"In Praise of Extremism"

Frank Rich (former New York Times columnist and now writing for New York magazine online) has a thought-provoking article, "In Praise of Extremism,"

http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/bipartisanship-2011-10/index3.html

in which he says, essentially, that it's time to give up on the conciliatory approach in the face of Republican intransigence.

Obama can’t change his DNA. He is by definition a conciliatory man of the middle: as a black man raised in white America, as a mediator among warring political factions at The Harvard Law Review, as a community organizer, as a child of divorce. But sometimes blacks and whites, liberals and conservatives, and moms and dads cannot reconcile their differences. Sometimes the negotiations and compromises that are the crux of politics are nonoperative. This is one of those times. The other side has no interest in striking grand bargains or even small ones. It wants not so much to reform government, a worthy goal, as to auction off its parts and distribute the proceeds to its corporate backers.

Unlike many liberal and progressive critics of Obama, however, Rich does not place all the blame on Obama's conciliatory nature. He writes also of "the Washington club" of "independent" pundits and political advisers who continue to urge bipartisanship. But the quest for bipartisanship is proving to be a fool's errand -- and it is that pursuit, not the ideological debate, that is paralyzing the country, according to Rich.

It’s not “stale ideological debates that have paralyzed this country,” but the intransigence of the tea party and the Republican leadership it has cowed. And so, with no legislation possible and no economic miracles in store, Obama’s presidency has shrunk to the bully pulpit. His best hope is to use that pulpit, with all the muscle, talent, and energy at his command, to ferociously define and defend the American values under siege by the revolutionaries at the capital’s gates. That doesn’t mean more eloquent speeches from Washington. It means relentless barnstorming night and day. It means at long last embracing a big-picture narrative. It means going on the road and out-Trumaning Truman in drawing clear lines of battle with either the Dewey or Goldwater who emerges. It means—and this, thankfully, is another part of Obama’s DNA—playing to win.

Let's hope the passionate, at times fiery, Obama that we're seeing now is the beginning of just that -- playing, seriously, to win.

Unfortunately, it also means that not much helpful legislation is likely to get passed during the coming campaign year, which means the economy may very well look worse, with no decrease in joblessness -- and that raises the bar even higher for Obama's re-election bid.

Ralph

Class war #2

Paul Krugman's New York Times column today backs up Elizabeth Warren's rebuttal to the Republican charges of Obama's plan to increase taxes on the wealthy as "class warfare."

From 1979 to 2005, the last stats available from the Congressional Budget Office, inflation-adjusted family incomes in the middle income group rose 21%. For 26 years, that's not quite 1% a year. For the same period, income of the top group rose 480%, from $4.2 million to $24.3 million. Do the math: that's 18.4% per year.

Do they look like victims of class warfare? Krugman asks.

So what are the real class warfare tactics that have gone on during this period that have tilted the income shift toward the wealthy? Attacks on organized labor and collective bargaining for wages, plus deregulation of financial institutions and corporations. And most important, taxes on capital gains and estates have been slashed, while payroll taxes have gone up.

This is what creates what Warren Buffet has made such an issue over: he pays a lower rate of taxes than his secretary. One-fourth of those with incomes over $1 million a year pay a total tax rate (income plus payroll) of 12.6 % -- which is lower than many in the middle class.

So what planet do Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor live on? They rightly claim that the wealthy are paying more taxes now than they did and a larger portion of the total tax revenue. That's true.

But here's why: these wealthy people are making a lot more money than they did before -- and a larger share of the income pie, with 480% increase. Of course, they owe more taxes.

We are in an era of the cherry-picked sound bites without any explanation of the larger picture. And Republicans have perfected the art of selling misleading information and inducing their constituents to vote against their own best interests. Now they've got all these middle-class Tea Party zealots drooling to install a Republican president and Congress -- who will deregulate corporations and banks and cut taxes to benefit the rich and further hurt the middle class.

Is that what they want? Do they have an inkling of the results? More of the same that got us into this financial crisis.

Bah, humbug. A plague upon them.

Ralph

Fox News/Google GOP Debate

Last week's CNN/Tea Party sponsored GOP debate was barf-inducing because of the audience's blood-thirsty reactions ("Yeah" shouted out to "Should we just let someone without health insurance die?" And cheering for Gov. Perry's record of having presided over 234 executions.).

Last night's Fox News/Google GOP sponsored debate had its moment too, when some in the audience lustily booed a questioner: a gay soldier speaking from Iraq and asking about DADT, which ended two days before. Prior to that, they could not have shown his face or used his name; but last night they did both. AND this Fox News audience booed.

Rick Santorum, who was asked the question, has a problem with homosexuality. It makes him crazy. His infamous remark from years back when DADT was being debated in Congress still follows him -- he said that accepting homosexuality would lead to having to accept "man on dog sex." Last night he added fuel to the fire.

1. He said allowing gay soldiers to be open about who they are "is a special privilege." Yeah, a special privilege that everyone else has had all along -- the freedom to talk about their partners or to display pictures of the celebrity girl they desire. It was ok to have "cheesecake" pinup photos in your locker; but not "beefcake" photos. That could get you beat up, or discharged. So, yeah, special privilege, indeed.

News Flash to Rick Santorum: Being allowed to behave just like everybody else is not a special privilege.

2. He said removing DADT is trying to inject social policy into the military. And just what, please, was DADT itself, if not a policy controlling the social life of gay military people? Isn't that a "social policy?" A repressive, discriminatory social policy? So now we have an inclusive, non-discriminatory policy. You have a problem with non-discrimination, Rick?

3. He said what we're doing now is "social experimentation." For many years now, dozens of other nations have allowed gay men and women to serve openly in the military with zero problems of any significance. The "experiment" has been done, and the answer is clear.

4. He said that as President he would re-institute DADT. Rick's staff needs to sit him down and explain to him that (1) the courts have said it is unconstitutional; and (2) Congress actually voted to repeal it, and President Obama signed it into law. "President" Santorum cannot simply reinstitute it.

5. He wants to go back to when "sex was not an issue" in the military. Please tell us, Mr. Homophobe: When was that? You have it exactly backward. Repealing DADT is supposed to make sex not be an issue. No longer blackmail. No longer a conflict between being yourself and risking you whole career. Rick wants it to be out of sight, so it can be out of his mind.

Santorum's problem is that he is so uncomfortable with the idea of two men having sex that he just wants it to go away, don't make him think about it. He wants the whole military to deny that it exists. To deny that gay people exist, period; not just the sex part. Because to him, it's only about sex. Not about who these individuals are as people, not about authentic identity and freedom to be who you are. It's all just (snicker, snicker) about two men 'doing it,' and he can't get it out of his mind. It's so tantalizing . . . . er, I mean, disgusting. It even makes him think about "man on dog sex."

Please, folks. Let's re-institute a social policy affecting millions so Rick Santorum isn't tormented by sexual thoughts that make him anxious.

Such is the immaturity and twisted mind of a candidate for President of the United States. And then there were those in the audience who booed a gay, active-duty soldier speaking from Iraq.

This is a sick sick party.

Ralph

Elizabeth Warren for President 2016

Now, finally we have a Democrat in the tradition of Bobby and Ted Kennedy -- running to reclaim the "Kennedy seat" in the Senate. I don't mean their background of wealth and privilege but their ability to articulate a passion for egalitarian policies. In fact, I am so impressed with Elizabeth Warren -- and have been ever since I saw her on a Sunday morning talk show a couple of years ago -- that I am ready to support her for President in 2016.

Here's what she said, in response to the lame accusation from John Boehner that President Obama is "engaging in class warfare" by wanting the wealthy to pay more taxes:

“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever,’” Warren said.

“No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

“Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

BRAVA !~!~!~ BRAVA !~!~!~! She has my vote.

Ralph

Blood thirst #2

The State of Georgia's process of executing Troy Davis was scheduled to begin tonight at 7:00 pm. Apparently the State made a last minute, temporary stay while the U. S. Supreme Court deliberates an appeal to stay the execution.

As of this writing (10:00pm) there is no word from SCOTUS, and some say this is an unusually long time for them to deliberate. They have already ordered a delay in two executions in Texas this week. A Georgia prison official clarified what is happening: "We are in a delay, waiting for a decision from the US Supreme Court. There has not been a reprieve." The execution could still be carried out tonight, or any time through September 28 without a new execution order.

Davis' case has drawn world-wide condemnation and protest rallies. Pope Benedict, Jimmy Carter, Amnesty International all have made pleas. Tonight, in Paris and Rome, as well as all over the U.S., and particularly at the prison in Jackson, and at the state capitol in Atlanta, crowds have gathered, holding signs: "NOT IN MY NAME."

This case is especially poignant right now. Although the crime happened 20 years ago, the execution is scheduled a couple of weeks after a case in New Jersey has brought forth scientific evidence on the unreliability of eye-witness reports. And this case hinges primarily on eye witnesses identifying him as the man who shot the police officer. Seven of the nine eye witnesses have since recanted, amid accusations of police coercion and conflicting reports of a confession from the real killer, in fact the man who first said Davis did it.

The only "hard" evidence in the case that I have read about is that the shell casings from the bullets in this case match ones from a shooting in a case in which Troy Davis had previously been convicted of armed robbery. But the gun was never found. And there is no hard proof that he fired it in this case.

New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristoff put it most succinctly on his blog, after it was known that the Supreme Court was deliberating the case and had been for some time:

"When smart people debate whether or not a man should be executed, that's a good reason not to execute him."

As I have written before, any execution to me is state-sanctioned murder. It should be abolished. This is not meant to be unsympathetic toward victims, or their families; it is not meant to be condoning crime. It is unrelated to the severity of the crime. It is a principled opposition to the State, ACTING IN MY NAME AS A CITIZEN, deciding in the cold light of reason and responsibility that another human being should be put to death, when s/he is no immediate threat to others.

I do not know whether Davis is guilty. But the evidence seems too flimsy, the doubts too large. An innocent man may be put to death.

Ralph

Cautious optimism returns

I feel a slow gathering of positive signs in the political situation. Obama has drawn a line in the sand about raising taxes on the wealthy. He is taking a different tack now, at least it seems that he's through letting the Republicans control the message. He's not only standing firm, he's going aggressive -- beginning to turn the tables on them.

Eric Cantor is making noises about another showdown and possible government shutdown over passing legislation to cover disaster aid for the recent hurricane damage -- saying it has to be offset by cuts, and he's targeting the energy budget -- as if tweaking the Dems and daring them to fight back.

They will. Obama will. This is a win for the Dems. The Repubs want to deny disaster aid to hurricane victims as a political gambit?

Another sign: Last week Elizabeth Warren announced her campaign for Senator to oppose Scott Brown in MA. And already she has surged in polls, pulling even with him in a very short time.

Perhaps I am also a bit swayed toward optimism by the final end today of DADT, as well as the CA appeals court judge deciding yesterday that video tapes of the Prop8 trial can be made public. So now Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow can play clips of testimony and show the world what idiots and what a pathetic lack of any evidence the anti-gay forces brought to such a momentous case.

And then Bill Clinton pulled no punches at the opening meeting of his Climate Initiative annual meeting today. Saying that the GOP presidential candidates' denial of climate warming science ". . . makes us look like a joke, right? You can’t win the nomination of one of the major parties in the country if you admit that the scientists are right?" Then he named names: Only Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney have not flatly denied the validity of the science.

But here's the latest today: Republican Lamar Alexander (R-TN) who has been #3 in the GOP Senate leadership is stepping down from that position in order, he says very plainly, to be more independent and able to work with Democrats on some issues to get legislation passed.

He was careful not to disparage his colleagues, but the message between the lines is clear. He's fed up and ready to try to make the Senate work again.

It's still rough going, and ignorance reigns in the GOP; but the Dems seem to be waking up.

Ralph

The blood-thirsty right

I commented in my rant about the Tea Party Republican debate about the audience's thirst for blood revenge in their applauding Rick Perry for presiding over 234 executions as governor and boasting about not losing sleep over the possibility that an innocent man might be killed by the state.

Now, here in Georgia, we are about to do just that, quite possibly. And our own Board of Pardons and Paroles has rejected the latest plea for clemency for Troy Davis.

This case has attracted world wide attention: Pope Benedict, Jimmy Carter, the NAACP leadership, and Amnesty International, as well as countless citizens and celebrities (600,000 signed a petition) pleaded for not carrying out the death penalty in a case that has so many questions about the man's guilt.

Today, William Sessions, former FBI Director under Reagen, Bush I, and Clinton, wrote an editorial calling for stopping the execution, scheduled for tomorrow, referring to the "pervasive, persistent doubts" because of multiple witness recantations, lack of physical evidence, and allegations of police coercion.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court last year ordered the judge to hold a hearing on the appeal -- but that judge decided that it was not sufficient for serious doubt to be cast on Davis' original guilty verdict; no, instead, Davis had to prove his innocence. And the judge decided that he had not presented proof of innocence. So a new trial was denied.

When did the American justice system change from having to prove guilt to the accused having to prove his innocence? This is a travesty. Even if you support the death penalty -- and I vehemently oppose it in every case, regardless of the guilt and the crime -- this is unconscionable.

The last chance appeal was to the Board of Pardons and Paroles. They have spoken, and their answer is no. Can the governor intervene at this point? I think so, but does Nathan Deal have it in him to go against the thirst for blood and vengeance in his political base?

Ralph