Politics and Press

The interaction of the press and politics; public diplomacy, and daily absurdities.

Jeff

State of Maine Union Blue

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Yesterday’s NY Times reports that Maine governor Paul LePage has determined that a large mural in the state’s Labor Dept. Headquarters has too many depictions of workers – some of whom are – gasp – union workers.  A spokesperson for LePage claimed that the mural reminded him of “communist North Korea where they use these murals to brainwash the masses,” and LePage has ordered the mural removed. Furthermore, the governor referenced anonymous complaints from business leaders that may or may not actually have been made to justify his action on the grounds that the Labor Dept. building needed to represent both employers and employees.

This is of course one more attempt to punish the middle class for the sins of the country’s investment banks, health insurers and outsourcing corporations. LePage is one more example – along with Governor Walker of Wisconsin  – of a small group of new right-wing, tea party-supported politicians intent on using unions as a whipping boy to cover up and shift responsibility for the country’s dire economic situation from the people whose greed is leading America towards becoming a banana republic oligarchy.

Maine’s reputation as a fair-minded, moderate state is at risk and its citizens are looking at a nasty, fruitless three and a half years of bombastic posturing by the man they elected on what must have been a very foggy day.

Mike Huckabee: Ignoramus of the Day

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“I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, [is] very different than the average American…….if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”

Republican presidential candidate, Fox News analyst and former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee  on Steve Malzberg’s right-wing radio talk show.

There are three problems with Huckabee’s comments: 1) Obama was not raised in Kenya; 2) he made them on a national radio talk show; and 3) he has had no comment about them since having it brought to his attention that he was 100% wrong**.

I will add a fourth problem, that he is a likely candidate for President and we really do not need an ignoramus in that position. It would be more than troubling to think of him mistaking Kenya for – oh maybe Hawaii or Indonesia –the two places where Obama actually was raised. What is symptomatic in his comments and most reprehensible is the subtle racism. It is no secret to anyone who follows American politics that the fact that Obama is a black man drives some people nuts. Kind of the way Hillary Clinton’s gender drove them nuts. The fact that people are getting used to hearing this kind of nonsense is not a good sign.

**Huckabee’s spokesman Hogan Gidley did comment::“Governor Huckabee simply misspoke when he alluded to President Obama growing up in ‘Kenya.’ The Governor meant to say the President grew up in Indonesia.” Which does not explain how or why he then segued to discussing how Obama must have thought of the Mau Maus.

Unions, Politics and the Press

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Oligarchy: a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.

The moves by Republican governors to eliminate collective bargaining rights by public employee unions represent an attack on what had become a basic human right and goes far beyond any attempt to address states’ deficits. Issues related to costs of pensions and health insurance have been successfully addressed by some cities and states via negotiations; the new strategy of simply eliminating unions’ bargaining rights is a callous affront to the public employees who teach our  children, patrol our streets, fight our fires, treat the mentally ill, etc. The fact that corporate America is running away from providing health insurance and pensions does not make it right.

America’s financial elites managed to take the country to  the  edge of the abyss and then feathered their nests with taxpayer bailouts to save the country from the results of their near criminal behavior.  Add to that the idiocy of choosing an unnecessary war that will cost the country upwards of $3 trillion (according to Nobel prize economist Joseph Stiglitz) and we have the need to find a scapegoat. Could it be that it is the thieves and cheats of corporate America? the “too big to fail” investment banks? the bailed out auto executives? the hedge fund manipulators? the mortgage crooks? No. It is determined in Wisconsin and Indiana and New Jersey and throughout the country that it is the teachers, the school custodians, the librarians, the police and  firefighters, the mental health workers, the hospital scrubbers, the prison guards, the snow plowers, the bus drivers, etc.   They are the unionized public workers with living wages, health care benefits and pensions. They are the ones to punish for having gained those benefits in honest, open negotiations.  Welcome to the new America – the country run increasingly by big money, Ayn Rand greed and – alas – a major dose of ignorance fostered by a weak or complicit press, a  simple-minded tea party and a fully aware, manipulative Republican party leadership.

And just where is the press in all of this? In an apparent intent to present divergent views, it too frequently ends up a tool for information manipulators, promulgating, for instance, the big lie of the Wisconsin governor that unions are responsible for the deficit and that they have some mysterious power to bring the state to its knees. The fact that the Wisconsin unions have offered to make the concessions asked for by the governor has gotten lost in the lack of honest coverage of the governor’s plan to cripple unions as a reward to his corporate sponsors.

Whether workers are entitled to paid vacations, health insurance, retirement pay, paid sick leave etc. are issues of concern to all workers – unionized or not – but having the right to negotiate for those benefits is a human right that needs to be defended.

American House: How Low Can It Go?

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When Americans went to the polls last November did the majority really vote for a decline in their quality of life? It would seem so as we see what their elected representatives in the House are choosing to eliminate or reduce. The initial attack in the House of Representatives targets virtually every nominally progressive program subject to discretionary funding. It attacks support for health programs, environmental programs (many also related to the health of Americans), arts and humanities programs, nutrition programs for pregnant women and infants, food supply regulation, student loan programs, clean water programs, public radio and tv and etc. etc. etc. The list goes on and will most likely enter many peoples’ consciousness only when they get a dose of salmonella, or have to drop out of college, or develop asthma, or have to rely on Fox and CNN for their TV news and analysis.

This opening shot is a sample of what seems likely to come. The scorched earth Republicans and Tea Partiers are intent on finishing the job – started during the Reagan years – of increasing income inequality in America, and reducing opportunities for those at the low end of the income ladder to climb out of lives characterized by inadequate educational opportunities for their children, over-priced and inadequate healthcare, and a public life devoid of art and culture.

The driving abstraction for these efforts is the “deficit”, and the Democrats (including President Obama) have joined with much of the national media and press in allowing the Republicans to determine that as the field of battle.  While many Republicans are not actually serious about reducing the deficit (witness their unwillingness to eliminate the Bush tax reduction for the richest 5% of Americans) they are dead serious about eliminating or seriously damaging virtually any program intended to improve the quality of life for all Americans.  The current budget reductions are a spit in the ocean of the deficit but even so those reductions will retard the economic recovery thus reducing tax revenue further and thus adding to the deficit. So be it for rational thought from this crew.

Lost in all the Republicans’ blather is the reality that the deficit grew enormously under Bush due to the bizarre choice of war in Iraq, the Bush tax reductions, and the costly Bush prescription drug program, which turned out to be a gift to the drug companies. So we face a future of declining quality of life while the people who created much of the deficit AND the people who destroyed a healthy economy through near criminal mortgage and hedge fund frauds continue to work their black magic.

Big Brother And the Ants

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The new congress has been installed and the loonies are officially in power. There will be plenty of opportunities to laugh with Jon Stewart and weep with John Boehner over the next two years – but fact is we are continuing on a headlong trip to Bananarepublistan.

One early warning came two weeks ago when Boehner and (Eric) Cantor (no they are not lawyers or tailors, but rather the GOP House leaders), spokespeople for less government intrusion in our lives, decided that they could and should determine what we could and could not view in our nation’s publicly-supported museums. Seems that the Museum of American Art – part of the Smithsonian – installed an exhibit of art produced by gay and lesbian artists who included an eleven SECOND segment of a video of ants crawling over a crucifix. Cantor, A Jew, in a burst of ecumenism, denounced it as a sacrilege and Boehner became Big Brother incarnate and ordered it removed or risk reduced funding. The Smithsonian, in an act of classic bureaucratic cowardice, removed the offending video, the curator   resigned on principle, the video got picked up and played around the clock by museums around the country, including Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art and the nation’s troglodytes felt a measure of power over liberal, elite museum goers.  The irony of small government Republicans telling us what we can and cannot view is lost on the fools who are leading us to Bananarepublistan; they want to control us in every way possible while starving us of any benefits.  We are in for it in more ways than most of us realize.

None of this should surprise us – the guardians of our culture are always out there to protect us from our own desires, wishes and tastes. Who better to protect us from our own taste than an emotionally unstable hick from Ohio who responds to the dictates of the nutty ramblings of William Doherty of the Catholic League who initiated the complaint? Doherty is an overpaid loudmouth who reveres Mel Gibson’s homoerotic, anti-Semitic Passion of Christ movie while freaking out over 11 seconds of ants crawling over a crucifix. We can also remember Attorney General Ashcroft placing a drape over Liberty’s breast.

In a small but telling event during this same period, the elementary schools in Rockport Massachusetts refused an offer of free copies of an award-winning children’s book for each child because the book referred to a donkey who did not like books as a “jackass”. Recognizing that we must protect the young from evil – a jackass is a jackass, whether a donkey of a superintendent of schools, and there is no way around it.  Reminded me of a day on the beach at Rockport with one of the Mackenzie Brothers and his 12 month old daughter who was romping on the beach with – alas- no bathing attire. The Rockport police arrived in full police regalia and ordered immediate covering of the child. Mackenzie (not sure which one it was) had recently returned from Munich where people of all ages were free to take clothes off so had a bit of a fit.

Big Brother is  here to protect us from our base desires and tastes, and someone actually voted him in.

The North Korea Conundrum

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We have it. The smoking gun. The evidence. The potential weapon of mass destruction we have been looking for as our pretext of invading Iraq. There’s just one problem – it’s in North Korea. –Jon Stewart

American media and politicians too often seem to share a commitment to forget some of the past and skip some of the possible consequences of policies when discussing an issue as serious and difficult as North Korea.  And the fact that the N. Korea issue is almost always described in narrow American terms adds to the difficulty of building support for addressing North Korea in any way but the tried and failed ways of the past.

For years America has been waiting for the N. Korean regime to collapse but it hangs on, starving its people, harassing its neighbors to the South and currying favor with nations like Iran seeking their weapons technology.  And while sanctions have done some damage they have not to date influenced significant positive change and there is no evidence that more sanctions will do much more. The six-party talks, with six countries holding six separate sets of interests, are similarly unlikely to produce positive change.

In this environment analysts on the right view attempts at diplomacy as “rewarding” N. Korea’s bad behavior and seriously discuss military options available to the U.S. While these options vary from analyst to analyst they all downplay the risk to the ten million inhabitants of Seoul. It is not comforting to read some of these analyses when a common thread is that as long as the risk is mostly to millions of South Koreans and only 15000 or so Americans military adventure is worth considering. 22 million S. Koreans live within 40 miles of Seoul, which is 35 miles from the N. Korean border.  N. Korea has over 500 long-range artillery tubes along the border and an army of over a million. The devastation of a military action would be incalculable. The fact that some would seriously consider initiating military action after our costly, deadly and largely counter-productive Iraq fiasco is bizarre, but scary.

The history of U.S. – N. Korean engagement does not provide much hope for the future. Agreements have emerged from time to time only to be broken by the North Koreans and/or treated to a kind of passive aggressive approach by the U.S.  KEDO, (The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) was the last such major effort and it failed largely because the N. Koreans reneged on their part of the agreement. At the same time, the U.S.‘s commitment was less then total, largely due to a lack of trust and the influence of domestic politics in the U.S. which led to KEDO becoming a kind of orphan in American foreign policy.

The diplomatic option is a very tough pill to swallow. The N. Koreans have behaved outrageously and it is difficult – perhaps not possible – for Americans to accept that as difficult as it is, it may remain the United States’ best possibility to influence the regime. Those who would force the issue towards military action risk a far worse mistake than even the Iraq War. Former CIA official, National Security Advisor to Vice President George H.W. Bush, and U.S. ambassador to South Korea from 1989 to 1993 Donald Gregg in the Washington Post in 2006 summed up a realistic view of U.S. diplomatic attention as a “reward”:

“Why won’t the Bush administration talk bilaterally and substantively with [North Korea], as the Brits (and eventually the US) did with Libya? Because the Bush administration sees diplomacy as something to be engaged in with another country as a reward for that country’s good behavior. They seem not to see diplomacy as a tool to be used with antagonistic countries or parties, that might bring about an improvement in the behavior of such entities, and a resolution to the issues that trouble us. Thus we do not talk to Iran, Syria, Hizballah or North Korea. We only talk to our friends — a huge mistake.”

Gregg’s words provide a sensible backdrop as the Obama administration continues to wrestle with its choices in dealing with a rogue nation. Attack or talk?

IRAQ: Dreams vs. Realities

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In Iraq, brief triumph subsided through criminal incompetence into fractured mayhem, leaving more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead and concluding in the fluid uncertainty of sporadic violence and democratic deadlock. No intellectual contortion – even with important stirrings of political give-and-take in Iraq – can ever inscribe Operation Iraqi Freedom in the annals of U.S. victories. — Roger Cohen, NY TIMES, 9/2/10

Cohen says what most media analysts avoid saying as they celebrate a self defined   “success” in Iraq. The war began on a lie, proceeded to kill at least 100,000 Iraqis and some 4000 American soldiers, spent and committed over $3 trillion, in American tax payers’ money, enhanced Iran’s influence in the region, left over 35,000 American soldiers seriously wounded, tarnished America’s reputation, debased our politics and exposed the American media as gung-ho cheerleaders for a war we chose to start on non-existent evidence of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein.

Much of the analysis has focused on the “success” of the surge. While the surge contributed to controlling the security needs, most reporting – as compared to op ed analysts – noted the more significant contribution made by buying the Sunnis’ support by paying the “Sons of Iraq”, the Sunni militia that turned against al-Queda in Iraq in 2006.  Unfortunately, as Uthman al-Mukhtar reports in the Eurasia Review, “…pro-government Sunni militias have accused Iraq’s national leaders of leaving them in poverty and vulnerable to violence. The warnings come as al-Qaeda employs a mix of intimidation and enticement to lure Sunni fighters to joint the insurgents.” Having played a major role in bailing out the failed U.S. effort in Iraq they are now left to their own devices to deal with a political stalemate that has proven to be unable to even form an operating government and that has left the Sunnis out of the functioning economy.

Sunday’s Washington Post carried an op ed by Nobel Prize economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, and his co-author and researcher Linda J. Bilmes, that updates his earlier estimates of the true cost of the war to America. Their piece – “The True Cost of the Iraq War: $3 Trillion and Beyond” -  is depressing but essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the true costs of the Iraq adventure.

But the major issue that seems never to really get addressed is: Was it worth it? Or put another way, was it in our national interest to spend that much money and human resource on a war that has given us an Iraq that is almost totally dysfunctional, an Iran with more influence in Iraq than before the war, an Afghanistan too long neglected and now significantly controlled by the Taliban, an American deficit that eliminates the political possibility of stimulating the economy further, 100,000 Iraqi dead, some 4 million Iraqi refugees, the disillusionment of many of our allies, and a war that continues even as we partially depart. We got rid of Saddam and his sons and gave ourselves a pat on the back. But was it really worth it?

Lies, Leaks and the Press

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The press has moved on from its lamentable performance in the Shirley Sherrod – Andrew Breitbart fiasco in which much of the TV, radio and print press helped get an innocent black woman fired by jumping to believe and promote a heavily-edited video from a thoroughly discredited scumbag posing as a real journalist.  After a certain amount of “omigod we should have checked our facts” breast beating, general opinion moved to blaming the NAACP and the Obama administration for believing what they had helped promote. Go figure.

But now, with the leak of some 90,000 documents describing the United States’ lack of success in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s double-crossing behavior in Afghanistan, the press has something to sink its teeth into. But are they chewing on the vagaries of our Afghanistan policy and its apparent failure? Well, their first issue is whether the information should be leaked. Used to be that we counted on the press to tell us what was going on and whether it was working in our favor; now the issue is whether essential state secrets might have slipped through the government’s net of secrecy. But much of what was leaked simply reinforces already existing knowledge with no clear evidence of anyone publishing anything that damages national security. What are damaged are the reputations of those who have planned and implemented and voted for a losing war effort.

The press itself was guilty in the past of passing on secrets leaked by self-serving members of the government – e.g. Valerie Plame’s identity as a high level spy, or the totally discredited “intelligence” claiming Iraq was purchasing large quantities of uranium from Africa. These were pure and simple political leaks used to foment political and public opinion to start a war that we now know was unnecessary, unaffordable, wasteful and – in the end – damaging to America’s interests. But the current leaks are not supportive of another war and the issue has become whether the press should report on legitimate, authenticated documents describing the ugly realities of what looks increasingly like a lost cause war. As in, why should the American people be trusted to deal intelligently with the truth when we (the press) can help the nation by hiding the truth and promoting a fantasy?

Early in John Kennedy’s presidency, the New York Times learned of the upcoming Bay of Pigs invasion being organized by the CIA. Times editor Scotty Reston refused to publish it, believing to do so would be against the national interest. We know how that all worked out and that Kennedy and the nation would have been better served with publication of the story perhaps leading to an avoided disaster. The great Times reporter Tom Wicker believed at the time that the Times should have published the story and were he alive today he would be proud of the Times’ reporting on the latest “leak”.

Robert Byrd, RIP

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“If I wanted to go crazy, I’d do it in Washington, where they wouldn’t know the difference.” Senator Robert Byrd

Robert Byrd was a man of considerable contradictions. A former member of the Ku Klux Klan, he voted against major Civil Rights legislation in the 60s and voted against confirmation of Thurgood Marshall for the Supreme Court. But later he became a prime fighter against the Republicans’ farce of the day – its “Contract with America”.  He collected billions in “pork’ for his state of West Virginia and   remained a social conservative for much of his tenure.

But this writer’s only personal memory of Senator Byrd is more than enough for him to have earned my enormous respect. During the Democratic Convention held in Boston in 2004 Byrd spoke at the First Parish Church in Cambridge and riveted the crowd with a powerful speech in opposition to Bush’s rush to war in Iraq. His principled opposition failed to carry the day but for at least one hour we had the opportunity to hear a man of conscience deplore an already planned war that would lead to hundreds of thousands of American and (mostly) Iraqi deaths, millions of Iraqis forced from their homes, and actual and committed costs to America of up to $3 trillion, all leading to a semi-free Iraq closely aligned with Iran.

America’s rush to an unnecessary war has left us militarily and economically weaker  with our national reputation sullied. Byrd predicted this and spoke forcefully in opposition to the war, no doubt aware that his was a lost cause. One excerpt from his speech that day catches the full flavor of his remarks that turned out to be, alas, prophetic:

“The foundations of our government have suffered. The liberties enshrined in the  constitution of the United States have  now  been designed by a presidency that is bent on a ruthless pursuit of power. A President that sees himself above the law … a presidency that relies on secrecy and manipulation in order to advance its own partisan agenda. It is the Constitution of the United States that has been undermined, undercut, and is under attack. It is the American people’s liberties that are in jeopardy.”

School Daze: America Commits to Dumbing-Down

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Facing budget deficits with little or no hope that the federal government can bail them out (nowadays bail outs with public money are reserved for private corporations like Goldman Sachs, AIG, etc.) cities, towns and states are faced with a Hobson’s choice; raise taxes or reduce services. And in almost all cases the people opt for the latter.

Concord Massachusetts recently decided to turn off street lights in certain parts of town unless the nearby homeowners would pay a special fee of $17 a month per light. By calling it a fee they obviously avoid the “T” word.  Boston has eliminated 58 library staff positions and proposes closing several branches, and a town in California is now charging a fee for ambulance service  – to be paid in advance as a hedge against needing it later.

But America’s schools are taking the biggest hit and cities and towns are coming up with strategies that range from bizarre to simply inexcusable. Many schools are dropping “less important” courses like art, civics, physical education, foreign languages and music. Others are charging fees for what used to be important services – school buses, sports programs, school clubs – even books! In Utah the possibility of simply eliminating the 12th grade has surfaced for consideration. Other areas are moving from a five day to a four day week. But the typical approach is to simply reduce the number of teachers, consequently increasing classroom size and reducing teachers’ ability to provide the kind of one on one instruction that can make the difference between success and failure.

In some areas citizens are raising funds outside the tax structure to provide additional support to their children’s schools; increasing the disparity among schools in different socio-economic districts, and excusing citizens from a basic responsibility to support the education of  our future  citizens. It is clear to many that in short-changing our children we are contributing to a serious decline in America’s ability to compete in the global economy and to move toward a higher quality of life. We will reap what we sow and at present it looks like a lot of weeds in our future.