Lux et Veritas

Racism, the Obama Candidacy Campaign, Community

Monday, May 20, 2008

Never since the 1960 John F. Kennedy campaign has there been such a focus on the dividing lines between the candidate and the general population. In 1960, the dividing line was Kennedy's Catholicism. The underlining fear then was that the Pope would be telling Kennedy what to do, thus ignoring the dominant culture then of white, male, Anglo-Saxons.

In this tumultuous Democratic candidacy campaign, the dividing line is race. It's right out there. And it's not just Obama's membership in Rev. Wright's church and the inappropriate things Wright said that could have destroyed Obama's chances. It's not just Obama's meeting at age 8 with a then Weatherman, now professor. It's not just the media's attention to these matters and the supposed opposition of white working class males and older voters to a "black president". It's not just the feminists who support Hillary because she is linked to improving the status of women and because "It's time for a woman president." It's not just Hillary's charge of elitism in connection with Obama's remarks at a supposed fundraiser and her ex-president husband's remarks that have tarnished his reputation among the "black community". It's all of these undercurents and more that are in play in this historic campaign.

But the underlying fears are that, as in the case of Kennedy's Catholicism, that President Obama would be listening to the radical voices similar to that of Reverend Wright and, that, as a result, there would be a wholesale revolt by the Africa-American population against past and present racial oppressors he would foster. Obama is seen by some, to draw this picture to expose its extremes, as the hypnotic spy for the black community who is going to displace the white population from their seats of power, old-style politics, and cultural dominance.

This last fear is at bottom tied to the broad issue of race. At the political extremes of the right-wing of the Republican party are strongly held beliefs that the authors of the Constitution, all white men, Christians, mostly wealthy, land and slave owning, meant that its provisions were for people like them. Further, the media has reported that the conservative right wing of the party believes that everyone else in this country are "only guests". Not only blacks but even immigrants who have become citizens and wholesale participants in society fall into this category.

An Obama presidency inevitably means that these cultural biases and the old politics of WASP dominance, back-biting, ideological jousting, and decisions make in secret, have to move aside for something very different. Obama pledges that he wants to form a community of people with diverse everything to confront and to solve together common problems. In its purest sense, that means holding in abeyance, if not pushing aside, those beliefs and practices which prevent even identifying the problems and, thus, not solving them. Whether any of Obama's goals become reality, there is the potential for a great shift from what divides community to that of what brings a community together. And that means enormous adjustments in the politics of governance. Obama threatens to take away the sticks and stones, gossip, false claims, self-denial, and dominance through intimidation from the dominant political culture, i.e. "the old politics".

There will be great tumult. And I say, "Let the fun begin".

Bill Clinton: Ex-President, the First Black President, Leading International Figure, and Sinner

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Ex-President Bill Clinton is a leading international figure. His grasp of issues, his friendships with world leaders, his voracious reading and deep grasp of many subjects; his ability "to feel " others' experience; to reach out and communicate with everyone he meets support this description. He is also an admitted sinner, as he defines it. It is all these qualities and contradictions that in the eyes of a segment of the Black community, and Toni Morrison in the pages of the New Yorker Magazine, that view Clinton as "The First Black President".

I recommend that anyone interested in learning more about the qualities of eadership, charisma, political vision, and the ability to practice curious judgment, read David Remnick's article in the September 18, 2006 issue of the New Yorker Magazine. His brilliant writing describes this fascinating person much better than of my observations.

It is well known that Clinton has become a world traveler and international spokesperson and fund raiser for HIV-AIDS research and treatment in Africa. Noteworthy is his recent alliance with the Gates Foundation to serve as the diplomat for this program. But what is much less well-known is that Bill Clinton openly admitted his failures as President to deal with the genocide in Rawanda and his lack of dilligence on dealing with the HIV-AIDS pandemic. This apology, repeated widely in his travels in Africa, obscures but also puts into the queue of importance his bad judgment and his almost soap opera demonstration of his uncontrolled sexual impulses.

Not unrelated to his apologies is his brush with death in 2004, when he underwent heart by-pass surgery. Clinton is now almost obsessed with his mortality, in part because of his family history of heart disease and untimely deaths. It is almost because he realizes he needs to accomplish "something else" before his life ends in what could be, according to his musings, in the next moment. Though confessions and recoveries can be the stuff that propels so-called sinners to "do good" in a very moralizing manner, it is rare that a figure with such a built-in sense of the political to come right out and say " I screwed up and I'm sorry." And, then, to spend his life after his Presidency trying to amend this record.

I was personally outraged about the amount of negative attention and political intrigue that followed Clinton's ascendency to President. The Whitewater "scandal" was so much ado about nothing. And the national moral knee jerk reaction to the Monica Lewinsky affair, and, then, an impeachment that focused more on morality than "high crimes and misdemeanors" made an exception to all of the cover-ups of other Presidents. The recent "icon" President Kennedy was renowned for his sexual addiction, about which the press of the day paid no attention. His Presidency was very much enabled by his father's money and ferocious dedicaton to the notoriety of the Kennedy family. Joe Kennedy's background of "rum running" during Prohibition with his connection to the MOB and his incessant sexual peccadillos were well known but kept undercover by the same press. And don't forget Warren Harding's illegitmate child living undercover with his mistress in New York City.

Which brings us back to William Jefferson Clinton. The imperfect man, the President held in low regard by his sinner critics. He is, nevertheless, an ex-President, the "first Black President, still an international figure, and a confessed sinner of the big issues. Clinton's high intellect underpinned by the rare ability to look beyond what is apparent for the deep issues, and who can discern where others moralize has made a positive place for himself in current history.

Crime

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Today's Washington Post Outlook Section features an article on crime and crime statistics. It's about the realities of "the streets". One of the interesting observations is that much of the neighborhood killing is because of "slights", "grudges", and the unwitting and also purposeful ignoring of gang rules, politics, and culture. How can crime and violence be reduced when these gang social systems not only prevail, but are also a sanctury for the angry, lonely, the disenfranchised, and the unsophisctated about the conflict resolution benefits of civilized discourse and behavior? In a very extended analogy, aren't we looking at a world-wide cultural divide where these same kinds of people resort to tribalism and its attendant dedication to murder without conscience? I wonder sometimes if the surge in murder in murder neighborhoods isn't about copycat behavior of those who see the settling of scores by nation states and jihadist groups of all types?

Politicians world-wide continue the same rhetoric that we need to get to the core of the problems. But they never do. Example, the rather late European, UN, US manufactured cease fire that both the Israelis and Hezbollah are thinking about. Meanwhile, the Israelis continue their push into Southern Lebanon to "root out rocket sites" and establish a zone where a UN/Lebanese peace keeping force can then occupy and monitor. We don't know just what other strategic thinking is going on that "gets to the core of the problems": the Hezbollah and Hamas goal to wipe Israel off the map; the Israeli goal of either eliminating or controlling its enemies, and the reason every Israeli-US action creates more converts to radical Islam. Is anyone ever going to take the long view and dedicate considerable time to understand what's really going on now and find incremental ways to resolve conflicts?

The US is famous for declaring war. Remember the war on poverty. We not only have more people living in poverty than before, but we now have a middle class struggling to meet their responsibilities for shelter, food, education, a job, and access to affordable and top quality health care. This has all been said before; but what hasn't taken hold is that in order to solve these problems some government teamed with various non-governmental organizations devoted to these issues, you have to know them, pay attention to them, and have strategies that are flexible but aimed at success. The US, even in the good old "Great Society" days stuck with their bureaucratically devised "program", and failed to evaluate them and change them to follow their goals. Then, everyone tired of "the poor" and few of these programs remain.

One of the ways of defeating these problems is to stop declaring war on them, but instead just go out and do something that works. Example: the work of Dr. Paul Farmer in Haiti. With hard won and now consistent funding from philanthropic organizations, he set up a modern hospital in one of the remote areas of Haiti, and went about his business to provide quality medical care. It's the old story of "if you have your health, you have everything".

Another example. There is a charter school in Boston devoted to providing real education and counselling to poor, mostly, black kids who have been kicked out of the public school system. This population is very small, but the program, as reported in the New Yorker, works. In order for a student to stay in the program, he/she has to learn and become disciplined and civilized citizens. Key to creating discipline, each student is required to master Mandarin Chinese before graduation. This seems weird on the surface. But when you think about it, it makes sense to force young and very distressed children with no emotional grounding, to find a place where they can see their own achievement by mastering something absolutely foreign to their everyday experience.

All of these efforts at crime reduction, standard health care, and education would never be cllassified as "wars". But they are lessons to be learned and models to be repeated where civilized behavior is rarely the strategy to settling disputes and solving problems. Actually, everything I have written goes directly to the meaning of conservative. That is to preserve and maintain a civilized life and return to the "old values".

My Father-in-Law

Saturday, January 14, 2006

My father-in-law is a very lucky man. He survived 35 missions in WWII as a navigator on a B-17 in the 8th Air Force. At 85 he is alert, intelligent, funny, and perfectly capable of participating in daily life. He has written books and articles on the history of central York. He has both wisdom and a very down-to-earth quality, which including all of his other qualities makes him one of my all-time best persons in the world.

But he's not so lucky. Having inherited the bad gene for eye sight, he suffers from irreversible macular degeneration. Thanks to the quality of medical practice at the Syracuse University Medical School, he has willingly received every surgical procedure and drug regimen available to stabilize his condition. Except that he is legally blind. He cannot read and can barely make out the images on the TV screen. This is a terrible fate for a man clearly capable of carrying on the intellectual life he has enjoyed since retired  20 years ago.

What may compensate for his loss of sight are various expensive image enhancing devices that his medical insurance will not/cannot cover. Having appealed to the Veterans Administration to supply him with these devices, he now is required by them to take a physical and wait, wait until the Administration makes a ruling. If it is positive then he will have to wait some more for the procurement process to provide him with this equipment.

During December 2004, I wrote a post on a very seriously wounded Iraq II Army war veteran. It was clear when at Walter Reed Hospital that more attention had to be given to help him survive and be as comfortable as possible. Luckily, his mother prevailed as his advocate and he got the best care posssible. But returned to civilian life, the VA either didn't or delayed providing both financial and medical support to allow him to lead the best life an invalid can expect. Again, his mother prevailed and VA paid attention.

My father-in-law survived the war without a scratch and went on to lead a normal life. He is clearly not in the same category of need as the case in the previous paragraph. But he also contributed to the survival of democracy world-wide. The early respone by the VA to truly meet his needs is in question, because the delays he will experience will put in question his future quality of life. More to the point, this delay is running neck-in-neck with his statistically limited life span. He may die before the VA acts.

Unfortunately, my father-in-law has no active advocate to help him. His wife, also 85, is unable physically to help him, suffering from crippling pain from degenerating vertabrae. My wife, from the distance between Washington and Camillus, NY will do her best.

I would appreciate anyone who reads this post that can help refer me and my wife to advocate groups concerned with veterans medical services. We need to push the right buttons to get him the help he needs in time for him to live the best life he has left.

I can be reached at this blog or my email: konrad.perlman@verizon.net.

Solving the Problem: James Freed, Sens. Lieberman and Clinton

Saturday, December 17, 2005

This is about solving problems in general. James Freed. notably the architect of the Holocaust Museum, died yesterday. He left a legacy of expressing this horrible event in a truly sensitive, nuanced, and iconic manner, a model of both urbanistic and memorial architecture. Yesterday, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman held a press conference denouncing violent video games and offering legislation that would tax game creators $1,000. This bully-pulpitism not only doesn't solve the problem of violence in our society, it avoids the entire issue and its most recent demonstration of failure in the conduct and their support of the Iraqi War.

The front facade of the Holocaust Musem respects the quiet, traditional, and often, ecclectic context of the street.

The rear facade is iconic of some of the major features of a concentration camp.

The interior is iconic of the more gruesome details of a prison camp.

James Freed solved the Holocaust Memorial problem.

Neither Sens. Clinton nor Lieberman have even studied much less offered solutions for the US legacy of domestic and international violence. In considering this statement, please remember Hillary Cliinton's very loud youthful protest against the Vietnam War and for women's rights. Please also remember Joseph Lieberman's religious moral conservative statements about his commitment to Orthodox Judaism and Judaism's legacy of bigotry, discrimination, and violence designed to destroy it. Both of them have forgotten their histories of commitments for peace, first in their both approving the resolution for Presidential war powers in Iraq and, in the case of Sen. Lieberman continuing support of US failed military strategies there. And second, in Sen. Clinton's continued crafting of a "centrist" political position on the withdrawl of troops in Iraq. Their political positions and public moralizing on the giant issue of violence forget that the solutions to these problems start in the nuclear family they talk, moralize, and write about persistently. I believe it was more than 50 years ago Rodgers and Hammersmith wrote a song for the amazing South Pacific whose theme has to do with hate, violence, and bigotry that are taught at home.

What Motivates George Bush?

Saturday, July 16, 2005

I have watched in amazement George Bush's contrarian behavior. In particular, I am struck by his moralizing (inspiration from God); neo-isolationism (acting on behalf of America only); the harshness of his political appointees, Vice-President, Republican politcal leaders, etc.; his admiration of the military; his choice of violent military response and preemption over good-sense diplomacy; and his taking the opposite political view and action of what seems like common good sense. Global warming might not be totally proven fact, but there is strong evidence that the world's climate is changing in some negative ways.

Committing to a war in Iraq while ignoring the smart international diplomacy used by his father in the first Iraqi war to gain support obviously raises the ire of other nations, mutes their willingness to support the war and Bush, and increases the enlistment in Al Qaeda. Removing the only national pension protections for the retired and at the same time ignoring the cost of shifting to private accounts as a new element in Social Security makes little good sense and threatens a major portion of the voting public. There are other less-costly solutions to the solvency of Social Security that the administration has ignored in favor of Bush's mission. Mistreating Iraqi detainees with violence is antithetical to the Geneva Conventions and to the spirit of American democracy.

The sum of all this is to split the country into two parts, e.g. pro and con Bush, and to play the persistent game of divide and conquer. Bush is also secretive, and not just to protect national security, prone to revenge tactics against those who are disloyal or publicly question his politics, and not so indirectly censorious of the media. Bush lies about the military and political conditions in Iraq, and favors the positive view as a motivating force to create a new, more democratic nation.

Playing political psychiatrist from the very distant sidelines is a dangerous guessing game. Putting that hard fact aside, I have a couple of thoughts to offer as to what motivates Bush to be the way he is.

I think you don't have too look to far to consider the roots of his behavior. You can start first with his family. The first is the exemplary political career of his father, which would cast a giant shadow over a son seeking his approval and erect a standard of achievement almost impossible to meet. The second is the strong-willed, diva-like dominance of his mother, who probably controlled the signals of approval and disapproval over son George. As successful as George Bush has become, he is still the rebel to family tradition, because he has taken his own path that is probably contrary to his legacy.

Alcoholism, drug abuse, wild behavior, women-chasing, and the alleged ducking of responsibility to his military commitments are equally strong factors. A recovered alcoholic, regardless of what strong tactics are used to restrain previous negative behavior, also turns to religion, rigid behavior, and moralizing. Alchoholism and drug abuse are diseases. You can take the alcohol and drugs away from the abuser, but that person is still an alchoholic and drug abuser by motivation and habit. And some of the behaviors of the recovering abuser come from that source: manipulation, lying to cover up the condition, spiritual devotion, adopting a strict moral code as a control over his own past behavior, and unpredictable actions that, at the same time, conform to basic rigidity. George Bush may be President of the US, but he is at heart still the "bad boy" "black sheep of the family", playing kid politics on the school playground.

This back seat psychoanalysis of mine is not to damn George Bush as a sinner who will never regain Gods' approval. It is rather my way of connecting the dots between his current political behavior and the very most basic family roots and events that have shaped him. If not to his family and his past personal life style, marked by the disease of alcoholism and drug abuse, where else would you look for an explanation?

The media have spent a lot of time going after the behavior of Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton. And there was so much presenting evidence of negative family life and post-adolescent duplicity and lying that the fodder was there for daily excoriation of his Presidency. In contrast, almost nothing from Bush's past, in particular the influence of his past alcoholism, is dug up to rake his politics over the coals for equally questionable decision-making or inability to follow through on campaign promises and public speeches. Like his father and Reagan's administration he is teflon.

What shines postively to make for his recent political successes and explains, in part, his reelection is the country's need for decisive national and international political leadership. I believe there has been a long period of moral and politcal depression about the economy, past wars starting from Vietnam, and the disintegration of the nuclear family-homosexuality, permissive sexual behavior (read access to abortion), and crime being the most obvious targets. Along comes the recovering alcoholic sinner and boy-like shirker of responsibility with his simple solutions and decisive action, and all is forgotten about his past. With this aura of decisiveness and take-charge actions, very little inspection of the impact of his policies has taken hold in the media. Compare this to the daily exposure and questioning of Bill Clinton, where every move suggested corruption to his critics.

Harshness and anger are also prevailing moods of his administration. Vice-President Cheney has to be the angriest man in the Bush administration, so willing is he to damn all political opponents, seek revenge on them, and lie openly about the state of affairs in Iraq when obvious, documented facts prove him wrong. Rumsfeld is another example of power seeker and controller of things related to the miliary, because he is commited to his leadership abilities and his modern view of military preparedness: he can do no wrong. Another shining example of anger and revenge is Paul Wolfowitz who saw Saddam as another Hitler that this country would be wise to expunge as contrasted to the reluctance on the part of the US and France to unseat Hitler at the beginning when his military might was more sham than reality.

If you wonder about what motivates Bush and why he continues to dominate the American political scene, consider my arm chair pschoanalysis.

The Fog of War

Thursday, June 30, 2005

A fog descends on all of us when the United States commits to war. Once at war most will support our troops, proclaim that we must fulfill our mission, and never retreat, or call a retreat a retreat.

Even people who finally decide they cannot support it have a hard time not getting caught up in the fog. They spend so much energy objecting to it that they cannot conjure reasonable strategies to end it and save political face. Saving political face is one of the worst aspects of the fog of war, because it delays problem solving, prevents facing realities on the ground, and devising solutions that satisfy more than US political ideologies.

Bush's recent speech at Fort Bragg is an example of rhetoric devised to stick the course in Iraq for the purpose of refocusing objections to the war and its hard realities. We are now directed to "stabilize" the situation, which is a subtle turn away from promoting democracy. Thus, another fog is put in place to maintain citizens' patriotic commitment to our presence, in the form of the moral need to fulfill our responsibilities. Forget the casualities, because Bush claims they have sacrificed their lives for the security of the US.

I use the Iraq war as a current example of how the fog of war descends and persists. But there is another aspect to the fog of war. That is the silencing of dissent, and it is a non-political act. Note that even legislators who object to the run-up to a war and the media with its talking heads who deliberate and pontificate the "yes" and "no" of the wisdom of war hardly ever stand firmly against it. Anyone who dissents from "protecting national security", even if the threat is obviously bogus to the most superficial analysis, is labeled some sort of traitor and certainly pegged as Un-American. 

A friend of mine sent me two articles that discuss strategies to closing our commitment to the Iraq War and make analogies to how we removed ourselves from Vietnam. Here are the references:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050628/the_vietnam_solution.php

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050629/an_iraqi_peace_process.php

My point in referring to these articles is not to support a political position of retreat, which is anethma to the fog cast over war. Rather, it is to remind us all of how we went from pushing a Vietnam War as the bulwark against holding the line against the spread of communism, "the domino theory" to making practical political compromises that led us out of the thicket of our doomed commitment there.

The US is not going to accomplish a sort of democracy in Iraq; nor are we going to stabilize the insurgency. There are too many religious, ideological, tribal, cultural, and political issues there that stand in the way of unity and peace. And the US is not specialist in arabism or iraqism or moslemism. So, at some point we will have to consider the negative effects of continuing the war at the expense of our soldiers' lives and bodies and the national debt, not to mention our standing in the international community. And we will move toward an extraction strategy just like we did in Vietnam. The fog of war will lift only for practical reasons.

Given another war prospect in the future, and the fog of war will descend on us all once again. We will persist in viewing war as a noble and "masculine" enterprise and response to perceived threats. And further, it is justified by various references to the bible and to the founders of the United States of America; and those are summarized as the permission and duty to smite our enemies. Who can argue with that?  I say thinking, questioning people of balanced judgment can, and should. Dissent was the foundation of this nation and it, rather than the fog of war, should guide decisions about who the enemy is and how we respond to them.

I am not pushing either pacificism or the will to go to war. Certainly, our reluctance to engage the Nazis and the Japanese until it was too late question the former choice. But since the Korean War and the Cold War, we have been certainly free of imminent, underscore "imminent", threats to national security to weigh the yes and no of commiting to war. There is nothing in our Declaration of Independence or Constitution about living under the fog of war.

Political Ideology and The Rule of Law

Friday, June 10, 2005

The recent Senate approval of two federal appeals court justices brings into sharp relief the growing confusion of ideology and the rule of law. It also highlights the "conservative" politics that has taken hold and has exerted undue influence on other matters, including freedom of speech and the separation of church and state. Here is what Janice Brown and Richard Prior have said in their previous judicial posts.

Janice Brown: Her response to a 1937 landmark decision allowing federal regulation of work place conditions: ".. the triumph of our own socialist revolution". Also, quoting from one of her speeches: "If we can invoke no ultimate limits on the power of the government, a democracy is inevitably transformed into a kleptocracy-a license to steal, a warrant for oppression." Ironically, it was the power (oppression) of the government which made it possible for a female African American to be able to occupy a pretigious judicial position and to stand up and denounce the very laws that enbabled her ascent. All of her claims that she bootstrapped herself fall away when you consider the governmental intervention that made her bootstrapping successful.

Richard Pryor: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D.Vt.) describes him as follows: Pryor "has argued that the federal courts should cut back on the protections of important and well-supported federal laws including the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Clean Water Act, the Violence Against Women Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act." In his case, he seems to prefer substituting his ideology for the very rule of law his judicial position demands.

In these two cases alone, you have ideology replacing the "rule of law". That law is the US Constitution and all of the legal precedents that have followed its drafting. Conservatives such as Brown and Pryor seem to want to get back to what some jurists call the strict interpretation of the Constitution and the underlying intent of its drafters. Those are their own personal and political agendas. Underlying this plea for a return to Constitutional correctness is some undefined state of affairs in 1789, when white men and proprerty owners, as well as slave holders, wrote it. Contrary to the drafters' race, sex, and personal ownership, the Constitution was written in a very broad and inclusive manner. The first ten amendments expand that.

Are the ideological positions of both Brown and Pryor what is meant as "conservatism"? If so, then by extension conservative means rolling back history to some sort of exclusivist Dickensonian time, when only a limited number of citizens could stand under the protection of the Constitution's umbrella. Is the hated left-leaning liberalism, which supports inclusiveness and freedom and happiness for all, indeed the opposite of "conservatism"? And if this is true, then which position is more Constitutional? Indeed, this not a choice between liberal and conservatism. It is more a case of the protection and enhancement individual rights and which political behavior supports this. Individual rights have never been successfully achieved by "freelance activism". It has always been the courts that have reminded the oppressors of individual rights that they have behaved in an un-Constitutional manner.

Crisis Management or How The Bush Administration Deflects Attention Away from the Real Crises

Sunday, January 9, 2005

The Bush Administration once again uses the word "crisis" to get the country's attention about some matter to which he needs to draw their attention, often away from the real "crises". This month it's social security, capping medical malpractice claims, and his judicial appoinments.

The social security crisis designation is based on the prediction that the system will have a $3.7 trillion short fall By the year 2075. The first shortfall will occur in 20018. One has to ask why this is a crisis in 2005, when there are many other issues that deserve "crisis" designation? The Administratin's solution is to divert part of a worker's contribution to private investment accounts. But this will not avert the shortfall, unless there is a reduction in future benefits. The facts are that the Federal government has been borrowing from the fund for years to the tune of billions of dollars to pay for various military adventures and other day-to-day program initiatives. The other, lesser fact is that declining birth rates reduce the amount the fund can collect for future generations' benefits. The non-critical solution is for the Federal government to "fine-tune" the system to get rid of certain "inequities" regarding benefits to the rich and poor and to fully fund the program. Still another non-critical "crisis" that is underfunded, is Bush's "no child left behind", which he made a centerpiece of his first administration. Why has this dropped in importance when achievement rates of the US compared to other countries have been dropping year after year?

Bush claims that rising medical malpractice claims are responsible for run-away medical costs, which represent only 2% of medical costs. More signficant contributors to this "crisis" are the drug and insurance companies. Malpractice insurance rates for OBGY physicians have risen 60% in the last 3 years. Have there been that many malpractice claims in that field of medicine to justify these fast-rising rates?

And, finally, Bush wants to stop Democrats' filibustering the approval of federal judgeship appointees. In fact, Democrats have blocked only 10 of the Administration's 229 judicial nominees. As the Washington Post asked in its January 8th edition (that was the source of the the statistics citied above), does this constitute a "crisis" (statistically)?

"Crises" that fall into the background and off the front page of newspapers are the Iraqi War, settling the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, halting the illegal profileration of nuclear weapons, the quality  of public education, affordable housing for the middle class to poverty line Americans, health care for all Americans, and the reallocation of American budget priorities to respond these real "crises". These Bush proclaimed new crises get Americans' attention away from the real ones, no doubt a premeditated design by the current administration which refuses to or cannot resolove any of them and hold on to their voter base.

But this tactic of claiming false "crises" has the most significant impact on the media and, more signficantly, on their audiences. These so called "hot issues" will be prominent stories on TV and the newspapers.

But more important,they will become a a new featured part of the national debate, often between leading "intellectuals", columnists, and favored "talking heads". Example, the op-ed page of today's Sunday Washington Post features a debatye between George Wil and Philip Longman. For once, Will questions the importance of the social security crisis, because long term US economic growth and the level of properity as reflected in the value of stocks cannot be predicted, thus questioning the dire assumptions the Administration uses to support the "crisis" designation of the social security issue.

Philip Longman proclaims that the real problem is falling birth rates. He suggests that the current equity of distributing benefits be changed, giving more benefits to couples without children and less to those that don't.

Longman's recommendations are more ridiculous than Will's. Will wants to put off the solution of the problem, because it is not "critical" at this time and probably not at all. But Longman wants to change benefits distribution without any consideration to everyone's pension needs. Singles, couples without children, couples with children in most income classes have mounting fears about the future, specifically because the companies or organizations they work for or used to work for before they were "laid off" or "downsized" have either reduced or eliminated their pension plans; and trends in that direction seem to be escalating. While the intellectuals, talking heads, and academics jump at the chance to be heard at all mull over these proposals, what they are setting up for the general public is to choose between ill-considered and negative alternatives. 

How can any American who wants to remain in the favor of the Bush Administration, and some of them are Democrats, question the President's wisdom? Especially when Bush knows how to take revenge against anyone who questions his fervent attention to his view of "important" matters. This goes for all of the media, as well as the talking heads and academics who depend on the Administration's influence in corporate American and on the federal budget to support their particular line of work.

While it is impossible to get Americans to pay attention to the real priority issues that affect them daily, it is the media's business to help them to understand the difference between real and manufactured "crises".

Support Our Troops

Friday, November 26,2004

There has been a recent increase in the number of cars with the decal, "Support Our Troops", displayed prominently. The same slogan was used during WW II to muster every human and natural resource to defeat our enemies: paper, cooking fat, and metals collections; women wrapping bandages; school children of both sexes knitting afghans; massive war bond rallies; and so on. I don't hear of much of the same effort being expended in connection with troops both still in Iraq and those in hospitals recovering from life-changing wounds. This morning's Washington Post featured an article, "Some Payback for Wounded Marines", about a local country club dinner for about 50 marines with the serenade of the Marine Band and generals as waiters. Some of the individual stories very partially pulled back the shroud covering the lives and futures of these men. There is much more to tell.

Several weeks ago another Washington Post article on the pay, benefits, and post recovery health care that have been withheld or denied to soldiers and marines recently discharged from hospitals and the military were hair raising. And since then, there have been no followup stories on what has happened since then.

I was told of still another article about the call-up of retired and/or discharged military officers and their suit against the government about the illegality of such an action. The government's response was to the effect that additional paper work had not been processed to release their future obligation and that this is to be considered an emergency war time action. Another questionable reason in light of the fact that Congress has never declared the Iraqi insurgenecy as a "war".

So, what indeed is being done to really "Support our Troops"? It sounds like not too much and much of it tokenism and disregard for individuals' rights, privileges, and sense of reward for having given their lives, limbs, and the psychic balance. Time for President Bush to put his words into action.