Op-Ed
AUSTIN, Texas -- Goody, goody, gumdrop. We could get Phil Gramm back again, this time as secretary of the treasury. Oh how I've missed that little ray of sunshine, the bleeding heart from Bryan, the man who thinks poor people are all fat. As author Jim Hightower used to say, if you need a heart transplant, try to get Phil Gramm's -- it's never been used.
Just what we need for treasury secretary: the banking industry's errand boy. The man who helped bring us Enron.
According to The Washington Post, President Bush wants a new economic team. Can't imagine why. Oh, here it is. It's "part of Bush's preparation for sending Congress an ambitious second-term domestic agenda." He wants someone "who can better relate to Congress and be more effective in dealing with financial markets and television interviewers."
There you have it -- Phil's perfect for the job. Mr. Charm. And he knows how to talk those seniors into getting rid of Social Security. He's in practice. He's been back here in Texas lobbying to make it legal to sell "dead peasant" life insurance to the Teacher Retirement System.
Just what we need for treasury secretary: the banking industry's errand boy. The man who helped bring us Enron.
According to The Washington Post, President Bush wants a new economic team. Can't imagine why. Oh, here it is. It's "part of Bush's preparation for sending Congress an ambitious second-term domestic agenda." He wants someone "who can better relate to Congress and be more effective in dealing with financial markets and television interviewers."
There you have it -- Phil's perfect for the job. Mr. Charm. And he knows how to talk those seniors into getting rid of Social Security. He's in practice. He's been back here in Texas lobbying to make it legal to sell "dead peasant" life insurance to the Teacher Retirement System.
In an election likely to be decided as much by voter turnout as by convincing the remaining undecided, how do we maintain the hope that’s necessary to keep making the phone calls, knocking on the doors, funding the key ads, and doing all the other critical tasks to get Bush out of office?
Even those of us working hard for change hit walls of doubt and uncertainty about whether our actions really matter. Our spirits rise and fall as if on a roller coaster with each shift in the polls. In a time when lies too often seem to prevail, we wonder whether it’s worthwhile to keep making the effort.
We need to remind ourselves that we never can predict all the results of our actions. A few years ago, I met a Wesleyan University student who, with a few friends, registered nearly three hundred fellow students concerned about environmental threats and cuts in government financial aid programs. The Congressman they supported won by twenty-one votes. Before they began, the student and her friends feared that their modest efforts would be irrelevant.
Even those of us working hard for change hit walls of doubt and uncertainty about whether our actions really matter. Our spirits rise and fall as if on a roller coaster with each shift in the polls. In a time when lies too often seem to prevail, we wonder whether it’s worthwhile to keep making the effort.
We need to remind ourselves that we never can predict all the results of our actions. A few years ago, I met a Wesleyan University student who, with a few friends, registered nearly three hundred fellow students concerned about environmental threats and cuts in government financial aid programs. The Congressman they supported won by twenty-one votes. Before they began, the student and her friends feared that their modest efforts would be irrelevant.
How do we learn to keep on in this difficult political time, and keep on
with courage and vision? A few years ago, I heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu
speak at a Los Angeles benefit for a South African project. He'd been
fighting prostate cancer, was tired that evening, and had taken a nap before
his talk. But when Tutu addressed the audience he became animated,
expressing amazement that his long-oppressed country had provided the world
with an unforgettable lesson in reconciliation and hope. Afterward, a few
other people spoke, and then a band from East L.A. took the stage and
launched into an irresistibly rhythmic tune. People started dancing.
Suddenly I noticed Tutu, boogying away in the middle of the crowd. I'd never
seen a Nobel Peace Prize winner, still less one with a potentially fatal
illness, move with such joy and abandonment. Tutu, I realized, knows how to
have a good time. Indeed, it dawned on me that his ability to recognize and
embrace life's pleasures helps him face its cruelties and disappointments,
be they personal or political.
AUSTIN, Texas -- As we take this long weekend to digest our Thanksgiving dinners and the ensuing leftovers, let us also devote some time to digesting a few political developments that have flown in under the wider media radar recently.
-- Mental health experts say we face a crisis because one in six returning soldiers from Iraq is suffering from post-traumatic stress, and the number is expected to grow rapidly. You will not be amazed to learn that the Pentagon did not anticipate the problem, since it has yet to anticipate anything about Iraq correctly.
A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute found 15.6 percent of Marines and 17.1 percent of soldiers surveyed after tours in Iraq suffer from major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can cause flashbacks, sleep disorders, violent outbursts, panic attacks, acute anxiety and emotional numbness. The numbers are expected to be higher among reservists than among career soldiers.
-- Mental health experts say we face a crisis because one in six returning soldiers from Iraq is suffering from post-traumatic stress, and the number is expected to grow rapidly. You will not be amazed to learn that the Pentagon did not anticipate the problem, since it has yet to anticipate anything about Iraq correctly.
A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute found 15.6 percent of Marines and 17.1 percent of soldiers surveyed after tours in Iraq suffer from major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can cause flashbacks, sleep disorders, violent outbursts, panic attacks, acute anxiety and emotional numbness. The numbers are expected to be higher among reservists than among career soldiers.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Dan Green of New York City says of the election results, "You can't be depressed now, the worst is yet to come." Following that good advice, I intended to keep my indignation dry and save the outrage for when it is really needed, kind of like saving room for the pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving dinner. If we're going to get through the next four years, we have to pace ourselves, I concluded.
But here it is, not even three weeks into the new Bush regime, and already I'm jaw-dropped, you've-got-to-be-kidding mad. Here's the record so far:
But here it is, not even three weeks into the new Bush regime, and already I'm jaw-dropped, you've-got-to-be-kidding mad. Here's the record so far:
When misleading buzzwords become part of the media landscape, they
slant news coverage and skew public perceptions. That's the story with the
phrase "Iraqi forces" -- now in routine use by U.S. media outlets,
including the country's most influential newspapers.
The New York Times and the Washington Post have been leading the way in news stories that apply the indigenous "Iraqi forces" label to Iraqi fighters who are pro-U.S.-occupation ... but not to Iraqi fighters who are anti-U.S.-occupation.
Some recent examples:
* "And U.S. and Iraqi forces continue to fight in Samarra..." (Washington Post, Nov. 15)
* "Pitched battles erupted between insurgents and American and Iraqi forces on Sunday in the northern city of Mosul. ... It took five hours for the American and Iraqi forces to kill or chase away the insurgents." (New York Times, Nov. 15)
* "Eight days ago, U.S. and Iraqi forces barreled through a defensive mud wall" around Fallujah. (Washington Post, Nov. 16)
* "In Baquba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, insurgents kept up attacks on American and Iraqi forces..." (New York Times, Nov. 17)
The New York Times and the Washington Post have been leading the way in news stories that apply the indigenous "Iraqi forces" label to Iraqi fighters who are pro-U.S.-occupation ... but not to Iraqi fighters who are anti-U.S.-occupation.
Some recent examples:
* "And U.S. and Iraqi forces continue to fight in Samarra..." (Washington Post, Nov. 15)
* "Pitched battles erupted between insurgents and American and Iraqi forces on Sunday in the northern city of Mosul. ... It took five hours for the American and Iraqi forces to kill or chase away the insurgents." (New York Times, Nov. 15)
* "Eight days ago, U.S. and Iraqi forces barreled through a defensive mud wall" around Fallujah. (Washington Post, Nov. 16)
* "In Baquba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, insurgents kept up attacks on American and Iraqi forces..." (New York Times, Nov. 17)
AUSTIN, Texas -- Whilst the punditry wanders weak and weary in the deep fogs of the "moral values debate," what say we pay some attention to what is going on, eh?
According to Newsday, "The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Ladin ..."
Bad Nooz. In the first place, the concept of "purge" has not hitherto played much part in our history, and now is no time to start. Considerable pains have been taken to protect the civil service from partisan pressure for extremely good reasons.
"Disloyalty to Bush," or any president, is not the same as disloyalty to the country. In fact, in the intelligence biz, opposing the White House is sometimes the highest form of loyalty to country, since when we fight without good intelligence, we fight blind.
According to Newsday, "The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Ladin ..."
Bad Nooz. In the first place, the concept of "purge" has not hitherto played much part in our history, and now is no time to start. Considerable pains have been taken to protect the civil service from partisan pressure for extremely good reasons.
"Disloyalty to Bush," or any president, is not the same as disloyalty to the country. In fact, in the intelligence biz, opposing the White House is sometimes the highest form of loyalty to country, since when we fight without good intelligence, we fight blind.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Look at it this way. Voting whitens your teeth, sweetens your breath and perks up your sex life. Voting is new and improved, stops the heartbreak of psoriasis and improves your gas mileage. Voting makes you feel virtuous, is your patriotic duty and entitles you, absolutely free, to four years of guilt-proof gritching about what's wrong with the country. Those who do not vote forfeit the right to complain.
Voting causes fat to disappear. Poof! Up to 10 pounds gone in just one trip to the polling place. Standing in the voting box improves your IQ, restores short-term memory and enables you to think of witty responses at the very momentyou need them. Besides, if you don't vote, it will all be your fault.
Voting is a friendly thing to do. You get to meet your neighbors and catch up on their children. Also, romances have been known to start while standing in line to vote.
Voting causes fat to disappear. Poof! Up to 10 pounds gone in just one trip to the polling place. Standing in the voting box improves your IQ, restores short-term memory and enables you to think of witty responses at the very momentyou need them. Besides, if you don't vote, it will all be your fault.
Voting is a friendly thing to do. You get to meet your neighbors and catch up on their children. Also, romances have been known to start while standing in line to vote.
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much. It's whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"Mankind was my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
-The Ghost of Jacob Marley
Americans have long been enchanted by the story of our own magnificence. Deep in our national psyche lies the myth of our divine exceptionalism. As children, we were read the great American fairytale - the one about the precious God-blessed paradise, and its shining "city upon a hill", whose holy light leads the way in a dark and unholy world. As adults, we're still reading this story, only now to our own children.
-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"Mankind was my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
-The Ghost of Jacob Marley
Americans have long been enchanted by the story of our own magnificence. Deep in our national psyche lies the myth of our divine exceptionalism. As children, we were read the great American fairytale - the one about the precious God-blessed paradise, and its shining "city upon a hill", whose holy light leads the way in a dark and unholy world. As adults, we're still reading this story, only now to our own children.
AUSTIN, Texas -- My, my, gonna be a long four years.
House Republicans have rewritten the ethics rules so Tom DeLay won't have to resign if indicted after all. Let's hear it for moral values. DeLay is one of the leading forces in making "Republican ethics" into an oxymoron.
The rule was passed in 1993, when Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was being investigated for ethics violations. And who helped lead the floor fight to force him to resign his powerful position? Why, Tom DeLay, of course. (Actually, it's sort of a funny story. The D's already had a caucus rule that you had to resign from any leadership position if indicted. The R's changed their rules to match the D's, except they deliberately did not make their rule retroactive, so the highly indicted Rep. Joseph McDade, senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, could, unlike Rostenkowski, retain his seat.)
The rule was passed in 1993, when Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was being investigated for ethics violations. And who helped lead the floor fight to force him to resign his powerful position? Why, Tom DeLay, of course. (Actually, it's sort of a funny story. The D's already had a caucus rule that you had to resign from any leadership position if indicted. The R's changed their rules to match the D's, except they deliberately did not make their rule retroactive, so the highly indicted Rep. Joseph McDade, senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, could, unlike Rostenkowski, retain his seat.)