a people who actually care about one another.  Greed demonstrates that you don’t care about your fellow human beings and greed was very much on display on 15 April 2009.

Rola Krause of Wilbur was certainly legitimately angry at what the Washington state gvt hqed in Olympia demanded yet more and more of from long suffering taxpayers in the state.  I hope that Krause had the occasion for reading Gary Crooks (a member of the Spokesman-Review’s editorial staff) “Smart Bombs.”  Seems Mr. Crooks made note of 68.4 million in taxpayers’ money was spread through what I’ll assume were farming communities.  A Republican member of the legislature by the name of Holmquist had no problem taking money out of Krause’s pockets to pay out special interest money to the counties of Whitman, Lincoln, Adams, Walla Walla and Grant.  Yes, Krause, that’s where a lot of your money went.  And further flies in the face of Senator Crapo who argued on tax protest day that we can’t just spend our way to prosperity.  Apparently, the Washington state farmers believe you can.  Crooks also delivered a deeply cynical coup de grace on Holmquist’s championing the deep dissatisfaction behind the tea party protests, he decries socialism.  But as Crooks pointed out, one man’s socialism becomes another man’s investment.  And Holmquist didn’t mind ignoring questions about socialism when he was investing in the collectivist interests of the state’s farmers.  Apparently, you have to be a Dem before “socialism” can have its intended effect.  It also reminds me of big gvt, of people being totally opposed to it before they want it to personally do something for them.

So what defines a “conservative?”  In the Coeur d’Alene Press is this political cartoon.  Tea party protesters are waving the following signs:  Let the banks fail, Lay off my kid’s teacher, Breadlines not bailouts, Crash baby crash, Where’s my pink slip?, No Medicare for Mom.  The fellow holding the latter sign tells the guy watching utter stupidity in action:  “Our tea party protest demands an alternative to all this government spending!”  No, the signs of actual tea party protests did not say that, but to put it bluntly, the cartoon was spelling out what frothing radicals would actually get if they were successful.

Agreed, in a free market world, the bank, the mortgage lending company and etc. that engaged in practices that were certainly immoral up the anus and ultimately staggered onto the brink of collapse should not be rewarded for fraudulent practices and actually should be allowed to fail.  But as Mr. Crooks pointed out with the Washington state farmers as an example; there is no such thing as a free market world.  The gvt that invests in these various special interests, whether by direct payola to legislation, has intervened one way or another into this “market economy.”  And let’s put it bluntly, once the gvt has invested, why would it necessarily care to see its investment fail?

So, what defines a “conservative?”  I think the answer here is a very simple one:  a conservative doesn’t replace reality with ideology.  Just because there can be a utopianism behind an unfettered market, a limited gvt, taxes that head toward the non-existent, constitutional constraints according to how [I] define them; doesn’t mean that such a fantasy world has any basis in the facts.  Even Holmquist can easily prove that he doesn’t believe in the unfettered marketplace when he called on state gvt to create mandates for farmers when biofuels were all the rage.  Nor did he believe in a limited gvt if he could use it to assist the farmers.  A conservative then does not subscribe to substanceless ideology but rather on the basis of a rational political world view:  If he wants constitutional constraints and a limited gvt, simply don’t ask of gvt to move outside its self-imposed parameters.  If he truly desires self-government, demand nothing of gvt that he can’t do for himself.  If he truly believes in a free market, then he should not send lobbyists to any state gvt or even the federal gvt demanding special favors and legislation paid for in tons of cash.  A conservative should act on principle.  To date, I have seen more frothing radicals operating on emotion and impulse than acting on reason.  And certainly, there is nothing of principle behind their protests.

Kudos to Meyerson

Given the new Obama administration, there have been plenty of Republican cries of “socialism.”  Especially, coming from no less than Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli.  The very idea that gvt must intervene in the economy:  “socialist.”  The very idea that the gvt must begin passing out checks to restart the business of jobs creation:  “socialist.”  The very idea that gvt must bail out home owners:  has to be met with protest rallies, of course.  And pregnant women wearing t-shirts that declare my baby is paying your mortgage.  In short, the so-called “right” being fresh out of compassion for those made newly impoverished, or is there an undergirding fear of their own mortality when it comes to jobs, homes and health care lost and therefore it becomes necessary to scapegoat your neighbor who has already fallen on hard times, and not necessarily of his or her free will.

I watched “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” in full this morning having missed part of it the night before, Jon Stewart had something to say about Rick Santelli beefing on the Chicago trading floor about the general population having to take over toxic loans through their tax dollars.  Of course that is literally true, it would have to happen that way.  But the same taxpayers have to pay to put props under such sinking companies as AIG, Citibank, and etc.  What Mr. Stewart went and did was to look back of old video files of CNBC, Fox and etc. from 2007 and 2008 when the CEOS  were claiming nothing but sunshine and roses for their respective companies, the same respective companies that went belly up.  Such as Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros and etc.  At the same time, news channels such as Fox and CNBC failed to ask these CEOs any kind of hard questions.  He made it plain in the first part of his show that Wall Street wasn’t bothered with taking all that taxpaid for bailout money.  Santelli just had heartburn that those who got burned over subprime mortages shouldn’t get part of the bail out pie.  However, before companies such as Countrywide disappeared into the ether were known to have encouraged home buyers to use their existing property as a credit card.  Just as, so Mr. Stewart noted, people were being told they could invest in companies and literally trust the people who ran them (into the ground, incidentally) with their money, and yes, lost.  Bernie Madoff comes to mind.  Literally, the news media was in the tank for the business world and failed to take note of obviously troubling signs already evident in the real world.  Mr. Stewart would later ask a business columnist for the New York Times all about that…  So, is it “socialist” to see gvt as lending assistance to the common people according to those who once ran the gvt that aided the rich and richer?

Harold Meyerson took a look in the history books to describe what Communists and Socialists were in fact doing back in the 1930s, literally, the destruction of capitalism.  Of gvt that ultimately controlled and nationalized everything.  Which did happen in the then Soviet Union, China and etc.  Just because Obama is pushing money out the door and seeking new regulations to keep businesses fairly stable and profitable, does not mean that he is pushing for a pure nationalization of the private sector, and Meyerson knows this.  Businesses have managed quite well with regs and taxation.  They began to fail when those regs were relaxed or went unenforced.  Just as they would fail when they decided a disconnect could exist between the American consumer and American labor.  When actually, they are one and the same.  In the case of GM, now facing the prospect of financing bankruptcy charges, health care costs for workers was cited as one cause of their losing billions in money.  Even exorbitant pensions.  What wasn’t cited was high oil prices and the better competition from foreign imports.  In short, the American consumer/labor was to blame for the failings at the corporate level.  The failure of decision making to make use of cutting edge technology to produce hybrid cars, perhaps even electric cars and keep them on the road after the late 70s oil shock was over with.  Only in the last few years did American auto companies begin changing over all car design.  But that was long after foreign car makers had already done so.  Behind the curve, and then the latest oil shocks of just 2008 alone and the American consumer suddenly found it impossible to have to decide between a gallon of gas or a gallon of milk and which was more affordable.  Businesses literally started shutting down because of that oil shock, fueled in part by rapacious speculators, and the bad economic news only got worse from there.  No rules, right?  And the global economy started shutting down.  So, lawlessness=capitalism?  And the consequences of lawlessness, well the bankruptcy that already did happen.  But, it took all of 8 years and a new administration before Fox News, Lou Dobbs and etc. could cotton onto it.  Now that the new administration isn’t GOP, of course.

I guess that Meyerson got a little tired of the tirades and so as a confessed Democratic Socialist said what he knew of his particular political persuasion.  That what Obama was doing was simply trying to revitalize capitalism, of course under a new set of rules.  A gvt that begins looking out for the people—as Lou Dobbs once begged it to do—is now assaulting our liberties!!! (Circa 6 March 2009, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart).  What Dobbs was really railing about was new gun laws or bans on sales of guns sold across the border and possibly into the hands of narco terrorists.  And that is an assault on the American right to keep and bear arms?  Uh, excuse me, but why would we arm narco terrorists who are definitely engaging in wholesale slaughter of their own people and mowing down Americans north of the border as well.  Well, why would we?  Wonder if Dobbs ever thought that President Obama might have been paying attention to his 180° terrorcast about narco terrorists and illegal aliens over 2008?  And yes, proceeding to protect American citizens by banning the sale of such weapons.  Suddenly, the NRA is more important than narco terrorists getting their hands on heavy firepower developed in this nation.  Or the protection of the American people along the Mexican border.  You just have to wonder.

Now, Now Bobby Jindal

You actually need to listen to Obama’s speech in order to address it properly.  I can’t really say that Governor Bobby Jindal was very successful about that.  He engaged in a lot of partisan blather in his “Republican response” to Obama’s speech.  Which I figured he would, so I was hitting the channel changer to something more interesting to watch once I finished feeding my dogs.  “Mega Disasters” on History Channel HD looked to be something of interest.  But I still caught the La. Guv’s. comments when he railed about how we couldn’t weaken our defenses.  Neither do we have the money for the money pit of the Star Wars missile shield which happened to have far more disappointing results for the amount of dollars spent on it.  So, let’s be realistic.  (With reference to Charles Krauthammer.)  And massive debt will not make us safer in a world suffering greatly from unstable economies.  President Obama stated clearly that pursuing the terrorists will be an objective, a quite primary objective.  So, I don’t see where he is weakening our defenses or going soft on foreign policy (with reference to Krauthammer).    Oh, that’s right, he will proceed to end those no-bid contracts where private contractors such as Haliburton could waste billions of taxpayers’ dollars in ways not accounted for today.  Right after that, the main HQ was moved to Dubai, one wonders why.

Bartlett was the GOP on board CBS special report on Obama’s address to Congress.  Bartlett for one began describing how any of the President’s plans would put the economy in the crapper.  Uh, excuse me, but I thought the economy already was! Further, that the people would become divided.  Wasn’t that something the GOP once delighted in, division?  Which begs the question,  is this all about the American people or is it in reality the “base,” that Bartlett is appealing to?

Jindal’s response to education was to shove aside the whole idea of a public school system and provide taxpayer dollars to religious institutions for schools as well as privatized charter schools.  Isn’t that nice?  School choice should include people preferring public schools and not just religious or anything that business interests are pushing instead.  But, if you are going to eliminate funding for the former, you don’t really provide school choice.  And you do provide a climate for indoctrination.

What got me highly amused, was that even after Jindal complained about the massive stimulus plan, he still plans on holding his hand out for money out of our collective pockets.  Some, “Republican response.”

If I were president

We all know that President Obama does not have that many years in Washington, D.C. before he developed the ambition to run for that office. So? The last two presidents with absolutely no experience in Washington, D.C.: Bill Clinton and G.W. Bush, developed the ambition to run for the office of the presidency and without a doubt showed what their lack of experience accomplished, in their vetting of cabinet positions, in many of their policy positions, even in how they worked with Congress.  We Americans managed to weather the topsy-turvy Clinton administration just fine.  Even with the Lewinsky as mistress scandal, or despite it, there are people now who look back on his presidency as a far better time than we had in the last 8 years of GW.  With GW, we saw a fellow heading toward his retirement who still acted far too young to fill his elderly father’s shoes in the same office his father held.  But then, Kathleen Parker never described the president many derided as a “chimp” or “shrub” as being immature.  She leaves that for the much younger African-American president, Barack H. Obama.

What if I were president?  A person about a decade older than he is who is not a politician, never ran for office, and wouldn’t have political experience anywhere.  Would I try for a cleaner more ethical administration?  Given the last 8 years most assuredly.  Would I be pitch perfect in bringing people to the cabinet, staff, perhaps even a judgeship who couldn’t be challenged on ethical standards?  Absolutely not.  Would I try to work with the political opposition?  Absolutely.  And if the political opposition were voted into a minority status because my party won; demonstrated a refusal to leave partisanship behind; would I be inclined to say, “I won and you need to get over yourselves,” absolutely.

After all, the GOP can count among their numbers the dude who sang a crude parody of “Puff the Magic Dragon;” titled “Obama the magic negro.”  They wanted for their veep a woman who classified foreign policy experience number 1 as being neighbors with Russia.  They wanted for their president a fellow who couldn’t decide which “straight talk express” he was going to ride on that day throughout the long campaign. Their “base” exhibited pure childish hatred at the very idea that an African-American could ascend to the highest office in the land and more as a Democrat besides.  And since Obama has entered the presidency, the childish hatred of what the GOP “base” presumes are his policies a little more than 3 weeks into his presidency—being “socialist”—have been vented in letters to the editors in local papers.

If I were president, I could definitely expect such slings and arrows from such people.  It would in fact take a strength of will to withstand such petty hatred and make every effort to do the work of the nation.  But, where I, like Obama would have the immediate awareness, maturity, and even wisdom to say that I screwed up when it came to people filling my cabinet or policy decisions made wrongly; I’d find it totally amazing that political columnists such as Kathleen Parker might overlook that and instead nitpick over problems that will inevitably arise in any administration.  And plagued all of GW’s administration throughout his entire 8 years in office.  And by the way, GW rewarded failure.

Senator Judd Gregg made it official that he pulled out of the position of Commerce Secretary solely on the basis of what he didn’t like with the stimulus package.  He didn’t vote, which means he didn’t participate in its final drafting, but he decided to let his partisan colors show over accepting a cabinet position and being a voice for the GOP in the Obama administration.  I would hardly call that a level of maturity.  And a GOP who engage in childish rants that Gregg was “selling out” if he did accept such a position, my argument becomes, I don’t see you as a party relevant enough to reclaim governing status any time in the near future.

If I were president at a time when this nation were facing economic turmoil as it does now, my first focus would be on what I could do about it.  I might not choose a stimulus plan where this nation already suffers a massive debt, but I could insist on laws passed to bring American based businesses home and rehire an American workforce.  To create incentives for new cutting edge technologies.  Any spending package would be to repair critical infrastructure such as roads and bridges.  As a Republican, I would attempt to rebuild a military weakened greatly by fighting two wars.  Education?  Health care?  In better times I’d prefer to leave that to the states.  But, a presidency in tough times such as we now have, I might just agree with Democrats in Congress that some funding would be required.  Funding to the states had been done before, even GOP governors and mayors are absolutely supportive of getting federal dollars.  But how much?  And what would it take to begin refilling the U.S. Treasury?  Can I begin a presidency where the GOP mantra of tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts all the time would become just as burdensome to the next generation as Obama’s spending package assures today?  Or would I have to argue—at the risk of being called a “socialist”—that until this country is no longer a debtor nation, tax cuts are something we can’t afford?

Obama has been president for all of three weeks, he does face some rough bumps in the road and is assured to face many more.  That is to be expected.  But as Obama himself said, he must be judged on results.  Anyone who’d stand in front of people and risk their disaproval is far more mature than his predecessor.  Who’s comfort zone was such that he couldn’t stomache disaproval of any sort.  Parker is wrong.