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Two Americas

01-09-2008, 02:23 PM

Goodbye Dennis
Kucinich Sells Out to Obama, Inc.

Paul Street
January 02, 2008

Barack Obama has excluded himself from the progressive coalition by the statements he’s made, unfortunately. He’s a lot smarter than his public statements, which are extremely conciliatory to concentrated power and big business...The people of Iowa and New Hampshire have to ask themselves: who is going to fight for you...Edwards raises the question of the concentration of wealth and power in a few hands that are working against the majority of people.

- Ralph Nader, MSNBC, December 17, 2007

For some time now, I’ve been giving a quiet and indirect sort of tribute to Dennis Kucinich. I’ve been praising him for backing progressive policy proposals and initiatives that “mainstream” (corporate) Democrats refuse to embrace: single-payer health insurance, de-funding the illegal occupation of Iraq, investigating civilian Iraqi casualties, the impeachment of Cheney-Bush and so on. I’ve been mentioning him as the only truly Left candidate in the Democratic presidential race.

And all the while a little voice in the back of my mind has been saying, “but you know he’s really kind of a pathetic jerk who helps make the Left look stupid.”

I don’t know when the voice started. Maybe it was when I heard about how he saw a UFO. Or when I heard him brag to a political audience that his vegan diet permitted him to be married to a woman half his age – a model he recruited through a truly bizarre public relations campaign.

At some point it started to sink in that Kucinich was a knucklehead who cares more about advancing his own goofy and grandiose personal agenda than about furthering the causes of peace, democracy, and justice. I also realized that Dennis helped corporate media discredit Left sentiments and values by associating them with clownish narcissism, cultish mysticism, and laughable irrelevance.

And now I feel freer than ever to say all this for a very simple reason. Dennis has done something truly and unforgivably pathetic, petty, and reactionary. He has told his admittedly small number of followers in Iowa to give their second-choice votes to the corporate media candidate and imperial war Democrat Barack Obama during the pivotal 2008 Democratic Party caucus to be held today.

He has essentially lent his support to the class- and race-accommodator Obama, Dennis’ supposed fellow “change agent.”

The contrast with the much more principled and serious Left leader Ralph Nader is pronounced. Two weeks ago, Nader endorsed John Edwards as a real corporation-fighting progressive and rejected Obama in a fascinating MSNBC “Hardball” interview with Chris Mathews (see http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=CLzytK6A3Fc).

"The key phrase" in Edwards message, Nader said, is "that he doesn't want to replace a corporate Republican with a corporate Democrat. That's very key."

Nader noted that Edwards' message of fighting corporate power is more stridently left than anything he's seen from an electable Democratic politician in a very long time. According to Nader, "people in Iowa and New Hampshire have to ask themselves a question: who's going to fight for you?" The answer, for Nader, is Edwards.

At one point Mathews told Nader he’d “excluded Obama from the progressive coalition." Nader argued that Obama has “excluded himself with statements that he’s made, unfortunately. He’s a lot smarter than his public statements, which are extremely conciliatory to concentrated power and big business.”

Nader told Mathews that Edwards “raises the question of the concentration of power and wealth and power in a few hands that are working against the majority of people.”

Last Monday, in a Muscatine, Iowa press conference, Nader deepened his support for Edwards. “The issue is corporate power and who controls our political system,” Nader said, “and it’s not who has experience for six years or two years.” This was an obvious allusion to the ongoing debate over “experience” between Clinton and Obama.

Nader called Edwards a Democratic “glimmer of hope.” He issued a public statement ripping Mrs. Clinton as a “corporate Democrat,” mirroring the precise term Edwards uses to describe Hillary and Obama.

Nader praised Edwards’ more combative and populist posture of fighting corporate power as a heartening signal. “It’s the only time I’ve heard a Democrat talk that way in a long time,” claimed Nader, who rarely praises a leading Democrat.

“Iowa should decide which candidate stands for us,” Nader added, saying that “Edwards is at least highlighting day after day that the issue is who controls our country, big business or the people”

(see David Paul Kuhne, “Nader Throws Support to Edwards, Blasts Clinton,” (http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/01/6100/print/) Common Dreams, January 1, 2008)

Nader is correct and Dennis is terribly wrong.

The admittedly imperfect (from a Left perspective) John Edwards is considerably better than Obama in ways that matter The unabashedly partisan, pro-labor, anti-poverty, and “”Jeffersonian” Edwards is running to the Hamiltonian Obama’s “populist” and democratic left.

It’s a bigger contrast than many progressives know or let on. Obama intones endlessly about “hope” and finding “common ground” and “consensus” with Republicans, evangelicals, and big business. He decries the nation’s supposedly horrid legacy of factional and ideological conflict – an allegedly frightening heritage he pins on the purportedly scary (late) 1960s – and claims to represent a new generational politics seeking to “get things done” above nasty old divisions. He claims to represent the glories of an America where hard work is rewarded and anyone can rise from the bottom (where he supposedly originated) to the top. He tells Wall Street’s global investor class (during an oration last summer at NASDAQ's headquarters) of his purported beliefs that “you are as open and willing to listen as anyone else in America ” and that “your work [is] be a part of building a stronger, more vibrant, and more just America. I think,” Obama absurdly adds, “the problem is that no one has asked you to play a part in the project of American renewal.”

Yeah, okay.

Sounding like a droning academic on many occasions, professor Obama has been known to put more than a few of his audience members to sleep.

Meanwhile, Edwards has been delivering a steady diet of red-hot orations against business rule. Deploying the best stump speech in the campaign, he refers repeatedly to the labor movement as “the greatest anti-poverty program in American history.” He is willing to lose corporate sponsorship and media fancy in his determination to make “ending poverty” and fighting economic inequality and “corporate domination” of American politics and policy the rhetorical cornerstones of his campaign.

In the place of Obama’s tiresome feel-good homilies to togetherness and shared American values and empathy, Edwards declares that his mission as president would be to give privileged corporate and business elites “Hell.” He promises to battle and defeat big business to make policy in democratic accord with a popular consensus that already exists for things like universal health care and fair trade. He says it’s a “lie” that “any Democrat is better than any Republican,” arguing that replacing big money “corporate Republicans” with big money “corporate Democrats” is just a game of musical chairs. He (rightly in my opinion) mocks Obama’s great healing narrative as singing “Kumbaya” and makes no bones about disliking the Republican right.

His generational narrative is that the next generation of Americans is about to be the first in U.S. history to be worse off than its immediate predecessor. Passive Democrats who refuse to fight “corporate greed” to “reclaim our democracy” should look their children in the eyes, Edwards says, and "admit that they did nothing to stop the decline of opportunity and the growing inequality of wealth and power.”

Edwards’ autobiographical narrative skips the Horatio Alger claims of heroic upward mobility. It simply states that he’s running for president on behalf of the working-class people he grew up with in rural North Carolina . Their hard work was not rewarded, he says, when their local textile mill closed so that its corporate owners could exploit cheaper labor abroad.

Edwards rejects the notion that any but a small minority of Americans can to rise from poverty to riches under current economic and political arrangements. He takes little personal credit for his own ascendancy to wealth.

His campaign’s concept of the division that plagues America is different from Obama’s. Obama has hitched his quest for power on a pledge to save the virtuous (Alexander) Hamiltonian Republic by reaching out across the supposed great divide between “red state” (white-patriarchal and more rural, evangelical and militarist) Republicans and “blue state” (more multi-colored, feminist, gay-friendly and urban-cosmopolitan) Democrats. By sharp and relevant (for actual progressives) contrast, Edwards speaks in (Thomas) Jeffersonian terms about the more real and fundamental fissure in the U.S: the split between the public and the country’s corporate-based power centers. He advocates “fighting and beating” those power centers on behalf of working people and the cause of popular governance.

He’s even better on race than Obama. As Obama’s fellow black Chicago South Sider Jesse Jackson, Sr. noted in the Chicago Sun Times last November: “The Democratic candidates – with the exception of John Edwards, who opened his campaign in New Orleans and has made addressing poverty central to his campaign – have virtually ignored the plight of African Americans in this country”.

It’s not for nothing that volunteers from the Service Employers International Union (SEIU), UNITE-HERE, the United Steelworkers, the Carpenters, and other unions are working overtime for Edwards in Iowa between now and the Caucus. And it’s not for nothing that Nader has endorsed Edwards and rejected Obama.

For more details on the differences (and how remarkably conservative and corporate-friendly Obama is), please see my following articles:

“ ‘Angry John’ and KumbayObama: Reflections on Iowa, Business Rule, and the Democratic Party’s Democratic Disconnect,” ZNet (December 20, 2007)(http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15969)

“Why I’ve Focused on Obama: Seven Points,” ZNet (December 29, 2007), read at http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16046

“Obama Speaks: ‘Oh Great White Masters, You Just Haven’t Been Asked to Help America,” ZNet (December 12, 2007), read at

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15801

“Obama’s Role: to Confuse and Divide the Progressive Base,” ZNet (October 19, 2007), read at http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15602

Why has the avowed left-progressive Dennis Kucinich embraced the corporate-centrist Obama (justly rejected in no uncertain terms by the iconic progressive Nader) over the labor-populist Edwards (embraced by Nader)? My guess is that Edwards helped create this sorry episode by letting himself be overheard (last summer) agreeing with Hillary that lesser candidates (like Kucinich and Mike Gravel) were messing up the presidential debates.

That was a bad and authoritarian thing to say - and think. It is corporate media (whose God-like power Edwards dares not criticize in an election season) that most relevantly poisons the debates and the campaigns overall and Left candidates need to be heard.

Still, it's no reason for a left politician to jump into political bed with the deeply conservative Obama phenomenon.

Dennis may perceive the corporate media BaRoackStar as an unstoppable political juggernaut and figure that he might as well jump on the Obama train while he can.

Maybe he thinks Barack will let him set up his cherished Department of Peace. No chance.

I can’t believe Dennis actually thinks that “Obama, Inc.” is a progressive change agent. But then, when you believe in UFOs, all kinds of bizarre cognitions are possible.

Goodbye, Dennis. You seem to like fantasies, so you should have some good fun with your new best friend Barack Obama. Fantasy is what he’s all about.

Two Americas

01-09-2008, 02:38 PM

Great analysis by Street in that article.

I hadn't paid any attention to Obama. I couldn't see anything there worthy of attention. His speeches are masterpieces of saying nothing while sounding as though he is saying something, and I couldn't grasp why he got such enthusiastic responses from (young white college) audiences. When I asked people who supported him why they supported him, they told me "read his book!" with a creepy "true believer" look on their faces.

We have had years now of the politicians whipping the public up into a war frenzy, and the two names used again and again to personify all evil have been "Hussein" and "Osama." And now the Democrats are going to run a candidate named "Barack Hussein Obama?" Is this a joke?

Kid of the Black Hole

01-09-2008, 03:46 PM

eattherich

01-09-2008, 06:59 PM

http://images.usatoday.com/_common/_images/ribbons/news_ribbons/inside/campaign_2004_topper.gif

Posted 7/22/2004 9:20 PM

Kucinich endorses Kerry
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio ended his long-shot presidential bid Thursday with an endorsement of John Kerry, after running an underfunded campaign of anti-war rallies that failed to become competitive.

The Cleveland Democrat, who refused to drop out of the race even after better-known candidates gave up, stressed the need for the party to unite behind Kerry and vice presidential nominee John Edwards.

"With the same passion and commitment I demonstrated in my own campaign for president, I intend to reach out on behalf of the Kerry-Edwards ticket to unite our party with all those who may have felt left out," Kucinich said at the National Urban League convention in Detroit, where Kerry spoke Thursday.

Kucinich, who became a darling among the Democratic Party's most liberal members, also appealed for support from backers of independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who some worry could draw votes from Kerry.

Kucinich spent the last year taking part in 17 presidential debates and traveling the nation to speak out against the war and free-trade agreements, and in support of universal health care and civil liberties — issues that Nader is known for pushing as well.

"If there is room for me in the party and the Kerry-Edwards campaign, there is certainly room for Ralph and for his supporters," Kucinich said Thursday.

Kevin Zeese, a Nader spokesman, accused Kucinich of bowing to pressure within the party to support Kerry and not being true to his beliefs, some of which aren't in line with Kerry.

"Most Kucinich supporters do have strong principles and when they compare Nader's record with Kerry's record, they will see that Nader is a candidate who supp rts their values," Zeese said. "Maybe a small cadre ... will follow Kucinich, but most will think for themselves."

But Ross Baker, a Rutgers University specialist on Congress, said Kucinich will be an asset to the Kerry campaign because he can attract Nader voters and because his higher profile can help Kerry raise money among progressive groups that support Kucinich.

"Let's say liberal Democrats are having a fund-raiser. Inviting Dennis Kucinich two years ago woeldn't be a big deal, but ~ow,0he's somewhat of a celebrity and would be a magnet for drawing an audience," Baker said.

Kucinich, the former "boy mayor" of Cleveland who once stubbornly fought to keep control of the city's electric utility, mustered only single-digit support in most primary elections. In the end, he won about 64 delegates, but was never a threat to Kerry, who secured nearly 3,000.

"I stayed in knowing full well that Senator Kerry had the nomination locked up to give people an opportunity0to voice thuir concerns," Kucinich said during a recent interview.

Kucinich failed to get many of his issues added to the Democratic platform, but he did succeed in getting his party to agree to language authorizing the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Kucinich, who nabbed a speaking role at the convention, still called it a win.

"It's moving in the right direction, but it's John Kerry's platform," Kucinich said.

Kucinich ran his nationwide campaign on a shoestring budget. He raised a scant $11>9 million for his White House run, compared with the $186.2 million that Kerry has amassed, according to reports filed this month with the Federal Election Commission.

The twice-divorced dad and only bachelor in the race got attention when he said at a candidate forum that he could only fantasize about having a first lady. He also won several eclectic endorsements, including country singer Willie Nelson and actor Sean Penn.

He plans to keep his campaign organization in place to fund-raise and help him promote issues, but the details haven't yet been worked out, spokesman Doug Gordon said.

The four-term congressman has remained a candidate this year for re-election in the 10th District, where he won 86% of the vote in Ohio's March 2 primary. Despite spending time away from his district while campaigning for president, he is heavily favored to win in November against Republican Edward Herman.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicsel ... erry_x.htm (http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-07-22-kucinich-kerry_x.htm)

If 2004 taught us anything it was,that Kucinich is nothing more than a left gatekeeper,that the party keeps on a tight leash.Dennis is just being Dennis again.What else do you expect from a guy who hangs around with Ron Paul ?!?!?? It's sad that the left is so desperate to see one of their own make it,that they continue to back him,and his wortthless excuse for a party."Progressives",a term I have come to loathe as much as "truther",will never succeed,until they realize one thing,the electoral system is rigged against anyone who doesn't dance to Wall Street,and the corporate lobbyists tune,and they will never get anywhere,if they continue to buy into the fallacy,that anything short of socialism,is a representative government,and that the best government truly is none at all.

wolfgang von skeptik

01-09-2008, 08:20 PM

(1)-Never forget class struggle. In the United States, today's university students are part of a wealthy, privileged aristocracy -- else they'd be sweat-slopping in McDonalds or dodging euthanazia in Iraq. Hence it's only natural today's students prefer Obama over Edwards (and are thus dependable votes for Hillary). The students like Obama and Hillary for the same reason they prefer Britney Spears and Paris Hilton: ease of comprehension. Think of Homer and Herodotus reduced to Classics Comics and the poetry of Sappho shrunken to a triple-X video (no doubt staring Paris and Nicole Richie). Now you have an accurate assessment of the "intellectual" inclinations of today's university students -- of which only 28 percent can even find the United States on an unlabeled world map.

(2)-A retired union official offers the best explanation I have ever heard for the fact every poll in the last five years indicates the Working Class is boiling angry (which would suggest huge and instinctive support for Edwards) but instead opts for the (do-nothing) Obama or the serial outsourcer Hillary: "the rank-and-file loves tough talk but mostly they won't follow through when it's time for action -- the real reason for the demise of the U.S. labor movement." In other words, the electorate fears the possibility Edwards might actually do something and opts for Obama instead, knowing Obama will change nothing. Which means they the voters can continue opiating their troubles by sucking trankies and shopping at Wal-Mart instead of politically sobering up and taking to the streets.

(3)-Despite what we know of Treacherous Obamus -- I am in near-total agreement with Street's analysis (though I believe Edwards is no more trustworthy than any other politician) -- there is no denying that Obama's speech last night was an effort to out-RFK (and even out-FDR) Edwards. Once again, the raising of proletarian expectations.

(4)-In which contect I posted following in response to Ad Week's poll on whether Huckabee can maintain his momentum:

The untold story of the 2008 presidential campaign is the reawakening of class-consciousness in the United States. Forbidden to write about class struggle, mainstream pundits focus on the properly terrifying fact that Huckabee is a fundamentalist Christian fanatic but suppress the fact he is a populist. Even so, close scrutiny of Iowa demographics strongly suggests Huckabee's populism was by far the greater factor in his victory. And Huckabee's socioeconomic grievances are nearly identical to those expressed by Edwards and echoed by Obama. Together the three candidates have elevated the hopes of the working class to a height unknown since the New Deal era.

Thus the pivotal question is whether working-class anger and hope can continue -- as it did via each party’s primary in Iowa -- to trump ruling-class wealth and absolutism.

A major indication of the answer is to be found in the fact the GOP is generally the easier party for dissidents to capture, which means Huckabee could win the Republican nomination much more inexpensively than Obama or Edwards could win the Democratic nomination. Indeed Clinton’s nomination is effectively locked in place, virtually guaranteed by the unprecedented investment her financiers have already made in her presidency. But her demonstrated support for their agenda -- outsourcing, downsizing, the cheapening of labor by illegal immigration, the use of the U.S. military to defend and expand the global corporate empire -- proves that despite her Democratic disguise, she is ultimately no different from Romney or any of the GOP’s other Big Business candidates. Moreover Clinton’s claim to support reproductive freedom is fast losing its appeal to working-class women: because access to medical care is determined exclusively by wealth, Clinton’s support for job loss and cheap labor has already denied reproductive choice to every woman so afflicted -- a more effective ban on birth control and abortion than any law or judicial edict could ever impose.

Hence another significant indication: the fact that in a Huckabee-Clinton race, Huckabee’s populism would contrast sharply with Clinton’s corporate authoritarianism, which could prompt the embittered supporters of Edwards and Obama to vote for Huckabee despite his theocratic intent. In other words, if Huckabee wins the Republican nomination, he could easily win the presidency as well.

(5)-To quench whatever optimism one is foolishly inclined to read into this analysis, reflect on the unprecedented package of oppressive legislation pending in Congress -- a combination of measures that critics both left and right say will effectively nullify the entire Bill of Rights. Obviously the intent of the Ruling Class is to spit in the face of U.S. workers regardless of who wins in November; just as obviously, the pending measures will facilitate the violent suppression of whatever Working Class anger boils over into the streets once the Working Class recognizes the magnitude to which we have (once again) been betrayed. Think too about the oppressive possibilities such measures hand a theocrat like Huckabee -- or for that matter Romney (since reducing the U.S. to theocracy is a long-term objective of many Christian sects, Mormons and Southern Baptists alike). Think, for example, of a presidential executive order than says anyone not practicing reliigion "under god" -- the god of Abraham (Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- is by definition a subversive. Impossible you say? Read the following news reports demonstrating how infinitely bigoted Fundamentalist Christians truly are:

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Religious_ ... 22007.html (http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Religious_protests_disrupt_US_Senat_07122007.html)

http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsA ... _ctrl=1469 (http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6316&abbr=pr&security=1002&news_iv_ctrl=1469)

(Disclosure: I am occasionally polled by Ad Week because I am a former editor-in-chief of Art Direction, a once-prestigeous advertising-industry trade journal that died many years ago.)

chlamor

01-09-2008, 08:41 PM

if you want to look into Obama a bit further. Unlike Clinton who's record is so long and atrocious at every turn Obama is a little trickier to dissect. His record isn't very notable and he really relies almost purely on rhetorical flourish to garner any political cache. Well and prostituting himself out to lobbyists. I've been looking over quite a bit of stuff on the guy over the last week and one thing that is rather impressive about Obama is his never-ending capacity to just lie. He's not even that artful at it.

Where the story is as far as I'm concerned is the people who he has surrounded himself and what they have been involved in.
Who these people are and what direction, particularly in the area of foreign policy, they plan to go if placed in power is what needs close scrutiny. Look for humanitarian interventions ad nauseum and a thousand slick rationales from the Harvard crowd with Obama. I'm going to post some of these linkages in the Obama-Asshole thread through the week. In the meantime here is a bit from Paul Street that will give you a number of stories you can link to:

Why I’ve Focused On Obama: Seven Points

December, 29 2007 By Paul Street

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16046

On another note how about that thread over at RI re: New Age Racism? Wow did I stir up a hornet's nest.

wolfgang von skeptik

01-09-2008, 10:50 PM

Ultimate proof of Obama's Big Lies:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701f ... ip.html%20 (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701faessay86401/barack-obama/renewing-american-leadership.html%20)

We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines. Bolstering these forces is about more than meeting quotas. We must recruit the very best and invest in their capacity to succeed...I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened.

Ultimate proof it doesn't matter:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e19002.htm (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19002.htm)

The American people’s attempt in November 2006 to rein in a rogue government, which has committed the US to costly military adventures while running roughshod over the US Constitution, failed. Replacing Republicans with Democrats in the House and Senate has made no difference.

The assault on the US Constitution by the Democratic Party is as determined as the assault by the Republicans. On October 23, 2007, the House passed a bill sponsored by California Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman, chairwoman of a Homeland Security subcommittee, that overturns the constitutionally guaranteed rights to free expression, association, and assembly.

The bill passed the House on a vote of 404-6. In the Senate the bill is sponsored by Maine Republican Susan Collins and apparently faces no meaningful opposition.

Harman’s bill is called the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.” [ http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1955 ] When HR 1955 becomes law, it will create a commission tasked with identifying extremist people, groups, and ideas. The commission will hold hearings around the country, taking testimony and compiling a list of dangerous people and beliefs. The bill will, in short, create massive terrorism in the United States. But the perpetrators of terrorism will not be Muslim terrorists; they will be government agents and fellow citizens.

We are beginning to see who will be the inmates of the detention centers being built in the US by Halliburton under government contract.

Who will be on the “extremist beliefs” list? The answer is: civil libertarians, critics of Israel, 9/11 skeptics, critics of the administration’s wars and foreign policies, critics of the administration’s use of kidnapping, rendition, torture and violation of the Geneva Conventions, and critics of the administration’s spying on Americans. Anyone in the way of a powerful interest group--such as environmentalists opposing politically connected developers--is also a candidate for the list.

Obamus with HR1955: unilateral force to protect the "vital interests" of America at home. When the Reagan Right is further left than the self-proclaimed Left, we are already too deep in the miasma to escape.

eattherich

01-10-2008, 12:19 AM

That means we won't have to endure more progressive betrayal, but it does mean four, or even eight more years of a Republican White House.

Almost just as depressing is the fact that we are now going to have to endure almost two months, at least, of truly inane campaigning on the empty themes of "hope" and "change."

I thought we'd seen the nadir of empty campaign sloganeering when I heard Gen. Wesley Clark announce his candidacy for the presidency back in 2003 in what sounded for all the world like a parody of a stupid candidate speech: We need to "move this country forward, not back", "we're going to march forward," and "we're moving out."). But between Clinton and Obama, with their "change" and "hope" themes, we've reached an even greater depth of vacuity.

And yet the crowds cheer and the voters vote.

I actually heard one young voter tell a TV reporter that she had decided on her primary choice by going to an on-line site where she could select her positions on various issues, and be told which candidate best matched her preferences. On-line presidential candidate dating.

` The New Hampshire primary took place in unseasonable 65-degree heat, a reminder that there is a huge issue facing us, which the candidates aren't even talking about. There's also a brutal war on, but that, according to exit polls, wasn't on New Hampshire primary voters' minds either. Never mind that the $2 trillion already committed to that stupid and criminal conflict, and the trillions of dollars that is spent annually around the world on war and planning for war.

What was on their minds apparently was Hillary's probably carefully scripted tearful moment and John McCain's artfully manufactured and illusory image as a "straight talker." (Listen to McCain snuggling up to Bush at the 2004 GOP Convention and say "straight talker" with a straight face.)...We could use some of that these days, and it's painfully obvious that a random selection of 435 average American citizens would be a damn sight better at running the country than the group we elect through our current process of corporate-funded campaigns. But I'd go Morrisseau one further. We should also choose our presidents by random lottery. Those who are selected for all of these federal offices should be paid handsomely, and then, at the end of one term, whether in Congress or in the White House, they should be sent back home, maybe with a small pension, or with unemployment compensation that could run for a few years to let them put their old lives back together.

For now, we're stuck with this dreadful election process, where the ability to raise corporate cash (private money, as Ron Paul has discovered, doesn't count) determines whether you get corporate media coverage, and where voters seem to think they're casting ballots for an American Idol winner, not someone to rule them and the country for the next four years.

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff01092008.html

Knowing the real limits on change in America offers a dramatic backdrop to John Edwards' rhetoric about controlling corporations, heavy on melodrama and chipper optimism and short on analysis. Edwards is a phony pitchman, a kind of secular tele-evangelist, although he's not consistently secular since his vision of America is generously larded with "God bless" and sentimental, quasi-religious clap-trap.

Good Lord, America is today nothing but corporations. Between its corporations and the countless colonial wars serving their interests, you pretty much have the central story of modern America.

Most American politicians often use the word "consumers" instead of "citizens" when addressing voters today, revealing the mind set. The laws are written in favor of corporations, despite the much-repeated nonsense about the terrible toll of frivolous lawsuits. The national political duopoly, the two political parties, is organized and run much as a pair of hamburger or soft-drink multi-corporations, with a million unfair rules and regulations buried away in every state protecting their privileges. In the economic sphere, the same phenomenon is called "barriers to entry," whose existence in many forms is why you see only two or three companies dominate the aisles of every grocery and drug store in the country. Seats and votes in the Senate the most powerful and least democratic part of the elected national government are largely bought and paid for through an elaborate web of lobbies and special interests.

Senator Edwards' own wealth, which permits him the indulgence of four-hundred dollar haircuts at frequent intervals, was achieved by a vigorous career of making secret settlements with corporations. You might call it a lot of hollering about battling the devil while keeping your eyes riveted on the take from the collection plate, a wealth-building strategy perfected by the likes of Jerry Falwell. Expect only more of the same from this disingenuous man should he win, but thankfully it does appear we are to be spared regular Sunday morning preach-ups from Washington on the subject of blessed spirit of America versus the evil corporations.

By the way, how do you spend four hundred dollars on a haircut? Likely the price includes regular dye-job touch-ups and nose-hair trims? Perhaps black-head removal and a shoe-shine? Maybe, when you know all the stuff included, his haircuts aren't so extravagant and only seem as though they were done by the chief hair-dresser from the Court of Louis XVI, one Monsieur Leonard who created those dazzling bouffants decorated with cages full of birds and jewels and powder.

No candidate can deliver great change to America, and if one were even to behave in office as though he or she could do that, one strongly suspects that he or she would meet the fate of the Kennedy brothers in fairly short order.

Mitt Romney, with wads of money spilling from his pockets, apparently thought he could follow George Bush's strategy from 2000: just spend enough money, smile a lot, and don't say anything of consequence, and you'll win. But America has finally tired of Bush (America has a rather long learning curve, perhaps excused by its grotesque size), and besides, Romney has a cool, severe face instead of a smiling half-wit one. He just looks like a guy that would hire illegal immigrants to do his gardening work despite his being a wealthy man, something it turns out he in fact did.

Romney is burdened also with his past life as a missionary for a weird cult called Mormonism which only in recent years has emphasized a Christian identity rather than one associated with its odd founder who supposedly dug up a set of silver plates engraved with the Book of Mormon in his back yard (Gee, I wonder how they got there?).

At first, Romney thought he saw an opportunity to reprise John Kennedy's class act concerning questions of his religion in 1960. But Kennedy was an earthy Catholic, and many recognized religion would not get in the way of the job. That is hardly the same thing as having served as a missionary and resembling a deacon. And Kennedy was eloquent while Romney resembles the kind of salesman you wish would go away and let you shop in peace. Besides, Bush's lumpishness has exhausted the patience of many by pushing religion into everything, even the brochures handed out at the Grand Canyon.

Imagine an American president going to an important international meeting, thumping his big Bible, declaring it to be the certain Word of God, and challenging the other world leaders to confess that truth? This is exactly what Mike Huckabee did at an Iowa Republican debate. Does anyone not obsessed with electric organs and choir robes think this is an appropriate posture for the leader of the world's most important country? Does being a Baptist preacher contribute to statesmanship? Voters needn't be concerned over Huckabee's readiness to play Caesar because his kind of Baptist is always ready for some killing, the wrathful God of the Old Testament having played a prominent role in his Sunday School experience, ready, as Mark Twain wrote in Letters From the Earth, to slay even the women for the sin of peeing against the temple wall even though they are not capable of the act.

Huckabee does share one advantage with Obama, and that is his quality of freshness. This cannot be underestimated in view of the desperation of a people to put George Bush and his pug-uglies into the oblivion of forgetfulness. Huckabee may be slightly demented witness his recent argument about evolution and kangaroos but he does have a boyish, fresh quality. He doesn't look or speak anything like Giuliani or Thompson or the other grotesque political goblins haunting the campaign.

It would be the most entertaining outcome were the final candidates to be Obama and Huckabee. That match would provide a modern version of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, with Obama as the voice of reason and good sense and Huckabee as the emotional and articulate defender of nonsense. The outcome in America would be anybody's guess.

http://www.counterpunch.org/chuckman01092008.html

boyfriend

01-10-2008, 02:12 AM

i'm really getting tired of this 'corporate' bogey-man. as well as that term 'corporatist.' also 'fascism'

really trite & naive

consumer capitalism is a hell of a lot more dangerous & a hell of a lot more EVIL than all those 'fascist' effigies. why?

consumer capitalism, i think, turns people into willing participants in their own enslavement; it leaves us all wallowing in shit & calling it livelihood & culture, it disintegrates families, it disproves the existence of god, & it heralds the triumph of capital once & for all: the commodification of every possible aspect of human existence. it also totally wipes out organic culture in favor of commercial culture

maybe i'm a little drunk, but all this bullshit about fascism & corporations sounds like quaint liberal hogwash to me

wolfgang von skeptik

01-10-2008, 03:35 AM

Boyfriend wrote:

i'm really getting tired of this 'corporate' bogey-man. as well as that term 'corporatist.' also 'fascism'

really trite & naive

consumer capitalism is a hell of a lot more dangerous & a hell of a lot more EVIL than all those 'fascist' effigies. why?

consumer capitalism, i think, turns people into willing participants in their own enslavement; it leaves us all wallowing in shit & calling it livelihood & culture, it disintegrates families, it disproves the existence of god, & it heralds the triumph of capital once & for all: the commodification of every possible aspect of human existence. it also totally wipes out organic culture in favor of commercial culture

maybe i'm a little drunk, but all this bullshit about fascism & corporations sounds like quaint liberal hogwash to me

Since I know from decades of experience how booze beclouds clear thinking, perhaps you should wait until tomorrow to read these relevant words by Leon Trotsky:

At the moment that the “normal” police and military resources of the bourgeois dictatorship, together with their parliamentary screens, no longer suffice to hold society in a state of equilibrium – the turn of the fascist regime arrives. Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie, and bands of the declassed and demoralized lumpenproletariat; all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy...And the fascist agency, by utilizing the petty bourgeoisie as a battering ram, by overwhelming all obstacles in its path, does a thorough job. After fascism is victorious, finance capital gathers into its hands, as in a vise of steel, directly and immediately, all the organs and institutions of sovereignty, the executive, administrative, and educational powers of the state: the entire state apparatus together with the army, the municipalities, the universities, the schools, the press, the trade unions, and the cooperatives. When a state turns fascist, it doesn’t only mean that the forms and methods of government are changed...the changes in this sphere ultimately play a minor role – but it means, primarily and above all, that the workers’ organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat. Therein precisely is the gist of fascism. (Emphasis added.)

Consumer capitalism -- which as you correctly recognize "turns people into willing participants in their own enslavement " -- is part of the process that as Trotsky puts it reduces the Working Class to an "amorphous" (that is, mindless) state. Consumer capitalism is thus simultaneously an expression of fascism and one of its most vital cornerstones.

Trotsky's essay from which this quote is taken ("What Next?" Part 2, "Democracy and Fascism") is linked here:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky ... /index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1932-ger/index.htm)

A great deal more that I assure you is not "quaint liberal hogwash" is linked here:

http://www.marxists.org/

Marxism is jeeringly said to be obsolete, but that is merely to discourage us from reading it -- for there is no body of writing on earth that explains so accurately and in such detail what is being done to us and why.

By the way, welcome to Populist Independent (soon to be renamed Socialist Independent).

boyfriend

01-10-2008, 09:43 AM

A great deal more that I assure you is not "quaint liberal hogwash" is linked here:

http://www.marxists.org/

Marxism is jeeringly said to be obsolete, but that is merely to discourage us from reading it -- for there is no body of writing on earth that explains so accurately and in such detail what is being done to us and why.
that is NOT cool, equating trotsky with marx, then questioning my cred when it comes to marx. true, i havent read much trotsky & i am aware you are a fan of his. however i do know my marx, even if i never did find out his opinions about FASCISM, of which i'm sure there were many. i bet he'd have disapproved of NAZIS too if he had lived half a century longer, but mother nature can be a cruel mistress

look, the main problem here is that all these cries of fascism or whatever strike me as being a little shrill & emotionally loaded & while your excerpt from trotsky is, i suppose, correct, capitalism is supremely adaptable & doesnt need to resort to tried-&-failed methods such as FASCISM to survive. it finds NEW ways & what it has achieved now falls under a NEW definition

basically the problem i have w/ "fascism and corporations" & stuff like that is that it makes out all of what we're witnessing & experiencing to be some historical aberration, or implies as much

Mary TF

01-13-2008, 01:25 PM

Goodbye Dennis
Kucinich Sells Out to Obama, Inc.

Paul Street
January 02, 2008

Barack Obama has excluded himself from the progressive coalition by the statements he’s made, unfortunately. He’s a lot smarter than his public statements, which are extremely conciliatory to concentrated power and big business...The people of Iowa and New Hampshire have to ask themselves: who is going to fight for you...Edwards raises the question of the concentration of wealth and power in a few hands that are working against the majority of people.

- Ralph Nader, MSNBC, December 17, 2007

For some time now, I’ve been giving a quiet and indirect sort of tribute to Dennis Kucinich. I’ve been praising him for backing progressive policy proposals and initiatives that “mainstream” (corporate) Democrats refuse to embrace: single-payer health insurance, de-funding the illegal occupation of Iraq, investigating civilian Iraqi casualties, the impeachment of Cheney-Bush and so on. I’ve been mentioning him as the only truly Left candidate in the Democratic presidential race.

Maybe he thinks Barack will let him set up his cherished Department of Peace. No chance.

I can’t believe Dennis actually thinks that “Obama, Inc.” is a progressive change agent. But then, when you believe in UFOs, all kinds of bizarre cognitions are possible.

Goodbye, Dennis. You seem to like fantasies, so you should have some good fun with your new best friend Barack Obama. Fantasy is what he’s all about.

HI Mike, I assume by this time you have seen that Dennis Kucinich was not endorsing Obama, it was a ploy to keep the people who caucused for him from choosing Edwards as a second choice, and to weaken Hillary, it was purely political, which is rare for Kucinich. He sent an email to that affect. I hope you also saw that Nader actually said in the interview with Matthews (and I paraphrase) that he liked Dennis, but as Matthews was asking for a top tier candidate, he spoke of Edwards. I know about his further endorsements as well, (and I am almost as disappointed in him as I am in Kennedy for endorsing Clinton)...Edwards with the 28,000 square foot house (can you say football field), and his crying childhood poverty when his father was in management at the mill he worked at. His hedgefunds certainly are in conflict with his purported populist stance, ... FAKE, FAKE, FAKE...and his military stance is mercurial at best...

I agree with you on Obama, I am sorry that Richardson pulled out as he gave me someone else to pull the lever for, I give kudos to Kucinich for going for the New Hampshire recount, and boo Paul from pulling out from doing the same...still looking for practical solutions, went to my congresswoman's town hall meeting and asked some pointed questions...what else to do but talk to a lot of people...

On an up note here's a delightfully surprising and refreshing thread from the a ny kucinich email group, first I've seen of any conversation like this there of course the first thread should be read bottom up: I left the 2nd message on as it amused me and may amuse you (plural you here):

From: "Meetup.com" <info>
Subject: New York Dennis Kucinich Statewide Meetup Group Mailing List Daily
Digest
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 05:18:43 -0500 (EST)

[Meetup] New York Dennis Kucinich Statewide Meetup Group Mailing List

1.

Subject: Re: Ahu5 Replies to Tom

From: Tom Chechatka

Date: January 12, 2008 08:52 AM

Reply to sender Reply to group

Awesome. I see your point completely. I would only suggest if dissent
is channeled intelligently -- if we become eloquent organizers around
the problem of Fascism's rise in our country -- we might deflect the urge
to violence and usher in effective leadership that is diligent in its duty
to "promote the general Welfare."

Indeed, by power to organize around truth one gains command over
action.

Can you imagine what conditions must have been like in 1776 when
the disparity between what was and what men could dream, was so
great the necessity arose to rise up in arms against the greatest
empire on earth? This blows me away...

Ahu5 wrote: I
suppose it is true that some of the leading American Revolutionaries had enlightened motives, but that only sharpens the point that the ultimate result was very bad. I am saying that at the present state of human evolution mass revolt is very likely to go awry. American White people, including many Kucinich supporters, are a plague upon the earth. Maybe if their faces are ground into the dirt for a generation they will wise up a little.

----- Original Message ----- From: Tom Chechatka
To: denniskucinich-326@meetup.com Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 11:43 PM Subject: Re: [denniskucinich-326] Tom's Reply to Ahu5
I think I've been pretty clear about laying out the context of my talk about
"insurrection," so I will just wait for your further elaboration of why we
might not be well-advised to speak of such real possibility, and why we
ought not become the voice that recognizes this.

Per your insights into history, particularly our own, we have to bear in mind
that the battle between Anglo-Dutch Liberalism and the ideas of the American
Revolution have been ongoing for more than two centuries now. Even today
this battle rages. Proof is in off-shore Anglo-Dutch financial centers from
where the few, the proud, the Fascist of America have benefited at the

expense of the people of this republic.

Pure ideas spoken in the Declaration of Independence were compromised
in the Constitution. Such was the price of unity then.

I do not suppose that anything, ever, is cut and dry. Not even now, at a
time when the Financial Beast is so badly compromised our opportunity
to finish him off, once and for all, is sitting there like a Golden Prize we
could, if only we have courage, gift to all humanity.

I WILL NOT LIE DOWN TO A HANDFUL OF THUGS.

If I must insult them, so be it.

But always -- ALWAYS -- present a face-saving way out.

Today, an invitation to fair hearing when the coming day arrives and
the Beast is at the doorstep of the U.S. Treasury looking for help. This,
in exchange for giving Congressman Kucinich a fair, equitable opportunity
to campaign before the American People.

Tomorrow, I cannot say.

The point of all my thoughts simply
have been to say someone with
spirit eying Principles spoken in the Declaration of Independence
understands how such concerns have not gone away ... despite the
cruel fantasies of Freedom and Justice people in positions of
influence otherwise seem hell-bent on promoting as though they were
the guiding forces of our American way of life. These lies only cloud
sight of truth -- truth about Fascism, the grave threat of our time --
much as lies always are meant to do...

Ahu5 wrote: Tom, I have not been following this message string so I went back and reviewed your comments. I am not sure what to make of them. I think most of what you say is quite insightful but every so often
you seem to stray into advocating mob violence and insurrection, though you deny it. Maybe you are letting your emotions get the better of you. I have nothing against the idea of insurrection in the abstract, but I tend to think that in practice the proper circumstances have existed rarely if ever. I'm not a historian but off hand I can't think of any violent insurrection that seemed to work out well. I guess in some cases one could argue that they worked out better than more peaceful evolution would have, and I am not well enough informed to agree or disagree. But lets take some clear cut cases, and then move on to discuss why in the present time and place it is totally counterproductive to even talk of popular insurrection. The French Revolution led to such chaos that Napoleon was able to 'pluck the crown from the gutter', leading to a
series of devastating wars and finally the restoration of the monarchy. The Russian Revolution made a promising start but it opened the way for the murderous regime of Lenin and Stalin, the death by starvation of 20 or 30 million Ukrainians, and indirectly the horrors of Western Anticommunism, including the rise of Hitler and the introduction of the use of nuclear weapons by the US, which may yet kill us all. The Chinese Revolution led to the Cultural Revolution which set the Chinese and Tibetan civilizations back by many centuries. The people of the present Chinese State suffer under one of the most violent, corrupt, and antidemocratic governments in the world. Lets consider the American Revolution, which led us to our present pass. Is this a perversion of the original intent? I think not. Lets remember that
the American economy was founded on genocidal war against the Natives, on slave labor, and on indentured labor. (In New England there was also the curious institution of witch burning, which may or may not have been epiphenomenal.) The Ruling Class of slave traders, slave owners, and mill owners, stirred up the ignorant populace with some cheesy issues about import taxes. The War being won, they could get on with their sinful business, and advance the consolidation of their hold on the economy without outside interference.
In 1838 slavery was abolished throughout the British empire. Because of our wonderful Revolution we were free to continue it. The Abolitionist movement provoked the institutionalization of virulent Racism, which is the major determinant of our electoral politics to this day. Eventually we were able to have our glorious Civil
War, a pioneering epic of mechanized slaughter which was not matched for 50 years. This left us with our wonderful legacy of militarism, especially in the South, and the seeds of the MIC. I see I am getting emotional and I had better stop. I will not attempt to trace the story to the present. I will postpone the promised explanation of why we should not even talk about insurrection in the present circumstance. Best regards, ahu5

----- Original Message ----- From: Tom Chechatka To: denniskucinich-326@meetup.com Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008

6:09 PM Subject: Re: [denniskucinich-326] crooked NH primary results
Just to be clear, dude or dudette, I am in no way, shape of form
advocating violence. Rather, only a strong, concerted statement
relentlessly delivered to relevant institutions of social influence --
like media, political representatives, party organizations, groups,
churches, you name it -- essentially stating that the politics
of weakness (such as that which tolerates vote fraud) is an
invitation to unwelcome violence, even unto insurrection.

One form of this statement is flooding the mainstream
media
with pics of Benito Mussolini hanging by his feet in Milan, Italy
possibly captioned with a statement saying "Such is the FATE
of Fascists." This, ONLY as a strong statement of recognition
meant to inform the recipient that we clearly see what the hell is
going on here, and they had better start hardening their backbone
if they wish to fulfill their social responsibility of promoting the
peaceful tranquility of our nation's domestic life.

Before I go any further with this thought here, let me be
exceedingly clear.

It is not Kucinich supporters who represent our nation's
acquiescence to the rising tide of Fascism in this country.
And in case you were not aware, Dennis himself recently
spoke of this rising tide in an interview he gave Real News.

Furthermore, it is not Kucinich supporters who represent the
rising threat of insurrection.

Instead, I would submit
the rising threat of insurrection comes
from supporters of Dr. Ron Paul, whose campaign platform is
dead nuts WRONG on the Constitutional role government should
play relative to its mandate to "promote the general Welfare."

Watching the male-dominated audience attending his post-
New Hampshire primary rally chanting "Ron Paul! Ron Paul!
Ron Paul!", I saw the potential for future Brown Shirts of
America, the likes of whom in days past chanted, "Sig Hiel!
Sig Hiel! Sig Hiel!"

The emotional makeup of this less-than-well-informed citizenry --
that they could become so emotionally charged for a candidate
whose position on the role of government in promoting "the general
Welfare" is deeply flawed -- makes for character easily incited
to insurrection. This is downright dangerous. Or at least it is
potentially so, and we ought to be willing to say this in no
uncertain
terms.

This, then, is the primary -- most pressing -- need for organizing
around strong anti-Fascist, anti-insurrection statements. Critically,
I think, when you say you are for Peace, you ought to be capable
of identifying that which threatens the peace, and willing to speak
out against it even in ways that shock the senses of those who
receive the message. Such is what must be done sometimes
when the message that must be sent is "Get a backbone!"

Finally...

The Declaration of Independence contained strong language
inciting the necessity of insurrection among people who would
probably have preferred not to revolt. It was a principled statement
identifying what line had been crossed that necessitated determined
action. Such a determined statement today -- not a call to revolt,
but rather a precursor to a call to revolt -- might go a long way
to inform influential
elements of our society that a growing movement
of citizens is demanding they GET A BACKBONE and fulfill their
social responsibility of promoting the peaceful tranquility of our
nation's domestic life.

Because the culture that accepts the politics of turning a blind eye
is ripe for violence, and this is precisely the opposite of what we seek.

Ahu5 <wrote: We are too few and too undisciplined for violence to make sense. I suggest we turn to the 'ActUp' tactics of Gay/Lesbian activists as a precedent for what to do when shut out of the discourse.

----- Original Message ----- From: Tom Chechatka To: denniskucinich-326@meetup.com Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 4:12 PM Subject: Re: [denniskucinich-326] crooked NH primary results
In an age when regulatory agencies of all kinds have perfected
the art of turning a blind eye, what is one to do?

Possibly become the voice claiming the Nuremberg Tribunal
marked a
decisive turning point in the history of Western civilization,
when the age of Christian Forgiveness was, itself, declared dead?

Call it the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction gone Political.

Even Dennis claims Strength Through Peace does not mean
a Free People should atrophy their muscle...

mark wrote: the machines that count about 80 percent of the paper
ballots are made by the same companies that make the
touch screen machines are are just as easily tampered
with.. nobody compares the paper receits with the
tabulated results... bada-bing bada-boom, what's the
difference?

the NH polls and primary results matched for every
candidate except for clinton and
obama:

http://presscue.com/node/38034
http://www.bradblog.com/

would people be more likely to vote for representative
kucinich if senator obama had won new hampshire
by over 10%.. would richardson still be in the race?
things would be totally different.

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Subject: Re: [denniskucinich-326] crooked NH primary results

From: vicki matovic

Date: January 12, 2008 05:08 PM

Reply to sender Reply to group

I don't like sounding like a bitch: but:::::: could we wait and discuss fascism and Mussolini and violence until Feb. 6???? It's wasting SO MUCH TIME to go thru all the emails, we could be getting HUNDREDS of other people to vote for him during that time !!!!!! If youse guys are such Dennis fans, get off the computer and make phone calls to NY dems or Michigan, or go put up some lawn signs, damnit !!!! You're drivin' me nuts ! vicki

Tom Chechatka <tmc0630> wrote: Can't Devery. I'm up from promotion at Getty and I REALLY need to make
this sale!

Devery <devery> wrote: Tom,

Are you a covert employee of Getty Images looking for royalties from the
image of Mussolini's demise? If so, I congratulate you for your inventive viral marketing technique.

Seriously -- I completely agree with your concerns, your sense of urgency, your precient undertanding that we are moving into a serious fascist state. But sending everyone an image of Mussolini is going to do jack for our concerns. A) most people are totally historically ignorant. B) it would be seen, and rightly so, as a message that threatens violence and condones violence.

Let's come up with some other strategies, okay?

Sincerely,

Devery

Kid of the Black Hole

01-13-2008, 03:08 PM

Boyfriend wrote:

[quote]i'm really getting tired of this 'corporate' bogey-man. as well as that term 'corporatist.' also 'fascism'

really trite & naive

consumer capitalism is a hell of a lot more dangerous & a hell of a lot more EVIL than all those 'fascist' effigies. why?

consumer capitalism, i think, turns people into willing participants in their own enslavement; it leaves us all wallowing in shit & calling it livelihood & culture, it disintegrates families, it disproves the existence of god, & it heralds the triumph of capital once & for all: the commodification of every possible aspect of human existence. it also totally wipes out organic culture in favor of commercial culture

maybe i'm a little drunk, but all this bullshit about fascism & corporations sounds like quaint liberal hogwash to me

Since I know from decades of experience how booze beclouds clear thinking, perhaps you should wait until tomorrow to read these relevant words by Leon Trotsky:

At the moment that the “normal” police and military resources of the bourgeois dictatorship, together with their parliamentary screens, no longer suffice to hold society in a state of equilibrium – the turn of the fascist regime arrives. Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie, and bands of the declassed and demoralized lumpenproletariat; all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy...And the fascist agency, by utilizing the petty bourgeoisie as a battering ram, by overwhelming all obstacles in its path, does a thorough job. After fascism is victorious, finance capital gathers into its hands, as in a vise of steel, directly and immediately, all the organs and institutions of sovereignty, the executive, administrative, and educational powers of the state: the entire state apparatus together with the army, the municipalities, the universities, the schools, the press, the trade unions, and the cooperatives. When a state turns fascist, it doesn’t only mean that the forms and methods of government are changed...the changes in this sphere ultimately play a minor role – but it means, primarily and above all, that the workers’ organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat. Therein precisely is the gist of fascism. (Emphasis added.)

Consumer capitalism -- which as you correctly recognize "turns people into willing participants in their own enslavement " -- is part of the process that as Trotsky puts it reduces the Working Class to an "amorphous" (that is, mindless) state. Consumer capitalism is thus simultaneously an expression of fascism and one of its most vital cornerstones.

Trotsky's essay from which this quote is taken ("What Next?" Part 2, "Democracy and Fascism") is linked here:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky ... /index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1932-ger/index.htm)

A great deal more that I assure you is not "quaint liberal hogwash" is linked here:

http://www.marxists.org/

Marxism is jeeringly said to be obsolete, but that is merely to discourage us from reading it -- for there is no body of writing on earth that explains so accurately and in such detail what is being done to us and why.

By the way, welcome to Populist Independent (soon to be renamed Socialist Independent).[/quote:2niabbqe]

Wolf, boyfriend is exactly right on this. First, Trotsky was writing when the genuine article was afoot -- if he was a bit prescient in 1931 compared to most other commentators. Regardless, he was arguing for a narrower MORE discriminating view of fascism:

Fascism is not merely a system of reprisals, of brutal force, and of police terror. Fascism is a particular governmental system based on the uprooting of all elements of proletarian democracy within bourgeois society. The task of fascism lies not only in destroying the Communist vanguard but in holding the entire class in a state of forced disunity. To this end the physical annihilation of the most revolutionary section of the workers does not suffice. It is also necessary to smash all independent and voluntary organizations, to demolish all the defensive bulwarks of the proletariat, and to uproot whatever has been achieved during three-quarters of a century by the Social Democracy and the trade unions. For, in the last analysis, the Communist Party also bases itself on these achievements.

The Social Democracy has prepared all the conditions necessary for the triumph of fascism. But by this fact it has also prepared the stage for its own political liquidation. It is absolutely correct to place on the Social Democrats the responsibility for the emergency legislation of Brüning as well as for the impending danger of fascist savagery. It is absolute balderdash to identify Social Democracy with fascism.

This is from the same article you quoted

Two Americas

01-13-2008, 06:10 PM

Kid of the Black Hole

01-13-2008, 06:34 PM

eattherich

01-14-2008, 06:48 PM

Edwards with the 28,000 square foot house (can you say football field), and his crying childhood poverty when his father was in management at the mill he worked at. His hedgefunds certainly are in conflict with his purported populist stance, ... FAKE, FAKE, FAKE...and his military stance is mercurial at best...

Don't fall for that stuff. That is all right wing talking points, and very thuggish and idiotic. "Huh huh how can you advocate for the poor when you yourself are rich?? I guess your guy isn't such a saint after all. Yuck yuck." Just pure bullshit, and so disingenuous that people are using this crap and spreading it around.

Edwards hasn't misled anyone about his background. It is the all American story that millions can relate to, and it is disgusting that people are spouting this. Fuck Edwards, never mind him. Does everything have to be fucking American Idol? These attacks on Edwards are an insult and an attack on every working person in the country. That is what matters. Yes, late in life his father became a supervisor. So fucking what? Whose parents did NOT try to better themselves? That does not invalidate anything Edwards is saying about the struggles of his parents and the people in their community and the broader lessons to learn from that.

Neither Kucinich nor Edwards are the "prefect personal choice" nor our savior nor any of the rest of that. The problem is looking at politics that way. Within the context of which campaign can socialism best be advanced, can class struggle best be discussed, can the public most easily and powerfully be engaged, can the most clarity be brought to people's perceptions of political reality? Those are the questions, and they should be the only questions any of us are asking.

I think you're being waaaay to optimistic there,Mike.It's very simple.Most rich people are not to be trusted.Like the song says "People sure act funny when the get a lot of money."

However, there’s one highly significant chapter in his Senate career omitted from Edwards’ campaign Web site. Edwards, who comes from a state where banking is big business, played a critical role in brokering legislation to allow banks to sell mutual funds and insurance, and to engage in other speculative ventures. This law, worth hundreds of billions to the banks, blasted a gigantic hole in the Glass-Steagal banking law’s firewall of protections designed to prevent the kinds of bank collapses that marked the Great Depression of the ’30s — meaning that it put the money of Joe Six-Pack depositors at risk. Such a gigantic boon to the banking lobby can hardly be classed as a populist victory.

If there was real depth to Edwards’ rhetorical populism, one would expect to find it in “Real Solutions for America.” That’s the 60-page campaign booklet that Edwards refers to in his stump speech. But when one checks out these “real solutions” (available on his Web site), one finds a lot of nice-sounding hot air, some innocuous small-bore proposals — and few specific details. On a number of important matters — example: federal corporate welfare — the “solutions” Edwards’ speeches describe as “bold” involve . . . appointing a commission.

Sometimes, the pamphlet contradicts Edwards’ reality. Example: “Some tax lawyers make millions through flimsy letters telling clients how to shelter their income. Edwards will stop these abuses,” it claims. But in 1995, Edwards — already a multimillionaire — set up a professional corporation to shelter at least $10 million in legal earnings from having to pay Medicare taxes on them, saving himself some $290,000, according to the News and Observer, which quoted a top specialist from the American Institute of CPAs as labeling this trick “gaming the system.” Populist hypocrisy? http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/a-pop ... over/2034/ (http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/a-populist-make-over/2034/)

By his late 30s, Edwards had become a multimillionaire by picking fights in courtrooms across North Carolina in the name of disabled children. At age 45, as a political novice, he unseated an incumbent Republican senator. And, now, at age 50 and still in his first Senate term, he is making a bid for the White House, casting himself as "the son of a mill worker going toe to toe against the son of a president." ...Edwards accrued more than 45 million-dollar judgments or settlements during his career, and business was so brisk that in 1993 he formed his own law firm in Raleigh with a friend. The son of the mill worker grew rich; according to campaign disclosure forms, he is now worth between $12 million and $60 million. He and Elizabeth purchased an estate now valued at $1 million in Raleigh's tony Country Club Hills neighborhood, as well as a spread on Figure Eight Island, an exclusive resort near Wrightsville Beach N.C. (As reported by the Charlotte Observer, the Edwardses had to pay overdue property taxes on their Raleigh home and cars more than 30 times over the past decade, including eight instances when they had to pay interest.) http://www.boston.com/news/nation/artic ... ?page=full (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/10/05/from_mill_town_to_the_national_stage_boston_globe/?page=full)

MLK was right,there will never be any equality in America,until we adopt some form of socialism.Deep down every "country club" Democrat knows this.Every Hillary or Obama voter knows this,but they are afraid to admit it.Socialism has been far too demonized,by the right wingers in both parties,for most Americans to seriously learn what it means or entails.Let alone,to examine cases,like Venezuela,and now Bolivia, where it truly has worked.We cannot vote our way into socialism.We tried that in 1932,with Wall Street's man (http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-fdr.html) FDR,

Quite apart from floating speculative enterprises in the field of international finance, FDR was intimately involved in domestic flotations, at least one of which was of some substance. The most important of these ventures was organized by a prominent group including Owen D. Young of General Electric (the ever-present Young of the Young Plan for German reparations described in the last chapter) and S. Bertron of Bertron Griscom, investment bankers in New York. This syndicate created the American Investigation Corporation in 1921. In 1927 followed Photomaton, Inc. and in 1928 the Sanitary Postage Service Corporation. Then Roosevelt became a director of CAMCO, Consolidated Automatic Merchandising Corporation, but only briefly, resigning upon his election as Governor of the State of New York. As we read in the above epigraph, by 1930 FDR has had second thoughts about playing with other peoples' money.

AMERICAN INVESTIGATION CORPORATION

German scientists and engineers made an early and successful start in the use of lighter-than-air vehicles or airships for passenger and freight transportation. As early as 1910 Germany operated scheduled airship passenger services. Patents for airships were seized in World War I by the U.S. Government under the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, and after the war Germany was forbidden by the Reparations Commission to construct airships. This left the field open to American enterprise. The opportunities presented by German work and development restrictions in Germany were observed by a group of Wall Street financiers: S.R. Bertron of Bertron, Griscom & Co. (40 Wall Street) and not surprisingly, since he was intimately involved in German reparations, by Owen D. Young of General Electric (120 Broadway). This group was particularly interested in the profitable opportunities for development of airship transportation in the United States. On January 10, 1921, as FDR was unpacking his bags in the offices of the Fidelity & Deposit Company at 120 Broadway, he received a letter from Bertron which read in part:

My dear Mr. Roosevelt:
Representing the small group of prominent men here who are becoming greatly interested in the question of air transportation, I had a long conference with Army officials in Washington last week in regard to it. I am advised that you, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, are very familiar with this subject and I should like immensely to discuss it with you....

FDR and Bertron met to discuss air transportation over lunch at the Down Town Association. We can surmise that Bertron filled in Roosevelt on technical developments up to that time. We know from the files that there was also a meeting between Owen D. Young, S.R. Bertron, and engineer-attorney Fred S. Hardesty, representing the German patent holders, who had good connections in Washington where the seized patents were in the custody of the Alien Property Custodian and had yet to be released.

This second meeting yielded a preliminary compact dated January 19, 1921 known as the Hardesty-Owen-Bertron agreement that planned the road to development of commercial airship operations in the U.S. A syndicate was subsequently formed by Owen-Bertron to "investigate all phases of aerial navigation, legislation required and methods of fund raising." Hardesty and his associates turned over to the syndicate all their data and rights in exchange for a refund of their out-of-pocket expenses of $20,000 incurred to that date and an interest in the syndicate. FDR's role was that of fund raiser, using his numerous political contacts throughout the United States. On May 17, 1921

Bertron wrote FDR that he had been trying to raise funds from people in St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Chicago, while Stanley Fahnestock, a partner in his firm, had been making the rounds in California and Chicago. Lewis Stevenson, another syndicate member, was at work among his contacts in the mid-West. So Bertron appealed to FDR for a set of personal introductions to potential contributors:

Stevenson is very anxious for you to give him a line to Edward Hurley, E. F. Carey and Charles Piez, all of whom you know. He would like a letter also to Edward Hines, R.P. Lamont, and H.C. Chatfield-Taylor. I am afraid this is a large order. Won't you do your best?

FDR acknowledged Bertron's request, to the effect that he was sending letters to Stevenson "introducing him to Edward Hurley and to Charles Piez and E.F. Carey. I am afraid I don't know the others." Charles Piez, president of Link-Belt Company in Chicago, excused himself from participation on the ground that "... I am practicing the most rigid economy, bending a deaf ear to the most inviting and alluring prospects," and citing the "deplorable shape" of the industry. (This plea of poverty was supported by Piez's letter to FDR, on old stock stationary, with the new address printed over the old one—hardly becoming a president of a major corporation such as Link-Belt Company). Edward N. Hurley wrote that he was "not very active in business," but when next in New York "I am going to make it a point to call on you and check up the past."

On June 1st, Lewis Stevenson reported to Roosevelt on his fundraising progress in the mid-West. He confirmed the fact that Piez was short of funds and that Hurley wanted to talk later, but that Carey might have some interest:

Charles Swift, Thomas Wilson, both packers, are now considering the proposition, as are Potter Palmer, Chauncey McCormick and a dozen others. Since securing Marshall Field I have added to our list C. Bai Lehme, a zinc smelter of very large means; Mr. Wrigley, junior member of the great chewing-gum firm; John D. Black, of Winston, Strawn & Shaw; B.M. Winston and Hampton Winston, of Winston & Company, and Lawrence Whiting, president of the new Boulevard Bridge Bank. Gradually I am getting together a desirable group but I must confess it is discouragingly slow and hard work. My experience has been I can convince an individual of the feasibility of this scheme but as soon as he discusses it with his friends, who know nothing whatever of the proposition, they develop a serious doubt in his mind which I have to combat all over again. As a result of my observation abroad I am firm in my belief it can be made a success.

Stevenson concluded by requesting a letter of introduction to prominent Chicago attorney Levy Meyer. It is clear that by the end of June 1921 Stevenson had induced a number of prominent Chicago citizens,
including Marshall Field, Philip N. Wrigley, and Chauncey McCormick, to sign on the dotted line.

So far as FDR is concerned, his sales letters on this project would do credit to a professional salesman. Witness his letter to Colonel Robert R. McCormick, of the Chicago newspaper empire:

Dear Bert:
As you happen to be a progressively minded person I am asking Mr. Lewis G. Stevenson to have a talk with you about something which at first blush may seem a perfectly wild idea. However, it is really something very different and all I can tell you is that a good many of us here, such as Young of the General Electric Company, Bertron of Bertron Griscom & Co, and a number of other perfectly respectable citizens have shown enough interest to look into the question further. All of this relates to the establishment of commercial dirigible lines in the United States...

Similar letters went to Chauncey McCormick, Frank S. Peabody of Peabody Coal, and Julius Rosenwald of Sears, Roebuck. These initiatives were followed up with personal dinners. For example, on April 21, 1921 FDR wrote to Frank Peabody:

... is there any possibility you may be able to dine with Mr. Bertron, Mr. Snowden Fahnestock and several others of us at the Union Club next Monday evening at 7:30? Bertron is just back from the other side and has some very interesting data in regard to these commercial dirigibles, which have proved successful in Germany.

FDR added that the group "will promise not to hold you up against your will." To which a reluctant Peabody telegraphed, "Impossible to be there, would not be at all afraid of being held up would have enjoyed visit with you immensely."

To Edsel B. Ford FDR wrote, "I am sending this note by Mr. G. Hall Roosevelt, my brother-in-law, who is familiar with the whole matter." G. Hall Roosevelt, who happened to work for General Electric as a division manager, proved himself to be an alert negotiator, but not sufficiently so to win Ford during the early stages.

However, by February 18, 1922 the American Investigation Corporation had compiled a very healthy list of subscribers, as the following partial list confirms:1
Name

Affiliation
Location

W.E. Boeing President, Boeing Airplane Co. Seattle
Edward H. Clark President, Homestake Mining Co. New York
Benedict Crowell Crowell & Little Construction Co. Cleveland
Arthur V. Davis President, Aluminum Co. of America Pittsburgh
L.L. Dunham Equitable Building Association New York
Snowden A. Fahnestock Bertron, Griscom & Co. New York
Marshall Field, III Capitalist Chicago
E.M. Herr President, Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co. Pittsburgh
J.R. Lovejoy Vice President, General Electric Company New York
John R. McCune President, Union National Bank Pittsburgh
Samuel McRoberts Capitalist New York
R.B. Mellon President, Mellon National Bank Pittsburgh
W.L. Mellon President, Gulf Oil Co. Pittsburgh
Theodore Pratt Standard Oil Company New York
Franklin D. Roosevelt Vice President, Fidelity & Deposit Co. New York
Philip N. Wrigley Vice President, Wm. Wrigley Co. Chicago
Owen D. Young Vice President, General Electric Co. New York

The initial board of directors included National City Bank vice president Samuel McRoberts,2 William B. Joyce, president of National Surety Company—one of FDR's competitors in the bonding and surety business—and Benedict Crowell, former Assistant Secretary of War and chairman of the board of the Cleveland construction company Crowell & Little Construction. Snowden A. Fahnestock of Bertron, Griscom was the son of New York financier Gibson Fahnestock and a partner in the stock brokerage firm of Fahnestock & Company. Gibson's brother William Fahnestock, a partner in the same firm, was director of several major corporations including Western Union and, with Allen Dulles, of Gold Dust Corporation. David Goodrich, another subscriber, was chairman of the board of B.F. Goodrich Company and a director of American Metals Company of New Mexico.
It should be noted with care that this enterprise was a private venture where the risk and the rewards were taken by experienced and clear-sighted capitalists. No criticism can be made of the financing of this venture; the criticism lies in the manner in which it acquired its main asset, the German patents.

The sorry fact is,the American system was designed to favor a wealthy capitalist class,from the very start.Nobody in either establishment party is the worker's friend,nor will they ever be.Short of socialism,the only things that might make the government a truly populist one is:

*A 75% or greater pay cut for all elected officials.President on down.
*Abolition of all lobbying.
*Public financing of all campaigns.
*Presidential campaigns limited to,say,six weeks.

Unless drastic measures like this are taken,there will never be any true populism,let alone socialism.

So until then,I say boycott the elections. http://www.scotthortonshow.com/stickers/NobodyForPresident.jpg

Two Americas

01-14-2008, 08:28 PM

I think you're being waaaay to optimistic there,Mike.

No, I am not. It is insulting to characterize what I said in such simple-minded and dismissive terms.

You are assuming that "being too optimistic" is the only alternative to a simplistic "you can't trust rich people" and "don't vote" position, useful only as a personal stance - in other words, of no value at all. You may be struggling with this. I am not. Giddy Pollyannaish blind optimism or completely aloof opt-out of everything alienation are not the only two alternatives.

Establishing the correct personal position or stance in the world and imagining that your work is then done, is child's play. It is intellectually lazy, since nothing need be thought about and there is no need to pay attention to anyone else.

Your analysis is excellent for using to direct and inform idle chatter in social gatherings, and for dismissing and ignoring politics and justifying going on with your life separate from and unresponsive to the community, but beyond that it is of no interest or import.

Two Americas

01-14-2008, 09:02 PM

The sorry fact is,the American system was designed to favor a wealthy capitalist class,from the very start.Nobody in either establishment party is the worker's friend,nor will they ever be.Short of socialism,the only things that might make the government a truly populist one is:

*A 75% or greater pay cut for all elected officials.President on down.
*Abolition of all lobbying.
*Public financing of all campaigns.
*Presidential campaigns limited to,say,six weeks.

Unless drastic measures like this are taken,there will never be any true populism,let alone socialism.

Being "right" is the consolation prize in politics. My uncle - brilliant, well-read, well-educated self-described communist, Department of the Interior career employee - had it all figured out in 1965. He could tell you exactly why things were all fucked up, what it would take, blah blah and he puffed on his pipe as he mused from lofty and dispassionate intellectual heights on the state of affairs and congratulated himself on how much smarter and more insightful he was than all of the muddle-headed plebes around him. Boy did he have all of the answers.

I was converted. Oh goody we get to "be" communists. Now what?

wolfgang von skeptik

01-15-2008, 02:22 AM

I'm astounded this keeps coming up; 3 points plus analysis:
(1)-Regardless of the treachery of politicians, the relative attractiveness of their propaganda is critically important as sociological and anthropological data. For example, the winning appeal of Hitler reveals the hideous truth about the nature of the German majority consciousness; likewise the winning appeal of Nixon/Carter/Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush tells us the hideous truth about our own majority consciousness (social-Darwinist, violently racist/imperialist, incipiently fascist in a manner so deeply rooted it transcends party labels).

(2)-The content of any political campaigns thus provides useful indices -- often more usefully revealing than polls -- to the mindsets of both classes.

(3)-The relevance of the 2008 presidential campaign is its disclosure of the factional politics of the Ruling Class and the extent to which the Working Class is responding to each faction: the unitary fascism of the GOP mainstream (whether symbolized by the Wall Streeters Romney and Guiliani or the military strongman McCain); the theocratic fascism of Huckabee (enormously appealing to Ku Kluxers and -- sadly -- to a huge segment of the religion-opiated Working Class); the Evita Peron fascism of Clinton (hugely appealing to the white upper bourgeoisie and maliciously satisfying to the multitudes of bitterly disempowered women therein); the pseudo-populism of Edwards (powerfully attractive to those among whom class-consciousness is at last awakening); the snake-oil politics of Obamus-with-deception (ultimate proof of the Barnum Hypothesis and the terrifying truth of Moron Nation: "step right up").

Attentive members will remember that I have been arguing for some time that the chief Ruling Class achievement since the Coup of 22 November 1963 is reduction of the intellectual level of the U.S. electorate to a Dark Age ignorance analogous to that of the late Czarist Russia -- this with the added enslavement-insurance provided by a variety of zombifying opiates (drugs legal or illegal, 12-Step Recovery, Jesus, New Age, workaholism, consumeroid acquisition etc.) -- all to guarantee the masses remain forever in chains.

Thus the presidential campaigns of 1964 through 2004: peace-candidate LBJ revealing himself as the ultimate war-monger; Nixon declaring in early 1973 that henceforth the sole purpose of government is protection of the aristocracy; Carter the phony save-social-services candidate imposing theocracy and betraying the Working Class by the denial of publicly funded reproductive choice; Reagan and the first stage of combating poverty and disability with overt policies of euthanasia by neglect; Bush and the New Order (the term borrowed from Hitler); Clinton and second-stage euthanasia by neglect (the deliberate and everlasting belittlement of single-payer healthcare, since lavishly rewarded, and welfare "reform" to hurl the poor into inescapable wage-slavery); Bush II (the Reichstag Fire of 9/11, the message delivered to African-Americans via the aftermath of Katrina -- for which note white AmeriKKKa's huge unspoken support -- plus the forcible disarmament of the population and the nullification of the Bill of Rights in general).

Yet in this headlong march toward the Fourth Reich and the overt Nazism of the concentration-camp state, one candidate -- Edwards -- has dared yell, in effect, "whoa, wait a minute, we've got to return to our democratic ideals" while another candidate -- Clinton -- has responded by eerily echoing the words of Czar Nicholas II: "“we don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered.”

Regardless of who wins -- and I think the Diebold-determined (and instantly media-rationalized) outcome of New Hampshire already tells us who that will be -- the fact Edwards has defied the future-Czarina's admonition and raised the nation's hopes is profoundly significant: especially to the furtherance of the socialist cause. While a betrayed Huckabee fundamentalist will never be more than a Christofascist, a betrayed Huckabee populist or a betrayed Edwards supporter -- just as Hillary understands -- is a potential Marxist.

In which context we damn well better stop quibbling over absurdities and begin thinking of ourselves as what we truly are: an extension of the Fourth International, and quite possibly the embryo of a Fifth International.

This is not the Church, and Marxism is not the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed is fixed in the oppressive cement of centuries, while Marxism -- once the quibbling over heresy ends -- is the most powerfully dynamic ethos on Earth.

blindpig

01-16-2008, 09:16 AM

A LTTE from Spartanburg, SC.

There are social conservatives (anti-abortion, etc.) who otherwise might consider themselves "moderates" or independents. In Republicans' definition, they are liberal-leaning folks. They are not liberal - they just don't like Republicans' foreign policy, war or anti-immigration rhetoric. These people feel some Republicans are cowboys and mean-spirited. They don't necessarily want bigger government nor agree with Democrats.

snip

In the recent debate, Huckabee talked about single moms who have to raise families on their own. We Republicans really need to pay attention to a broader base. At my church, there are many single moms who struggle to meet their needs. Many are hardworking people with conservative values who like small government, etc., but they certainly don't think the way CEOs do. Although we want to be pro-business, we also need to be pro-people. That's truly being pro-life.

http://www.goupstate.com/article/200801 ... /OPINION02 (http://www.goupstate.com/article/20080116/NEWS/801160302/1021/OPINION02)