December 22, 2014

Would You Trust a Democrat Who Voted Republican During the Civil Rights and Nixon Era?

This is a serious question. A whole lot of folks here are hyping a current Democrat who is on the record as having voted Republican up until the last two decades, because she favored GOP "economic" policies.

For all those quaking on the right at the sight of an ascendant Warren, rest easy. Warren’s no lefty. In fact, Warren was a registered Republican into her 40s. When it comes to ideology, Warren makes for a rotten heir to Kennedy.

“I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets. I think that is not true anymore,” Warren says. “I was a Republican at a time when I felt like there was a problem that the markets were under a lot more strain. It worried me whether or not the government played too activist a role.”

Did she vote for Ronald Reagan, who ushered in much of the financial deregulation which Warren has devoted her life to stopping? “I’m not going to talk about who I voted for,” she says.

It wasn’t until later in life, when Warren was 46, that she had her political awakening. At the time, she was serving on a committee recommending changes to the nation’s bankruptcy laws. Until then, Warren says, “I said, ‘No, no, no, not for me on the politics.' ”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/24/elizabeth-warren-i-created-occupy-wall-street.html

Which GOP economic policies did the young Warren think were best for America? The ones that wanted to deny Medicare to the elderly? The ones that wanted to deny Blacks the vote? Or equal access to public accommodations? The ones that wanted to fund right wing coups in other countries (Nixon/Kissinger)? How about wars for oil (Vietnam)? The ones that tried to destroy labor unions? The ones that painted union leaders as "red"? We are are talking about "voting for Republican economic policies" during the LBJ administration and Nixon's administration and (more than likely) Jimmy Carter's and Ronald Reagan's. This is someone who thought that Dick Nixon was good for the well-being of the country. This is someone who could not see what was wrong with Reagan/Bush until the 1990's. That is a very slow learning curve. I don't know about you, but I want someone a little bit quicker on the uptake than that in charge of things. I want someone who understood in her youth that if equal justice is denied to others of different race, religion and ethnicity that a economic injustice is also being done.

Anyone who thinks that you can separate "social" from "economic" is kidding himself. Or herself. Years ago, in 1978 to be precise, a college history teacher announced that he was now an economic conservative though he was still a social liberal. I almost gagged. What he was really saying was "Some of my best friends are Black, but I want all that straight white male privilege that my father and my grandfather had. So, I'll just pretend not to notice that I get more than my fair share, because some other white guy has his boot heel square on the neck of some not so white guy." That kind of crazy "I'm a good person, really I am, but I don't want to waste my money helping other (Black) people's kids" is the kind of messed up thinking that got us Reagan/Bush.

You can not have social justice without economic justice. And you can not have economic justice without social justice. While I admire Sen. Warren's clear sightedness when it comes to the dangers of Wall Street's sleight of hand, there are plenty of right leaning capitalists out there who share her concerns. And they employ women for a fraction of what they pay men and they exploit migrant labor and they try to keep out unions in order to keep wages low and their profits high. That is old style Republican economic values.

Here is my litmus test for president. It's 1972. Who did you vote for? Who did you campaign for? If you say "Nixon, because I liked his economic policies" then there is no way I want you representing me in the White House. Anyone who knew the least little thing about politics knew that Dick Nixon was trouble. Anyone who voted for him anyway has got serious moral flaws---the kind that would allow him or her to say "Hey, the illegal incursion into Cambodia is not so bad. As long as the Stock Market stays solid."

Sen. Warren, will you please tell us what you thought when you watched Dick Nixon tell us about Cambodia? Did you gnash your teeth? Did you swear aloud? Did your heart break? Did you get out there and do something about it? If not, then do not attempt to run as a Democrat for president. Democrats need heart.

Seriously guys, if you really hate Hillary that much, why not attempt to draft Julian Castro? Now there is a Democrat that I could support at the top or the bottom of the ticket---a real Democrat.

December 13, 2014

Med Professionals Who Assist in Torture Must Be Stripped of Their Licenses

There is no gray area here. Medical professionals are bound by an oath to "do no harm." When they devise ways to rape prisoners via "rectal hydration", when they supervise torture to make sure that it does not result in death or a prisoner who is too permanently impaired to serve as CIA witness or operative, when they interrogate prisoners under guise of providing mental health services, they have done harm. Massive harm. They have done harm using the skills they were taught during their medical training.

If a doctor or nurse or psychologist decides that he or she can best serve the country by participating in torture, then that med professional must be willing to give up his license to practice on anyone else. Ever. Because who among us would trust a doctor or nurse or therapist who knowingly tortured?

Each state has a medical board to keep us safe from quacks, hacks and criminal doctors. We have a board to make sure that the ICU nurse taking care of Grandma does not have a drug problem. Our therapists are licensed, and we demand that our states make sure that they follow certain ethical guidelines. If a psychologist uses info she has obtained in sessions in order to get close to a client and start a sexual relationship, she loses her license. Shouldn't a psychologist who uses info obtained in sessions in order to devise better ways to torture a prisoner get the same treatment?

This is not merely a matter of punishing the guilty. Our government has been entrusted with the job of protecting the public health. They check food to make sure that it is safe to consume. They check medications to make sure that quality control measures are being followed. They examine hospitals to ensure that facilities are safe. They license health care providers to protect us from harm.

We are oh so very vulnerable when we seek health care. We tell our doctor everything---about our drug use, our mental health issues, our sexual infidelities. We give our trust to---and place our lives in the hands of strangers when we go to the hospital emergency room.

A doctor who has committed a felony completely unrelated to medical practice is very likely to lose his or her license. Can we allow those who have committed war crimes to keep them? Whether or not you think that these folks are patriots, you must admit that they have shown a massive lack of human empathy. They have basic character flaws which make them unsafe as medical practitioners. Do you want to take the chance that one day you might (unknowingly) walk into the office of a doctor who used to torture for the CIA? Do you?

Do you want your son or daughter's life in the hands of a doctor who has proven himself willing to violate basic medical ethics, because a superior told him to? A professional does not answer to a "superior". A professional answers to his or her own conscience. Someone who once tortured because a superior told him to might recommend a surgery you do not need because a hospital administrator told him to. She might deny you a test you need because an insurance exec told her to. A health care professional who pleads "It wasn't me. I was just doing what I was told" is no longer a professional, because she is not there to serve you, she is there to serve someone else.

December 11, 2014

The Shipwreck of the American Dream

Funny how Banksters are allowed to use words like "labor" and "capital", but when folks like me try to talk about the same topics, we are called "commie" and "red." Well, I am about to get red in the face here.

Quote:

'Blankfein said that we have to accept these technological shifts and adjust to them. “I wouldn’t want to regret it, no sooner than I would want to curse the tides,” he said.'

Goldman Sach's CEO is talking about the tides that are taking the wealth of the laboring classes---the middle class, you and me--and handing it to the wealthiest folks on earth, the investors who sit on their butts all day making deals that make them some extra money that they can never spend---at the expense of the jobs that are the life blood of American workers.

Back in the old days, they had names for the guys who waited on the shore for ships to crash, so that they could plunder the goods that were washed onto the beach. And they had names for those who did not want to wait for nature to do its worst. These criminals would put up fake "lighthouse" lights in order to lure unwary ships into dangerous waters in order to engineer a wreck so that they could "salvage" (read "steal&quot the cargo.

The Banksters are doing the same thing to our economy. They are engineering the Shipwreck of the American Dream, costing millions their jobs, their homes, their health, their families---all for a few more bucks. What do you call someone who makes the entire ship go down with its crew in order to turn over a little profit? I call them short sighted, since without the consumer and the worker, there is no ship.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewzeitlin/goldman-sachs-labor

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December 11, 2014

We Are Better Than This

We didn't rape and torture prisoners. We didn't allow a man to die of hypothermia in custody. We didn't start a warrantless domestic wiretap program before 9-11, or use 9-11 as an excuse to fulfill the plan set out in the Project for the New America Century, namely the "liberation" of Iraq's oil.

But fellow Americans did.

We didn't shoot an unarmed young man for the crime of wearing a hoodie while being Black. Or choke the life from a middle aged man for the crime of being overweight and unhealthy while being Black. We didn't blow away a child for the crime of holding a toy gun while being Black.

But fellow Americans did.

We didn't do this:



And we didn't do this:



Nor this:



And we certainly didn't do this (because it happened before we were born):



But fellow Americans did. And if we shelter those who committed these crimes, if we give them aid and deny their victims justice, then we really are no better than they are. And all those words about "inalienable rights" and "all men created equal" are just words with no more meaning than the latest slogan for a diet soda. And the rest of the world has every right to condemn us all as war criminals and mass murderers.

If you think you are better than "this" ask yourself why Henry Kissinger is a free and very wealthy man while Trayvon Martin is dead.

December 9, 2014

We. Need. War crime. Trials. Period.

I don't think I need to say more. Do I?

And, if I do need to say more, what does it say to us about our country and our party? Do you think that the fact that a member of our party is in the White House at the moment means that we should not rock the boat? That's treating politics---the lives and well beings of our fellow human beings---as a team sport. Sure, the Republicans will blame the Democrats for the blowback---violence aimed at Americans in Muslim countries. Sure, the press will tell us that Obama and the Democratic Senate are responsible for every US flag that gets burned, because the torture report was released on their watch. They will urge us to put it all behind us and Move On. They will warn that trials will uncover more atrocities and fan the flames of third world anger and violence, and we don't want that, do we?

Do we want Cheney and Bush held liable for what they condoned? Yes, I know that the report absolves them of guilt. That's because the CIA worships the Bush family. They are willing to take a bullet for George Sr. and his brood of pampered children. The report is, in itself, a whitewash of the war crimes committed by the Bush/Cheney White House. Unless we get someone outside of politics as usual, an independent prosecutor to investigate, we will never uncover the truth---

And, when Brother Jeb finally steals his own presidential election, the war crimes will start all over again. Which is the real reason that we have war crimes tribunals. The dead are beyond helping. The victims do not magically forget their ordeal once the guilty are brought to justice. We hold war crimes trials, like those at Nuremberg, so that it will Never Happen Again.

In 1973, Noam Chomsky warned us what was going to happen under Bush/Cheney. He did it in a piece called "Watergate: A Skeptical View"

But it is likely that the major long-term consequence of the present confrontation between Congress and the President will be to establish executive power still more firmly. Nixon's legal strategy is probably a winning one, if not for him (for he has violated the rules), then for the position that the Presidency is beyond the reach of the law. Kleindienst, Ehrlichman, and Nixon's lawyers have laid the issue out squarely. In spite of their occasional disclaimers, the import of their position is that the President is subject to no legal constraints. The executive alone determines when and whom to prosecute, and is thus immune. When issues of national security are invoked, all bars are down.

It takes little imagination for presidential aides to conjure up a possible foreign intelligence or national security issue to justify whatever acts they choose to initiate. And they do this with impunity.

Welcome to the future that Chomsky imagined in 1973, a world in which baseball players are subject to Congressional investigation and federal prosecution for using steroids, but those who commit war crimes are treated as patriots---good team players. Enjoy your stay in 1984---or do something about it.

December 6, 2014

Awwww! Their Feelings R Hurt(And no, I did not photoshop this headline from today's newspaper)

Worst headline ever.

December 3, 2014

Racism, sexism, agism exist to give employers more profit.

Capitalism deliberately marginalizes certain workers in order to keep them trapped in low wage, no benefits jobs. This pool of low income workers allows employers to cut wages for all workers, even the so called "empowered" white heterosexual males.

This is all you need to know about the various -isms in the US---and it is what we need to know if we are to fight it. The communists were right. Note that the communists were also the only folks to take a stand for the Scottsboro defendants. That's because once you see the economic forces working behind the scene to create myths about gender and race, the myths themselves cease to have meaning.

Michael Brown was killed, because the Koch Brothers need low wage, no benefit workers for Dixie Cup.