Obama's Gitmo Scandal: Torture Unabated

This Government Subsidy: The Answer?

The City of Escondido in California ponders the question

At a recent Escondido City Council meeting, a former city council member stood up and reiterated the advice often offered by right-wing conservatives to the poor, the unemployed, the uninsured and the powerless, which is, “Government is not the answer.” If only someone had shouted, “Tell it to the corporations, Sir!” Or, with reference to the specific case now most foolishly under consideration by the city council, the Marriott Hotel deal, “Tell it to C.W. Clark!”

Clearly, to private entities such as C.W. Clark’s La Jolla based real estate development company, government is very much the answer. Should the city approve the deal, the city will fork over a $19 million subsidy out of a budget already in deficit, while also leasing the land tax free for ten years, by assuming, dubiously, the franchiser will stick around once it becomes clear there’s no market for the beast in downtown Escondido.

Given the recession, revenues and hotel occupancy rates for local hotels are already suffering. Best Western’s occupancy, for example, currently wavers at approximately 25%. The other hotels are not hugely better off.

To complicate the questions begged here, it has to be noted that the city has not revealed an inclination to require the franchise Marriott to hire local residents, nor to provide living-wage jobs, nor any other benefits to employees such as pensions and health insurance; and since the Marriott, corporate or franchise (2/3rds of all Marriotts are franchises), is not unionized, this government will satisfy yet another gift-wish of the corporate mind—profits made of poverty wages.

This is what is known as, I do believe, a “sweetheart deal.” But why ask the question, “Unless visitors are having trouble booking rooms, why put up another hotel?” Why ask the question, “In a democracy, shouldn’t the taxpayers have the right to say No to boondoggles that do nothing to improve the community or represent sane economic development?” The answers are irrelevant— where politicians are allied with business—both in spirit and personally—there will be subsidies to business, especially if the benefits are going to a company and its stockholders, at the expense of taxpayers, with no loss of skin off the corporate nose (Clark’s).

Notice that apparently the corporate Marriott is not interested in Escondido—perhaps because Mr. Marriott knows it would not be a prudent choice, given the market?


Item: “Hotels do not draw tourists to a region; they simply compete with each other for the tourists’ trade. Furthermore, hospitality industry jobs tend to be among the worst paying jobs in the economy: chambermaids, desk clerks, food service workers, etc...They do more harm than good for the residents of a city.”

Item: “ If the market is really there, you don't need public assistance. And if it's not there, don't build. All you do is hurt the hotels already in the market, and that's what's been happening for 20 years."

Still, why? What has possessed Escondido’s City Council? Whether the city council members who support this deal sincerely think a franchise Marriott hotel will provide revenue to the city and help balance the budget; or whether they are handicapped by a habit of mind, unable to think outside a free-market, cool-aid box toward enlightened, green economic options and new ideas for a rich, sustainable future; whether they might be getting kick-backs or gifts (not an unheard-of possibility)—well, who knows? The agreement will be negotiated “in closed session,” i.e., behind closed doors, as usual—no vote by citizens, no citizen oversight, no citizen voice present and holding sway over corporate and pro-business mind-sets. No transparency. We are left to wonder, and wonder we do, with letters, emails, blog posts, polls, and speeches by pro-community entities—pro-police union, pro-firefighters, parks, recreation areas, library, etc.—hoping common sense prevails.

We are left to wonder, to trust our elected officials to do the right thing. If they don’t, what will the city say to under-staffed and under-equipped police and firefighters; to kids unable to find safe and attractive parks and recreation areas to play in; to parents of kids without any place to play but on streets occupied by gangs; to residents who can’t find living-wage jobs; to students who find the library is closed just when they need it most? What will the city say— “So, how is that Marriott working out for you?”

In truth, good government can be the answer; bad government—engaging in double standards, socialism for wealthy developers but a cruel-world ideology for taxpayers and ordinary citizens—must not be the answer. Good government is not socialism; instead, it is a mixed economy, where a balance of private and public interests prevail.

The Chimp Cartoon: Stop, Look Both Ways...

...before you and free speech get flattened by that run-away bus.

      I am thinking of the cover of the June 1978 Hustler Magazine, where a female was being cutely processed through a manual meat grinder (go find it yourself), legs and bottom balanced above at the funnel, with the ground-up product accumulating below on a plate. I remember being outraged by the illustration. I remember feeling the collective humiliation of my gender, understanding that the hatred and fear informing such a cartoon was our world, where disgust, loathing and shame have their way with us every day —rape, battering, lower wages— where, on the cover of a national men’s magazine, Woman is rendered into meat.
      Ten years later, the Supreme Court would defend Hustler and Larry Flint. You can read all about it yourself, but for the purpose of today’s post I give you this from the majority opinion: “The appeal of the political cartoon or caricature is often based on exploitation of unfortunate physical traits or politically embarrassing events – an exploitation often calculated to injure the feelings of the subject of the portrayal. This was certainly true of the cartoons of Thomas Nast, who skewered Boss Tweed in the pages of Harper's Weekly. From a historical perspective, political discourse would have been considerably poorer without such cartoons.”
      Since then, it became a comfort for me to place the value of free speech and political discussion above the values of civility, equality, and even dignity. It was a matter of growing up.
      And the world has seen many such challenges to our faith in freedom of speech. For example, in 2005 the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten Jyllands-Posten published twelve editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, leading to a cultural clash between the Western tradition of free speech and Islamic tradition prohibiting pictorial representations of Muhammad. The outrage of believers was everywhere—protest, death and terrorist threats, murder. I cheered the newspaper and condemned the protesters—hooray for free speech, down with religious idiocy!

      Now we have a national newspaper publishing an invidious cartoon, where —and this is my interpretation— the authors of the “Stim” are likened to a chimpanzee. I say “authors,” because to my knowledge the Stim was not authored by one person, President Obama, but by Democrats in Congress. This may be too literal for some and seeming to avoid an obvious implication, still, here we go again—the wild rumpus has begun, with wounded outrage spilling onto the streets: “We are not monkeys, we are not monkeys!”
      One has to honor the wound expressed there, however. The horrors of white racism are so egregious, it is simply beyond reasonable to expect blacks to accept racist speech, even if unintended, without a protest; it is just too sensitive. Certainly, within the metaphor of America as family, we cannot ignore the injury of profound humiliation found in simian depictions of blacks, comparisons which continue to compound the collective, undermining shame blacks must resist on a daily basis. So, of course, there had to be a response.
      Still, it might be important to step back and consider a few realities. First, even if the intent of the cartoon was an insult to Obama himself, we have to remember that he is the President of the United States, not a second-class member of a dysfunctional family. He is no powerless, helpless, oppressed child of the realm. He, as a public figure, must now accept the verbal and visual attacks natural to his position. Certainly, I doubt we will witness President Obama’s personal outrage over this incident. He knows better than to honor such insults with a response. He knows the First Amendment to the Constitution; he will not tell the newspaper what it can publish and what it cannot publish—he’s not George W. Bush, after all. (Who, by the way, was likened to a chimp on a daily basis.)
      I sense here a headiness of new-found power in some of the protests. It is the will and spirit that oppressed people sometimes discover, once their oppressions fall away, and they find themselves in power. It is that which transforms them into those they previously despised in another life, to turn around and do to their oppressors what their oppressors had done to them. Where their rights were abused, they will abuse rights in turn.
      I sense the creation of a sacred cow too —speaking of animal metaphors— a people who consider their sufferings so far above any other in this world that they must never be subject to the same rule of law as other ordinary citizens. Israel comes to mind. They should be forever above criticism, too sensitive for normal democratic relationships and ordinary respect for the rights of others.
      Let's be careful of that, lest censorship be granted a right, by virtue of special-case sensitivity. Ask the Palestinians if this has worked for them.
      Finally, I have to admit I cringed, not at the cartoon, but at the protestors’ knee-jerk identification of chimpanzee as self, as if they had internalized the message so powerfully as to own it. Perhaps this is wrong-headed and insensitive of me, a white woman, but, I have to ask: if you recognize yourself in a representation, aren’t you projecting your own self-definition onto it? For example, if a public figure reads a novel and complains to the press that the villain in the book is there to insult him, hasn’t he admitted his own culpability? While I realize blacks are recognizing someone else’s racist definition of blacks, the risk is still there—by recognizing themselves in the visual metaphor they validate and empower the insult, and complaining about it makes it true, in the most ironically unfair way. When Richard Nixon protested, “I am not a crook!” didn’t we smile —not unfairly in that case— but we smiled just the same.
      I think it might be better to claim the insult as a compliment—hey, we all share DNA with chimps. 98%. We are primates, so how about we celebrate our primatehood?
      As for me, I think chimps are superior creatures...and, by the way, the chimpanzee in question had been medicated by his idiot owner with Xanax, an anti-depressant. What chimp oppressions he’d had to endure before he attacked is unknown. But that’s another story, and right now I would rather think the 2% difference between chimps and us is perhaps what makes them superior—at least they don’t go around turning us into pets!

—L.M.

Democrats Soft on Bush Crimes: No Looking Back, Please

      
Apparently, the Democrats are content to allow Bush and Cheney's crimes to go unpunished. They have generously decided to forgive all, in a spirit of "looking forward, not backward." (Biden)

Maybe Patrick Fitzgerald should drop the Blagojevich investigation in the same spirit, so that he can focus on the future, not the past. Maybe all criminals should get off scot-free, since focusing on past crimes is such a waste of time and resources.

No? Oh, I get it: The crimes of the Big Guys must remain invisible, must be ignored. It's an entitlement of power. The bigger the crime, and the greater the status of the perpetrator, the more we have to pretend nothing happened. Ordinary criminals—now that's a different story. Without them, how could we pretend to honor the rule of law?

What an insane culture this is.

—L.M.

Obama’s PNAC: B.A.R.F.F.

“When you wake, you will remember nothing of this...”


      Sparrow, in the December issue of the Sun Magazine, suggests changing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to the Federal Bureau of Introspection. He writes, “Imagine if, instead of collaring suspects, lingering in pizza parlors, and muttering into walkie-talkies, our agents simply sat in dark rooms with eyes closed, searching within?”
      I sense a kindred spirit there. But how lovely such a change would be. Not only would Americans be safer from the violations of their constitutional rights by government agents, those made all the more egregious during the Bush Administration —the Patriot Act, etc.— American citizens would be in a position reminiscent of Mother: “Go to your room right now and think about what you’ve done!”
      Instead of FBI agents —the not-so civil-libertarian kind— projecting their dastardly tendencies toward tyranny onto hapless, innocent citizens, they’d have to sit there and look inward. What a radical, new idea for them!

      As one of those lonely, still-disappointed-in-Obama progressives, I would like to suggest a foundation which will do for the Obama Administratin (BOA) what the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) did for the Bush Administration, that is, expose the philosophy and spirit behind the madness. This would be the “Barack Amnesiac Reflexive Forgetting Foundation, or, BARFF. After all, it is going to be important for all Obamniacs to pretend everything is changing for the better, that President Obama is fulfilling his promises, that there’s reason for hope, that they can maintain their perky positivity, without fear of being disturbed by us party-pooper, reality mongers who keep jumping up and down, waving our hands in their faces and trying to ruin their moods with facts and reminders about what Barack promised.
      With BARFF, the whole idea will be to forget and forgive all, no matter how difficult it becomes, no matter how the stomach churns.
      But it won’t be all that difficult, to wit: I noticed recently, in an NPR news report, how the “reporter” allowed Bush to get away with saying they’d had “bad intelligence” on Saddam’s supposed WMD’s, and that the war in Iraq, therefore, wasn’t his fault. No correction was made, no mention of the Downing Street Memo, which reported that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,” or how contradictory intelligence from the CIA was suppressed and ignored, or about the outing of Valerie Plame, that whole scandal. This cooperation by the media, with reflexive forgetting and willful amnesia will make the job all the easier.
      It will be up to Obamniacs to continue to forget in this way, as they learned to do back when Barack appeared (“appeared,” because this reality is quickly dimming from consciousness) to betray his promise to filibuster any attempts to give the telecoms immunity from prosecution, when he flip-flopped, voted Yes on the FISA bill anyway, without even the mere peep of a filibuster, granting the telecoms immunity, in service to the notion of hopeful forgetting, I suppose—and change. After all, Obama promised change, so.... he changed! What’s the problem?
      BARFF will give excellent cover for Obama’s failures to fix Bush-era legislative atrocities. It will further the cause of ignoring the death of civil liberty in the United States.
      Take, for example, AETA, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, passed by Congress and signed by Bush in 2006 in a staggering moment of collective, ethical forgetting and feeble-mindedness. The Center for Constitutional Rights has this to say about the law: “The Act is part of a trend known as the ‘Green Scare,’ which refers to the recent crackdown on environmental and animal rights activists under the guise of the current administration’s so-called ‘war on terror.’ Passed at the behest of corporate interests [including the American Psychological Association] that profit from animal torture during the research process, but encompassing any business that uses animals or is related to such a business, the AETA penalizes and drastically criminalizes any activity that affects the physical or economic operation of an animal enterprise, even without any loss to the business.”
      This means that if you discover your kitten ended up at a research lab and is being...whatever horrible torture!....and you decide to hold up a sign outside the lab, you can be prosecuted as a “terrorist.” Disregard that “there have been no documented incidences of injury or death caused by and environmental or animal action in the U.S.” (CCR)
      See, in case you didn’t know it, humans —that is, humans making a profit— come before animals and their little feelings. End of story. Of course, WE FORGET that animal feelings are not less than, nor unlike, our own, and may be felt all the more intensely, given animal confusion, helplessness, and vulnerability (added suffering)— and it is basically immoral and unethical to cause the suffering of an other in order to further one’s own life, for whatever reason; but forgetting and unknowing is our business, and we do it well.
      What does this have to do with the Obama Administration? Well, surely the “change” we were hoping for was the end of such injustice, those Bush-era injustices where profits always come before people, animals, and the environment, where the real criminals, corporate and otherwise, triumph at the expense of decent people and decent values. The hope of such a restoration of justice, in support of ethical values, was implicit in the Obama victory. It was part of what we longed for. But, we have yet to see if Obama truly shares our values and will eliminate the excesses of the Bush Administration, excesses such as AETA. The impression we’re beginning to get from Obama track record so far is that he is big on PR, but small on delivery. We suspect two faces there, one that looks good to us, the other that looks good to the right-wing and corporate America, and it’s the latter that is the real Obama.
      I can see it now...
      BOA will, in the face of pressure by environmental activists and animal rights activists to overthrow AETA, suggest hearings, invite letters, and Obama himself will speak movingly about the need to protect animals from needless suffering. However, behind the scenes, BARFF will effectively render the protests impotent, through propaganda —ads, for example, showing clever cartoons of happy cats and dogs on their way to the research lab, a soft landscape of gentle brooks and meadows peopled by scientists dressed in cozy, PJ-like outfits— and by stigmatizing any and all stirrings of conscience with regard to animal suffering, by the infusion into the media of negative stereotyping and labeling: “Violent Old Ladies with Cats (VOLC);” “Animal Coddler-Terrorists;” “Anti-science Cult Killers,” etc., which would be the stick, aside from the prosecutions. The carrot would be the blessed sleep of forgetting and unknowing— “President Obama’s in charge...everything’s going to be okay....”

      Sweet dreams...enjoy your Obasms.


L.M.

Don't Worry, Progressives: Obama Will Lead the Way (wink, wink...)

By Joel Mittlemann
San Diego, California

      Responding to criticism that he has failed so far to appoint even one progressive from the “Democratic wing” of the Democratic Party to his team, President-elect Obama insisted during his press conference yesterday that the change he envisions will come from his leadership, not from his staff or cabinet.
      “Don’t look at the people I surround myself with. Look to me. Ultimately, policy decisions will emanate from me, by the spirit of change I have promised and intend to honor.”
      He then repeated much of what he had said in ads and campaign speeches, with some important differences: “Instead of prosperity trickling down, pain has trickled up. Working family incomes have fallen by two thousand dollars a year. We're losing jobs. Deficits are exploding. Our economy's in turmoil. Simply put, laissez-faire capitalism is a failure. Let’s face it—it isn’t working. We cannot possibly drive down the very same path. Instead of giving hundreds of billions in new tax breaks to big corporations, the wealthy elite and oil companies, I plan on restoring a mixed economy, with serious regulations on big business. Then we need a repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, to restore workers’ right to form unions. Instead of more tax breaks for corporations that outsource American jobs, I'll give them to companies who create jobs here. Instead of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest -- I'll focus on the middle class and the poor. We’re going to end NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, the IMF, HMO’s, as well as create a single-payer health care system.
      It doesn’t matter that the people I’ve got on my team have been hard-core, right-wingers and central players in the economic and moral crisis that faces America—they’ve seen the light, and it is held by me. I will lead the way, don’t you worry about that.”
      Asked why, if he intended on ending Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans immediately upon his inauguration, he appeared to be abandoning that idea to say he might simply allow them to expire in 2011, President-elect Obama said that given the economic crisis, he needed to focus on “more pressing issues.”

UPDATE:

      President-elect Obama has reportedly charged his economic team to develop a plan for the future implementation of the Greater Regional Advantage Free Trade Agreement, or, GRAFTA. He assured reporters the plan would include safeguards for American jobs, the environment, and the human rights of the poor all over the world. This reporter thought President-elect Obama winked when he said that, but others thought it was just a twitch.

Eric “Chiquita Banana” Holder as Attorney General?

Excuse me—it’s been lovely, but I have to scream now...

      This morning I woke with a headache felt mostly in my left eye—a symbolic gesture, I suppose, referring to the pain of disillusionment I’m feeling, after my surrender to Obamaphoria in the moments just before and after the election. But don’t get me wrong—I’m not blaming Obama. I knew perfectly well his promise wasn’t real, and I chose to ignore my instincts.

      Let me exaggerate —after all, it’s so much more fun than tempering my reactions— to wit: the experience of waking to the realization that I’d compromised my integrity with my vote for Obama is the hyperbolic equivalent to the cultural joke where a guy wakes beside an ugly girl and realizes he was too drunk the night before to discern her true qualities; but in this case the characters have to be reversed, where it would be the girl who had too many margaritas and, seeing the guy though a tequila-induced blur, swooned, fell into his arms, then awoke to see the mistake she’d made—a snoring beast beside her in his beer-soaked, wife-beater T and reeking like a camel in rut. (“To court females and intimidate rivals, rutting males [camels] drool and spit and urinate like leaky fountains. They reek of an oily secretion that flows copiously from scent glands on their napes.”)

      I mean, I realize a mere two weeks after the election is not enough to make an absolute judgment; but the trend in Obama’s pre-presidency is not smelling right so far —in fact, it’s smelling a whole lot like the oily secretion off the nape of some sort of hairy beast’s neck—perhaps the hairy beast of betrayal comes to mind?

      First, Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff—this stinks pretty bad; certainly it’s no change on U.S. support for Israel’s crimes of occupation and siege, for starters. Plus, he has close ties to the conservative, corporate-leaning DLC (Democratic Leadership Council), meaning no change on “free” trade and every other sort of corporate and hawkish policy, and representing no threat whatsoever to America’s right-wing powers-that-be.

      But this one really reeks: Eric Holder as Attorney General, who has represented Merck (Vioxx/Fosamax) and Chiquita Brands at the D.C. law firm, Covington & Burling.
      No exaggeration: Obama's choice of Eric Holder for attorney general is deeply disappointing, even disturbing, given that Holder was directly involved in negotiating for Chiquita Brands the slap-on-the-wrist it received for funding death squads in Columbia.
      Alberto Gonzalez was bad enough, but did he represent corporations that funded murderous terrorist organizations? (Not a rhetorical question.)

      More evidence of foul odors rising from team Obama can be found if you go to Democracy Now! online, where you can find this, first the heading, “Ex-CIA Officials Tied to Rendition Program and Faulty Iraq Intel Tapped to Head Obama’s Intelligence Transition Team;” then, “John Brennan and Jami Miscik, both former intelligence officials under George Tenet, are leading Barack Obama’s review of intelligence agencies and helping make recommendations to the new administration. Brennan has supported warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition, and Miscik was involved with the politicized intelligence alleging weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the war on Iraq.”

      Not to mention how Obama sent Madeline Albright to the G20 summit, the same Madeline Albright who said the price —death— of half a million children in Iraq due to Clinton sanctions was worth it.
      Furthermore, when Henry Kissinger is happy about the prospect of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, no kidding, I smell a rat.
      And here comes Tom Daschle who, in 2006, endorsed the warrantless domestic surveillance program conducted by George W. Bush and the National Security Agency. Hello? You call this change?

      I am so tired of watching progressives swoon over Obama. How many times does he have to prove he is immune to pressure from the "grass roots," before progressives stop saying, "Well, we just have to organize and put pressure on him to do the right thing." It's clear: no matter his election mandate, no matter how big the marches get, and no matter how many times he responds by sweet-talking us about bringing change to America, change is not what we're going to see. Sure, he'll make a few good moves, but fundamentally, it's going to be the same ol' same ol' corporate empire, the same ol’ same ol’ military industrial complex, or, “America, the United States of Amnesia,” as Gore Vidal describes it.

      As for me, from now on, I refuse to go amnesiac for Barack, ever again. I want to see a few true progressives in his cabinet. When that happens, I might temper my disgust. Until then, I won’t be sipping the kool-aid, whether it’s laced with poison or the mere stuff of boozy dreams.


UPDATE:

The great journalist, Jeremy Scahill, has posted an excellent piece on Obama's foreign policy probables, with the title, This is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's White House. (At Alternet )

However, Glenn Greenwald defends the notion of Eric Holder as Attorney General, saying at Salon, “Anybody who believes in core liberties should want even the most culpable parties to have zealous representation before the Government can impose punishments or other sanctions. Lawyers who defend even the worst parties are performing a vital service for our justice system.” (At Salon's blog )

I normally agree with everything Greenwald says, but in this case, no. It’s one thing to defend a client; it’s another to negotiate a sweetheart deal that basically lets corporate criminals off the hook. You cannot tell me Holder’s heart wasn’t on the side of Chiquita Brands. Also, you cannot compare the defense of a powerless or poor defendant with that of a mega-powerful defendant, as Greenwald tries to do. Eric Holder was not forced to work for a corporate law firm that would require him to defend the likes of Merck and Chiquita Brands. That was his choice, a choice that represents his values and core allegiances.

Ralph Nader would agree with Greenwald’s point that all defendants deserve a vigorous defense, but would he put himself in a position where he had to be the one to defend corporate criminals? Impossible to imagine. It would never happen. And that’s the difference: Holder’s allegiance, revealed by his choice to represent corporations against the interests of victims of corporate crime, is with private, corporate power; Nader’s allegiance is with public —ordinary citizens, workers, victims of corporate crime— power, that is, government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Judging by Obama’s choices so far, and regardless of the sweet-talk, it’s clear Obama will ignore the notion of people-power. Too bad he didn’t consider the likes of Ralph Nader (but there's nobody quite like Ralph) for Attorney General. But he didn’t. And that tells us a great deal.


UPDATE II

Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secy...worked for Kissinger & Associates, the IMF...need I say more? I rest my case. (For an enlightening discussion, one you'll never hear in mainstream news, of Obama's economic team, see Democracy Now! 11/25/08.)


—L.M.

Dove Tale for Veteran's Day

      
      Yesterday, I spotted a dove resting in the middle of my garden. I nearly missed her, for she was perfectly still and camouflaged against the dry soil and grayed oak planter behind her. I thought, “What a smart dove you are to choose that spot to rest in—what predator would see you there, so quietly blending with your surroundings?” But why she was there at all, I couldn’t tell.
      It was such a rare event. Doves visit my place regularly, to eat from the feeder on the balcony, or to sit in the pine tree, but never do they stay ground-level for more than a minute or two. Cats are always present; coyotes, occasionally. The orange, polydactyl feral cat, my adoptee, was there yesterday too, napping on the patio bench, then later moving to her look-out tree to groom herself—without once noticing the dove.
      I kept an eye on her for two hours, while I read my book, until about 5:30 p.m. During that time, I worried over her, using my binoculars to get an up-close view. She hardly moved, except for blinking her perfect round eye and rotating her head this way and that; I could not see if she was wounded, or stunned, or just plain frozen with fear. I was tempted to approach her to get the answer, and rescue her if need be. But something held me back— “Let’s trust in nature’s wisdom and just wait and see...” I would go out, but only if a predator approached.
      Then, as day’s end and darkness approached, she began to relax, to test herself, moving to another position, extending her wings, flapping them briefly, tentatively; and that’s when, with a long stretch of her neck toward the near-by pine, she took off, up into the branches, where she disappeared.
      I don’t know exactly why this event made me as happy as it did. Most people wouldn’t be attached to a mere bird’s success, so very happy about a dove’s flight to safety, after a long, fearful wait. It’s one thing to be relieved and glad for the bird. But such dancing for joy...I don’t know.
      Perhaps the event reminded me of something. Perhaps it just felt right, coming after last week’s political revelations. After all, wasn’t it so true— spirit long suppressed; spirit finally released?

      Eighteen American veterans per day die by suicide. Let me not, in my happiness, forget them.


—L.M.

Leaks Unplugged on Obama Appointees

Picks for poetic justice, though improbable, are Nice Dreams for progressive Obama supporters

By Mistee Laurie, C.P.I

Despite all efforts to plug leaks as to who is to do what and where in the Obama Administration, a few surprising names have trickled out, to the astonishment of all.

But, why not?

Just as Bush had set off alarm bells for progressives with his appointments —for everything from the U.N. ambassador and the top state department post for Latin American affairs, to his appointment of a convicted Reagan administration official to head a National Security Council office, to Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzalez, “Heckuva-job Brownie” Michael Brown, Monica Goodling, Swift Boat Veterans donor Sam Fox, where competence, experience and qualifications for the job were less important than crony status, donor status, or ideological conformity— Obama is setting off alarm bells for the far right.

Progressives still remember the wacky world of life during the G.W. Bush Administration—the surreal zealotry of Justice Department prosecutions, best exemplified by the conviction of Tommy Chong for the sale of bongs, Bushite contempt for accountability, felt most acutely by Cindy Sheehan when her request to meet with Bush was denied, and her question, “What was the noble cause my son died for?,” went unanswered; remember the frenzy of kitschy outrage over Natalie Marin’s mere exercise of her First Amendment rights, and the banning by Clear Channel of the Dixie Chicks from country western stations all across the nation; remember the faith-based initiative, how tax dollars were funneled to religious —read, Christian— organizations, where proselytizing to poor folks was the norm; remember the freak-out during the election campaign over Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers?

Well, if the leaks are true, perhaps Obama has decided to embrace the precedence Bush set with his appointments, to make a few not-so qualified —but well deserved— picks of his own:

Tommy Chong, Administrator of the D.E.A.

Dixie Chick Natalie Maines to head the F.C.C.

Michael Moore, Secretary of Health and Human Services

Cindy Sheehan, Secretary of Defense


Whether the leaks prove true is yet to be revealed. We can only hope.

My Values Vote for...

...and why I'm so happy to have been wrong.

What could make a person, a Democrat who had been critical of Barack Obama, be so happy over his election, and so happy to be wrong about my fears the Republicans would steal the election again, and get away with it, again?

First, what happened in my polling booth... it was a rainy morning. I still hadn’t decided whether I would vote for Ralph or Barack. But, somehow, in that booth it occurred to me that I didn’t want to come to the end of my life and realize I hadn’t voted for the first Democratic African-American President of the United States. And so I found myself filling in the oval next to the name, Barack Obama. Was it racist, a kind of reverse Bradley effect, to vote for someone because of his race? Maybe. All I know is that the long-suffering of Blacks in America —and healing it— seemed more important to me in that booth than the recent suffering of the American people via Bush’s spy program, that Barack approved with his vote on FISA. (Which had been the last straw for me, where Obama was concerned, and what sent me running to Ralph.)

So, as to the fears: I am always happy when my fears turn out to be unfounded. In this case, because Republicans managed to cheat their way into the White House in the past two presidential elections, I had reason to believe they’d do it again. I wasn’t about to set myself up for another disappointment, where I believed the polls and simply went on faith.

Obama’s victory, while not restoring my faith in the Democratic Party, or in his intentions to make the right choices and policies —not quite yet— does restore my faith in election integrity. At least the thing works when so many people come out to vote that Rovian crimes fail. That’s something to cheer about— the restoration of democracy...at least in so far as a two-party system can restore it.

Best of all, though, was the beautiful, beautiful sight of tears on faces —Jesse Jackson, Oprah, and everyday African Americans— and knowing what this moment in history means for them. Imagine the children, how being Black and being proud has come to life in a whole new way. For them, I am very, very happy, indeed.

—L.M.