More Arizona Based Sedition

McCain: 'Serious mistake' if car bombing suspect was Mirandized

The distinguished gentleman from Arizona, Senator John McCain, decorated war veteran, elder statesman of the United States Senator, perennial candidate for President of the United States,  is categorically mistaken. Either Americans universally recognize and honor our country's traditional rule of law, or the very ‘war’ we're said to be fighting is for naught. We’re fighting first for America’s assumed right to push anybody in the world around to serve America's national interest, meaning the oil to drive industry, drive arms manufactory, and promote those at the top of the American capitalism paradigm: the so-called American dream. Everything else is a side issue, and everybody else are bystanders. These points are only possible because of the tenuous protective vaneer established by the very existence and application the United States Constitution. One cannot pick and choose which parts of it one will recognize and honor as the Religious Right does with it’s other sacred texts. Trying to merely undermines the whole document. 

Think Richard Nixon and the Watergate coverup, Ronald Reagan/Bush 41  and the Iran/Contra bombs for cash to circumvent Congressional limitations spectacle, Bush 43 abuse of the Patriot Act, illegal wiretaps, selective intelligence secrecy for national security ruse, Claimed immunity from court orders both domestic and international,  the Valerie Plame affair, each a Constitutional Crisis.

Even were this guy, Faisal Shahzad, not an American citizen who acted, incidentally, on American soil, he and everybody else who comes into contact with any facet of United States's lawful juristiction is both subject to and protected, as is everybody, again, who comes into contact with the U.S. A., by the Constitution of the United States. Denying equal access, equal protection, under the law is denying equal Justice under the law. Either we’re a nation ruled by law or we’re not. McCain’s suggestion is seditious, anti-constitutional political treachery. He is countermanding his own oath of office to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States against all threats, foreign and domestic. As a private citizen and a United States Senator, he avails himself of his Constitutional First Amendment right of Freedom of Speech. Were he still in uniform, he’d be subject to court martial. What McCain suggests is even more threatening and dangerous to America than a car bomb terrorist act that could have killed tens if not hundreds of people. McCain’s seditious threat to the integrity of the United States Constitution effects every man, woman, and child citizen as well as every visitor, immigrant, legal or illegal resident of our soverign land.

Undermining the Constitution

It's pretty amazing how so many who support Arizona search and seizure AB 1070 law don’t understand (or outright ignore) its true ramifications on bona fide Americans as well as everybody else who is entitled to mind his own business without molestation. Yes, it's about civil rights afforded to anybody who sets foot on American soil, regardless of nationality.

My family has resided on what is now American soil since before there was an America, prior to either California, Arizona and Texas Sovereignty and even before there was Spanish Colonization. Every member of my family has prior, native born rights to roam among, reside within and enjoy all the protections of the United States Constitution provided to all among citizen, resident, visitor, immigrant and alien regardless of immigration status. I and my siblings all look like the so-called Mexican, more accurately named Mestizo, native American and European descendant blend. I, who have a longer standing claim to Constitutional protections than any ethnically unmixed peace officer, can be legally stopped, questioned and detained simply for looking as I do. Let's say I'm gardening in my own Arizona back yard and pop around to the garden center for weed killer or lawn seed, but forget to take along my passport, and decide to drive my vintage car, a lovingly restored and maintained 50s era Chevy Biscayne that still needs a paint job. I spend the night in jail because I fit a patently xenophobic (oh, the irony) profile mandated by descendants of European immagrants (oh, more irony). All because I didn't carry my papers with me as I went on a shopping errand. It quite literally could happen to anybody. Like anyone minding their own business driving through on I40 or I10 while some Highway Patrol officer who is a bit bored as he contemplates his stop quota in the hot sun. 

Let’s take a look at historic precedents:
South Africa Aparteid era "pass laws" required all black and mixed race, “colored” residents to carry officially issued identification documentation which included name, birth date, fingerprints (biometric ID) and employment status. Arresting officers were given complete discretion regarding requirements to produce the documentation, even so far as imprisoning citizens immediately outside their residences because they were prevented by the arresting officer from recovering the needed documentation from their home mere steps away. These laws scapegoated black and non-white citizens, effectively isolating them from participation in broad social and economic aspects of society even though they often paid a higher percentage of wages in taxes than citizens not so subject to regulation.

In 1930s Germany, any person who could not prove they were not Jewish were required to carry  identification documents which they had to produce anytime any police or public officer requested them. These laws isolated and marginalized Jews from social and economic participation in society.

Jim Crow: separate but equal facilities laws in the United States.

These are the exact tactics also used in Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, Socialist Russia, Talibanic Afghanistan, Islamic Iran, Baathist Iraq, and almost every totalitarian state without a Bill of Rights. And, now, as well and again, in an ostensibly democratic country wth the Original Bill of Rights. This is a measure purportedly implemented to control illegal aliens. But it also, immediately, effects natural born and naturalized citizens. Bystanders and witnesses to a stop can bring suit against officers’ lenience if they feel the officer hasn’t applied the law correctly. That is, they didn't cart away the guy who isn't one of us. It doesn't matter to all these entitled elite folks with misplaced anger because their packaging, the way they look and the opportunities citizenship has provided, alone, makes them safe. Do you think for a moment unscupulous lawmakers and fickle proposition voters won't extend the 'look like an illegal alien' motif won't be extended to include even lily white Aryan and Nordic types? When are sari and burkha clad women and turbaned men added to the list?

Indeed, this is a very slippery slope we’re dealing with. Already, Arizona’s legislature has handed Governor Jan Brewer a revamped education policy by which schools will lose state funding for offering courses that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." Progressive analysts suggest that the target is the Tucson Unified School District’s popular Mexican-American studies department which the state Superintendant says is about “ethnic chauvinism.” The irony is astounding considering that, according to the Wall Street Journal,  the Arizona Department of Education has decreed that teachers with “heavy” or “ungrammatical” (is that not a malapropism?) accents, like those English-as-a-second-language teachers recruited heavily from Latin America under Bush’s No Child Left Behind program for ten years, may no longer teach English. This follows a year 2000 ballot initiative that banned bi-lingual classes. Never mind that these hundreds of heavily accented, fully accredited teachers were hired specifically because they were bilingual.

This is the face of hysteria masquerading as sound public policy. AB 1070 is patently unconstitutional on unreasonable search and seisure grounds. Its intrinsic vagueness is overarching and likewise unconstitutional. It's mean spirited, misguided, as contemptible as it is contemptuous of the Bill of Rights. It was built to address troubles and problems that don’t exist.

Respondents to online reportage cite immigrant crime, public services freeloading, and other unverifiable justifications for these measures. The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit education organization which has collected and disseminated basic information about government finance since 1937, reports that growing numbers of undocumented immigrants, ineligible for Social Security Numbers, are using Individual Tax Identification Numbers to file their federal income taxes. They pay FICA, Medicare and other payroll taxes with every paycheck. USA Today reports that the “tax system collects its due, even from a class of workers with little likelihood of claiming a refund and no hope of drawing a Social Security check” and that “the latest figures available indicate it will amount to billions of dollars in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes this year (2008). One rough estimate puts the amount of Social Security taxes alone at around $9 billion per year.”

The fact of the matter is that illegal immigrants put in far and away  more in taxes and fees than they now or will ever hope to receive under current federal immigration law. The border crime touted by anti-immigrant proponents is perpetrated by smugglers, drug cartels and other organized criminals. That’s a completely different issue and has nothing to do with the hard working, marginalized family breadwinners just trying to make a living. The jobs filled by illegal immigrants are not high profile, well paying positions preferred by more privileged, natural born Americans. They’re the unwanted, literally back breaking, dead end jobs that would go unfilled were illegals not there to do the essential yet menial support without which society's fabric would unravel. Elite citizens' very standard of living would collapse and, in extreme cases, disappear.

The effect of SB 1070 and education policy changes are already apprent. Main street usiness is down, universitys are losing high end students, tourism and the converence trade is losing billions per month in long range bookings.

Outspoken poponents to these measures would do well to study both the Constitution of which they so fervently claim defense, and the verifyable statistics on which jobs and taxes are being paid, while also comparing how many of those same dollars are paid out to these taxpayers as public goods and services.

At the same time, I personally invite all the trolls spewing nonsense and bile to keep it up. The louder you are, the clearer your true nature and corrupt positions become.

Word to the wise: Be very, very careful what you ask for.

The Real Threat to America

Healthcare reform is now the law of the land. But, it almost didn’t happen because of special interest and right wing dirty tricks which are but the latest of a long litany of such underhanded dealings shovelled onto the playing field by forces doing ugly, immoral, unethical things to keep the American public frightened, uninformed and confused enough to actually work and vote against their better interests. 

 These dirty tricks are directly related, by virtue of being arranged and executed by the same or associated cadres of corporate and political operatives who would undermine the American public and even the American Constitution for personal, corporate and political gain. There is ample, credible, scholarly evidence accumulated over time but ignored by the mainstream press, due in part from pressure from the very big money interests who are perpetrating these anti-middle class acts and, incidentally, spend a lot in advertising which keeps the American press afloat. Even the good guys help undermine the political process, mostly for altruistic reasons. A case in point is Jimmy Carter’s cancellation of an investigation into Republican (read: Reagan presidential campaign) contact with Iran about holding off the release of the hostages until the very moment of Reagan’s inauguration. How about voter fraud and ballot tampering in Florida in 2000 (nd the USSC complicity)? What can be made of the corporate sponsored, so called grassroots protests against Healthcare Reform and their ridiculously inaccurate characterizations of the proposals and effects? What of the right wing media, especially the foreign owned Fox News, feigning innocence as they concertedly foment violence, sedition and revolution among the radical right fringe? They target the duly elected President (as opposed to the trickery that brought in their favourite son, Bush, in 2000), senators and congressmen, and everyday citizens who speak out, as if there were something wrong with our system if only because the welfare of the common citizen is being forwarded instead of that of corporate factions.

When is it too much to bear? When does it become unequivocally clear that these forces will not be stopped until they are exposed to the light of day? When is there enough evidence to convince the newsgathering powers-that-be that silence on these matters is undermining the spirit and the letter of the Constitution as painstakingly developed by the Founding Fathers?

Whom among the American Press and the United States Congress will take a stand to expose these REAL threats to liberty, justice, truth in politics, and quite literally, the American way? Please, editor(s), assemble all the exposed edges and reveal this scandal for the travesty that it is. Members of Congress, convene appropriate investigations in each committee appropriate to the committee’s purview. There’s plenty to go around and enough to occupy everyone. Why let them continue getting away with the very stuff ov which they claim their opposition is guilty? 

 If not now, when? If not US, who?

Filtering the Red Mist of Rage

Social networking sites often present unscientifically executed polls among their users. A recent poll on Facebook asked, “Is it a good idea for a 9/11 terrorist to be tried in a CIVILIAN court in NY?” A friend of mine whom I’ve known since we were each in middle school, vehemently replied:

“Absolutely not!!! What kind of society have we become. [sic] They attacked us. It was not a civil act. It was an act of war. There are International laws for that. If a terrorist declares war on us by attacking our land and gets captured; [sic] they are prisoners of war and should be treated accordingly. It is not a matter for the ACLU or any other organization that deals with civil matters. We have become weak in the last 50 or so years. sure [sic] we have the weapons but, the social mind set has become to [sic] timid to do what is needed. Of course that does not mean that everyone is like that. I blame our elected officials, all of them, for where we are going. Many great societies have fallen because the leaders became weak and military resources spread too thin. National pride in this country still exists but, there is a cancer in the land. We have become so use [sic] to demanding our civil rights that we now want to extend them to our enemies. Too many people want war to be nice. It is WAR not a time of peace. Maybe if we were in the same situation our parents were during WWII where everything was rationed and we in this country would have to suffer because we are at war, people would wake up and see that our country is in danger of going into oblivion like so many before us. Treat a terrorist like an enemy from another country because, [sic] he is. He has NO American rights. I leave this question. How would Hitler, Romel, or any of the Nazi leaders be treated today if captured by us in war?”

It’s very distressing to see displays of deep misunderstanding on how the Constitution of the United States and its described rules of law work. A distracting difficulty is our recent history of government wilfully and impetuously ignoring rule of law in service of bravado and hubris which ended undermining the very goals those breaches of law were supposed to realize. It has been established and documented that these breaches of legal procedure and precedent not only violated the perpetrators’ oaths of office, but poisoned the use of any information gathered in these incidents from legal admissibility in trial court, whether military or civilian. Because of tainted evidence alone, there are ample reasons, specifically beyond the issue of jurisdiction, which make use of the Southern Division of New York Federal Court the best place to hold these initial trials. http://firedoglake.com/2009/11/13/some-alleged-911-plotters-to-be-tried-in-sdny-storehouse-of-evidence-untainted-by-torture/

That notwithstanding, jurisdiction still trumps all other arguments.

The United States is a land governed by the rule of law. Our Founding Fathers designed the Constitution based on fairness and egalitarian rule: All Men Are Created Equal, and equal protection under the law. Those tenets, with the various articles and amendments, are the law of the land. One need not be a citizen to be governed by these laws, whether law abiding, miscreant, criminal, seditious, or traitorous. Equal protection under the law applies to everybody, citizen or not, regardless of behaviour, who fall under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United States.

No true patriot would undermine the Constitution of the United States. Recent official lapses in this ethic have damaged the United States internally, causing Constitutional Crises to a scale unprecedented in American History. These diversions from the hard and fast rule of law have also globally damaged our credibility and prestige. These perpetrators of sedition and traitorous treachery have yet to answer in court due to their former official positions. Perhaps they’ll never be made to answer for their behaviour. Failure to bring them to task undermines further the stature of America’s rule of law both internally and internationally and portends repetition at all of our peril. Most importantly, it remains for our nation to return to our roots and observe once again the ethics and mores prescribed by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution of the United States. Rule of law and egalitarian status for all inhabitants, citizen or not, is what makes our nation great.

The people who perpetrated the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center are criminals by any metric. It is established that they were supported and commanded by nongovernmental sources, even though those sources were established, in turn, by American tax dollars as well as aided and abetted by foreign governments. The fact remains they were neither then nor currently a part of any established government. As such, their attacks on American soil were acts of terrorism, but not, by any factual or applicable definition, acts of war. The organization which commands them is unable to declare war on America by any definition enumerated in the Constitution of the United States. Therefore, any justice administered upon the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks must be applied through the civilian justice system. It is immaterial that the United States Armed Forces have been brought to bear on Al Qaeda and their sobriquets abroad. The use of the military is appropriate as the entity provided for the common defence in the Constitution. The military keeps order internationally and defends American interests abroad. Internally, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the various regional, state, county, and municipal agencies keep order and defend sovereign interests internally, as proscribed in the Constitution. What remains is that the individuals world wide who are part of the many terrorist factions, working individually or in concert, remain civilian entities and are to be meted justice solely by the civilian Department of Justice. This is the law of the land as delineated by the Constitution of the United States.

Administration of justice toward these criminals by military courts martial is contrary to the law of the land and would further undermine the authority and sovereignty of the Constitution of the United States. No amount of emotional reaction, however justified (and I wholeheartedly agree strong outrage is appropriate toward these issues), changes the appropriate application of American rule of law. To act contrary to anything delineated by the Constitution is seditious (in that it undermines the authority of the Constitution), treasonous (as it acts against the integrity and defence of the Constitution), and is inherently un-American. No amount of emotional outrage changes these facts. To ignore this reasoning, to undermine the rule of law, is to undermine the Constitution upon which our nation draws its strength; It is to reduce us to the level of those who seek to destroy us, and they win.

I had Mrs. Graff for Civics in my junior year at Brownsville High School. That’s where I learned these principals first in a comprehensive manner. What I learned there has guided me in my political philosophy and decisions ever since. What guides you?

Righting Wrongs

Courts in New Delhi recently struck down the enforcement of the 148-year old Section 377 regarding “Carnal intercourse against the order of nature.” Religious homophobes are organizing, some even going so far as to petition those same courts to reinstate enforcement of the Section. Others are calling for the need to discuss the issues in face of the resultant requirement by Parliament to reconsider the law in its entirety. 

No, they don’t. They don’t have to consider anything. All they have to do is act. Repeal these hateful laws. Just do it. Quit whigning. Shut up and sit down.

Let’s look at the issues here. It’s about (1) the difference between religious dogma, which in all respects is the driving force behind both the law and vestigial social stigma against homosexuality, and civil regulation of the populace, and (2) public perception of the effect gays’ behaviour has on their lives.

My position regarding the need among religious persons to control the lives of those who haven’t succumbed to their way of thought is well established. In simple terms, those guys want me to toe the line of their inhibitions because, according to them, somebody said that somebody said that somebody said that somebody said…(back six thousand years of hearsay) that it’s said to be bad. Somehow, it just isn’t good enough justification to abdicate my freedom and liberty on their behalf, to justify and edify their chosen beliefs. Besides being intrinsically unfair, socially unjust and morally myopic, legislating religious dogma is just plain Un-American. Making any religious discipline the law of the land is no different from the Taliban enforcing Sharia Law in Afghanistan. Only the names are changed to shield the despotic. 

Why is this such a big deal, then? It is said to offend the righteous. So what? Ask any psychology professional: nobody is responsible for your feelings but you. The concept of homosexuality hurts the acquired sensibilities of those who have been brainwashed into believing in devils and demons, fire and brimstone, heaven and hell. That’s just a pity, isn’t it? There is professional help to alleviate the problem. While one doesn’t choose to be brainwashed (subjugation of children to religion is child abuse in my book) one does choose what one believes or what one does about and with what one believes. Ask any mental health professional: gays are not responsible for the feelings of religious zealots. Or of any other homophobes of any stripe. 

The fact is that discrimination is wrong. Limiting others’ lives because of their existence, because some aspect of their state-of-being makes another uncomfortable, is reprehensible as it is unconscionable. In many cases, most recently regarding LGBT, the zeitgeist is just awakening to the reality of it. For some reason, recognition of injustice in the moment doesn’t translate easily to recognition that whatever the issue has therefore ALWAYS been wrong, regardless of general public sentiment. Immediate resolution, if not restitution, is in order. Justice delayed is justice denied.

This claimed need to discuss these matters is at best a delaying tactic. Those stirred from not having to bother thinking about the uppity oppressed into acknowledgement, toleration, acceptance and integration merely seek to keep their feathers as unruffled as possible. Lighten the blow. Make the transition as painless as possible. Sod those fudgepackers, it’s still only about us. It’s a bother, but we can still carry on as if nobody exists but us. The tyranny of the masses, like the wheels of justice, moves slowly. Mustn’t upset one’s mother, or molest our saintly nan or rattle dear aunt Aiofe. Dad and uncle George mustn’t have to consider there might be poofs and fags near to them on the bus! The lads would never accept poofters at a footy match. The feelings of important, normal people are at stake!

But, what of the feelings of the millions of gay, Lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered, curious, questioning and sympathetic people who have withstood loss of livelihood, housing, family, friends, emotional support, civic security, literally life and limb; Endured public ostracism, censure and all the other slings and arrows of being different in a better-than-thou stratified society? What about the discomfort -- even unto death -- parsed to all those like myself? When is society going to offer me back the jobs I’ve lost (2), the housing of which I’ve been deprived (3), the personally received as well as general, public heckling from plain citizens (uncounted), elected officials (2) and uniformed police officers (1)? 

And, they’re worried about the offense taken by people who suddenly have to acknowledge their poisonous attitude is wrong? Criminalization of an oppressed group for intrinsic, immutable characteristics of their state of being is cruel, inexcusable, immoral, unconscionable. There is no applicable justification for delay in righting such wrongs. The feelings and sensibilities of the general public be hanged. I’m just one among millions, and your discomfort at having to acknowledge you were wrong in attitude, and must adjust your behaviour toward me is NOTHING compared to even a single instance of injustice I have personally endured by institutionalized condemnation of what I am. 

Make the changes, stop whigning. Just ‘effin’ grow up and get over it.

Repeal Section 377.

Letter to a new friend

Sometimes exchanges of ideas with new acquaintences inspire enough of a shift in the kind of everyday thought patterns one has to make one realize there's alot more going on in one's brain that it seems. Like they say, two heads *are* better than one. 

I referred my blog to a new acquaintence, an Irish expat living in The Netherlands, I believe, who expressed the opinon that issues confronting America are best left to that continent. To which I replied (plus additional comments)

I've been in Ireland for almost eight years, and in that time there's been significant upheaval in the structure, adminsitration and oversight execution of the EU with much prognostication, wringing of hands, and gnashing of teeth over the unknown outcomes as issues arose and subsided. Each time my opinion was solicited, I referred to my American History studies of yore, applying what happened from the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation to the Constitutional Convention which resulted in the United States Constitution as a guide to how things would eventually pan out, regardless of the issue at hand. The parallels are striking and almost completely lock step the whole way. 

I think that all the issues, to some degree or another, that are bouncing back and forth over there in America shall eventually rear their ugly heads over here in Europe, either in the context of the challenges to the Irish State as it wends its way through the current financial morass, or the EU at large, it's continued expansion, the civil rights issues hindering some states ascension to the Union, and the myriad cultural clashes among the sometimes-allies-somtimes enemies but perpetual rivals are bourne. 

Considering, also, the HUGE effect immigration and the persistant Irish culture has had on the United States, there is a surprising amount of connection, most recently the American influence on the Irish economy which essentially enabled the Celtic Tiger and is unfortunately leading the current financial malaise. Like it or not: There is, therefore, most definitely something applicable. In lock step parallel.

The similarity of issues surrounding social dynamics are remarkable. Travelers are the Hibernic equivalent to Blacks and include a turmoil of tensions, albeit exclusively cultural rather than also physiological in nature . All the immigrants from newly admitted Eastern European states mirror issues around Mexican and Central/South American immigrants who are accused of robbing citizens' jobs and draining government social welfare resources. The difference being that people who had a short while ago been illegal were suddenly fully vested EU citizens with the same rights and privileges of any Irish Passport holder. But, then there are those Nigerians who perportedly only come here to have their babies and qualify for free housing, free mobile phones, free automobiles, free dole and enjoy an "in-your-face, I don't care, you can't touch me, I have mine you get yours, suckers" attitude. Same old ignorant hogwash. Only the names are changed to affect the innocent.

There's the effect of the Church on Same Sex Unions. Polls show over two thirds, a full 67%, of Irish citizens support Gay Marriage. That is, the full monty, the whole enchilada, the big lebowski, not some half-baked, let-them-eat-cake, separate is not equal, half-assed substitute. But, look at what we're getting instead: codified second class citizenship. And the government and national/corporate media spin is that the gay community is happy and grateful to get that much. Fifteen years ago you queers'd go jail, afterall. Don't make a fuss so we can pat ourselves on the back. We must protect the children!

Don't get me started. Except that's the conservative, merchant class elite dictating public perception in order to maintain the status quo. Oh, jeez, don't get me started.

Regional rivalry, large states v. small states, federalism v. centralized authority, the role and power of state courts, the role and power of appeals courts and courts of last resort, individual sovereignty, statute recognition across state borders, levying taxes, raising-arming-funding defense forces... The list seems endless.

I believe the rise of the European Union is a crucially important counterpoint to American imperialism, multi-arena world domination, especially its financial sector hegemony. The UK is being extremely silly holding out, not joining the Euro monetary standard, especially for such transparently egotisitical reasons. Eventually, they must acquiesce, and the longer they wait, the more humiliating it's going to be.

The older I get, the plainer the simple truth: Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. It really is like deja vu all over again, even if we're doing it again for the first time.

Chickens Coming Home to Roost

The American Political Right Wing is NOT the friend of middle class America. Consistently luring the gullible conservative and moderate middle class into its boudoir with promises of safety only to find red herrings designed to distract from betrayal of even the most basic middle class needs and ideals, the very fabric of honesty, freedom and liberty continue to be undermined thoughtfully, systematically, wilfully. The Right has worked its magic of public manipulation with well practiced procedures, techniques and machinations established decades ago but made an art form in the first half of the last century, taking cues from a variety of sources.  

Step one: Label the opposition as purveyors of exactly the behaviour in which you first wish to engage to immunize that behaviour from effective criticism. For instance, the Right touts itself as righteous, ordained for blessing, a cut above and uniquely virtuous while labelling those who criticize and in any manner dismiss their claims as elitist. The Right’s spokespeople, like Sarah Palin, admonish the other side to “quit makin’ stuff up,” and then claim Reform is all about undermining middle class, populist ideals, eliminating free choice, “Death Panels” and pulling the plug on Grandma. In blatant denial of reality, mind you. 

Nicolo Machiavelli, in his seminal work, The Prince, posited whether it’s better to be feared or to be loved. Manufacturing gratuitous fear, according to the practices of the political Right, is obviously more effective.

Unable to compete on the merits of any argument, purely because every issue the Right supports is intrinsically corrupt, they ignore the issues outright and throw out misinformation and lies in order to obscure and obfuscate any discussion, undermining any chance of meaningful debate.* An prime example is the Republican Party’s refusal to offer any alternatives to the current Healthcare Reform debate. Healthcare Reform is intrinsically in the interest of the consuming public and counter to Health Industry corporate profits, especially for pharmaceuticals and the Health Insurance Industry, which stands to be eliminated as the superfluous, essentially parasitic middleman that it is. There is absolutely no constructive-to-the-voting-public alternative to Healthcare Reform. 

All of this is designed to scare the public into supporting policies that are inherently contrary to the public’s-at-large best interest. It’s scaring legislators, too, with threats to their future office seeking viability: corporate campaign contributions. Everybody is saying that the Healthcare Reform issue is complicated and shall inevitably raise concerns and anxiety among everybody potentially involved. 

Bullshit. 

Absolute, unadulterated bullshit. The ubiquitous anti-reform stories describing negative effects on individuals’ health and security should this reform be enacting are generating the anxiety. They are manufactured inaccuracies, distortions and lies cut from whole cloth perpetrated to protect the profit margins enjoyed by health insurers, pharmaceutical vendors and other Health Industry purveyors who would rather do without competition that’ll drive prices, and their profits, down. Unequivocally, there is no excuse for a single Congressperson or Senator to oppose, in any manner or to any degree, a complete and comprehensive overhaul of how healthcare is paid for and how health care costs are regulated and how distribution of money to cover those costs is handled. 

The way it is now, insurance companies control who gets paid how much and for which procedures, if at all. The insurance companies employ bureaucrats to determine, based on cost benefit analyses, what treatment may and may not be dispensed. This includes procedures and medication dispensing based on how said treatment, procedure or medication affects the insurance companies’ bottom lines. The insurance company clerical workers decide according to the insurer’s own rules that are formulated without their customers’ input. The insurance policy contracts, signed when customers are healthy and in no pain, often allow little or no recourse beyond arbitration, if that, once their bean counters deny benefits to the policy holder. The insurance companies make profit from this, charging a fee for providing the service of arbitrarily limiting what you get in exchange for premiums you pay and what your doctor is allowed to deliver. This is true regardless of how badly you need what your doctor orders.

There is ample documentation describing how each of the Conservative Right’s arguments against populist, progressive and (dare I say it?) liberal changes in society are false, dysfunctional and destructive to America as a nation, the American dream as a philosophy, and the American way of life as a state of being.

Why is Congressional support of Healthcare Reform not proportional to popular support for it from the general voting pool, much less the better informed (and coincidentally better educated) public? Perhaps the time of the Right inspired, anti-intellectual bent afflicting America since the Reagan era has run out. Finally, middle America is speaking out about how they’re fed up with anti-American ideas wrapped in patriotic clothing. Corporate demigods are finding it more and more difficult to pose as ordinary citizens as they rape the citizenry of rights and wealth. 

It’s about time.




Oh, yeah. Does this sound vaguely familiar? Of whom does it remind you?
• National Socialists, aka Nazis, were Germany’s conservative, family values, God and Fatherland party in the 1930s.
• Combining organized violence and political extremism, Nazi supporting, party organized, so called grassroots activists shouted down and otherwise drowned out opposing viewpoints in public to silence alternative viewpoints.
• Intimidation by strength of numbers (mob rule), carrying weapons in public, especially political gatherings, was used to silence dissent.
• Intimidation of dissent by branding it unpatriotic, seditious, anti-country
• Universally ‘anybody but us is a threat’ White Supremacy racists.
• Repeat a lie often enough and it will be believed. –Josef Goebbels

Here’s some documentation on how the Right message delivery system has developed and why it does what it does the way it does and with such efficacy. 

Who's behind the attacks on a health care overhaul?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/73765.html
Obama-Nazi Slur on ConsortiumNews.com
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/081609.html
Why the Right's Propaganda Works on ConsortiumNews.com
http://consortiumnews.com/2009/081809.html

All the bits slot in rather nicely, don’t they? For so long, we among the populace didn’t know. This kind of stuff only works in secrecy. We’re only just getting the details, and it’ll take a long time to undo the damage.

Nathan Garcia, 21 August 2009


*This vilification technique brings to mind the Monica Lewinski affair, in which President W. J. Clinton was actually impeached resultant of a blow job in the Oval Office. He didn’t think oral sex was having sex. Republican powers-that-be, namely Richard Mellon Sciafe, who also bankrolled through The Arkansas Project, failed gotcha investigations into Whitewater land deals and Vincent Foster suicide/murder/conspiracy fantasies, and Republican Senators financially beholden to Sciafe and his Right Wing cohort, were behind the effort. The Republican leadership equated their disagreement in the definition of a blow job to “High crimes and misdemeanours” as defined by the United States Constitution. Never mind the issues at hand were not related to his job, his job performance, and were only related to his popularity because the Right hated him so much. Kinda like they hate Obama just ‘cause he ain’t one of ‘us.’

Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, initially funded by Houston home builder, Bob J. Perry, who has also given millions to the Republican party and Republican candidates, mostly in Texas, including President Bush and former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay, whose district was near Houston, were instrumental in neutralizing Presidential candidate Senator John Kerry’s exemplary Viet Nam war record, with VN War Veterans who claimed Kerry had lied to get commendations and medals, every claim which was contrary to eye witness accounts and official DOD records. Never mind that the Republican candidate was a draft dodger, used his father’s political connections to acquire a commission instead in the Texas Air National Guard, was cited for repeated Absence Without Leave, and again used political influence to avoid desertion charges, courts-martial and jail time. This was Conservative payback to Kerry who renounced his decorations and spoke out publicly in protest of that war.

The Right tried that again in the 2008 elections by claiming Obama is closeted Islam, was friendly and supportive of Weather Underground terrorists, and counselling community action organization ACORN to defrauded elections in Illinois. These incidents are the first time this kind of crap didn't stick. 

It's about time.