"We Want Our Money Back"

Proclaiming that "We want our money back," Barack Obama finally echoed the words that millions of Americans have felt concerning the bank bailout. He continued by announcing that fees would be imposed on the largest banks, those with assets greater than $150 billion. These fees will continue for ten years or until the full amount of the taxpayer money spent on the TARP fund are recovered.

These fees do not apply to smaller banks, community banks and the like. In fact, only the largest banks, those that caused the meltdown and then profited from it through the bailout, will be affected.

This measure may at some level be largely symbolic, but it is high time that we begin to end the corporatist policies of the past. Now is that time.

Also, let us give Obama credit for finding a way to undo the give away of the public wealth that Henry Paulson and the Bush (mis)Administration tried to engineer before leaving office. Now if only he'd fire Geithner.

By the way, before the right wing trots out to defend their corporate masters by crying "Socialism," - paying back money you took is hardly socialism. This is how far the debate has been skewed, when banks have to live up to their obligations or operate on a level playing field, they cry foul and play the victim. Watch their despicable behavior over the next few months as they try to figure out ways around the fees, using lawyers and accountants to evade their responsibility for the mess they put everyone in.

Ronald Dumbsfeld

The Senate Foreign Relations committee has just released a report in which it is revealed that the military had Osama bin-Laden cornered in Tora Bora in the immediate aftermath of the invasion in 2001. It is also noted that then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, apparently feared that to capture or kill bin-Laden would produce a backlash. An absurd fear given the backlash that happened anyway.

Of course, the report from the Senate committee provided little information about the facts on the ground, i.e. that bin-laden was cornered. It seemed inevitable at the time that he would be captured. There were even questions about whether he had been killed or not. It only added to his mystique and elevated him to some quasi-hero status to those we most wanted not to follow him. Then suddenly, we didn't "think that much about him," to quote W.

But was it really that Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush (mis)Administration feared a backlash if they caught bin-Laden. If they had perchance caught him or killed him, again, as seemed inevitable at the time, that might have really disrupted the momentum to invade Iraq. If bin-Laden were gone, the public would have likely been satisfied that 9/11 had been avenged.

Could they really have been this incompetent?

In retrospect it can be seen that Iraq was far more important to the Bush-ites than Afghanistan. Saddam is gone, executed. Most of his inner circle is dead. Osama bin-Laden, Mullah Omar, and others, still in charge.

When satellites can read license plates from space, how do you miss a 6'5' guy on dialysis traveling around in the rural mountains? Answer: You try very hard.

A Nation of Laws

Recent reports have revealed that the CIA under the Bush (mis)Administration subcontracted assassination squads from Blackwater and manipulated Homeland Security alert levels for political purposes. This last revelation comes from none other than former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge.

I really hate to keep bringing up the Bush-Cheney reign of error and terror - but will there be no end to the trail of crimes revealed? Follow the link on this site to "Hugh's List" for just a sampling of the treachery of the Bush (mis)Administration.

It is all well and good to wish to put matters behind us. However, when a litany of abuses and crimes have already been revealed and continue to be revealed, accountability must occur. At the very least, prosecutions for torture and war crimes must occur for the United States to be taken seriously again as a nation of laws. When one small group of people can lie us into a war, hire private assassination squads, manipulate the public into a frenzy of fear in order to gain politically, run clandestine prisons to specifically circumvent U.S. and international law, can rationalize torture and then claim that there should not even be investigations, there is no longer justice for all. There is a privileged elite that has become above prosecution.

There biggest crime I likely have left out: mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren when Bush with his henchman Hank Paulson turned the Treasury over to greedy banks. Did this really need to happen in retrospect? See this move for what it was - Bush rewarded his base, the have mores, at the end of his presidency. In so doing, he robbed your children and mine.

To act as if there is nothing to investigate or prosecute in the past administration is absurd. To allow the Bush (mis)Administration to go unchallenged is to turn your back on this country as a nation of laws.

Ronald the Wrong

I recently received an email that posed the question, "Do you miss this guy?" When you opened the email a picture of Ronald Reagan followed by a few of his pithy quotes popped out. As I said to the sender of the email, "Yes, I miss Reagan. I miss him like I miss a boil on my butt."

Reagan, who I will always think of by Jello Biafra's wonderful moniker for him, "Grandpa Caligula,"was the consummate politician. Referred to by many as the "Great Communicator," he could deliver a magnificent speech even though he usually had no clue what he was talking about. He built a career campaigning for fiscally conservative principles and promptly busted the budget once in office. In a self fulfilling prophecy he mocked government as incompetent and then made sure that it was. He began the give away of the public wealth of the nation, through privatization (code for profits to private corporations, costs to the tax payer), subsidies to industry and other forms of corporate welfare. He began a never ending stream of tax breaks for the wealthiest. His emphasis on deregulation and trickle-down economics (code for the wealthy come first to the trough) led to a course that culminated during the Bush (mis) Administration with the ultimate theft of the nation, the raiding of the Treasury by Henry Paulson for the good of Goldman-Sachs and the other criminals on Wall Street. The past thirty years have been little more than a thinly veiled effort to transfer the wealth of the nation and its people to the wealthiest of the wealthy.

Reagan spouted platitudes like so many lines from his movies. Unfortunately for the world, his acting seemed to improve with age. When president he lied with ease (Iran-Contra) and got away with it. Near the end of his term in office he clearly exhibited signs of the Alzheimer's that would eventually incapacitate him, on one occasion describing a scene from a movie as an actual event. Yet, with a good natured wink and nod of the head he would slip back into character as the President of the United States and most were none the wiser.

It was a simpler time, a time when the president could have Alzheimer's and we would still be okay. A time when our biggest war was invading a golf course in the Caribbean. A time long ago, before we elected the village idiot, who in eight years, destroyed the economy, plundered the Treasury, started two wars, and shredded the Constitution.

Yes, I do miss Reagan. I miss having a barometer of what is completely wrong. Style over substance, party loyalty over country, corporations before people. That was Reagan. Ronald the Wrong.

The False Patriotism of the Right Wing

It has recently been revealed that the Bush-Cheney (mis)Administration considered sending troops of the U.S. military into American cities to arrest suspected terrorists. According to the New York Times of July 25, 2009, administration officials, notably Dick Cheney, argued that the Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act were irrelevant. Where is the outcry from the right wing?

It has been revealed over time that the last administration engaged in a systematic campaign of surveillance, wiretapping, email snooping and other forms of activity prohibited by the Constitution and other laws of this nation. Where is the outcry from the right wing and its so-called patriots when the nation's very values were being undermined?

When a Harvard professor was arrested in his own home by a policeman, there was not an uporoar of concern about the sanctity of one's home from the right wing. I thought they believed in the home as castle theory. Mormon polygamists suspected of child abuse raise the right wings' concern about the intrusion of government, but not a liberal black man in his home.

The right wing of Amerika has long viewed anyone who does not agree with their viewpoint as "un-American" and any other derogatory term that might stick. They are all for the symbols of the country. Claiming ownership of the flag and Constitution, all they really represent is a false patriotism that owes allegiance to their political leaders rather than to the well being of the nation.

The right wing tends towards an authoritarian viewpoint that is ultimately undemocratic. Although heir speech seems to champion the values of liberty and freedom their actions belie a different agenda. When it comes to actions, the right wing shows what it really wants. Control over the reproductive choices of women, state sponsored religion, censorship of art and literature, domestic spying on U.S. citizens, and a general suppression of individual liberty.

Demonstrating the self serving nature of the right wing and its willingness to distort language for their own advancement is the Tea Bagger Movement. The same people who sat by while their own party engineered the largest transfer of wealth from the public purse to the private sector, who watched out government give away the public wealth to cronies of Bush, Cheney and the other war criminals (can you say Halliburton), who complained not one bit while the deficit and debt exploded, now sing a different tune. Now that someone they didn't vote for is in office there is an urgent necessity for fiscal responsibility.

Then there are the Bonkers "Birthers". Accusing the State of Hawaii of engaging in a massive conspiracy, and believing in a plot so complex that birth announcements were inserted in Honolulu newspapers in 1961, all in an effort to falsify a birth record, these conspiracy theorists have already seceded from the world of rational thought.

Speaking of secession, why is it that all those advocating secession seem to be right wing conservatives who wrap themselves in the flag. Does advocating secession really mark one as a patriot.

For too long the right wing has held itself out as the purveyors of all that is right and good. But when it comes down to where the rubber meets the road they are just partisan authoritarians who believe only in their own political views and not the nation.

The Power of Rhetoric

Barack Obama demonstrated yesterday that rhetoric can matter. In a speech delivered at Cairo University in Egypt, he essentially re-ordered the direction of American foreign policy. Several statements can be given as evidence.

On two occasions he used the term "Palestine" in such a way as to elevate the Palestinian state to a current reality on an even footing with Israel. Use of the phrase will have greater reverberations in the Middle East than in the U.S. Further, he openly rebuked Israel for continuing to expand the settlements. This public flogging of Israel was a further sign that there is a different direction in this policy. In recognizing the plight of the Palestinians in a manner that no American president has ever done, he signalled a willingness to confront one of the major conflicts underlying all the other conflict in the Middle East.

He openly condemned torture and unequivocally stated that he would close Guantanamo by early next year. The Iraq War was referenced as a "war of choice." In all of these statements he not only refuted the Bush Doctrine, he refuted the whole approach of the Bush (mis)Administration. Obama also demonstrated a recognition that these efforts by Bush-Cheney served to further alienate the Arab and Islamic worlds.

He directly confronted stereotypes of both Islam and America as counterproductive. In so doing, he served to isolate the fanatics from the moderates, rather than driving them together. One of the major effects of the Bush-Cheney approach to Islamic radicalism has been to cause moderate Muslims, who would normally reject the extremists, to at least tacitly support them because of their anger at the actions at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, etc. Referring to "Holocaust deniers," he made a not-so-subtle jab at Ahmadinejad in a manner as to align him with the marginalized extremists just ahead of the coming elections.

He extended a hand to Iran with a defense of its right to have nuclear power, and then drew a line concerning nuclear weapons. In a deft maneuver that recognized the difficulty of the only nation that has ever used atomic weapons telling others not to build them, he took the opportunity to advocate a nuclear free future. Idealistic rhetoric not likely to happen in the foreseeable future, yet, a necessary statement to stake out a strategy that begins by making sure no other nations join the already too large nuclear club.

The most stunning revelation made by Obama was an open admission that the United States had played a part in the overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddeq and the government of Iran. This coup directly led to the installation of the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi to the Peacock Throne. The support of the U.S. for the Shah is what ultimately led to the Islamic Revolution that occurred under Ayatollah Khomeini. In acknowledging this bit of history Obama demonstrated to the Persians that the tensions of the present have a historical basis that must be addressed in a truthful and cooperative manner.

This is the speech that George Bush should have given after 9/11. Of course, it would not have been possible for him to do so. This speech required a knowledge and understanding of history, an awareness of other cultures, and a thoughtfulness that Bush did not possess. Had such an awareness of the complexities and realities of the multiple interrelated conflicts in the Middle East been elucidated at that time, where might we be now? Instead we got, "Bring it on."

They Ought to Form a Band

Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, they really ought to form a band. After all, they're all singing the same song. They're singing the blues, the song of the down and out, the song of the defeated. Rendered irrelevant by their own hubris, these blundering blowhards are now trying for one last hit before fading into obscurity.

Of course, while they're singing the blues, they will have to do it like an old time gospel band, four microphones, all out front, competing for the lead. What a great band they would make, Rush gobbling the drugs, O'Reilly stalking the groupies, Glenn, the earnest one, and Sean, the Manatee, goo goo ja goob.

Seriously, let's look at their body of work. Marching lockstep as the Bush (mis)Administration systematically destroyed the basic principles of this nation through domestic spying and international renditions and torture, started two botched wars, ruined the economy and polarized the nation, they now step forward because of their "concern" for the nation. Shouting with righteous indignation and weeping to show their tender side, they claim that it's all for the fans. Believing in nothing but ratings, they are now like the aging dinosaurs of rock, giving it their all on the farewell tour, struggling with their impending irrelevancy.

But what should we call this band? "The Dicks," would of course be perfect, but that's already taken. "Rancid" pops to mind, but again, already taken. Now what would be a name that would capture their essence, tell us all what they are really about? I've got it: "The Lunatic Fringe".