THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND THE HOLY GRAIL

By Robert Illes

King Arthur: Now stand aside, worthy adversary. 

Black Knight: 'Tis but a scratch. 

King Arthur: A scratch? Your arm's off. 

Black Knight: No it isn't. 

King Arthur: What's that, then? 

Black Knight: [after a pause] I've had worse. 

King Arthur: You liar. 

Black Knight: Come on ya pansy

  November 7^th, 2012 – What a relief – in fact, a great pleasure – it is now to watch and/or listen to Mitt Romney, Rush Limbaugh, John Boehner and Fox News. After all this was the day after November 6, 2012 – the date of what was about as crushing a victory for Democrats as could have only been fantasized on November 5^th via pre-legal pot (in certain states). In fact for a party of the right, it is ironic how wrong the Republicans and their flacks could be. There was no Dick Morris/George Will/Karl Rove predicted Romney landslide, there was no recapture of the Senate.  Mitch McConnell’s silly determination to make Obama a one term President (and 300 filibusters in support of same) ultimately floundered like a turtle on its back.  Trump birtherism was just stupid hairism.

Now, the day after their mighty and sweeping fail, these once fearsome and forever disgusting sociopaths elicited no fear.  The junk yard dog has lost his teeth.  The mean nun had her knuckles rapped by the Archbishop. Mighty Casey had struck out and languished weeping at his locker. Gandhi was prime minister, and the British Empire was sent home.  There was justice in the world.  Shane had gunned down Jack Wilson and the Rykers. There would be peace in the valley.

They were instantly irrelevant and silly. Karl Rove’s blown $300 million dollars, and stunning melt down on network TV when it was clear the computer network that was supposed to flip the Ohio vote didn’t were awesome to watch.  Whatever attempts ten Republican governors and their crony secretaries of state in ten “battleground” states made to suppress the vote, or flip the vote, or rig the outcome, all failed dismally. 

The Koch Brothers, Dick Armey, Foster Friese (please, with that name!), Morty S. (aka Sheldon) Adelson were not, after all, a league of supermen, and Citizens United was not the invincible Mr. Corporation; he may be human but he was human after all.

So let O’Reilly blab, and Hannity shriek about the war on Christmas.  It’s over. Go home and talk to your family.

At least that was the thinking on November 7^th.  Surely they would take this all in, and seriously reflect on how far from reality the Tea Party and Norquist balloons had taken them.

But as the weeks unfolded since 11/6, it was clear defeat was hard to swallow. And that’s to be understood. Well, understood up to a point.

Indeed, initially there was some concession only of their “tone” being reason for defeat, not their policy – how stupid was it that Murdock and Akin blabbed about their feelings about rape and abortion (the very same policy as Paul Ryan – but he was wise enough to count that among his lies by not even mentioning it, rather than lying about it).  Clint Eastwood and the chair was no help.  And it was ceded, nobody liked that guy Romney anyway or his wicked wife anyway.  But for those things, the Republican Party was alive and well. Obama caught a few lucky breaks. Denial. And hey, what mandate? Boehner, failed vice presidential candidate and Ayn Rand denier Paul Ryan and Republican flacks floated a freshly concocted Frank Luntz explanation: no mandate for Obama because, after all, the American public returned the Republican house to power (minus a dozen seats or so, of course) – proof they want divided government! Denial. And, of course, disingenuous since gerrymandering in 2011 had a lot to do with protecting Republican districts.

And before the inkavote ink had dried, there was Romney doubling down on his meme of the Obama having sewed up the freeloaders and takers.  (The sweet irony would come later, when, after straggling precincts had finally tallied their votes, Romney’s popular vote total will stand, in history, at no less than 47%). Denial.

Okay, I’m an empathetic liberal. Sure there’ll be a period of denial, and then that would be followed by anger. Check. Negotiation. Check. And acceptance… no. No acceptance. Back to anger. Back to  denial.

Remember the Black Knight bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. “Just a scratch!” There is obviously something beyond denial which that knight possessed, and now seems to have overtaken the Republicans at least in this lame duck period.  It could be called many things, but we all recognize it: delusion.

[King Arthur has just cut the Black Knight's last leg off] 

Black Knight: All right, we'll call it a draw. 

King Arthur: [Preparing to leave] Come, Patsy. 

[King Arthur and Patsy ride off] 

Black Knight: [calling after King Arthur] Oh, oh, I see! Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off! 

There is a meme in some religions and 12 step groups that says “act as if…” Usually, it’s for the goodness of well being and self esteem, and grounded in reality. Act as if you are brave. Act as if you are happy.

But it’s difficult in an election to act as if you won, when you got shellacked.

And so the headless, legless Republican knight trudges on. Boehner demands concessions from a President in this so-called “fiscal cliff” debate, “concessions” for stuff roundly rejected by the voting public.  John McCain and three luckless sidekicks decided to go after Susan Rice, the well respected Ambassador to the United Nations, because her name was floated to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Rice was blasted as being, basically, stupid for her dumb ass comments on Meet the Press and other “Sunday shows” – as if these shows are sanctioned by some government agency – about the attacks on the Benghazi consulate on September 11.  They took the baseless attacks on Rice a step further – not only should she be kicked to the curb, but instead, the newly re-elected President was advised by this committee of losers - even before he nominated anybody - to pick Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts (the same guy these same folks allowed to be “swift boated” in 2004 during his failed Presidential run).

The curious side effect of Kerry’s resignation, of course, would be that his Massachusetts senate seat would become vacant and perhaps would almost certainly be an opening for a comeback of Scott Brown who had been handed his butt in the recent election by Elizabeth Warren. Could it be that Machiavellian? Well, oddly, three of the four Senators who trashed Rice – McCain, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Susan Collins of Maine – actively campaigned for Brown. Hmmm.

They lost, remember, and yet deign to call the shots. Denial or delusion? Do they look pathetic, stupid, weird, crazy? Yes, but as G. Gordon Liddy once said, “The trick is not minding.”

And so, regardless of the way America is “trending”, the Republican governors in the aforementioned “swing states” are feverishly concocting anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-union stripping bills in the dead of night.  As we debate the fiscal cliff and murders in Connecticut, they are quietly knitting in the basement as it were (these people do not sleep), trying, in the case of Pennsylvania and Ohio, to weave a new way of counting electoral votes, based on congressional districts won, so that their states are no longer “winner take all”.  Thumbing their nose, as they have all year, at the bloody battle for voting rights, young punk secretaries of state like John Husted of Ohio desperately connive to stop the wrong people from voting – not with firebombs or beatings, but with bureaucratic morass and long lines.  And since the wrong people succeeded in voting anyway, on November 6, he and others like him will see what he can do about blunting the full force of those damn votes.

The Republicans seem to have an issue with “majority rule”.  In the Senate, they routinely filibuster to stop the majority from ruling. In the general electorate, they must plot to enable their victories even with fewer votes than the other guy gets.  They have their sociopathy covered: Democratic victory didn’t count anyway, it was stolen, you know, by Acorn.  Or there was de facto bribery – so many giveaways were offered up to brown people, naturally they would happily stand in line for 10 hours. Curses! Foiled!  All that Citizens United money down the drain!

For now.

And so there is a quest for Holy Grail of winning by other means.  Bush did ascend to the Presidency despite losing popular AND electorate votes via the Supreme Court in 2000, but that well cannot be expected to quench ever again.  But as their patriotic duty, they must find other ways - so convinced are they of the value of their policies that they must not allow the electorate to hurt itself, lest those policies don’t get enacted? Certainly the simplest thing to do is to act as if, and hope wimpy Dems cave.  Declare victory, and DON’T depart the field.

And then there are the methods of cheating.  But till they take hold, they flail and hope enough are convinced that they DIDN’T really lose. That they are still relevant, dammit. It’s Obama who’s doing nothing about the “fiscal cliff”. He’ll have to try harder because even though he won, big, he’s out of touch with the American people, he doesn’t have a mandate, he’s still a Muslim communist, we really won and we hold all the cards.

The Republicans have truly become the vaunted Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  They have lost a stunning election, and declaring it was “just a scratch!” The knight’s other arm went. Then his legs. But he remained breathtakingly defiant.  In denial. deluded. Here is full Monty Python clip: 

http://youtu.be/2eMkth8FWno

OHIO BURNING:

of Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman and Hursted

 
Civil rights workers Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were released from the Philadelphia (Mississippi) jail by deputy sheriff Cecil Price around 10:30 PM the night of June 21^st, 1964 after being held five or six hours.  What they didn’t know is that Price had set them up for an ambush further up lonely Route 19 as they headed back to Meridian.

Few things have changed since the recent political conventions. Romney continues opening his mouth with two results: the lies are coming out and the foot is going in.  The feverish attempt to make some political hay out of the recent Cairo and Benghazi embassy attacks - and resultant murder of American diplomats - landed in the same ballpark as some of the greater presidential campaign horrors of all time – right up there with daddy George Romney’s own “I was brainwashed” 45 years ago.  The difference between father and son gaffes, are, of course, senior Romney was telling the truth. Son Romney, as usual, lied.
 
The reason for the flailing and unpresidential remarks on an international event that was still breaking is blatant: after the Democratic convention, aided by a stirring string of oratories by Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, Julian Castro, Sandra Fluke, Jennifer Granholm, John Lewis, John Kerry and my personal favorite, Deval Patrick, President Barack Obama emerged as the clear favorite in all polls, in all polls within polls, in all swing states. “Democrats need to grow a backbone! “said Patrick. “… I will not stand by while Barack Obama is bullied out of the White House,” He continued with rising passion. “We can’t let SuperPacs tell us who is going to be our next President, or congressman. We’re Americans. We make our own decisions.”

At an earlier campaign stop, Barack Obama said, in response to the crowd: “Don’t boo. Vote!”

Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman had come from New York to join the Freedom Summer project, specifically designed to help black Mississippi citizens register to vote. James Chaney was a CORE activist from Meridian. Deputy Price again pulled them over, but this time had two carfuls of local Klansmen with him. The three workers were placed in the back of the police car. One of the Klansmen, James Jordan, got into the passenger seat. They drove a few miles to a small side road. 

Nobody, it seems, really likes Mitt Romney, or wants him to be President.  He’s proven to be beyond mendacious, devoid of specific ideas. Similarly mendacious and ill equipped for the job is his running mate, Paul Ryan a virtual “mini Mitt”. His campaign and his super rich pals Adelson, Koch and Rove et al. have spent tens of millions of Citizens United bucks in ten swing states, saturating their airwaves with advertisements, yet he’s only lost ground.  He is losing in polls on likability, foreign policy, and trust. He is losing heavily with women, and Latinos, yet is doubling down with the anti-women warriors and anti-immigrant stalwarts at the extreme of the Tea Party.  And a recent poll among blacks shows him trailing Obama 94% to 0.

Zero.

So one might ask, why is this man still smirking? Does he seriously expect to win?

Yeah.  They can cheat.  They can prevent Democrats from voting, especially those 94 to 0 black people in places like Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Richmond, Miami and Cleveland.

Here is John Lewis from the Democratic national convention:

"My dear friends, your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. Not too long ago, people stood in unmovable lines. They had to pass a so-called literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. On another occasion, one was asked to count the jelly beans in a jar—all to keep them from casting their ballots. Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting.  They are changing the rules, cutting polling hours and imposing requirements intended to suppress the vote.”

Did you read that? “The most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union.”  The vote is sacred, yet at this vaunted Democratic convention, Lewis was pretty much the only one to underscore its being threatened. Obama made a passing mention. Bill Clinton, in his 45 minutes of captivation, did not.

The cars stopped on the lonely road. Schwerner, who had the specific hit ordered on him by Grand Dragon Sam Bowers of the local Klan, was pulled from the car first. Wayne Roberts put his left hand on Schwerner’s shoulder and shot him in the heart with a gun in his right. Goodman was the next to be pulled out of the car and shot dead. Chaney, the black man, was saved for last. He ran, but they caught him. He was beaten ferociously, then shot three times. The bodies were loaded into their station wagon. They were taken to a friendly farm, and buried at the site of a dam. They were covered with tons of dirt. This got the attention of the FBI. Informants cracked, and a semblance of justice was served. But this event led to the Voting Rights act of 1965, and Mississippi was led into the 20^th century.

“Don’t boo. Vote,” said Barack Obama at a campaign rally. That’s right, the polls can be bubbling over with optimism, but will mean nothing if people don’t show up to vote.  And they will mean nothing if people show up to vote, and can’t.

And so we come to Mitt and mini-Mitt’s last chance to win in 2012: stopping enough potential Democratic voters from voter. Or make it incredibly confusing just to register. Secretary of State John Hursted, born two years after the 1965 Voting Rights Act was signed into law, is typical of the gaggle of Republican Secretaries of State in key swing states doing his best to thwart Democratic voting in Ohio. Many of the voters targeted for the infamous “Voter I.D.” laws and who will be most injured by the limitation of early voting days will be the elderly, the young, and minorities – mostly black (read likely Democratic voters).  The Voter I.D. seems reasonable, and indeed such a law challenged in Indiana was upheld in 2008 – by Antonin Scalia and the Supreme Court.  But the requirement to get this ID is often daunting, requiring birth certificates that are long lost, travel to department of motor vehicles offices (whose hours have often been cut back, oddly enough), and the like.  Hursted, executing a law passed by the legislature, says it’s all about combating “voter fraud”. But a guy in Philadelphia (not Mississippi, Pennsylvania this time) let the cat out of the voter suppression bag:  Pennsylvania's House Majority Leader, Mike Turzai: “(Legislation requiring) Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done!”

Similarly, Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo, in 1944, declared "If the poll tax bill passes, the next step will be an effort to remove the registration qualification, the educational qualification of Negroes. If that is done we will have no way of preventing the Negroes from voting."

“On another occasion, a man was asked to count the number of jelly beans in a jar,” said John Lewis. And he would know.

Lewis was a civil rights hero long before he came into Congress. He was beaten and bloodied throughout the south, working with Martin Luther King and others, in his efforts to register mostly black voters.  He and his coworkers were so thwarted by Sheriff Jim Clark in the city of Selma, Alabama that he sought help from the greater civil rights movement. And so a protest march was organized to go from Selma to Montgomery. Part of that involved crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

On March 7, 1965—a day that would become known as "Bloody Sunday”– Lewis and others led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. They were met by police and state troopers. When the marchers stopped to pray, the police and mounted troopers charged the demonstrators, beating them with night sticks. A national television network broke away from presenting “Judgment at Nuremberg” (just to add to the irony), and broadcast the melee live before 60 million viewers.

Lewis's skull was fractured, but he escaped across the bridge, to a church in Selma. President Lyndon Johnson was moved to act.

John Hursted of Ohio, 2012, no doubt following orders (no pun intended vis a vis the just mentioned Judgment at Nuremberg) first got attention as part of this disturbing widespread voter suppression scheme when he agreed to allow Republican leaning counties to have early voting, and extended voting hours, but not the Democratic leading counties. Since this seemed an even more direct partisan scheme than Turzai of Pennsylvania copped to, Hursted was quickly compelled to correct this. He did; he simply cut back extended weekday voting for everybody, such a non partisan guy he is. But he still was determined to roll back the 3 day voting prior to Election Day. That would include the African-American church tradition of “take your souls to the polls” the Sunday before election day. Meanwhile, two Montgomery (not Alabama, Ohio this time) County officials voted to allow their voters to vote on weekends, since that wasn’t specifically precluded from Husted’s order.  Hursted, ever the dutiful martinet, said they were violating his memo, and told them to stop interfering with his efforts. They refused, and, after a “hearing”, were fired.  

And as for the rollback of voting the three days before election day, a federal judge said nonsense, that’s worked fine the last few years, rescind that order. Former Republican Senator Mike DeWine, now state attorney general, was determined to appeal this ruling. And Hursted refused to rescind it, in defiance of the judge. The judge slapped him back, and Hursted suddenly agreed to comply.

Such is the determination in this Koch Brothers / ALEC world to put a big thumb on the playing field (as if unlimited campaign contributions was not enough). But as Reverend Al Sharpton says while everybody thought the south’s Jim Crow was gone, but he has re-emerged albeit in disguise, gussied up as Jameson T. Crow, Esq. But with the same results as his ancestor.  This time it’s Voter ID’s not jelly beans.

President Johnson spoke to a joint session of congress to present the Voting Rights act of 1965: “Even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause, too, because it is not just Negroes but really it is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”

Johnson purposefully used the civil rights movement anthem of “we shall overcome”.  No doubt that was also the moment Richard Nixon hit upon the Southern Strategy for 1968. But that’s another story.

This voting rights act was not just the culmination of efforts of Lewis, and King, and so many others, and the martyring of the three civil rights workers, but also the millions who gave their lives in World War II. And the culmination hasn’t culminated. The voter suppression is rampant in the United States this year. Ohio is burning, but so is Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana, Virginia, Michigan. Colorado. Young white guy John Hursted perhaps should read some history, for he is taking on a rather awesome responsibility to nullify all that people fought and died for.

John Lewis, seeing a new battle in 2012 after hoping it had been won in the 60’s – like all the other battles being refought on other fronts this year: "I've seen this before. I've lived this before. Too many people struggled, suffered and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote. We have come too far together to ever turn back. So we must not be silent. We must stand up, speak up and speak out. We must march to the polls like never before."

Patricia Carroll, the black CNN camera person who had peanuts thrown at her at the Tampa Republican Convention, said: "I can't change these people's hearts and minds. This should be a wake-up call to black people.  We were living in euphoria for a while. People think we've gone further than we have."

What we risk is the election of Grover Norquist’s dream generic president: one who has digits that can work a pen and sign what is placed in front of him by a Republican dominated congress. Is that focused greed goal worth trampling on the graves of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman, who died defending our right to vote?   

Oh you bet it is. 

 “Agitate!” said Frederick Douglass, when asked by a young man about what to do to make the society a better place. “Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!”

Douglass was one of the first black fighters for civil rights, including voting rights – in the 19^th century.  Apparently, it doesn’t end.

 

http://www.laprogressive.com/schwerner-chaney-goodman/

TRAYVON’S PUNCH

By Robert Illes

The best news I heard

about the ongoing Trayvon Martin case is, it turns out, before he was shot to

death on February 26, 2012, he allegedly punched his assailant George Zimmerman

in the nose, and pummeled him on the ground.

Now I don’t believe that for a second, and this likely fable is no doubt part of the

scheme to torch the victim’s character (and cover Zimmerman’s ass), but if

anybody deserved a punch in the nose, and a good old school ass kicking, it is

George Zimmerman – even if it’s just in fiction.

But quite possibly Trayvon did throw a punch, when this latter day

Barney Fife seemed to be stalking him. Was

he a robber? A predator? At least Barney of Mayberry had a uniform, a badge and

was a real deputy sheriff. George Zimmerman didn’t even reach Fife standards…

with the added difference there was no genial supervisor, like Sheriff Andy, to

make sure George kept his gun unloaded as he neighborhood watched for “fucking

coons” roaming about. But this Barney Fife had his gone loaded with real bullets.

Anyway, for me, at least there is the newly minted image that Trayvon went down fighting for his life – “standing his ground” don’t you know, in the spirit of Jeb Bush’s NRA written law. And by the

way it is called the “stand your ground” law, not “follow a guy around and

shoot him” law. Meanwhile, at this writing, Sanford cops evidently continue to leak despicable info about Martin, ever molding this All American kid into one of those very scary gangstas, stoked on reefer, lurking

beneath a hoodie, wearing gold teeth and having the nerve to walk on our public

streets, freaking out white people. And the Orlando Sentinel seems compelled to

dutifully publish these leaks, Drudge-style.

And then there’s one Mr. Joe Oliver, self-styled Zimmerman supporter and

friend (in some vague sense), making the media rounds, even suggesting the

encounter was a “him or me” situation. “One of them was going to get shot that

night.” Oliver also dismissed Zimmerman’s 2005 violent encounter with a cop and

subsequent anger management training with “people change!”… claims George said

“goons” not “coons” on the 911 tape, citing “My daughter says 'goons' is a term

of endearment!”… and that he recognizes it was his dear friend wailing for help

on tape, not the soon to be dead kid.

By contrast, the only new info on George

Zimmerman himself, other than Oliver’s rambling speculations, seems to be his

new smiling picture.

What makes it most curious is that all the

concrete indicators, such as the 911 tapes, and certain of the ear-witnesses, among them Martin’s

girlfriend who was on the cellphone with Martin moments before the shooting

point to Zimmerman’s being the stalker and the perpetrator. Perhaps that is true, perhaps Zimmerman was in

a fight for his life. But this we know:

had he stayed in his car and stopped following Trayvon as ordered, there would

be no story. Conversely, there seems to

be no concrete indicators of Martin being the aggressor.

But we’ll probably never know key facts,

considering the ultra shoddy police work. Hey, I watch Forensic Files and CSI

franchise –I know it’s de rigueur for the investigation cops arriving

at the crime scene take photos, note bloody noses or bloody shirts, DNA on the

victim’s hands (to see if in fact he did punch George), etc. The cops on the

scene, responding to another of Zimmerman’s countless 911 calls, took note of

none of this – except for Zimmerman’s word.

Zimmerman’s account of being punched and pummeled lacks credibility for

these reasons, and the fact that it mysteriously has taken weeks of cable news

reportage and Limbaugh’s setting who’s on which side of this tragedy for this

rather astounding information to “leak”.

And perhaps weirdest of all, no effort was

made to reach Trayvon’s next of kin for at least three days. His father even

made a call to his cell phone, which of course went unanswered. They also

managed to do a drug test on the young man, but not on Barney Fife II. Was

George that well connected?

Late breaking news has a detective on the

scene calling for Zimmerman to be charged. A witness says her information was

ignored. The entire credibility of the Sanford Police Force was immediately in

question. Were they hamstrung by the Jeb Bush law or was it the good ole boys

at work? After the news broke – and all

hell, nearly a month after the shooting, the Police Chief stepped down and a

special prosecutor was hired. But the police leaks continue, and so do the

protests, and right wingers drawing lines in the sand.

As now portrayed, and the reason for turning

Trayvon into the next Tupac, it is indeed a classic case for the “Stand Your Ground”

law: Poor Zimmerman is confronted by a black gangsta punk (not an All American

black kid as initially, and inconveniently, portrayed), and, fearing for his

life, blows him away as if in an NRA wet dream.

So as the story has progressed, like much of

just about anything in the news these days, we are no longer merely talking

about a tragic incident in an obscure suburb of Orlando. Rather, it has become a significant,

all-encompassing tipping point in our national discourse. There are more than

just a paranoid shooter, a dead teenager, bereaved parents, angry blacks and

frightened whites.

George Zimmerman’s fateful decision to ignore

the dispatcher’s admonition to stand down have the Sanford police dispatcher

and pursue the “fucking coon” may yet turn out to be one of the most

significant moments in this election cycle, and, in turn, in the nation’s

history. Hyperbole? Well, maybe for people not paying attention till now.

Trayvon Martin has punched something bigger

than George Zimmerman’s nose. An actual punch, not lawyer spin. It’s not even

my spin. It’s real and it’s palpable.

What started out to be a human tragedy just

about everybody, including Malkin, Limbaugh, Geraldo, Fox, Friends and even

assorted Republican presidential candidates could sympathize with, somebody saw

an opening – Frank Luntz, Karl Rove, David Koch -- who knows?

And a huge reason for concern. They HAD to

get out in front of this, Grover Norquist-style – drown it in the bathtub! Too

many people, from Obama on down, were being compassionate and caring and

sympathetic about this situation. See, compassion,

care and sympathy are all anathemas to the right wing. And Americans coming together, united –

around the wrong thing of course (9/11 was OK) – that’s really dangerous. It screws

up the whole divide and conquer strategy.

Such stuff causes people to vote Democratic,

and do things like rethink gun laws, pervasive racism – everything! It all goes

back to the master plan. Must preserve the master plan! And that goes back to a long string of

legislation, particularly about gun rights, and self-defense rights.

Everybody on the right rallied to the cause

– of defending George Zimmerman.

There’s Fox, Friends and Geraldo to the

rescue: it was the hoodie! And “look,

the Obama campaign is selling hoodies!

Why are they politicizing this, bringing race into this, dividing

people?” As they divide people. And, of course, the ever reliable Limbaugh:

“(Zimmerman) was being a little overzealous!” And then there’s Andrew

Breitbart’s heir apparent, self hating, anchor baby Michelle Malkin, posting

online a more pleasant, happy photo of Mr. Zimmerman, rather than the dour one

we are used to. But next to that

picture, by contrast and in order to advance the agenda, was supposedly a photo

of Trayvon Martin from his Facebook page, with lowered pants and hiked up boxer

shorts, gangster-style, giving the finger. Death penalty for him!

Of course, turns out, in true to the

Breitbart tradition, it was NOT a real picture of Martin, and, with or without

shame, was soon taken down.

But of course all of this is simply a

diversion for the real story, the big picture, The Master Plan.

Going back to 2005, about the time George

Zimmerman was punching cops and taking anger management courses, the “Stand

Your Ground” law was almost wholly written by the American Legislative Exchange

Council, (ALEC), a shady group cynically fueled by the Koch Brothers, major

corporations and such advocacy groups as the NRA. Fearful there weren’t enough

guns and shooting situations available, the NRA got their puppets in the

Florida legislature to pass “Stand Your Ground” and Jeb Bush to sign it.

Apparently to make sure he signed it properly, there was an NRA lobbyist Marion

Hammer standing over the governor’s shoulder as he did so.

Since then, dozens of Floridians have been

shot and some killed by individuals citing the “Stand Your Ground” law – i.e.,

if I feel threatened in public (not just in my house or car), I can take out my

trusty piece and “defend” myself. And

since then, dozens of other states have eagerly passed the same loophole ridden

law. In one case, Democratic Pennsylvania

governor Ed Rendell vetoed it. But his Republican successor, Tom Corbett,

signed it.

Elections have consequences.

Yes elections, those goddamn elections. Also

part of the Plan. And that is where the Citizens United comes in, perhaps the most

despicable and infamous 5-4 decision since Bobby Thomson’s homer beat the

Dodgers. Citizens United of course enables unlimited bucks to be poured into

elections by corporations, anonymously. Why? Because the corporations love

capitalism but hate actual democracy. Of course they want to elect Republican puppets

to local, state and national office, in order to effect (and write, thanks to

ALEC) laws that affect – or more specifically, don’t – affect them, get rid of

the pesky Democratic Party supporting unions, lower taxes for gizillionaires,

reduce government regulations that interfere with gizillionaires befouling the

air, running crappy coal mines or Gulf drilling rigs, more privatization of

services such as mail delivery, cops, prisons. Prisons, where scary punks of

color like Trayvon can be warehoused, as a service to states and funded by

taxes other people pay.

And so that brings us to the 99%’rs, the

“Occupiers”, who are wise to and fed up with the direction we are being taken

by the Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, the Supreme Court, the NRA, Exxon and the

other usual suspects. This is precisely what “Occupy” was bitching about, with

a lot more to bitch about every day, in fact, the many, many things represented

by the Trayvon case: ignorant or incompetent or corrupt authority, racism,

guns, corporate written laws.

It’s all there, and that is why the right

wing is desperate to manage the message.

Like pulling the thread on a cheap Chinese

made suit sold at Kohl’s, the consequences can be enormous. If the Trayvon Martin case makes people think

about “Stand Your Ground”, and how idiotic stalker Zimmerman is trying to hide

behind it, and how absurd it is to have a wild west atmosphere with guns guns

guns everywhere. And how crappy this and

other crazy draconian laws are (vaginal probes, union busting, voter

suppression, etc). This is a big deal, and

could easily get out of hand, what with Al Sharpton and everybody else talking

it up. And getting bigger.

The story has to be reframed - stat! Make Trayvon the perp, that’s

easy.

And, as always, as an added bonus – there’s

political hay to be made! Obama mourns black kids not white ones (well except

for Christina Taylor Green, the 9-year-old killed during the Gabbie Giffords

spree).

And so it has gone. Will it work? Not if

people in the 99% start to finally pay

attention. With this case, they just might. If folks see the bigger picture of

what this incident represents, then, the teenager in Sanford with so much

potential will not have died in vain.

Trayvon Martin may have punched us all in

the nose. Hopefully, if not before, it will get our attention now.

WINNING THRU ACTING CRAZY

Unprecedented!
Did it all start with “You lie!” shouted by demented right wing congressman, Joe Wilson during a joint session of congress, to the President of the United States? Heckling, from a member of the people’s house? Not only was that only mildly reprimanded, but he immediately got an influx of campaign donations.
Or was it the “tea party”, a faux movement concocted by the Koch Brothers and lapdog Dick Armey, bussing in “grass roots activists” to town hall meetings in order to scream at Democratic congress members, or wandering Republicans, in rather frightening terms (one guy brazenly wore a holstered gun to an Obama speech).
Or was it the emergence of crazy person Glen Beck, aka Limbaugh 2.0, and Fox “News” hosting faux grassroots events and reporting they were real grassroots events (using canned crowd footage to bolster appearances). Beck also went on network TV to declare The President of the United States “a racist who hates white people”.
And how “unprecedented” was John Boehner saying “fuck you” to the President when he requested to speak at a joint session of congress? 100%. Never happened before, ever. Boehner was wrong, but craziness won again, because, don’t you know, “Obama caved”.
Or how about the Supreme Court of the United States and its ruling in “Citizens United”, bookending their vaunted “Bush v. Gore” case?
As Charlie Sheen would say “hello! Winning!”. Or as his co-star Gordon Gekko might say, “Crazy is good. Crazy works. Crazy cuts through and clarifies…”
Or did it start with 9/11, 10 years on, when the crazies bombed us, and the crazier Bushites said “we’ll take it from here, fellas”, and proceeded to scare the hell out of us and convince us that wiretapping is patriotic, torture is just “enhanced interrogation” and that war hero John Kerry was a coward.
Some call these events “unprecedented”. Indeed we’ve never seen these people and events before in our heretofore civilized, reasonable history. But unprecedented is too nice a word.
I call it crazy, and I suspect crazy is winning.
And sure enough, in November 2010, they managed to convince enough people, and disgust enough people (i.e., Dems) to stay away from the polls, that they scored a convincing victory in congressional races. The mad men filed into our Capitol not this time to “protest” but to take their seats, where once sat Henry Clay and Abe Lincoln now sat Rand Paul and Joe Walsh. And you know how it works with crazy people, and those voices in their heads: “You belong here. This is real. Complete your mission. You must now burn things down!” Hate government, but love the pay check. And the health care. Crazy.
When the crazy are convinced they have won, they don’t stop there. They get MORE crazy.
But the Debt Ceiling “debate”. Now that had it all: hostage taking, terrorist threats, and the bat shit crazy winning.
The Debt Ceiling “debate” that kept us and Chris Mathews in thrall for two weeks was the economic equivalent of crashing planes into the Trade Center – suicidal, and incredibly devastating. And unprecedented! It had NEVER happened before, not since the Debt Ceiling raising became a pro forma event in congress in 1917. It is a crucial device, enabling the government to honor past existing debt (not a “blank check for Barack Obama” per economic scholar Michele Bachmann).
Yet to hear the Republicans tell it, they were perfectly willing to let the ceiling go unraised, and allow the ensuing, international financial chaos (which they denied would happen, much as they scoff at global warming; all scare tactics just so Democrats can raise taxes and hurt corporations) - if their blackmail demands were not met; the blackmailing having to do with cutting taxes and cutting entitlements for grandma, presumably only Democratic ones. (Hey wait, as an aside, weren’t they worried about pulling the plug on grandma during the health care “debate”?)
But the mad man faction in the Republican membership - many of whom arrived in the November 2010 elections from Hell – vociferously harangued on talk shows to forget “negotiations”; they WANTED the calamity, (while naturally claiming there would be no calamity). Their mouths were watering about the number of social security checks that would not be issued, or the number of government funded projects that would be suspended, or the number of federal employees who would be terminated.
Unprecedented.
So naturally, poor tear stained John Boehner, who seemed to both play a hostage himself, and a power broker, wielding his crazy minions like a cudgel (“don’t make me unleash the hounds! I can’t stop them, you know!”), would be able to walk out of Presidential negotiations (unprecedented!) without fear of retribution.
The sane man in the White House, like most sane people when confronted with sociopathy, found himself at an 11th power impasse. The crazy guy is about to jump off the building, and take his hostages with him, or set off the doomsday device, evidently not concerned that he would go up in smoke too. Choose your analogy. Do you return crazy with crazy, and see if crazy blinks first, or do you defuse the situation as best you can, given the disadvantages of reason and sanity. And our damned constitutional structure.
In any case, through otherwise unacceptable means, i.e., pretty much giving into the crazies, the “crisis” was averted – well for the moment. Now it’s all in the hands of a “super congress” – starring on our side, of course, the one and only Max Baucus!?? -- to determine a way out of the deficit morass. It’s ok, take your time getting to the stalemate. 30 million Americans out of jobs, houses underwater, driving on crumbling bridges, they can wait.
Unprecedented.
Still, despite the “deal” to raise the ceiling, there was some injury to the 300 million or so hostages (i.e., we the people), to the extent that a reduced bond rating causes economic injury. And there was the real strategy: political injury. To the sane guy.
There will be no jobs, no taxes for the rich. Never mind the hungry and the homeless, such things might make Obama look good at re-election time. Unprecedented – just ask one time right wing freak now seeming like a reasonable progressive, Alan Simpson. Or the one time face of the now extinct “moderate Republican”, Chuck Hagel. Both are appalled at the relentless brinkmanship. “I swear, we’ll drive this bus off the cliff!”
The crazy is out of the bag, and, insofar as Obama is TIED in polls with even the lunatic Rick Perry, looking for what may well be the final victory they require in 2012.
The humanitarian Eric Cantor even wanted to hold up FEMA funding for the flood ravaged Joplin, Missouri some weeks ago – unless such funds were matched by cuts in, I dunno, say Medicare. But then in the last couple of weeks - and I give him mad props - he wanted to do the same to his own district, rocked in short order by BOTH an earthquake and Irene floodwaters. Shouldn’t he be getting a letter of warning from Pat Robertson? Do these guys believe in a punishing God or not? How much of a message does Cantor need?
And the story has been the same when stimulus bashing governors, such as Scott Walker, Rick Scott, and John Kasich, who joined the Luntzian chorus of “Mr. Obama, where are the jobs?” took office. They were then confronted with possible hypocrisy, so, despite suffering citizens, gulped and actually refused federal funding that would have built high speed rail systems etc. and put their people to work.
Unprecedented.
And so we come to the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and, more importantly, the tenth anniversary of post-9/11 America.
9/11 was a lesson well learned. Boy was it. Never mind Saddam Hussein, the United States was shocked and awed and beyond. And, oh how eye opening it must have been, not just for the neocons in power, but the alleged attackers, to see how fearful and manipulated could we be by some spectacularly crazy act.
But in Reality - where most of us live - looks can be deceiving. Just like on reality TV shows, are we watching people really being themselves, or just doing some very good play acting? How CRAZY were the 9/11 perps, hijacking those planes? How CRAZY are these tea party perps, hijacking our country? Crazy is as crazy does. Or does it?
But what did the crazy terrorists hope to accomplish on 9/11? Knocking off a couple of iconic buildings and killing 3,000 civilians, yes that’s frightening. We’d find ourselves asking in the days following who was next? But what else did they want to achieve? They didn’t really have to do much as far as scaring us, because the Bushites took care of that with their own unleashed zeal. Did they want to scare us out of Saudi Arabia and off the Middle East oil teat, and give up Israel? Or did they want us to engage in a costly holy war that would deplete our finances, kill many thousands more, and recruiting a whole new cadre of crazy zealots to terrorize other countries, to keep that war, holy or otherwise, going for freaking ever.
It’s funny but that all also sounds like a neo con wet dream. So it appears the two dreams merged. Out of that 9/11 tragedy, which somehow made a hero out of Bush instead of an incompetent idiot, came a neocon nirvana. They got their perpetual war (s), and a new bogeyman better than the Commies (“Islamofascism” – and guys like Frank Gaffney, we now find, are being paid millions to foment that fear). They plundered the US treasury, paid for paying with credits two “wars” that were really needless but excellent make work projects for generals, Black Water and Halliburton. No more New Deal hand outs cause, we’re broke don’t ya know – unless you are Exxon or Koch (“job creators”).
“Hello! Winning. Winning.” “Crazy is good.”
Or is it just sheer diabolical genius?
In retrospect, given the propensity for the neocons to do “unprecedented things”, crazy if you will, and considering how much they shamelessly exploited 9/11, it is disturbing – horrifying - to think that, well, let’s say, maybe the official 9/11 story may not be the actual story. Sure, stuff crazy conspiracy theorists, right? And easy to dismiss. After all, what Americans would believe that government officials would act soooo crazy, so psychopathically, to reap amazing benefits that, to them, aren’t all that crazy. But after the wars, the wiretaps and the outing of CIA agents, the Wall Street bailouts and tax cuts, and all the rest, wherein the ends justifies the means, and wherein a few dead people are simply the cost of doing business… the mind wanders to dark places. You think it can’t happen here? Operation North Woods was a plan by zealous generals, and signed off on by Eisenhower and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to themselves commit acts of destruction and murder in the United States, blame it on Castro and the Cubans to get public support for an invasion of the annoying Communist island. Yes, unprecedented outside of Nazi Germany. Eisenhower wasn’t able to pull it off before the end of his term, and the Kennedy administration, after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, said “no invasions of Cuba. Read more here: http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/northwoods.html.
Chilling.
And now what crazy plans are there afoot to wrest the presidency back in 2012? Yes it seems as if the Tea Party crazies have been exposed, and there seems to be buyer’s remorse with certain 2010 results – such as Scott Walker - but crazy doesn’t go down easy.
And neither does the relentless pursuit of bipartisanship, of working together, of negotiating with the crazy people. That, in itself is crazy, if not it’s not been made abundantly clear. In fact it’s just plain freaking nuts. By pop culture definition: insanity is repeating the same action over and over, and expecting different results.
Which begs a question, do such crazy people reside in the White House?
So what do we do? We are caught between the crazy and the seemingly sane guy (who nevertheless continues to hope that the crazy become sane). Memo to the White House: IT HASN’T HAPPENED YET! How many warnings did the Mansons need that Charlie just wasn’t right, and wasn’t going to get any better? Staying away from the next election is crazy; the Supreme Court is at stake, and there’s a shot at taking back the Congress IF the crazies don’t succeed in destroying the voting system.
All I can say is, Obama and progressives are in danger in November 2012, and whether it’s recognizing the truth or fighting fire with fire, we must ourselves do something “unprecedented”. There is little time to be stunned by this unprecedented behavior, although we are. There is little time to scratch our head in disbelief, just believe it is happening. There is little time to think about whether these are really crazy. No need, they are and they are winning because of it, convincing just enough people, and turning off just enough people and disenfranchising just enough people to make it work for them. And there is little time to figure out what to do, start figuring.
The sanest thing to do is probably to give up. But LOSING through acting sane would be very crazy. Time to do something utterly insane ourselves. And I hope Obama does just that on September 8th when Boehner finally allows him to speak before congress.

Justice Marshall and "Justice" Thomas

Perspective dictates that I start my saga not in 1991 but 37 years earlier, when Clarence Thomas was a 6 year old black child growing up in Pin Point, Georgia. Segregated Georgia.

On May 17, 1954 - which happened to be my birthday - the United States Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education. Public schools could no longer be segregated, effectively tossing out the infamous Plessy vs. Ferguson "separate but equal" ruling of 1896.

Leading the legal charge before the Supreme Court, representing Brown et al., was chief counsel for the NAACP, Thurgood Marshall, the grandson of a slave and imbued by his father to study the Constitution, where rests all hope for freedom. Brown v. Board of Education was a game changing decision, emboldening leaders like Martin Luther King, and was the first trumpet sound of the civil rights movement. Thurgood Marshall, even before this case, had long been a legal champion of the underdog, and in his career argued more cases before the Supreme Court than any other lawyer in American history. Marshall was born in Maryland, but was denied entry to the University of Maryland Law School - because of their segregation policy.

Stung by this injustice, it drove him to that area of the law, determined to defeat the legacy of Plessy vs. Ferguson. Indeed, as a 27 year old litigator, just three years after graduating from Howard University law school, Marshall successfully tried a case – Murray vs. Pearson - which ended segregation at Maryland Law School. He was appointed judge to the second U.S. court of appeals by JFK, where he tirelessly continued hearing civil rights cases. In 1965, served briefly but successfully as Solicitor General of the United States before being appointed by LBJ in 1967 as the first black man to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

During his distinguished 24 year tenure in the Supreme Court, this great legal champion was considered the "voice for the voiceless."

This was a great jurist, and humanitarian, the sort that we want to see on our U. S. Supreme Court.

Times have changed, and, one can almost pin point – pun intended – when the change started. Some might consider that time to be the when the Court was stacked with the highly partisan conservative additions of Antonin Scalia, William Rehnquist, Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor, all by Ronald Reagan.

They could use a fifth. Well, elections have consequences.

In mid 1991, the great Thurgood Marshall, last of the great liberals on the court, was in ill health, and reluctantly had to retire from the bench. Reluctantly, because the president who would name his replacement was one George Herbert Walker Bush. Marshall was none too pleased about the situation.

Time would quickly tell how justified was his displeasure.

There was a convergence of events that led to Bush’s disastrous selection. First, there was the rejection of Robert Bork, a Reagan appointee, four years before. Progressive groups protested his nomination as being “too extreme”, and he was defeated by the Senate. Resentment flared. The verb “to Bork” was born. When William “Roe vs. Wade” Brennan retired, Bush selected David Souter – who turned out to be a moderate in conservative clothing. Chief of Staff John Sununu, who had actually sold Bush on Souter, vowed that the next judge appointed would be a “true conservative”, and they would fight tooth and nail for his (or her) confirmation.

Just a few months later, they had their opportunity to get that fifth vote. And of course, in what can only be called irony, who should be the next justice to be replaced but the highly regarded champion of progressive ideals, and hero of Brown vs. Education, Thurgood Marshall. And who should be Bush's cynical choice to replace this progressive black man? Libertarian black man Clarence Thomas, an unremarkable judge on the court of appeals. But the Bush team needed a reliably conservative black man to nominate. There were not a lot of choices. Yet Bush called Thomas “the best available candidate”, presumably regardless of race. So things started off dicey for this candidate.

What were Thomas' bona fides? He had graduated Yale Law School, and worked for a time as Senator John Danforth's legal team in Missouri, and served briefly as head of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, ironic since Thomas was skeptical of the whole affirmative action thing. Thomas, who early on had been influenced by Ayn Rand (uh oh) and considered himself a libertarian (uh oh), had only a year experience as a federal judge (also thanks to a Bush appointment). He had never argued a case in front of the Supreme Court. The ABA gave him a "satisfactory" rating and a 13-2 vote. No Supreme Court nominee in decades had received less than a unanimous vote. Surely not "the best available candidate".

And the heat was turned up when progressive groups promised to "Bork" Clarence Thomas. But the campaign was on from the Bush side. Bush and co. dared progressives in the Senate to deny a black man a place on the Supreme Court.

Before the Judiciary Committee (headed by Joe Biden), true to form, Thomas was mum and cute about his feelings on such things as affirmative action and abortion. He downplayed his beliefs in "natural law" and the writings of Ayn Rand.

And then along came Anita Hill.

Hill was a black woman attorney with perhaps a superior legal mind to Thomas', who worked his employ. And, a reluctant witness, she nevertheless busted him for sexual harassment. Of course it was mortifying and seriously called into question Thomas' judicial qualifications and temperament - if his weak legal career and libertarian views had not already. The Republicans did then what they have always done - they closed ranks.

Rather than consider Hill’s veracity, they simply saw her as a tool of the left, and sought to smear her. Part of their campaign was using a young unwitting conservative David Brock to write a quick book about her called "The Real Anita Hill" ("a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty"). Future Democrat Arlen Specter led the charge on the Judiciary Committee, suggesting perjury.

And then Frank Luntz or someone of that caliber crafted an indignant response for Mr. Thomas: "this is a high tech lynching." Race card, played hard. But strictly for show. Anita Hill was black (and, at this writing, still is). At worst it was “he said/ she said”. Where was the racism? Where was the “lynching”? The black man who has repeatedly questioned the value of affirmative action, and indeed oddly “blamed” affirmative action for letting him into Yale, (thanks in no small part perhaps to Thurgood Marshall’s past anti-segregation lawsuits) was now fully exploiting his blackness, O.J. - style. The ambitious Thomas was willingly playing Bush’s cynical game, hoping guilt ridden white Senators would be shamed into dismissing Hill’s accusations and supporting him.

The nomination went to the floor without a recommendation from the judiciary committee. But "the ends" is what has always counted for Republicans. And indeed, at the end of the day, the Republicans got their 50 votes plus one (in fact they got 52 votes in the Senate), and "Justice" Clarence Thomas squeaked into the door of the Supreme Court, never looking back. They had their fifth vote.

The contrast between the two justices could not be more palpable, in and out of the court. Whereas Marshall was Voice of the Voiceless, Thomas has been anything but. In fact, he famously seldom speaks during oral arguments. Whereas Thomas might be considered the Iron Man of justice, Thomas is merely Irony Man.

He has reliably been a fervent supporter of the powerful, voting to select George Bush the son, in the notorious Bush v. Gore 5-4 vote of 2000, and voting as part of the 5-4 majority in favor of Citizens United in 2009. Both can arguably called the worst decisions made by any Supreme Court, and both can arguably be said to have seriously changed the course of American democracy for the worse – in ways precisely the opposite to what Thurgood Marshall fought for. One can only imagine the votes had they been in the hands of the great Marshall, and how many of Marshall's great strides Thomas has sought to undo (along with his "5-4" pals).

But if Anita Hill’s warnings were not heeded in 1991, in 2011 they seem to have gained some heft. Is Clarence Thomas not just partisan but also dirty - and not in the pubic hair on the coke can sense.

Ethical concerns are now circling heavily around this man who so reliably has served the conservative cause on the highest court in the land. Have his vaunted pro-corporate votes on the court actually been well secured, (we won’t say “bought” at this juncture)? In one instance, he allegedly attended an all expenses paid retreat put on by the libertarian sociopath Koch Brothers, who well benefited from Citizens United, in Palm Springs in 2008. This shindig pre-dated the “Citizens United” case. Should not Thomas have recused himself, along with fellow partier Antonin Scalia? Further underscoring his lack of similarity to his auspicious predecessor is the somewhat distasteful spectacle of his wife, Ginny, wearing a buffoonish foam “lady liberty” head piece seated at the head of her Tea Party organization. Indeed she seems to be the mad hatter of the tea partiers, stridently opposing the Affordable Healthcare Act, which will surely find its way into a Supreme Court case. It is practically the dictionary definition of “conflict of interest”, yet Thomas remains defiant, and vows not to recuse himself.

Then there's the matter of Ginny's earnings, mainly from her right wing work. He failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars of Ginny’s income over a 10 year period on required disclosure forms. He simply wrote “none” in answer to the question. That would be lying and deception, again, per any dictionary.

And then there’s the curious emergence of Thomas’ wealthy right wing pal, Harlan Crow, who bankrolled Ginny’s tea party project to the tune of $500,000. Ol' buddy Harlan also treated the Thomases to luxurious vacations, and he contributed $150,000 to the construction of a museum in “Justice” Thomas’ hometown of Pin Point.

But there’s one more thing Harlan did for Thomas, with not a little irony. He made a gift of a bible that once belonged to the great civil rights advocate, Frederick Douglass.

Douglass once said "Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and it never will." Thomas by contrast once said "Good manners open doors that a good education will not." Not to mention a shitload of Harlan Crow money.

It is a good question where Attorney General Eric Holder will do anything about these accusations. Former Rep. Anthony Weiner was leading a campaign in the House to examine Thomas’ possible ethical lapses, but with not a little help from himself, the powers that be silenced him.

And so it goes, a long way from the coke can to the Koch Brothers, a career – not yet over – of treading on as many rights and freedoms as his predecessor sought to preserve. “Justice” Thomas has been ensconced, at Scalia's right hand, for lo these 20 years, sitting silently in Thurgood Marshall's seat, his tiny feet lost in Marshall’s enormous shoes.

Submitted for your approval as we celebrate the birthday of this nation, and where it’s headed, and the quality of those who are taking us there. We are a land of Lincoln, and a land of Bush. We are a land of Marshall, and a land of Thomas. One will prevail, but not both.

MELTING DOWN

The bulletins were rather frightening coming out of Japan. First there was the enormous earthquake – Japan seems to have them with regularity; but a 9.0? – who heard of an earthquake that big since Krakatoa? Then, the ensuing tsunami that engulfed whole coastal communities, whole bullet trains… indeed that rippled across the biggest ocean we have, killing nosey looky loos 10,000 miles away in northern California. And of course, these two events alone killed an estimated 20,000, left tens of thousands more homeless.

This wrath of God twofer might’ve ended there, except leave it to the mind of man’s most heinous invention ridiculously close to the epicenter: nuclear power. In a deadly irony, this same nation of Japan, the only nation (that we know of) to suffer the devastation of deliberate nuclear explosions had brought upon itself, 66 years later, another radiation catastrophe. And in a sort of Hiroshima / Nagasaki revenge scenario, there remains danger, at this writing, that by sea or by air, this radioactive contamination could reach the west coast of the United States. “Biblical proportions” now seem an inadequate description.

But God can hardly be entirely blamed for the last third of the Japanese disaster. A scant 11 months after British Petroleum’s deep water drilling gambit exploded, and kept profusely bleeding black blood into the Gulf of Mexico for weeks, the work of greedy, short sighted men helped out immeasurably. They bet their profits against an earthquake in Japan. They seem to have lost the bet. Similarly, some years ago, the Army Corps of Engineers took short cuts building the famous breached levees protecting New Orleans, figuring the odds were enormous against a category 5 hurricane – we now know it was Katrina – hitting the area and uncovering their incompetence. “Who knew the levees could be topped?” declared Pres. Bush. Nuff said.

And, similarly, Halliburton allegedly cut some corners on their concrete pour at the BP Gulf of Mexico oil drilling site. They were just doing what they do, taking money and not putting it into their work. What were the odds their handiwork would give way when there was a precious mother lode of Texas Tea to be had? 11 men instantly paid the price for that lost gamble.

So, what were the odds a 9.0 earthquake would hit the northern coast of Japan, where sit archaic nuclear power plants, whose generating systems were locating below ground, where, say, a tsunami could destroy them and expose the vaunted fuel rods to meltdown? And it is not over yet, and may not be for a thousand years, per the nuclear clock.
Yes there was Chernobyl – exactly 25 years ago – but here was a nuclear meltdown considerably closer to home, considerably more in keeping with the times.

And one might guess the hidden evils of nuclear power by the company they keep: it is in the pro-big business lexicon to lump together oil, gas, “clean” coal and nuclear as our energy policy. Wind and solar are mocked along with steam driven cars, or damned with faint praise “oh yes, them too.”

So as might be expected, nuclear power has as fierce a lobby, and has purchased as many members of congress as big oil, big gas, and big Pharma. Even as Japanese kamikaze soldiers were risking their lives feebly attempting put their fingers into a radioactive dyke - which saw the government order U.S. citizens in the area to move 50 kilometers away from ground zero - U. S. Senator Lamar Alexander went onto the floor of the U. S. Senate to express concern about us pussying out on nuclear power (like, say, the one to be built in his state) just because of a little mishap. The mishap being a “China Syndrome” meltdown so close to China that it might well be called a “USA Syndrome”.

And so the voices of corporate puppets quickly checked in, in what might be called a preemptive action. The Republicans are familiar with preemptive actions.

It is all eerily reminiscent of Katrina tool Michael “Brownie” Brown arguing to continue to “drill baby drill” even as oil gushed into the Gulf – and blaming Obama for “politicizing” the disaster as a possible cynical means to bolster his argument against further off-shore drilling.

In any case, it seems as though their panic wasn’t necessary, or, more cynically, may have been heeded, as plans are afoot for both nuclear power plant building and deep water drilling.

These and meltdowns of various kinds are happening at an interesting time:

March 25, 1911. Just months after huge labor protests rocked New York City contesting the conditions for garment workers – and demanding unionization and workplace regulation - a fire broke out on one of the lowers floors of the Asch Building in lower Manhattan. Within 18 minutes, 129 of 300 women sewing machine operators on the 9th floor Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were dead. 17 men also died. Many burned to death, many jumped to their deaths. They were mostly immigrant women from poor families, ranging in age from 48 down to 14 years. Exit doors were locked, as was routine, to prevent workers stealing scraps of fabric. The guy with the key escaped to safety.
Cops who had battled these workers during the labor unrest now retrieved their bodies and belongings. When the city of New York refused to allow unions to conduct a mass funeral – fearing it would be used for “political purposes”, union workers refused work on April 5, and 100,000 people joined in a silent march. The workers became unwilling martyrs to a great cause.

The owners of the company who were at work in the offices on the 10th floor, also escaped. They were tried and quickly acquitted for manslaughter, and in the bargain collected a huge insurance payoff, amounting to $400 per victim. They did lose a civil suit, and were ordered to pay $24 per victim.

A corrupt Democratic machine ran New York in those days – it was called Tammany Hall. They supported business, period, and weren’t too keen on unions and workers, much less immigrants and the poor. Suffice to say the owners of the Triangle factory were well connected with Tammany Hall.

Tammany good old boy, Alfred E. Smith, the future governor of New York, ultimately did not fall into lockstep – such was the public outrage. He headed a commission to investigate the tragedy. Changes were made rapidly by the New York state legislature. Frances Perkins, FDR’s future labor secretary, and the first woman cabinet member, was a member of the commission and had been in lower Manhattan, watching shirtwaist workers jump to the sidewalks below. Perkins declared that “The New Deal was born on March 25, 1911”. For nearly 70 years since, the routine for American labor has been the protection of unions, and the regulation of workplace safety.
But something else happened in 1911: Ronald Reagan was born.

Nearly 70 years later, in January of 1981, he was inaugurated President of the United States. He was supported by forces long keen on fighting the New Deal, and its unions and regulations. Reagan was eager to oblige, as were his Republican progeny over the next 30 years.

One might said the attack on the New Deal commenced practically the same year it was born.

March 11, 2011. As we honor the 100th anniversary of the Triangle tragedy, governors of at least five states most notoriously Scott Walker of Wisconsin, as well as those of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Florida, led an obvious Koch Brothers fueled Republican gambit to gut unionized government workers of their ability for collective bargaining. Much of such bargaining involves not only pay and benefits, but also workplace safety – the very things the shirtwaist workers of 1911 fought for, and for which whose martyrdom paved the way… until another veteran of 1911, Ronald Reagan, started undermining their gains. In his strident pronouncements, Walker has often invoked the name of Ronald Reagan as his inspiration. Reagan, the one thing to come out of 1911 that Walker honors.

Wisconsin legislature Democrats walked out and famously disappeared to deny Republicans quorum - their version of a Mitch McConnell filibuster - to successfully prevent the legal passage of Walker’s draconian measure. Emphasis on “legal”. But Walker managed to do it through some illegal maneuvering on this day, two weeks short of the Triangle fire centennial. A judge has blocked the move. The governor ignored her. The judge blocked again. Now the governor and the state’s attorney general are “confused”.

# # #

But the thin dyke between us and the Republican nirvana of a Somalia West (or Texas), where there are many guns and little government, may have more holes than the Democratic Dutch Boy has fingers, with this ferocious war on labor that seems to be spreading – at least to Republican controlled enclaves.

Our political opponents have rocketed across the Rubicon of rationality, but they have crossed whatever the line is that the Rubiconians refer to as the Rubicon. They have not only deigned to touch the “third rail” of Social Security, but Rep. Paul Ryan (and a fellow Walker Wisconsian) has grabbed with both hands, and is apparently putting it on display in his trophy room – daring Democrats to challenge “without lying”.

They have gone to a land to the east of the east of Eden, west of the Twilight Zone, where Nixon, Eisenhower and even Goldwater would now be considered RINOs, if not socialist/communist/terrorists, and subject to birth certification. What is that if not a nuclear meltdown of our system, and, if these fanatical Republicans now in power, and their Supreme Court enablers have their way, the America we have known?

March 24, 2011. A day before the 100th anniversary of the Triangle shirtwaist factory tragedy, Governor Paul LaPage of Maine ordered a mural in the Department of Labor building to be erased… a mural that is homage to labor’s progress and achievements. Maine. A blue state, generally… where the "purple sisters", Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, are Senators, perhaps the last ones on the Republican side of the aisle (but probably not for long).

March 25, 2011. Exactly one hundred years after the tragic fire, at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, in northern Japan, the one on the verge of The China Syndrome after the March 11 earthquake/tsunami combo, two workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were hospitalized for radiation exposure after they stepped into radioactively contaminated water while laying electrical cables in the basement of the building housing reactor No. 3. At this writing, radioactive water is spewing into the Pacific Ocean, and its fate remains incredibly uncertain, not to mention the fate of the inhabits of the region, the food supply of the region, or indeed the livability of the region. The nuke builders took a shot, and, good grief, go know - up came snake eyes, a royal flush was dealt, the coin landed on its edge.

April 5, 2011 In keeping with the mendacious and hypocritical politics of our times, no sooner had Obama announced his intention to run for re-election in 2012 than opposition TV ads popped up.

The “drill baby drill” folks are sliming Obama for the BP oil spill, which they want to risk more of, and quickly.

Melting down.