November 14, 2011 -- In an e-mail sent to me this week by a good friend whose views on politics usually differ from mine he labeled the commentary which he forwarded “more progressive blather.” Blather? It gave me pause for thought. A little introspection. Have I just been perpetrating “progressive blather?” I brooded about this until I watched and listened to the debate this Wednesday between the Republican aspirants for the presidency. I will take “progressive blather,” if that’s what it is, any day over conservative Republican “Chazari” (Yiddish for anything bad or rotten; junk).
Nothing new in their positions. To a man and one woman they came out against clean air, clean water, the environment in general, renewable energy, education, research and development, fixing the infrastructure, protecting consumers, workplace rules, family planning, endowments for the arts, NPR and PBS, health care (particularly health care), and just about any program meant to protect lives, promote good health, and enhance our way of life. All we should do is take responsibility for our lives as loners without cooperating with others, kind of every man for himself, and let the wide-open, unregulated free market take care of everything. It doesn’t matter what happens to people as long as businesses thrive. And lest we forget, business is a person because the Supreme Court says so. If that election in Mississippi had gone the other way a fertilized egg and Exxon would be equivalent.
All candidates are adamant about getting rid of “Obamacare.” And replace it with what? Well nothing, it seems. Something about restoring the doctor-patient relationship. No grand idea like a “98.6” plan to replace it. Vague talk about reducing the cost of insurance policies that we each can buy ourselves. Get rid of Medicare, the cost of which to administer is about 3 percent versus private insurance cost of about 18 percent. So we will continue to be denied insurance for pre-existing conditions, be subject to policy cancellations at the whim of the insurer, be subject to caps on benefits and continue as a country to spend about twice as much on health care as all other industrialized nations yet with poorer results. Give me blather any day.
The debates role on. By this time we all k now what each of these people stand for in domestic affairs. As NYT columnist Gail Collins put it: “Mitt Romney is still smarmy. Newt Gingrich is still pompous. Herman Cain is still not going to be president.” So why do we keep having them, and why do we keep watching? It’s like going to NASCAR races. We say we want to see these cars run around in a circle but secretly or sublimely we are waiting for the big crash. As we all know by now in the Wednesday debate this week we got one, the gaffe, the 50 or 56 second blank screen in Rick Perry’s head that one and all say ended whatever chance he still had to win the nomination. In private life you can wonder why you came over to the refrigerator but you can’t as a candidate for president. What if in the middle of important negotiations the name of Angela Merkel slipped your mind and you had to resort to “sweetie” or “honey” as we do in Texas? Bad form.
According to articles, brain scientists who study it have a name for this: the brain freeze (not as colorful as some more common layman expressions). I just explain that my mother board is overloaded, in the hope that it makes me sound full of information rather than that I am losing it. After reading about it, however, I believe I will say “I can’t recall the name at the moment. “As a neurophysiologist would put it my hippocampus is taking a break.”
It is not as though this is the first time this kind of thing has happened to widespread public attention. Christina Aguilera momentarily forgot the words to the national anthem as she performed at the Super Bowl. And when Chief Justice Roberts publicly swore in Obama as President he left out a word or two and had to do it again the next day in private. It did not seem to impact the careers of either of these two, however, as it will that of Perry.
But public gaffes can do a person in. No one should know that better than Mitt Romney whose Dad, George D. was running ahead of Nixon in the polls on the way to become the Republican nominee when he was quoted as saying his support earlier for the Vietnam War was due to a “brainwashing” by U.S. military and diplomatic officials in Vietnam, and that effectively ended his campaign. We all still remember Dan Quayle trying to spell potato with an “e” at the end. But George McGovern got away with one many years ago when he was after the Democratic candidacy, one of my favorite stories which I have written about before.
George McGovern story on how to diffuse an explosive problem (unintentional use of the word “explosive”). At the end of a long, hard day on the campaign trail a weary McGovern was walking through a long line of people when he heard a woman in the crowd make a disparaging remark about his wife. He wheeled around and said to her “Kiss my ass,” overheard by reporters. That night there was much wringing of hands and rendering of clothing among the campaign staff, until his campaign manager said “I’ll handle it.” In the morning the campaign manager came down to meet the press. The first question was, of course, what about McGovern telling a woman to kiss his ass? The manager said “He’s a Democrat. What did you expect him to say? Kiss my elephant?” That turned the story into a brief funny report, no longer a big deal.
Perry is trying to do the same thing. Make fun of his gaffe, to the point of delivering a “Top Ten” on the David Letterman show the next night. He might as well make fun of himself since everyone else is. I’ll bet he would be a barrel of laughs at the Texas execution chamber.
In the debate Herman Cain managed to fend off what slight references there were to is sexual harassment problem, although he did have the bad judgment under the circumstances to refer to Nancy Pelosi as “Princess Nancy,” for which he sort of apologized for later. He continues to deny the charges. Does not remember the fourth woman who has come forth, this one publicly. Apparently he did not have the good manners to ask her name before putting his hand up her dress, if her allegations are correct. His lawyers have warned this woman that she will face “intense scrutiny.” Doesn’t that sound like a threat? Isn’t a threat also harassment? Some of this would be resolved if the National Restaurant Association would release the documents related to the payoffs, but the likelihood of that happening is about the same as Cain receiving an hone ray membership in NOW, the National Organization for Women.
It surprised me that the New York Times, in one of its stories about Cain, referred to an “atmosphere newly colored by the allegations.” Doesn’t this, of all newspapers, know that using the term “colored” is now politically incorrect? It is proper instead to say “African American?” I would rather see us focus on financial hocus-pocus with campaign contributions that has been reported. It has more to do with how he might govern, which would impact our lives.
Cain’s problems with sex don’t even seem that unusual anymore with all of the high profile scandals that seem to follow one after the other. It seems as soon as one is gone another steps up to take its place, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund to Silvio Berlusconi who seemed to view his duties as Prime Minister of Italy was to hold an orgy now and them, to Cain, to revered Joe Paterno of Penn State. I am surprised Larry Flynt does not publish a celerity version of Hustler, maybe Hustler: Super Star Edition.
You can feel sorry for Paterno who spent his life building an amazing football program at Penn State, now terminated as head coach after 47 years, for the president of Penn who was required by his board to resign, his assistant who was not allowed to coach this weekend and for the students, who were so upset they rioted setting fires, damaging cars, the usual student riot thing sorry to say, but the real people to feel sorry for are the victims. Raping a child in the shower is not “horsing around” as it was originally called. And even though Paterno brought tens of millions of dollars and two national football championships for the university you can’t overlook it.
This happened nine years ago and nobody reported it to the police. Did Penn State think it was the Vatican? If the perpetrator, Jerry Sandusky, then on staff had been stopped others may not subsequently been victimized.
People like us turned up in Europe about 45,000 years ago. You would think by this time we would have a handle on the sex thing. We punish for misbehavior. A 26 year old man in Florida was just given life without patrol for having child pornography on his computer, which seems pretty harsh considering if he had actually molested a child, or probably even committed murder, the sentence would have been lighter, but even so it is doubtful it will deter another guy from doing the same. Yet how many children were harmed by the market for this repellent stuff was created by this young man and others?
It seems fitting a new show on Broadway opened to rave reviews, “Venus in Fur,” said in the review in The New York Times to be “a study of the erotics (and the semiotics) of power.” And “a seriously smart and very funny stage seminar on the destabilizing nature of sexual desire.” Perhaps we ought to send Cain some front seat tickets. He could use a laugh or two and might learn a thing or two.
Let me share with you some progressive blather in the form of videos, if you haven’t seen them and are so inclined, a series of there that taken together reveal some of the things about our government that are out of line and need to be fixed, and some recommendations of what we should be doing to pull us out of the present doldrums. The first is the 60 Minutes interview with Jack Abramoff, former lobbyist convicted of wrong doing, served time, now free.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7387331n&tag=contentMain;contentAux#ixzz1d8QvhZZP
Next is Bill Clinton on Jon Stewart. The topic was his new book, proceeds to charity, which if like this interview lays out in the most lucid terms the path we should be on for the next few years to pull ahead and improve our lot. The contrast in what he has to say and what we hear from Republicans is remarkable.
This next video some of you who have been “brain washed” (thank you George Romney) by right-wing-radicals into seeing Nancy Pelosi as the Wicked Witch of the West might want to hop over it, although on the other hand you might want to see why Republicans find her so useful as a scare tactic for fund raising. If there wasn’t a Nancy Pelosi they would have to invent one. This is her appearance on the Daily Show and its extended interview on the show’s web site. As you will see Stewart gave her no slack in a tough interview. I know I am biased. I see her as one of the most effective Speakers of the House in her sort tenure, doing what voters at that time put Democrats in office to do and she got an amazing amount of legislation passed to follow the Obama call for change only to have much if not most of it blocked by obstructionist Republicans in the Senate. Getting the Health Care Act was a real coup. This is a good third piece for this set.
The second Republican debate of the week on Saturday night covered foreign policy. I feel I’m on slippery ground when it comes to foreign affairs, but it seemed to me I had a lot of company on that panel. Unlike domestic affairs, here the participants were all over the lot on how to block Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the way forward with Pakistan and the use of torture, the one common denominator of course being that Obama has it all screwed up.
How to handle foreign aid? Rick Perry would start with zero aid to every country, then sit down with each country to dicker for what we get for our money, kind of the way he works in Texas. When asked, he included Israel, which despite his assurance we would always back Israel caused a stir post-debate. Ron Paul would just leave it at zero.
What to do about Iran? Gingrich wants massive covert action, in other words we send in scads of spies to work with disgruntled Iranians to foment trouble. Kind of like taking it from what we thought was the Soviet playbook on us in the McCarthy era. Lots of great movie material there.
No one seemed eager to take military action but mainly wanted to ruin their economy one way or another although Santorum advocated supporting an Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Cain believes in economic sanctions, aid to opposition; Romney in aid also, military as the last resort; Gingrich military as last resort; Paul no: “I’m afraid what’s going on right now is similar to the war propaganda that went on against Iraq.”
On reinstating weatherboarding: Bachmann and Cain, yes. Huntsman and Paul called it torture and a definite no-no. Ron Paul said it was both illegal internationally and in this country, ineffective, and morally wrong. In what was the most statesmanlike comment of the evening, or the only one in my view, Huntsman said: “We diminish our standing in the world and the values that we project, which include liberty, democracy, human rights and open markets, when we torture.” Then added, “We should not torture. Weatherboarding is torture.”
On the subject of killing an American citizen who helped al Qaeda, Gingrich claimed that in wartime enemy combatants had no civil rights (sometimes it seems like he thinks the same thing in peacetime, too).
Huntsman and Romney disagreed on China, Mitt sounding as though he was ready for a trade war, Huntsman wanting to sell to that big market.
Afghanistan. Bring troops home? Yes, no, maybe. Huntsman on troops: “I say it’s time to come home,’’ he said. “I don’t want to be nation-building in Afghanistan when this nation so desperately needs to be built.” Ron Paul didn’t want them there in the first place.
As president, would you over rule your generals? Cain: no, because I would only have generals who agreed with me in the first place. Same as with the women you worked with?
And so it goes. The next debate is this Saturday, the 19th if you can hold your breath that long. Watch it on C-SPAN at five o’clock which I suppose is Eastern Standard Time.
Meanwhile, while we focus over here, things still go on over there. The Arab League is trying to civilize the Syrians on treatment of their citizens but they are not easy to paper train. The Iraq government is miffed at Exxon for wheeling and dealing with the Kurds over access to oil. They are saying the pump is in Baghdad. President Obama and the President of China meet in Hawaii. Going over the policy list, take one from column one, two from column two? Or is the Chinese C.E.O. just checking to see how the daughter of the man next in line for his job is doing at Harvard?
But we just can’t get away from it. What happens in other countries affects our lives. Somebody in Greece burps after downing a piece of baklava and the Dow falls four hundred points as it did one day this week before taking a deep breath and bouncing back to close up a couple of hundred points. Why? It’s like a joy ride at some Six Flags Park, except the lump remains permanently in the pit of the stomach. It’s like a housing bubble for European nations except it a house of cards with debt written all over them. But I have a plan. Let’s look at the indebtedness of those in the worst shape and their unemployment, as reported in The New York Times. Debt in billions, foreign first column, plus domestic second column, unemployment percent third column:
Greece 259 493 16.4
Italy 1,191 2,758 6.8
Ireland 142 236 14.2
Spain 454 1,159 20.5
Portugal 136 237 12/3
(For comparison, Unemployment in France, 10.0 … Germany, 5.9)
Now let’s look at the five wealthiest Americans from the Forbes list.
Bill Gates - $59 billion
Warren Buffet - $39 billion
Larry Ellison - $33 billion
Charles Koch - $25 billion
David Koch - $25 billion
It seems to me some of these fellows are in a position to buy a country. Take the Koch brothers. Their combined assists not only total $50 billion, but they take in $22 billion a year from dirty energy alone. Surely they could swing a deal to buy Greece or Portugal at least, the usual part cash, part stock in the Koch enterprises. What an ego trip to own your own country! David Koch has already had coins minted some years back with his portrait. He could put his face on everything, become a part of the Greek pantheon. You can’t tell me these capitalistic carnivores couldn’t take over a country, figure out how to make money on it and enjoy the same kind of royal privileges they do now in America. It would also protect their holdings in the American market. I think this idea is a winner. Call it my nine billionaires, nine billionaires, nine billionaires plan.
In their own words: a quote or two
“Clint Eastwood growls: Go ahead. Make my gay.”
NYT columnist Maureen Dowd’s opening line in her coverage of the Eastwood move about famed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who had a life-long male companion but is not known for certain to have been gay.
“I can say from personal experience that it takes a blatantly inaccurate personal smear for the Cain campaign to own up to its mistakes.”
Josh Kraushaar after Cain campaign manager told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that Josh was the son of Cain accuser Karen Kraushaar who worked at Politico, were the story was first reported. Only trouble is that the two are not related and Josh has not worked at Politico for 17 months.
“The candidates blame the media, the elites, the Democrats, the government and each other for their problems, but never themselves. In essence, Republicans are now playing the sort of identity politics they deplore when the Democrats do it; they are pretending they are a persecuted minority, discriminated against because of race, religion and culture.”
Comment by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post.
“The truth is that while celebrity redemption seems simple on its surface (take 1 oz. of candor, add 2 oz. of remorse, shake on national TV), it can actually be a complicated cocktail.”
From an article in The New York Times on Jack Abramoff’s drive for redemption. It quotes Abramoff as saying “All I want,” he finally said, “is for people not to see me as this cartoon monster.”
Mitt Romney’s “business career thrived by enriching the elite at the expense of the working class.”
From an article in The New York Times reviewing the history of Romney’s successful company, Bain Capital. Essentially it bought companies, executed massive layoffs and stripped them of assets for huge profit to Bain executives.
Lagniappe
In the Republican debates, the candidates seem reluctant to take fellow debater Herman Cain to task for the alleged sexual harassment charges. If they decide to offer comments, help or advice, here is what they might say.
Bachmann: My husband and I are experienced in “pray away the gay” to irradiate a man’s lust for a man. … we ought to be able to throw it into reverse and help you pray away a lust for women.
Perry: I hear you are being called a sexual predator. I hope those charges are false. In Texas you know I shoot predators.
Huntsman: What Herman needs is a good stiff pair of magic underwear to keep him on the moral path.
Paul: The government has no business being involved with anybody’s sex habits. That should be left to the free market.
Gingrich: Don’t worry, Herman. When I was in the House, calling for the impeachment of President Clinton, I was having an extramarital affair of my own and I got away with it.
Santorum: Herman, as long as you had procreation in mind there is nothing wrong with your actions.
Romney: I have produced a 53-point 103 page document that details how Cain can overcome his problem.
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