Doc Apple's Corner

Robin Hood 2010 Review part 1

I saw the movie on opening day in Michigan.  It has been something of a hobby of mine since I was a boy.  I am now 62 and a retired professor.  I dearly wanted to like this movie as I was so very disappointed with Costner's treatment of, well, Costner as Robin.  Because of this desire, I consider myself a fairly strict critic.  As such, I can say that I loved the movie.  I would give it a 9 out of 10 and perhaps later, something more. This movie shows us an entirely new Robin, one who could easily have lived, served his King and his country, and then been punished by a jealous and vindictive ruler such as John.  The movie offers a very different approach to a legend that has changed many, many times over the 700 years or so since we know of its creation.  The film retains the most central characters and gives them new life, free from their cliched prisons.  Is Robin dour, heavy, very serious?  Please.  The kingdom has been robbed of its treasure in the name of fighting foreign wars (something not unknown in our time) and is left without a generation of men.  Robin is an honest and courageous man at the word of none other than Richard himself.  His integrity we later trace back to a rich source and it is validated by both Walter Loxley and William Marshall. We see this Robin do a bit of forest shenanigans over a shipment of seed, but most of the movie is spent showing him fit into his future place in the kingdom and of his pivotal role in fighting a traitor and helping to defeat an invasion and introduce a bill of rights that was to become known as the Magna Carta. The battle scenes are magnificent, the costumes on a scale with any other of the great medieval epics, the sets amazing, the plot credible (more than in most Robin Hood movies), and the central characters are rich, fully developed, and fully alive. Robin Hood is, at its heart, a story of hope, of better days ahead, of making a difference, of coming in and saving someone and/or something, of sacrificing self for a greater good.  Crowe’s Robin does all of these things.  He leads a cavalry charge in time to save the village that is the home of his new love, Marion.  In so doing, he saves this village from a fate such as those inflicted as for example on Soissons in 1414.  He prevents innocent villagers from being trapped in a village building and burned alive. Robin is thus a man of integrity, courage, loyalty, self-sacrifice, vision, and skill in battle.  The characters and actors are wonderful.  The sets are amazing and the action is convincing and compelling.  It is also done so in such an effective manner without bathing the viewer in an ocean of blood and gore.  If all of this does not make for an exciting and satisfying movie, then none such movie exists.

How to Shut Down the Idiotic, Lunatic Fringe

Last week, I sent a link to a Salon.com article about Rep. Alan Grayson (D, Fla) and his "rock-em, sock'em" speech on the House Floor that characterized the GOP "Plan" as "don't get sick and if you do, die quickly." (See

http://www.salon.co m/politics/war_room/feature/2009/10/02/grayson/?source=refresh)

One of my friends encountered a co-worker on a flight to Italy who was channeling the radical right wing and its lack of information and preference for yelling over genuine debate and discussion. Here is Linda's story.

Thanks for the article. I'm considering making a copy and giving it to the nincompoop, I worked with a few weeks ago. During a lovely meal in Rome surrounded by centuries of beauty and history, this flight attendant wanted to argue about Obama's health care plan. She began the conversation with an "attitude" and went on and on about what the "plan" wouldn't do. There was six of us. Everyone at the table went quite as this person expounded on and on. Finally, unable to take it any more. I asked, "Have you read the plan?" She got louder and continued to argue about what she and her family won't get with Obama's plan. I asked again, "Have you read the plan?" I really wanted to know her source for all the "misinformation" and curious to know, from where the anger was coming. She went right on shouting. Finally, a sweet elderly Italian couple, stopped by our table, the gentleman bent over and embraced me, the woman placed her hand on my shoulder. In the calmest, clearest voice, flavored with a thick Italian accent, the man said to me, "Enjoy your meal and the scenery, my Dear, you're wasting your time on that idiot." True story.

.

Star Trek Zero -- a Big Zero for Star Trek

SPOILER ALERT:  I am going to reveal stuff about this movie as I feel it is necessary in order to properly describe just what an awful movie this really is.

All I can say is that the critics must have seen a different movie than the one that we saw tonight. This movie has effectively rewritten all of the history of the first series and the second series in so many ways that it is weird even trying to list them. First, WHAT is this entire bullshit love affair with Uhura!!!! Second, no planet Vulcan!!!! Third, there is the pesky problem of two Spocks, including one who knows the next 100 years history thus changing the time line completely. Then, what happened to the Enterprise that we knew on the inside? Now, Spock has no mother? Who was that woman on the series? His father now confesses to loving her after saying that marrying her seemed logical at the time. And his father also confesses to being proud of him. This kind of throws the wrench into those episodes from ST and STNG where just the opposite happens. There are other things that were annoying such as a comic relief and just plain goofy Scotty, the slapstick schtick misadventures of Kirk along the way—tongue, hands swelling, etc. Okay, and Chekov.

I now understand that they are “rebooting” the series (complete with some real booty for Spock), but apparently they are even throwing out all of the old detail such as the appropriate ages of the characters.  Kirk did not originally achieve the status of captain of the starship Enterprise until around the age of 30.  Now he is about 21 and instead of being a seasoned and mature officer, he is a punk.  Chekov would have been too young to be involved in this movie according to anything that we used to think that we knew about the series.  Apart from my age issue, he was originally a security officer not a science genius.

Then there is the loopy and against regulations command decision of Mr. Spock to send his uncooperative, belligerent crewman, Kirk, to an ice planet even though logic would dictate that he needed to listen to Kirk after he had previously diagnosed and anticipated the Romulan trap at Vulcan.  Apart from the regulations factor, Kirk might well have died due to the extreme cold and the hideous indigent monsters there.  Any hope of being rescued in his pod was negated by the fact that there was no one there except the marooned engineer Scott.  Apparently, this is not just a reboot for the series but also for the morality of the Federation.  Cue the Ice Planet Hoth leftovers from Star Wars.  This is where Kirk will conveniently find not only the aged Spock who can finally tell us what the heck is going on after 90 minutes, but he can also find an annoyingly Animaniacs like Mr. Scott (see the episode Star Truck—simply brilliant) who wants to start eating so he can begin to put on that girth that he sadly became infamous for in his later years.  Scott, a formerly brilliant and serious engineer, is now reduced to a giggling, silly character in need of help from the aged Spock to even invent the thing that apparently made him famous according to Trekkie or Trekkor lore.  I have always thought of myself as a big and reasonably knowledgeable fan of the original series and of the Next Generation send up, but I have never thought of myself as a serious trivia expert on it.  I guess that I won’t have to be either now that they are starting a brand new history.  Wouldn’t that be kind of nice to be able to do that with your own life sometimes?  Naw!!

This movie suffers from Bourne-syndrome and Bond-syndrome in that it cannibalizes just enough from the original source material and then goes off, and off until the new film has very little to do with the original source material. 

It rewrote the entire foundation for the series and killed off characters who should have (or never had) been killed. Spock is now in love with Uhura? Real human, kissy face love too!!  Spock’s father tells him to make his home with and according to his human blood? A Romulan engineer on an engineering ship who suddenly knows how to become a time traveling, weapons master? Good grief, his engineering ship was the size of V’ger. Oh, and if this guy is so broken up about the loss of his home world, why doesn't he warn them now that he has gone back in history 100 years and has all kinds of real nifty new knowledge for them? 

Is this, then, an entirely new Star Trek series that does not know any of what happened to the one that we know? Except that this one also has a Spock who is 129 years old, at least, and knows all about the other timeline. I guess.

 Were you teary eyed during this movie? Was it because of the pain of watching? It was for me. My Significant Other has what she calls the Cynthia Butt Test. In other words, she knows a movie isn't cutting it if she can feel her butt before the end of the film. This movie didn’t make the Cynthia Butt Test for one hour.

Obama's Delicate Balancing Act

Much is being spoken and written about President Obama's approach to the topic of torture and the need to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators.  I share some of the anxiety on the left that he has given the impression that he would like to forget it and move on.  I am in total agreement about the need to investigate, prosecute, and punish all of those involved in torture from top to bottom. However, I also recognize the mess that Obama is trying to take care of with limited resources and limited support. Since assuming the presidency, he has inherited the worst economy in 60 years, two wars now morphing into three wars, and a torture and war crimes scandal that thanks to Cheney's true confessions we now know for sure reached all the way to the White House. Resolving these crises will take calm, rational thinking and problem solving, both of which the president seems to have in abundance. I agree that he needs to direct the Justice Dept to launch a full scale investigation via a special prosecutor. I also believe that the House and Senate need to launch full scale hearings with the goal of not just finding the truth, but also of bringing these war criminals to justice. I find it darkly funny that the party that was so filled with indignation and nasty characterizations over Clinton's meaning of "is" would now be doing something so much worse over the nature of waterboarding. They simply assert that it isn't torture on the basis of what, their own internal memos. This is nothing different than any one of us being taken to task for something and then simply saying that if you refer to my diary or my planner, I justified the propriety of my behavior in my own set of rationalizations. Despite a Depression, a World War, and a Cold War, the United States stood by and for the rule of law. It would be a tragedy for us to lose the one thing that has made us a model to the world.

-- Doc A

Reply to the Right on Torture

I am writing this entry to my blog after a lengthy absence from activity.  I have not been feeling at my best and have had other work keeping me from this project.  However, yesterday, Sunday May 3, 2009 I was stimulated back into action when I read an op-ed in my local paper The Flint Journal.  I encountered an op-ed so horrible and evil in its underpinnings and implications that I felt compelled to write a reply.  I have submitted that reply to the newspaper.  Who knows if it will be published!  They have printed two previous replies to this columnist to be fair.  However, the point of view expressed requires that my thoughts be printed somewhere just in case and I think that I have had something to say.  So this post is in response to John Tomlinson’s op-ed article ”Obama putting terrorists ahead of Americans” of May 3, 2009. 

I want to begin very simply.  Mr. Tomlinson, shame on you!  You have treated a very serious topic with a superficial and cavalier attitude and approach.  Our national character and influence have suffered as a result of the application of techniques of real torture.  People have died, people who were never charged with a crime or given the right to trial and due process.  Our leaders, in an American presidential administration, have betrayed the rule of law in the name of criminal and savage interrogation tactics.  We now know that they were discussing and trying to approve of these tactics as early as late 2001.  You should be ashamed of yourself for taking this position and the Flint Journal should be equally ashamed for giving you this platform for spreading this dreadful pabulum.  It should be clear to any American that torture is against U.S. and international law, does not work, is immoral, puts our soldiers at risk for torture, and weakens American security and our international image and influence. 

Not so Mr. Tomlinson.  He begins with a standard right wing rather brainless canard that President Obama’s 3 month old administration is leading us down the path to communism, socialism, or in this article, Russia.  The history buff in me wants to ask, which Russia—Tsarist, Communist, or neo-capitalist Putin?  He then grossly and even grotesquely oversimplifies the torture inflicted by U.S. personnel and approved of in the Bush White House as, “face-slapping, depriving them of sleep and irregular meals.”  Now, I don’t know if Mr. Tomlinson even bother s to read anything other than publications of the far right, but this is an insult to those who are trying to restore America’s moral standing and the rule of law.  For this, Tomlinson should be ashamed and apologize.  What is the left really upset about?  Indeed, what is most of the world concerned and upset about?  In a word, torture!  However, this violation of national and international law requires a few more words apparently.  To wit, water boarding (more in a bit), driving Jose Padilla insane, and the cumulative impact of combined “enhanced interrogation techniques.”  We might also add the practice of rendition to various so-called black sites where anything goes such as in Saudi Arabia. 

Tomlinson makes another feeble attempt to avoid the accusation of torture responsibility by defining the practice falsely.  He claims that torture means “heinous and cruel wounding and/or cutting of human body parts for sadistic pleasure.”  He may have found that definition somewhere, but it does not come close to the legal definition which I will quote for him and others who may have suffered misinformation by his sloppy argument.  “Torture is prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 2340. The definition of torture used is as follows:

"severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from - (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (C) the threat of imminent death; or (D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality”

Amnesty International puts the issue in perspective.  “The UN Convention Against Torture defines torture as "…the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering for purposes such as obtaining information or a confession, or punishing, intimidating or coercing someone." Torture is always illegal. "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." Every responsible national and international agency that has examined our actions regarding torture has concluded that either individually or cumulatively our interrogation tactics have equaled torture.  Dick Cheney might not want to be responsible for his own actions and role in approving these tactics, but his desire does not change the reality of what he and his minions have done. 

How does Mr. Tomlinson try to defend this heinous use of torture?  He does so in 4 appalling ways.  First, he tries to understate the nature of the techniques.  Here is what the CIA says that water boarding involves.  Compare it to the Tomlinson definition.  “Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.”I might point out to Mr. Tomlinson that such treatment goes way beyond water up your nose.  “’The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law,’ said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.” Consider his description of water boarding.  “Do you know how long one is waterboarded? Forty seconds. It sounds like the worst case of "water-up-your-nose" ever, and it makes people talk. Is that torture? Do you know how many people our country has waterboarded? For all the harangue on CNN and MSNBC about how immoral we are, only three people have been waterboarded, according to what's been released.”  Well, since water boarding has been declared a war crime by sources far more reliable and credible that Mr. Tomlinson, then there are three war crimes that need to be prosecuted.  Besides Mr. Tomlinson, if it is such a mild technique, just a little water up your nose, why such a robust effort to make it seem so trivial?  Further, if it is such a mild tactic, why don’t you join your friend in the trenches Sean Hannity at Fox Noise and volunteer to undergo water boarding?  But I doubt that you will do so.  He has been too afraid too.

The second defense is his sad effort to justify an end to turning the other cheek by muddling the New Testament.  Again, he says, “Torture is an issue for us as Christians because we're taught to love our enemies. That certainly precludes even enhanced interrogation. But then, the question of how many times one must turn the other cheek before ending the slapping has no biblical answer.  The fact that we're genuinely struggling with "how to treat our enemies" shows we're still a Christian nation. Because without Christianity's moral strictures, e.g., "that we're endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights," why care about vile human debris trying to kill us?”  Here he takes another page from the letter of Hannity to the Befuddled.  Sorry Mr. Tomlinson, but “Christianity's moral strictures, e.g., "that we're endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights” is not in the Bible but in the Declaration of Independence and it is “unalienable.”  Furthermore, as to the lack of an answer on how many times we must turn the other cheek, I have to tell you that the message is crystal clear.  Jesus instructs us to put up their swords and love their neighbor as themselves, to do unto others, and to be peacemakers.  He gives no legalistic loophole so that his future followers could slide through in order to make war or engage in such heinous acts as torture.  For a thousand years, Christian leaders from Augustine and Aquinas with a little help from Pope Urban II (who twisted his theology to launch the first crusade by telling his blood thirsty knights that Scripture meant that it was only a sin to kill fellow Christians, not the unbeliever).  Regarding his claim that there is no morality without religion, he makes a false claim here, but I’ll leave that discussion for another day. 

Third, Mr. Tomlinson lays claim to the end justifies the means when he says that it really isn’t such a bad thing, just a little water up the nose, but it makes people talk.  This is the same basic logic of Mr. Cheney and it fails the smell test here too.  We are a nation of means, of process.  This is what is meant by rule of law.  Since Watergate and Iran-Contra we have had radicals from the far right who have tried to hijack our government by promising us that we will keep liberty if we give control of it to them.  Wrong again.

Four, he says that the left wants to put honest folks, who work every day for their country, in prison solely because their opinions didn't suit the left and he makes the astounding claim that this is what the Russians do.  Well, maybe the Soviet Communists do it, but it is certainly less clear if the current neo-capitalistic government as coached by Friedman style economists do the same thing.  Further, the left, the Congress, other countries, and a number of plaintiffs want to put people in jail, if convicted of crimes, for committing those very war crimes of which torture is among the worst.  This is not a difference of opinion.  This is about a group of powerful political figures, lawyers, and soldiers who said that torture is perfectly legal if we give it a new name and spin some convoluted logic around it.  And Mr. Tomlinson, I’d like to introduce you to another fairly recent historical period, namely, the war crimes tribunals after WW II when we not only tried and convicted similar people for committing war crimes with the defense of “just following orders,” but we executed some of them.

Finally, it should be noted that water boarding has been declared to be torture by a number of highly reputable sources, including The International Red Cross which has long been recognized as a neutral authority on the subject, retired JAG justices, Amnesty International, among many others.  Torture, in any of its forms, does not protect the United States.  It makes us more vulnerable to future attack because it draws followers to those causes that advocate the destruction of our country.  Torture does not work.  Intelligence experts have come out in big numbers telling us this.  Some have argued that, while it may make people talk, it produces totally unreliable information as the victim will tell you whatever they think you want to hear.  The same experts will also note that real intelligence can be gained through conventional techniques. 

Back in the sixties, there was a right wing slogan aimed at those who protested the war in Vietnam.  The slogan was, “America:  Love it or leave it!”  I think the time has come to resurrect that slogan and aim it at a different group.  To all of those who agree with Mr. Tomlinson that America should be a country without the rule of law, that believes in torture, that thinks that unprovoked war is good foreign policy, then I say to all of you today, America—Love it or leave it.  I am sure you can get a visa to a country run in such a fashion.  What they do with you I cannot imagine.

Whatever Mr. Tomlinson’s blind animosity is for those who opinions differ from his, justifying torture and pretending that it is not a horrific war crime is not the answer.  He should be ashamed of the convoluted logic in this piece.

Taguba interview about Truth Commission

Abu Ghraib investigator Antonio Taguba was interviewed by Salon.com about why he backs a commission to examine Bush torture policies.   The following was my letter to Salon.com regarding the interview and more importantly, the notion that a truth commission would be a sufficient response to the war crimes of the Bush Administration.

I agree with General Taguba on two basic points.  We cannot afford to sweep these crimes under the table.  A truth commission is a fine idea.  It provides in depth information about what happened at the behest of the American government.  HOWEVER, what we really need is a fundamental, public, transparent process that helps us return to the rule of law.  The entire world watched as the U.S. scrapped this fundamental quality in a free society.  The entire world saw what happened to the lives of millions of people who may have been killed, maimed, forced from their homes, or tortured due to a know-nothing group of ideological, power hungry zealots who seized power and then tried to transform the government of the U.S. into that of an imperial presidency. 

 

 

 

 

 

 Now we need to have a full and open investigation AND prosecution of those responsible for any and all of these crimes.  No one should be able to escape by using what we rejected at Nuremberg as "just following orders."  This process must include everyone involved from the lowliest grunt to the president and vice-president of the country. 

We let Nixon and his cronies off the hook and look who came back for another round.  John Dean in Conservatives Without Conscience details the insidious efforts of Charles Colson and his born again hypocrisy in spreading disgusting lies about both John and his wife.  Other Nixon allies have also returned.  Dean also discusses the delusional behavior of Vice-Fuhrer Cheney. 

We let Reagan and Bush Senior off the hook for their crimes in the Iran-Contra era and look at what that wrought.  We had a power mad GOP Congress deregulate everything it could, investigate a president to the tune of millions and millions of dollars over nothing more substantial than their own bigotry and a very foolish sexual tryst  Of course, that investigation revealed a good deal about the moral bankruptcy of the radical right and its religious base. 

The same power hungry GOP lied to get George W. Bush and his radical cabal into the White House I shudder to think of what will come next if we fail again to restore the rule of law.  What is needed now is nothing less than Speaker Pelosi refused to do since the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006.  For the sake of the nation and our standing in the world, we need to come clean and prosecute those wrongdoers from the George W. Bush presidency.  Nothing less will cleanse the conscience of the United States of America.

As an addendum to my Salon.com post, I would add something that I recall someone mentioning on either Countdown or The Rachel Maddow Show.  The question of holding people accountable is virtually moot.  It is already beginning to happen in our courts as some of those who suffered at the hands of the Aush people are beginning to bring their own individual law suits against various members of the Administration.  This may very well force the hand of Congress as well as President Obama and his Justice Deptartment.  In his Lincoln Day address, President Obama implied that it is better to forgive and move on.  We tried this when President Ford pardoned President Nixon.  That did not work.  We tried a watered down version of forgive and forget when President Clinton chose not to pursue those who had violated the Constitution over Iran-Contra and it essentially brought us to our present fiasco.  Now is the time to uphold the law!!!

The Republican Party needs to get its head out of its . . .

I have no real choice but to resort to an old and overused expression. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." When those words were expressed in the movie Network, the character was fed up with the crazy and pointless aspects of life in the modern news network. I'm uttering them because I am fed up with the crazy and pointless way in which the GOP has consistently misdirected our national economy for the past 28 years. The party has aided and abetted giving to the rich at every conceivable opportunity. They have rewritten or completely made up versions of their own history. As examples of this, I give you the brand new book, Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Futureby Will Bunch and The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street Americaby William Kleinknecht, both of which critically examine the complex facade that Republicans apologists and propagandists have labored to create since the end of the Reagan presidency. Such critiques are in line with The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too by James Galbraith all of which look behind the curtain of this political wizard of debt and deception to show how this reckless dismantling of effective regulation has lead to an era of irresponsible free market hegemony and the betrayal of the American middle class and the stability of the world economy. Bob Cesca of the HuffingtonPost was exactly to say that they can't be trusted on the national economy when he wrote today, "I mean, they met with Joe the Plumber on the Hill this week to discuss the economy." Now we come to the point of my own despair. The same GOP that brought us two of the most reckless spending presidencies in Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and pushed the national and the international economies to the brink of a deep, deep financial chasm are now playing crybaby and obstructionist as though they have a dear ideology to cling to at all costs. In this they are hypocrites of the first and most disgusting order. They have no real concern for spending. They never met a piece of pork legislation that they didn't fall in love with during their 12 years of control over Congress. Now they are trying to claim that they are the protectors of responsible spending in government and the saviors of the free market. They are even pretending to side with working Americans by bringing in, of all the failed political symbols, Joe the Plumber for a photo op and make believe conversation on the economy. Clearly, they are none of these things.  They don't give a fig or a fart about controlling spending unless it makes them look good for a nano-second.  They love the free market only if they have the word free rigged so that it benefits them over anyone else.  I have written about their participation in what Naomi Klein has labeled The Shock Doctrine and Disaster Capitalism.  The entire run up to the 2008 election was a classic example of Shock Doctrine political maneuvering.  Years of irresponsible spending coupled with massive deregulation and efforts to privatize every government service they could had fostered a colossal economic meltdown.  With this context they selected one of the best actors of the lot in Hank Paulson.  His antics in gaining passage of the TARP---see my piece on this as nothing more than a cover screen for even more give aways---should gain him an Academy Award for best actor in a tragedy later this month.  He begged and pleaded with Congress.  He even dropped to his knees before Speaker Pelosi and pleaded for passage or he could not imagine what would happen.  Every worst case scenario was brought forth until Congress fell for the con and passed the bill, but only 1/2 of the money.  Amazing!!  A moment of Congressional lucidity.  Who knew?!! Now the President, Congress, and the nation face a much more serious crisis, one that has ramifications for the next generation or more.  Will we be able to restart the dilithium crystal-driven engines of this space age economy or will we stall out and die like the Model T style corporatist government that we have nurtured and preserved for the past century or more. Our most intelligent economists have predicted that if we do not spend enough on this stimulus--and yes, a stimulus plan is a SPENDING bill--the nation risks falling right into the abyss that we are trying to avoid. Imagine driving down a twisting road and seeing the edge of the road along a deep, deep valley. Now imagine that you are heading straight for the edge of the road, but instead of turning hard to avoid driving into the valley, you only turn the wheel a quarter of the amount needed. This is what our newly fiscal conscious GOP would have us do. Instead, we should listen to the wisdom of Nobel economist Paul Krugman in his recent piece in the New York Times of February 7, 2009.  He concludes, in part. According to the CBO’s estimates, we’re facing an output shortfall of almost 14% of GDP over the next two years, or around $2 trillion. Others, such as Goldman Sachs, are even more pessimistic. So the original $800 billion plan was too small, especially because a substantial share consisted of tax cuts that probably would have added little to demand. The plan should have been at least 50% larger. . . . My first cut says that the changes to the Senate bill will ensure that we have at least 600,000 fewer Americans employed over the next two years. The real question now is whether Obama will be able to come back for more once it’s clear that the plan is way inadequate. My guess is no. This is really, really bad." We are in very serious trouble and it could become catastrophic if the delusional, sheltered from reality, ideologically desperate Republican obstructionists get their way.  I can think of little more frightening that Krugman's final words. "This is really, really bad."

Dick Armey and Chris Matthews should apologize to Joan Walsh

I recently posted the following thoughts as a comment on Salon.com in response to a story about the crude and disrespectful treatment that Joan Walsh received from former GOP Congressman Dick Armey while on Hardball being moderated by its host Chris Matthews.  Armey has something of a history of making outrageous and disrespectful statements to those who disagree with him, but this one was just unnecessary.  In one breath he says that we should not take politics seriously and should focus on good policy and then, he attacks Walsh for making a reasonable and well reasoned set of comments.  It is good that Armey has retired from the Senate.  His time has surely past.  Matthews is another story altogether.  He should be just fine in handling the post Bush world, but when faced with such inappropriate behavior, he said nothing to Armey and continued to give Armey the lions share of the speaking time for that segment.  He too should apologize to Walsh.  He virtually shut her out of a conversation in which Armey had very little to offer except for a rehash of old and tired GOP attack tactics. My comment on Salon.com: Dick Armey's behavior and nasty retort to Joan Walsh were completely out of line, offensive, and disrespectful.  Any real man would either never have said such a thing or would have apologized at once.  What is clear from this behavior is that it illustrates exactly what the misogynistic GOP has done increasingly over the past 12 or so years.  They prattle on (yes Dick, you really prattle unlike your BS accusation of Ms. Walsh) and on and then when challenged, all they know how to do is laugh at the person voicing the rebuttal and sometimes, tell them to "give it a rest" as Dick did here.  I have encountered this repeatedly with every single Republican or conservative that I know whether in social  conversation or in my university classes.  They can't and now won't defend their own record with Bush except to try to throw out something like he did here that was a vague placement of co-responsibility that he would not explain.  Note however that he did not try to do any of this with Chris Matthews who should have commented on this entirely inappropriate behavior and who should have given Joan more speaking time.  Dick Armey has made his living in politics and now he wants to pretend that it is not a serious profession.  He is a hypocrite and a misogynistic dinosaur.  He should be ashamed of himself.  Sadly, he would not understand the need.

Bush Administration War Crimes Must be Punished

I have previously written about the need, as I then saw it, to impeach both President Bush and Vice President Cheney.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to approve such hearings by Representative Conyers’s committee and thus nothing happened.

With the inauguration of President Obama and Vice President Biden, we are once again faced with a dilemma that is becoming all too familiar in modern American national politics, namely, to investigate and punish or not to investigate and punish.  Put another way, we might say to restore the rule of law or not to restore the rule of law.

Why do I say this is all too familiar?  The answer is simple.  We have been faced with this problem before and each time we have failed to have the courage to face up to it and do the right thing.  Why?  I believe it is because it would have been ugly, unpleasant, and rife with open conflict.  Indeed, former President Ford said as much at his pardon of Richard Nixon.  Not to act on these grounds is simply immature and indicative of a seriously dysfunctional political system.  Much of life is unpleasand or difficult, but such things need to be done.   President Obama announced that we must put aside childish things and begin a new era of responsibility.   However, as others have recently noted, our failure to investigate and litigate these criminals has lead to their return as bigger and more dangerous agents of corruption and danger to our ideals and to the peace of the world.

The Bush-Cheney Administration did not emerge out of a political or historical vaccuum.  It developed from a series of administrations that desired to ignore the law or the procedures of the Constitution.   During the Nixon years and the Watergate Scandal, John Dean reported telling the President that there was a cancer on the presidency.  For me, that is the appropriate metaphor.  Just as cancer cells can be done away with, they can re-emerge and spread, becoming worse and worse with each return.

Consider the following sequence of history.  In 1964 after the death of President Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson used every trick in the book to try to dictate to America and wage his own illegal war in Vietnam.  When Richard Nixon followed him in office, things went immediately from bad to much worse.  The Nixon years are marked by one infraction after another against the Constitution. Nixon’s famous comment that if the President does it, it is legal still haunts us to this day and has been visible in the daily insolence of both Bush and Cheney.  When Ford (the go-to guy of the right wing in America during that era) refused to investigate and prosecute, and chose instead to pardon Nixon, the nation screamed in futile protest.  Sadly, our system was then left open to future violations by the Executive branch.

After Nixon, the activities of the Reagan-Bush presidencies pushed our cultural elastic even further.  Reagan and his people worked around Congress so that they could wage their own illegal policies against Communism.  Their actions lead to the Iran-Contra scandal that promoted further violations of the Constitution and the rule of law in the U.S.  And because President Clinton refused to investigate and prosecute these anti-American and anti-Constitutional behaviors and policies, they returned with a real vengeance for the past 8 years under Bush and Cheney.  These two usurpers of the rule of law tried to elevate Nixon’s adage to be the new de facto rule of the land.  They tried at every turn to overturn the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

We now face a situation in which the net effect of a series of laws and executive orders leave the U.S. in a very precarious position. Unless President Obama reverses these Bush-Cheney actions and precedents, a future U.S. leader will inherit much more power than the founders of our Constitutional ever envisaged or wanted.

I have often told my friends that while I was adamantly opposed to the Bush-Cheney regime, the thing that scared me the most was the cabal or person who might come in the future. The Bush-Cheney regime was reckless and arrogant. However, they left behind them a set of powers that could be put to use in very dangerous and damaging ways. A future president would only have to act on a danger or an attack like or worse to 911 in a way that would enable them to seize complete and dictatorial power. In 1932 incoming President Roosevelt was encouraged by his aides and by many Americans to assume full and dictatorial powers according to Jonathan Alter in his masterpiece book The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope. Alter notes that it took an individual of clear purpose and well defined ego that could resist this temptation. I am reminded of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as even the great wizard Gandalf was afraid to face the temptation of the power of the Great Ring.

Our current situation unfortunately is not a piece of fantasy fiction. We have emerged from one of the darkest and most dangerous periods in our nation’s history. The great baseball pitcher Satchel Paige once said “Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." While I support President Obama’s desire to look forward, I must condition that support on the premise that we have cleaned up our past so that it does not catch up on us. There are recent signs that the Democratic Congress is moving in this direction. I hope they carry it to its necessary conclusion. The United States must abide by the rule of law and no one can be above the law.

The Fairness Doctrine was aptly named

I find it fascinating that the GOP right wing is terrified of the potential return of the Fairness Doctrine.  In point of fact, it was the dissolution of this doctrine during the heyday of the Reagan admin istration that allowed for the rise of so much one sided, unfair and very partial, talk radio.  The return of the Fairness Doctrine would indeed limit such hateful broadcasts as Rush Limbaugh as he would no longer be able to simply sit there spouting his hateful diatribes.  The Museum of Broadcast Communication offers a very nice summary of the meaning and history of the Fairness Doctrine.

U.S. Broadcasting Policy

The policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission that became known as the "Fairness Doctrine" is an attempt to ensure that all coverage of controversial issues by a broadcast station be balanced and fair. The FCC took the view, in 1949, that station licensees were "public trustees," and as such had an obligation to afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial issues of public importance. The Commission later held that stations were also obligated to actively seek out issues of importance to their community and air programming that addressed those issues. With the deregulation sweep of the Reagan Administration during the 1980s, the Commission dissolved the fairness doctrine. This doctrine grew out of concern that because of the large number of applications for radio station being submitted and the limited number of frequencies available, broadcasters should make sure they did not use their stations simply as advocates with a singular perspective. Rather, they must allow all points of view. That requirement was to be enforced by FCC mandate.

So, should the Right Wing be concerned about any effort to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine?  Ideally, no.  Practically, you bet!   Also, when one side is given air time, then the other side must also be given equal time under this Doctrine.  But one sided, partisan broadcasts must be given equal time for the other.  So, FOX News would find itself forced to actually be fair and balanced, rather than the alpha male Hannity paired with the emaciated, dweeby Colmes.   Limbaugh and O'Reilly would  have to permit opposing points of view to actually express their point of view.  Jinkies!!  What a shame!!!