A military that forgets its place and decides that it should make the decisions on where to fight comes too close to a dictatorship to protect a democracy. There are far too many countries run by Generalissimos, Supreme Commanders and Sergeants, countries whose people have been disappeared, tortured and imprisoned because they don’t share the enlightened vision of their military.

The recent history of the United States illustrates just how important it is that the civilian authority are in charge.

During the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, the top military were aghast at Kennedy’s unwillingness to risk war with the Soviet Union by invading Cuba. After Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev found a way to stop at the brink of nuclear catastrophe, both saw more clearly than ever a mutual interest in preventing another such occurrence. This led to a sustained back channel dialog from which the JCS were excluded, and of which they were highly distrustful.

“When all that you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.” The military approach to conflict is to effect a military response, to use the tools of war. However, the defenders are not in charge of the republic. If they were, we would be in a perpetual state of war. The military would be used for more than defense; it would be a tool for expanding the empire. We would be preemptively striking against countries that might, in the future, mean to harm us. As we all know, this is not what the United States is all about. We are a peaceful, freedom-loving people who only attack to defend ourselves and our allies’ interests.

In Iraq, for example, we have fought for seven years and three months to prevent the terrorists from invading the United States. Since the start of the Iraq War, there have indeed been no invasions by the terrorists and so the strategy is working. There have been some foiled terrorist attacks on our soil, but the terrorist on the plane to Detroit and the terrorist in Times Square bungled their attacks because of our presence in Iraq. This is a simple matter of reviewing cause-and-effect, people.

In Afghanistan, we are there for a different reason. We sent our troops there to unseat the Taliban, a truly horrific organization of misogynists. These men find any excuse that they can to kill or disfigure women for violating societal norms that keep women in their place. Women under the Taliban’s government were not allowed to see gynecologists because they would then have had to disrobe before a male that is not their husband. Women were not allowed to be doctors. Girls under the Taliban were not allowed to attend school, to learn to either read or write. Schools for girls were burned with children inside them. Girls on their way to school were splashed with acids to permanently disfigure them, to teach them and the women around them that learning is only for boys and men and that their purpose is solely to bear and raise children for Allah’s glory. The Taliban clearly needed to be ousted.

We have also been in Afghanistan for other reasons. We have been there to assist in creating a democracy, a western-style democracy to restore Afghanistan’s rich parliamentary history. We removed the Taliban, but now what? The Afghanistan government is not in control of their country seven years later. Our military is asked to keep things in order until a freedom-respecting government is in place and in control. And our leaders do not know what it will take to achieve such a goal.

I think it is clear that a military mission in Afghanistan is not able to strive for much more than temporary truces, respites that will only last as long as our military is there being asked to surge and strategize indefinitely. How can our generals be asked to do what no other world power has ever been able to do, how can our military subdue Afghanistan? We can’t and we shouldn’t expect them to do so.

General McChrystal has a big mouth. He and his drinking buddies openly mocked the civilian leadership (their bosses) to a reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine. But that is not the problem. It is the reason that McChrystal’s resignation has been accepted by President Obama, but it is not what he is truly guilty for doing. His cadre told the truth about Afghanistan:

McChrystal’s closest advisors speak openly in the article that they do not believe the war in Afghanistan is winnable. Here is how McChrystal’s Chief of Operations told Rolling Stone‘s Michael Hastings that the war in Afghanistan is going to end: “‘It’s not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win’ said Major General Bill Mayville, ‘This is going to end in an argument.’”

As Hastings writes: “So far, counterinsurgency has succeeded only in creating a never-ending demand for the primary product supplied by the military: perpetual war.” And that is what key figures in the military have in mind, notwithstanding the president’s commitment to begin withdrawing US troops in July of next year. According to a senior military official in Kabul: “There is a possibility that we could ask for another surge of US forces next summer if we see success here.”

Another surge? Without a clear exit strategy from Afghanistan – and 96 Members of Congress are demanding one by co-sponsoring legislation sponsored by Jim McGovern in the House – senior military leaders are conducting operations in Afghanistan as if escalation, not withdrawal, could very well be in the cards. And why not? McChrystal backed the administration down before, why not again?

This makes a vet with head trauma feel better

Obama fired McChrystal and people applaud, and say that Petraeus is the great choice to replace him in Afghanistan, to turn things around and get some victory going out there in that quagmire that is starting to look increasingly like Vietnam.  It is an unwinnable war, which is something that the military likes because they get to keep on fighting and it keeps them from getting bored. The patriots like it because it gives them more reason to cheer on the troops and put yellow ribbon magnets and stickers on their cars.

We aren’t supposed to allow the military to dictate policy.  After eight years of a Bush/Cheney administration that was more than happy to drop bombs and drag our allies into war to protect us from people who “hate us for our freedom,” we had expected a president who would work towards ending our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and we are not seeing that happen. Instead we are seeing renewed calls for more, more, more money and troops to fight a war with no clear objective.

I am not a fan of McChrystal by any means.  He thought he was the tail that could wag the dog, to tell the President how high to jump. I do think that he is not in charge any more in Afghanistan because he and his drinking buddies spilled the beans about an unwinnable war.

You talk a mite too much, General.

What do you give to a corporation that has cut corners, ignored warnings, skimped on safety and relied on old and inadequate spill cleanup technology when you think that the President of the White House is being mean to them? If you are Joe Barton, Republican from Texas, you give them sympathies and apologies for a government that expects said corporation to take responsibility for its recklessness.

Okay, accidents happen. We understand that. We get it. There are no guarantees that risky oil-extraction ventures in mile-deep water, drilling 13,000 feet through rock, will not have some occasional problems. It ain’t easy to get oil out of there. We are even aware that we need the oil.

Despite the promise of limitless energy available through alternate sources, a transition to a solar and wind economy is many decades away. You and I and our other readers can cut down on our electric usage with the right kinds of bulbs and judicious usage of air conditioning. We can drive fuel efficient cars and take fewer trips. We can use public transportation when possible. We can shop for goods that use less plastic and plastic packaging. We can make these little efforts to cut down on the need for oil. As consumers we can make a small, conscious dent in the demand and thirst for oil, but as consumers we are not going to be able to do enough to reduce demand so that offshore drilling is not necessary.

Given the dangers and risk of drilling, and given the steady demand for petroleum energy and petroleum-based products, I feel no sympathy at this point for the British Petroleum Corporation. They are not suffering. Nor do I feel compelled to “like” them on Facebook. This is a company that recklessly engaged in practices to speed the process of drilling and extraction in an area of the ocean that should be approached with great caution.

Now we have a bunch of oil spreading around the Gulf of Mexico, pluming deep and spreading wide and killing birds, fish, mammals, crustaceans, krill and jobs.

Representative Joe Barton, who along with Minnesota’s native daughter Michele Bachmann has felt the strings of sympathy tugging his heart for BP, apologized for Obama’s strong-arm tactics in getting BP to agree to a 20 billion dollar fund to recompense those who have been financially damaged by the leaking oil. While he has since unapologized and said that absolutely BP needs to be held responsible for their mess, he only did so to stem a political embarrassment. He does feel sorry for them. He weeps for them and the troubles they have faced.

He weeps for BP as they accept deposits from continuing contracts from the United States Military. BP is not going to disappear under the weight of excessive demands from the United States government for money. From the Truthout.org article (originally published at TomDispatch.com):

In 2009, according to the Defense Energy Support Center, the military awarded $22.5 billion in energy contracts. More than $16 billion of that went to purchasing bulk fuel. Some 10 top petroleum suppliers got the lion’s share, more than $11.5 billion, among them big names like Shell, Exxon Mobil and Valero. The largest contractor, however, was BP, which received more than $2.2 billion — almost 12% of all petroleum-contract dollars awarded by the Pentagon for the year.

Does anyone else notice the amount of oil that is used to protect our energy dependence?

They are going to come out okay, financially, despite their track record of safety violations. Consider that they are extracting, recovering and selling oil from the spill, to the tune of 15,000 barrels per day:

It couldn’t be worse, could it? In the Gulf, BP now claims to be retrieving 15,000 barrels of oil a day from the busted pipe 5,000 feet down. That’s three times the total amount of oil it claimed, bare weeks ago, was coming out of that pipe. A government panel of experts now suggests that the real figure could be up to 60,000 barrels or 2.5 million gallons a day, the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill every four days — and some independent experts think the figure could actually be closer to 100,000 barrels a day.

I don’t think we need to cry for poor British Petroleum getting fleeced by the government. I think that we need to be tougher with them, to make an example of them so that we scare all of the deep-sea oil extraction concerns. It needs to be more expensive to cut corners than to do this the proper way if we are stuck with offshore drilling.

Don’t cry for BP, Joe Barton. They’ll be okay, even if they get shaken down.

When I was young and impressionable, I accepted the invitation from the University of North Dakota to study psychology at their fine campus.  The Financial Aid office managed to find a $50.00 scholarship for me, based on the fact that one of my grandfathers had been injured (mustard gas) in World War I, the Great War.  I had saved up enough money from my part-time and summer jobs over the years to cover the remainder of tuition, room and board for the 1979–1981 school years.  I had grown up in a fairly liberal family during the 1970s and been raised to believe that racism is a bad thing.  Racism was a minor factor of life in my hometown. It was present enough for me to recognize it but not an everyday matter that I had to deal with, so I never expected the conflict I would run into at a respected university.

I lived in an all-male dorm on the west side of campus.  West Hall was a part of the West complex, and the complex included five halls with a common cafeteria and study center.  As a modern convenience, the school provided access to a keypunch machine for the Computer Science majors.  This doesn’t sound like much of a luxury these days, but since the computer center was a half-mile walk from the West Complex, it was very nice not to have to brave -30F weather just to make a few corrections that had halted a programming assignment.  Oh, yes. Some of you may not know what keypunch cards were.  Rather than explain them, you can read a Columbia University entry on them (love the DEC120s, too!).¹ It helps put a new perspective on the complaints you may have regarding your 4.5 GB PC, doesn’t it?

In this all-male dorm, I was surrounded by guys with a background similar to mine, in the sense that they were from small towns on the plains of the Upper Midwest. I could relate to them in many ways and on many things, but in two very large areas of my belief systems and my core values, there were differences.

They were conservative. I don’t mean Nixonian conservative. Nixon had flirted with socialism in ways that would terrify even Bernie Sanders. In the inflationary period of Nixon’s presidency, he and Congress instituted a 90-day wage and price freeze in order to slow down inflation. No one–no one would even consider such a flawed and intrusive monetary policy in today’s America. Not even in Canada would they attempt such a government intrusion in the market place. Nixon was a Republican, though, and still he did it.

No, my wingmates on the west wing of West Hall in West Complex on the west side of campus were far more conservative than the standard Republicans I had grown up with in Hallock.  My first roommate (and this only last a week), was a fan of “King Ronald,” the former California governor who was making his bid in 1979 to be the 1980 Republican candidate for president. Seriously, if anyone mocks liberals for seeing Obama as The Chosen One, please remind them of the adulation that conservatives ladled out to Ronald Reagan.  My wingmates were competing for the title of Most Libertarian Republican on Campus.

They liked Joe Clark, the contender for the Libertarian Party candidacy for presidency.  But Joe’s problem was that he was leading the Libertarian Party, and these guys didn’t have the patience to wait for the Libertarian Party to be a national presence.  They hated government.  At least the Federal Government.  The state government was being nice enough to subsidize their educations, so it couldn’t be all bad.  But since we had a Republican governor in North Dakota at the time, it was also close enough for them to count as not being bad.  The Federal Government was another thing altogether.  It needed to be shrunk.  “Government isn’t the solution to our problems, it is the problem.”

I was surrounded by posters of Republicans and Libertarians on the walls of most of the rooms in the wing.  It was a constant topic.  I wondered what happened to all of the liberals that I had hoped to pal around with in college.  I found a few, but they were far between. I was often the only one in arguments who would take the liberal view.  But I didn’t consider myself persecuted.  I was just outnumbered, and overall I could have friendly arguments with them. Sometimes they would say stupid things that made my blood boil.  It had to do with their racism, and it was a particularly nasty sort of racism.

The first time I noticed it was two days after I moved in.  Some of the guys were talking about politics and the topic of welfare came up.  One of them talked about all the “Cadillac Niggers on Welfare.”  I was dumbfounded.  It was flat out KKK-ish racism, not the hidden, subtle kind.  It was bold, it was in your face, it was “I hate niggers” racism.  There were only two blacks that they didn’t hate:  Alan Keyes and Milton Jones.

Milton Jones was a running back with the UND Fighting Sioux football team.  He was a Canadian and had befriended one of the two football players on our wing.  Rick Nechaperenko was a very nice guy and not a racist.  He was also a big guy and muscular.  He took his athleticism seriously when he was training and during games, but outside in the real world he was far more easygoing.  He had made his hatred of racism very clear when he was a freshman (two years before I came to campus).  He wasn’t afraid to bring his black friends up to our wing to visit, and Milton was among them.  My cowardly racist friends hid their racism around Rick and Milton.  If any of them said anything racist around Rick, he would glower at them and they would change the subject, chagrined.

Milton, being a football player, was someone they could idolize.  They fell all over him when he came to the wing to visit Rick.  They offered him beer and cigarettes, talked about sex, whatever they could do to get Milton to like them.  Perhaps, in their small towns in North Dakota, they had never actually met any blacks.  They just knew that they saw enough negative media portrayals of minorities to be justified in their hatred. Mouse, the one who had been my roommate for all of a week, talked fondly of David Duke.  Duke was the former Grand Wizard of the KKK in Metairie, Louisiana, who had formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People.  Later, he ran for governor of Louisiana and was defeated by a former convict, Edwin Edwards.  But Mouse loved him some David Duke. Almost as much as he loved “King Ronald.”

Their conservatism and their racism went very hand in hand.  The minorities were ruining America and sucking away all of their hard-earned money.  They really paid no attention when I showed them data that there were far more whites on welfare than blacks. Their other exception, as mentioned above, to their hatred of blacks was Alan Keyes.  We know Alan Keyes now as a “birther” for whom the Republican Party was not conservative enough and who has joined the Constitution Party.

The sign that illustrates how deep their racism ran said this, and I must paraphrase because this was thirty years ago:

“Alan Keyes wants to end abortion and believes in a laissez-faire economy.  Alan Keyes is an ATYPICAL NIGGER!”

Even in praising him, they couldn’t stay away from the word.  The sign was on Kenley Jones’ bulletin board.  Kenley, I hope you have woken up to the evils of racism.  I am calling you out in case you Google yourself, because I think racists should be called out.  Correct me if you have changed.

In 1979, I was an eyewitness to a rebirth of the brand of conservatism that has blindsided so many liberals since Barack Obama became a serious contender for the presidency.  Not all those who oppose Obama from the right are racist, and if anyone accuses me of saying so, I will just point back to this paragraph and say “Just shut up and learn to read.”   But Greg Laden is accurate about the racism behind a large part of the Anti-Obamism that is so much a part of our current political landscape.  There are links, and I met them and drank beer with the generation of conservatives that are now in power.

How did I deal with it?  I was an accommodationist.  See how well that has turned out.

1. When I first started with ADP, several of our clients were spending about $1,500 per DEC 101.  They have no functionality other than to provide a video interface to the mainframe.  They were monochrome.  Think how much our generation has seen in the advances for human interface to computers. Yesterday I purchased an HP Pavilion 503W for $75.

He went to the speech to stand outside and show off his cammo and his guns. The press took note and had a chat with him. Hendrickson told them, “I’m a pretty laid-back guy that loves his kids and his country.”

Hendrickson was released from jail about a month ago after serving for an assault charge. He had pepper-sprayed a customer at the Cub Foods (a grocery store) in Brooklyn Center. Hendrickson was a security guard at the Cub Foods.

(Until now, I did not know that Cub Foods had security guards.)

The story of Josh’s visit to the President’s talk, carrying two loaded handguns, can be read at the Star Tribune or elsewhere on the Internet.

Actually, Josh told reporters that it really wasn’t any trouble at all to bring his guns. He routinely grabs his car keys, his wallet, and his loaded pistol on the way out the door each day. That is, I would guess, because Josh is a gun nut.

In the meantime, Josh’s congressional representative…that crazy lady who French kissed George Bush and called for an investigation of all Democrats in Congress to check to make sure they agreed with her “American Views”…has been known to tell her constituents to come to the table “Armed and Dangerous.”

Well, apparently they do. I believe it is the case that signs on sticks are against the rules at rallies, protests, or public gatherings such as this one. No sticks allowed. A stick that carries a big sign on which you express your First Amendment rights is not okay. But guns, with which you First-Amendmently express your Second Amendment rights, are okay.

So, the problem as I see it is that our social rules and regulations are often pieced together in somewhat haphazard ways that make no sense. The rule about the sticks is typically a local ordinance, untested in any court. Since sticks are arms and the Second Amendment says “right to bear arms” not “right to bear arms but not sticks” then surely the stick laws would be struck down in a second if challenged. But still, the rules of our society are somewhat haphazard not so much in the logic but in the means by which the rules arise. Collectively what appears to be an illogical mix (sticks no, guns yes) is only illogical because it’s a work in progress (one might even say “half baked”).Given enough time, municipal laws, state or provincial laws, federal or national laws and international laws would all make more sense as a whole because, after all, we one species and we share one planet. How much zany variation (sticks no, guns yes) is required?

But the laws are haphazard, and this confuses the duller individuals such as Josh. The idea that it is okay to visit a speech given by the president of the United States with the gun you normally carry, and in this case with an extra gun thrown in to boot, is absurd. At this moment in our legal and social history, it happens that Josh can get away with it. But that does not make it right. This sort of aggressive and obnoxious behavior is very negative, potentially dangerous, and is only allowed by the quirkiness of our system. The fact that the vast majority of gun-owning Obama-haters kept their guns home while Josh brought his guns is primarily because Josh is confused.

Again, that confusion is understandable. Quite often, people don’t find a sense of direction or guidance from our zany system of rules. Since it is illegal to bring a stick to the rally, but it is legal to pack two loaded handguns, it would be hard for a guy like Josh, who I’m thinking is not the most lucid lure in the tackle box, to know what to do and what not to do and when. Josh needs our help. He needs some social cues. He needs, in fact, to gain a sense of ostracization for his asshatery.

I’d like to let him know what’s going on in other people’s minds when he straps on his Glock and goes to visit the president of the United States.

Josh, most Minnesotans do not think it is appropriate to walk around with a loaded gun unless you are a cop or if you are out hunting. This includes every single gun owner I know in Minnesota whom I’ve asked over the years, and this is a considerable number. Even people I know who collect guns and have large numbers of them or who hunt all the time do not drop the Glock into the pocket on the way out the door. Then again, most of these people…those I know who have guns…did not and would not vote for Michele Bachmann. And they all think Joe Wilson is a jerk. I’m willing to bet, Josh Hendrickson, that you do not think Joe Wilson is a jerk, and that you are a big fan of Bachmann’s. Together, all that makes you a jerk, Josh.

Why am I telling you this, Josh? I’m using my First Amendment rights here. I have strong feelings about a certain issue and I want to make my opinion heard loud and clear. I am exercising my constitutional rights. I certainly hope that you do not have a problem with that.

Josh, I think you are an asshole. I’m in Rogers now and then. When I’m in town, please stay away from me, and under no circumstances are you to approach any member of my family. If we stop at the Antique Mall, or grab a bite at BoBo’s, I expect you to clear the hell out and stay away. For all I know, you are a heavy drinker and a crack head and a psychopath. I don’t trust that the government is any good at keeping guns out of the hands of people who should not have them. Given your known record of violence, I think it is wise to not trust you, Josh. Since I don’t trust you, I don’t want you living in the same society I live in, and if I had my choice, I’d drive you to the edge of the Good Ol’ USA and drop you off at the border. If I knew where you worked, I wouldn’t patronize that place. If I knew what school your kids went to, I would contact that principal and ask them to search you when you showed up at the school for events or to pick up your kids. And if I worked for the Secret Service, I’d be on your ass like ugly on an ape.

I say all these things as though I’m guessing them, but who knows? Maybe someone like me, someone who finds you and your actions to be terribly offensive, is your next door neighbor, or your employer, or the barkeep at the Champps down in Maple Grove. You know those people know who are not saying this stuff to you? They’re just avoiding the issue. Almost everybody you know thinks you are a shithead, Josh. And that’s probably always going to be the case.

And you know what? Most Minnesotans feel roughly like I do. In fact, the legislative sponsor of our Minnesota conceal and carry law did not have nice things to say about you.

I shouldn’t really worry, though. Now that you actually have shown up at a Presidential speech armed with two handguns, and showed off, YOUR ass is on THE list. Forever. For the rest of your life, information about where you live and where you ever have lived, where you work and where you ever have worked, your history of security guard jobs, of pepper spray use, your police record, is all linked into a file and is now the responsibility of some Secret Service agent who really has better things to do than to follow you around on paper until you die. You are wasting taxpayer money, you shithead.

Have a nice life being watched by the Secret Service.

Enjoy the following two videos. In the first, we get a look at Josh himself. In the second, we get a somewhat broader overview of the problem we are seeing today of which Josh is only a tiny, ant-like part.

One of the sources said White House officials are “deep in conversations” with Snowe on a much smaller health care bill than Obama originally envisioned.

The modified proposal would include insurance reforms, such as preventing insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, according to the source.

The potential deal would give insurance companies a defined period to make such changes in order to help cover more people and drive down long-term costs. But if those changes failed to occur within the defined period, a so-called “trigger” would provide for creating a public option to force change on the insurance companies, the source said.

Snowe is pivotal to the debate because she may be Obama’s last possibility for getting a Republican senator to support his push for a health care overhaul.

This isn’t what I voted for. I did not vote for a man who allows his administration to solicit opportunities to water down the initiatives he promised. I did not vote for a man who reaches across the aisle to find a place to sit. I did not vote for a few more years. I did not vote for “Well, we could.”

Oh, I can’t say it nearly as well as Anne Lamott already did.

We did not know exactly how you would proceed to restore our beloved Constitution. It seemed beyond redemption, like my kitchen floor did briefly last week after my dog, Bodhi, accidentally ate 24 corn bread muffins. You said you would push back your sleeves and begin, that it would take all of us working harder than we ever had before, but that you would lead. While acknowledging the financial and moral devastation of the last eight years, you said you would start by giving your people healthcare. You would do battle with the conservatives and insurance companies. You said in your beautiful way many times that this was the overarching moral and spiritual issue of our times, and we understood this to mean that you took this to be your Selma, your Little Rock.

I hate to sound like a betrayed 7-year-old, but you said. And we believed you. Now you seem to have abandoned the dream. That is why moderates and liberals and progressives like myself all seem a little tense this summer. It is time to call your spirit back. We will be here to help when you get back from vacation. We want to help you get over the disappointment of Mr. Grassley’s cold shoulder, of Mr. Enzi blowing you off, even that nice Olympia Snowe standing you up. We can and will take to the streets again, march and hold peaceful rallies, go door to door, donate to any causes that will help get out the truth of what a public option would mean. But we need you to shake off the dust of the journey and remember the promises of Dr. King, and we need you to lead us toward what is no longer so distant a shore.

And on the subject of wanting bipartisanship:

Of the total votes cast that long-ago November day, I’m guessing that about 1,575 people wanted you to try to reconcile the toxic bipartisanship that culminated in those Sarah Palin rallies.

The other 66,880,655 of us wanted universal healthcare.

We still do. In very durable results, more than three-quarters of the U.S. wants at least a public option, including more than 60% of Republicans polled. This means that if the Senate were stocked with the Republicans who were asked for their opinions, they would have the necessary supermajority to shut down debate and just vote in a public option.

In fact, there are only three groups that don’t seem to be in favor of a public option: insurance companies, corporate media and our elected representatives.

And it only takes a few minutes of cable news viewing to arrive at the assumption that the “centrist” position on healthcare reform, according to Brooks and other establishment people, is a bill without a public option. The health insurance lobby in collusion with both the corrupt and spineless Blue Dogs and the lying hacks who control the cartoonish Republican Party have successfully convinced large chunks of Washington that the public option is some sort of ultra-left concoction manufactured inside the secret underground Wellstone Memorial Lib-ratory located beneath Howard Dean’s cavernous walk-in Birkenstock closet.

The reality, however, is that a healthcare reform bill with a robust public option is both extraordinarily popular and fiscally responsible, while, on the other hand, the kind of “centrist” bill that David Brooks wants is actually more expensive and generally more corrupt. In other words, a bill without the public option can hardly be called “centrist” by any definition of the term.

If Brooks wants “fiscal restraint,” as he writes in his column, he’d endorse the public option. What I’m about to write is old news, but with the apparent prevalence of breaking news stories on cable news about bears wandering into suburban swimming pools, I suppose it’s easy for people to forget. Nevertheless, here it is. You may recall that the CBO scored the Kennedy HELP bill as costing around $1 trillion over ten years. But that was an early version of the bill without a public option included. What did the bill cost with the public option inserted into the mix?

$400 billion less.

Less!

Why don’t the politicians support a public option? They’re isolated. They’re surrounded by people who thought “Yes, we can” was a brilliant stroke of marketing, period, and the energy around the election was an unsustainable fluke. They’re hounded by (and identify with) people who lead industries that don’t bear nearly the same risk we do in health care costs and for whom a doubling of health care costs in a decade is a mere annoyance. They’re used to laughing at the idealists, because for the last eight years, they really couldn’t get anything done.

And, maybe, we’re talking too much to each other and not enough to them. We need to puncture that isolation. Don’t assume your representatives know where you stand. Complain to your local media when they insist on covering the controversy instead of the groundswell. Sign MoveOn’s petition. The text is very simple.

“President Obama, we’re counting on you to fight for bold change on health care–including a strong public health insurance option. It’s the key to breaking the stranglehold that private insurers have over our health care system.”

Donate to help them advertise. And don’t forget to tell your health insurance story and your child’s and your parents’. Stories are important. They bind us together in this. They carry a weight that even our numbers can’t always convey and penetrate where we can’t always go. The health insurance industry may have the money. They have the media. They may even have the politicians. But they don’t have the stories, and they can’t control ours except by making things better.

That’s exactly what we want done, and we’re not about to compromise.

Update: Someone in the comments mentioned hope. Not to pick on her, but hope isn’t going to cut it. In the words of the immortal Shel Silverstein:

Well it wasn’t too very long ago you know some folks walked with a hi-dee-ho
And other folks walked around kind of low
Sayin’ Yowzah and Sho nuff and Yassuh boss
It was ashes to ashes and dust to dust and they didn’t believe in makin’ a fuss
So they quietly moved to the back of the bus
They just say Yowzah and Sho nuff and Yassuh boss
And when things got rough they did a little prayin’
Little arm wavin’ and a little bit of swayin’
Didn’t do no good they kept right on a sayin’
Sayin’ Yowzah and Sho nuff and Yassuh boss
So they all went out and did a little standin’ little less askin’ and a lot more demandin’
Little less liftin’ and a little less totin’ a lot more thinkin’ and a lot more votin’
A lot less hopin’ a lot less waitin’
A whole lot more demonstratin’a lot less pearly gate’n’
A lot more fightin’ and a lot more walkin’ until finally no one at all was talkin’
Like Yowzah and Sho nuff and Yassuh boss
The end of this story is plain to see they finally achieved equality
And now like you and me they can stand up strong and free
And say Yes sir and Of course sir and Anything you say JB

Clearly, there is more work to be done.

I actually did watch a bit of TV when I was a kid, but we were only limited to a few channels because I was growing up “B.C.”  Before Cable, the isolated areas of the country were lucky to receive waves from one broadcaster.  In Hallock we were in reach of CBS and CTV from Winnipeg, NBC from Grand Forks and, when the weather conditions were welcoming, we would pull in ABC and CBS from Fargo.  We viewed our reruns of other networks thanks to KCND from an independent in Pembina.

In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, a superstation from Atlanta bought its way onto the cable outlets, and WTBS broadened even further our access to reruns of 1950s and 1960s shows I hadn’t seen as a kid.  I honestly don’t remember the original run of Leave it to Beaver. In fairness, I was way too young to remember it, being only two years old when its final episode aired.  My recall of the show is based on reruns.

We all have the reruns to thank for some of the cultural icons that have arisen from the show, and the character of Eddie Haskell is one of its major contributions to our society.  Eddie was the Beav’s burden.  Eddie’s mischief often caused the young and vulnerable Beaver Cleaver (an IRC sex channel “handle” if ever there was one) to get into gobs of trouble.   Each time Beaver would explain that he had fallen for one of Eddie’s tricks, Haskell would suck up to Mrs. Cleaver with an innocent face and, with modesty oozing from his voice, utter a sweet, “I would never do anything like that, Mrs. Cleaver.”

In the wake of the most egregious examples of attacks on Democrats and the President at town hall meetings on the presumed subject of health care and the bill before Congress, at which events people have shown up with guns, have drawn Hitler mustaches on pictures of Obama, have hung in effigy the President and other Democratic representatives, have shouted down in concert anyone who asks a serious question about the bill and turned the town hall process into a mockery, the right are now responding to the media glare with the Eddie Haskell approach.  “I would never do anything like that, America.”  We are now to believe that those whose missions were to disrupt the meetings and prevent any sort of discussion of the bill were just ordinary citizens exercising their right to speak out.  They’re just ordinary people.

There is no question that the first disruptions were encouraged by insurance lobbyists and pharmacy lobbysists, as “AstroTurf” activists bused around from state to state create the impression that a grassroots movement against Obama is sweeping the country.  They are the last defenders in a Red Dawn against the foreign-born, secretly Muslim, fascist-socialist, anti-white racist usurper in the White House.  If they don’t stop him and his lackeys now, it won’t be long before they are rounded up into a new gulag of internment camps. (Yes, Jason, there are Canadian Wingnuts, too.)

The AstroTurf is getting less expensive now, as the message has gotten through to people who only pay partial attention.  They take Betsy McCaughey’s word when she says that an advanced care directive will lead to doctors getting more favorable ratings and thus higher fees if they encourage patients to forego heroic measures, which is more simply stated as, “Obama wants to kill special-needs kids and Grandma!”  So, their strategy has worked, and as they now disavow any connection to the disruptors, they are turning themselves loose on the Representatives who are dismissive of the kooks at the mike.  “That Barney Frank, he was so rude to a constituent.  Who The Hell does he think he is?!”  Never mind that the constituent was holding up a picture of the president with a Hitler mustache and had asked why Frank supported fascism?  I think Frank insulted dining room tables in this incident.

The events are now being populated by people who have bought into the distorted analyses of HR 32oo, and are genuinely confused at to what the bill includes and what it doesn’t include.  They are now being populated by people genuinely concerned about the deficit (but one wonders where they were when George Bush was out there cutting taxes for the wealthy and raising spending to create the mess we are in).  They are people who are now against a bill that would, in fact, help them, because they have heard the noise and the noise frightens them.

So, as a liberal who has been watching the conservatives and the insurance industry lobbyists play chess against the progressives in Congress using the public as pawns, I wonder what to do next.  I know that many liberals want to continue walking the high road and to patiently review the bill with people who don’t really get it but are accepting the easy answers.

On Thursday, August 27th, 2009 there will be a town hall meeting in Lake Elmo.  The Representative who will be taking the questions?  Why, none other than our dear friend from the 6th District.

Michele Bachmann Town Hall (Health Care Organizing Event)

It is so important for us to have a good showing at this event. The event will discuss health care. Bachmann is bringing Congressman Burgess from Texas. Burgess is a Republican and has been a doctor for over 21 years. Please be there at 1pm at the northeast corner of the parking lot. The doors open at 1:30, and we are hoping to fill in the front rows. Also please wear Obama, Franken etc. attire. Please have a question already formulated in case you get called on.

Time:	Thursday, August 27 from 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Host:	Gail Harless
Location:	Oak-Land Junior High School (Lake Elmo, MN) 820 Manning Avenue North Lake Elmo, MN 55042 Maps: Google Maps MapQuest Yahoo! Maps
Directions:	Manning exit off of 94, north on Manning http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Lake+Elmo&state=MN&address=820+Manning+Avenue+North&zipcode=55042
Associated Groups:	Face to Face for Change – Twin Cities, Feminist Advisory Board for Obama, Obama Works Twin Cities, Shoreview (Northeast suburbs), MN for Barack Obama, USA.CAN

One could think that this would be a good time to go and disrupt the disruptors. I plan on showing up early, but I may stay outside during the event. I will confront any crazies (but not one of the ones who may be brandishing a gun at me). I would like to egg some of them on, to draw out their insanity. But I don’t plan on interrupting or causing a ruckus during the actual meeting itself. I would like to be able to vent my frustrations at the people who have turned a provision for advanced care directives into a plan to have death panels making decisions for people.

No, the disruption and the shouting belong outside, in the parking lot before the event. Those “Eddie Haskells,” who are just exercising their rights to voice their concerns over threats that don’t exist, need to be ridiculed. They need to be taken to task for spreading fear, lest observers think that they have actual points to make.

The election of November 2008 was not the end of the political process for progressives. Yes, our guy got in. Yes, the Democrats held a majority. But not all Democrats are liberal, not all Democrats are clear on the relationship between campaign donations and their responsibilities towards the citizenry as a whole. They say that in order to get a deal with the Republicans, both single-payer and public option plans must be off the table, and cost-containment must be the key issue that will solve the crisis.

Those in our party who seek to obstruct the President’s plan in order to work out a compromise, to get some sort of reform through this fall, need to see rallies in support of a true reform of health insurance and one that includes a way for the great unwashed to have affordable access to health care. We need also to shout down those who make invalid claims about the systems in Canada, Britain, Japan, Germany and Austria, and most especially the French system.

Here’s a little story to remind you why this is an issue:

Yesterday, I went to get my haircut, and I was eavesdropping on the conversation between the operator and the customer in the next stall. “Destinee” was telling her customer that on a Friday night a week ago she and her boyfriend were at a bonfire party. He fell into the fire, and and an ambulance was called to take him in. The EMTs dressed his wounds, and in the emergency room, they were recleaned and bandaged. The ER doctor estimated that he would need at least two weeks in hospital.

Abruptly, things changed when the administrative staff discovered he wasn’t covered by any insurance. The nurses came into his room and told him that he was being sent home. Destinee asked for some instructions on how to clean and rebandage the wound, but apparently that would be a billable service, so they simply told her that she needed to change the dressing twice a day. He went home.

By Monday last week, the pain from the burns was so intense that he had to go back to the ER. This time they had no choice but to admit him, because his wounds had become massively infected. They admitted him to the ICU, and because of the danger he is in, visitors must be super-scrubbed clean in order to see him. Could this have been prevented had he been admitted right off? Perhaps not, but more likely he would have been closely monitored by trained professionals and not left to luck at the untrained hands of a 23-year-old hairdresser.

He just didn’t have coverage, and they couldn’t find a verifiable source of payment for the expensive care he needed, so they sent him home and now they have a much larger problem. The Republican reaction is to say “Boo hoo hoo. It’s not my problem, it’s his. Tough luck, kid!” The Republican reaction is to brandish guns and accuse the president, who is actually using the legislative system as it was intended, of being a Nazi. (Wait, she was a Democrat plant sent there to make the Republicans look bad. Because, you know, the Republicans are the reasoned ones and would never call a Jew a “Nazi!”)

My reaction is to first mock the crazies. I may take a water gun or a toy pistol to the rally before the event. But if I go inside to the rally, I will be respectful, and if I get the opportunity to ask the Rep or the doctor a question, I will ask about the wisdom of leaving stand a broken system that sends a young man home to get severe infections because he couldn’t pay his bill.

I think even Eddie Haskell would have to agree with Mrs. Cleaver that this needs to have a sensible solution. No more “Who me?”

Nor would this country ever be ready for any non-white or non-male president until we actually went ahead and elected one–ready or not–and then made the necessary adjustments. And that could have been what would have happened with the historic election of Barack Obama.

Except it didn’t.

Join me, if you will, in a moment of utter, deep cynicism. That would mean you thinking, for just a moment, exactly like I think every second of the day. This will be painful for you, unless you are already where I am. In my world, I see almost every nationally elected Republican, almost every one of the teabaggers at the town hall meetings, and almost every one of the strutting libertarians with their strap-ons (because they don’t have real ones) as a racist. I also see half the liberals that I know as racists. I see almost every white person who lives in the suburbs and who has a job and an income with benefits as a racist. I probably think you are a racist. You may think I’m over doing it, you may think I’m being unfair, you may think I’ve oversimplified, and you may think I’ve got it wrong.

I have oversimplified, but I’m not overdoing it, I’m not being unfair, and I don’t have it wrong. It is you that has it wrong and that is the problem. Standing by and letting what we are seeing happening on the national stage and doing nothing about it is plain and pure complicity.

I’m thinking about the response to health care reform. The most active of them all, the teabaggers and the Republicans in office, each and every one, are reacting not to anything about health care, but rather to the fact that our president is a black man, and they are reacting to little else. Proposals that the Republicans have made themselves over the last decade are being touted as attempts to kill grandma or take away our freedoms or introduce socialism. There is nothing rational in what the teabaggers and Republicans are saying. Not. One. Thing.

Does any of this mean that we have prematurely elected our first black president? No, of course not. That is all to be expected. That would all be part of the transformation our country will go through to make the election of non-white-male presidents (in some combination) plausible rather than jaw-dropping remarkable.

The problem is not that the crazy right wing is upset and screaming at us from the back of the room telling us to shut up. The problem is that the rest of the country, or at least a significant number of individuals, especially in elected office and in the media, are not calling this what it is. Yes, there have been hints, here and there, of racist undertones and overtones, but the spade is not being called a spade. As it were.

And the reason is disgusting. The reason that the mainstream press and numerous elected officials are not identifying the town hall teabaggers and the anti-health care Republicans as racists is because the ground has been prepared to make sure that when someone does call someone else out on racism in the mainstream public square, that act…the act of identifying racism…is considered just as bad as the racism itself. It is called “playing the race card.” The whole “Oh, now you’re going to play the race card, aren’t you!” gambit was developed, prepared, and inculcated into society over the last 15 years (really, 14 years…since the OJ Simpson trial), so now racism has a place at the table. Where it does not belong.

Over the last 24 hours (as I write this on Monday) the public option part of health care reform has been taken off the table. I can hope, tell myself, guess, fantasize, that this is just a strategy, and that the public option will be back. I can figure that this is just to give some time for the famous Obama grassroots organizing to get up to speed, and that the public option will be in the health care bill and will be voted into place. But I doubt it. I strongly suspect that the golden opportunity, which comes around very 12 to 20 years, has been lost once more.

I will die before there is a good health care system. My daughter will reach middle age or even old age before there is a good health care system.

Fuck you all. That includes you, Barack.

This message has been brought to you by the five largest health care corporations in America, who finished this day of trading on Wall Street between one and two points up, on a day when overall trading was down over 200 points.

Coincidence? Another paper links Obama and violence

The “mistakes” are adding up: On May 15 of last year, the Roswell Beacon in Georgia ran a cover photo showing President Barack Obama in a gun’s crosshairs. Early this month, Fox ran a photo of a rifle situated as if taking aim at Obama, followed two weeks ago by an odd item at the Washington Times Web site: the conservative publication used a photo of Obama’s daughters to illustrate a story about Chicago schoolchildren who’ve been murdered.
Minnesota Independent

Government Taps Bailout Contractors With Conflicts of Interest

As the Wall Street bailout nears its first anniversary, the controversy over giving public money to private banks has become public knowledge. But an equally risky aspect of the financial rescue has flown largely under the radar: the government’s reliance on private contractors – many with potentially significant conflicts of interest – to help revive the stalled economy.

The Treasury Department knows that the law firms and investment managers hired to aid its salvage effort could be influenced by their ties to bailed-out banks; in fact, the department released a rule in January aiming to mitigate the problem.
Washington Independent

Hong Kong protest over Tiananmen

Thousands have marched in Hong Kong to mark the forthcoming 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen killings, in one of the few such events on Chinese soil.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people were killed in China’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

There has been no official inquiry so the exact death toll remains unclear.
BBC

Pakistan city centre ‘destroyed’

The scale of the war damage to the main city in the Swat valley has become clear, as fears are expressed about the humanitarian situation in the region.

Taliban rebels were driven out of Mingora on Saturday by Pakistan government troops.

The defence secretary says operations in the whole Swat valley region should end in the next few days, though military chiefs are more cautious.
BBC

Sexualized Violence in a Lady Gaga Video

In the documentary Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex, and Power in Music Video, Sut Jhally investigates how images of sex and violence, and sexualized violence against women, are used in music videos, and how music videos help shape ideas of what is sexy.
Sociological Images

Documentary on Intensive Pig Farming Faces Legal Threat

A documentary about intensive pig farming due to be screened at the Guardian Hay festival on Sunday is facing a legal threat from one of the companies it investigates. Pig Business criticises the practices of the world’s largest pork processor, Smithfield Foods, claiming it is responsible for environmental pollution and health problems among residents near its factories.

The film was due to be broadcast on Channel 4 in February but was cancelled because of legal fears. A planned screening at the Frontline Club in London earlier this year was also called off.
Common Dreams

Coleman backers also steer inchoate peace group

Minnesota businessmen Nasser Kazeminy and John Goodman both back Norm Coleman and both serve on the board of Step into World Peace, a curious local nonprofit that Harper’s Ken Silverstein probes this week. Silverstein finds vague goals, a shuttered Web site and no direct ties to Coleman — whose campaigns the pair have funded heavily and whose finances have drawn increasing scrutiny since Silverstein alleged last year that Kazeminy bought Coleman’s suits.

But Silverstein finds plenty to ponder when it comes to SIWP’s finances. The group has little to show for $88,000 it has spent out of the $110,000 it has raised — some $40,000 of which went to unspecified “contract labor” from 2002 to 2004.
Minnesota Independent

How Cheney Turned A Right-Wing Meme Mainstream

It looks like we’ve figured out what Dick Cheney meant when he said President Obama has “reserved unto himself” the right to order enhanced interrogation techniques.
TPM

Pawlenty’s voter-registration vetoes cut new drivers and ex-cons no slack

The words “veto” and “vote” may share the same letters but they’re at odds on Gov. Pawlenty’s desk the last two days. He won’t let Minnesotans get registered automatically as voters when they get licensed as drivers, and he won’t let felons get a letter about it when they get their voting rights back, either.
Minnesota Independent

Facing Progressive Pressure, Obama Backs Off Panama Free Trade Agreement

If you regularly read OpenLeft, you know we’ve been tracking this story, including the AFL-CIO announcement and the announcement today by the Populist Caucus to put major pressure on the White House to stop this NAFTA-style agreement. Indeed, as someone who has been working on this issue for a decade, I never thought I’d actually see the day where we, the progressive movement, could actually make a president back off (even temporarily) the NAFTA trade model.
Open Left

Under Obama, military commissions may return

“By any measure, our system of trying detainees has been an enormous failure,” Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama said as a candidate for president.

However, in what would appear to be a major reversal from campaign promises, the Obama administration is on the verge of reestablishing controversial military commissions the Bush administration used to try terror war prisoners, a Saturday report revealed.

The Raw Story

Government Could Destroy Records in Hundreds of Guantanamo Cases

A stockpile of documents about hundreds of Guantanamo Bay detainees, some written by the prisoners themselves, could be destroyed under a little-known provision of a federal court order the Bush administration obtained in 2004.

ProPublica

Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Medicine

Target Women is a recurring segment on Current TV’s weekly television show, infoMania. In each episode of Target Women, Sarah Haskins takes a look at the often-ridiculous way the media reaches out to women.

Current

Justice Dept. drops case against war resister Watada

The Department of Justice has dropped its case against 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, a war resister who refused Iraq deployment in June 2006 and denounced President George W. Bush’s decision to invade as illegal and immoral. …In Feb. 2007, military judge Lieutenant Colonel John Head halted Watada’s case following possible inconsistencies concerning a “stipulation of fact” agreed before the hearing. The decision led to a mistrial, ending Watada’s court martial. The Army appealed, but a judge said Watada could not be tried again on the same charges, as it would violate his right to be free of double jeopardy.

The Raw Story

How Safe Are Cosmetics and Body Care Products?

Cosmetics—makeup, creams, fragrances—have been around for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptian and Roman women famously caked on lead-based foundation. (Lead, a metal, can cause nerve, muscle and organ damage.) But surely lead-laden cosmetics have been phased out along with lead-lined water pipes, right? Not necessarily.

Scientific American

Wind Turbine Output Boosted 30% by Breakthrough Design

Technological advancements in wind energy efficiency have generally come incrementally and usually made via a process of increasingly large wind turbine blades. Put simply, the model has been: longer blades = more output per turbine.

Clean Technica