Deep Throat's Morality Message

Felt said he was "only doing his duty" and did not seek to bring down Nixon over the cover-up of a break-in at Democratic Party offices in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. …

…“I don’t think (being Deep Throat) was anything to be proud of,” Felt indicated to his son, Mark Jr., at one point, according to the article. “You (should) not leak information to anyone.”—MSNBC

Vanity Fair is reporting a story that says Mark Felt, former second in command at the FBI under Nixon, was indeed the background informant, "Deep Throat," who provided direction and substance for Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate scoop 32 years ago. The first thing that comes to mind hearing this revelation after all these years is, why didn’t Felt go on record at the time if he knew how pervasive the corruption was?

I have taught my children that it is not being a tattle-tale to report on someone’s wrong-doing if the wrong-doing might hurt others. The obvious “high crimes and misdemeanors” of Nixon’s impeachable regime were worthy of being brought to light the minute anyone of conscience knew about them. A person in Felt’s high-up position had an obligation to protect and defend the US Constitution, and by abrogating that responsibility--choosing to meet Woodward only surreptitiously, in dark alleyways and garages, so as not to be identified, and only giving bits and pieces of the whole picture--he belongs in the category of coward and cheater, not of hero. John Dean heard the call, and came forth, even if belatedly. A hero would have come forth publicly and saved the country months of polarizing senate hearings and a stagnant executive branch with a Vietnam War going on that was getting ignored. A brave hero would not have thought of his own consequences as he chose to tell fully what he knew about laws that were being broken and oaths that were being waived.

According to the Washington Post:

The article concluded, "Felt, having long harbored the ambivalent emotions of pride and self-reproach, has lived for more than 30 years in a prison of his own making, a prison built upon his strong moral principles and his unwavering loyalty to country and cause.

"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others."--Groucho Marx

Oil Flows; Democracy Goes

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, left, and leaders from Central Asia and the Caucasus after leaving handprints during the opening in Azerbaijan of a new pipeline. --New York Times Sunday, May 29, 2005

Samuel Bodman, the new secretary of energy, led the United States delegation to Azerbaijan last week to celebrate a huge moment in America's effort to diversify its sources of oil: The opening of a pipeline that will carry Caspian oil to the West, on a route that avoids Russia and Iran.

Mr. Bodman delivered a message from President Bush: "As Azerbaijan deepens its democratic and market economic reforms, this pipeline can help generate balanced economic growth, and provide a foundation for a prosperous and just society that advances the cause of freedom."

Just a few days earlier, the Azerbaijani police beat pro-democracy demonstrators with truncheons when opposition parties, yelling "free elections," defied the government's ban on protests against President Ilham Aliyev. Mr. Aliyev is one of President Bush's allies in the war on terror, even though he won a highly suspect election to succeed his father, a former Soviet strongman.--"There's Democracy, and There's an Oil Pipeline" by David E. Sanger, New York Times

Sam Bodman, last mentioned on this blog April 16, is an apt representative from an arrogant administration bent on controlling world oil and concerned with little else regarding ethics or democracy, for that matter. As long as a year ago, the World Bank was questioned for continuing to loan money for the construction of the pipeline because of environmental concerns:

The Georgian government suspended work on BTC following BP’s decision to start construction in the ecologically vulnerable Borjomi region, despite its repeated failures to obtain the necessary environmental certification to proceed. The region contains the Borjomi national park, an area of outstanding natural beauty
and mineral water springs whose bisection by the BTC pipeline has long been the subject of fierce opposition by environmentalists.
--Bank Information Center

All of this goes hand in hand with the Bush doctrine of ignoring concerns that impede progress toward the goal—any means to the desired end. What is outrageous is how open and obvious the mode of operations is, yet we the people stand by and watch without blinking, as in this latest celebration over the opening of an oil pipeline to riches for the rich.

Rights? You want Rights? I got your Rights Right Here!

The horrendous abuse of human rights represented by the detention of subjects without legal recourse at Guantanamo makes a mockery of American constitutional justice. This point is taken up by Thomas L. Friedman’s New York Times piece today.

Shut it down. Just shut it down.

I am talking about the war-on-terrorism P.O.W. camp at Guantánamo Bay. Just shut it down and then plow it under. It has become worse than an embarrassment. I am convinced that more Americans are dying and will die if we keep the Gitmo prison open than if we shut it down. So, please, Mr. President, just shut it down.

Friedman’s argument is that world perception of US maltreatment of people thrown into the Guantanamo camp is far more detrimental, even dangerous, to Americans than the possible acts of any of the detainees themselves. As I read Friedman’s column, which comes from a background of understanding and immersion in the international problems of Europe and the Middle East, I imagined the right-wing response to his advice and suggestions. I have heard loud-mouthed radio pundits including Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and others, describe what a mess there would be if the US justice system treated suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo like regular criminals with attorneys and constitutional protections. The fact that some of those held are not even remotely connected to terrorism, and the nature of individual mistreatment at the camp, is a separate issue. The very existence of this slap in the face of humanity and American fair play, which is what Gitmo has become, is the entire problem.

Why care? It's not because I am queasy about the war on terrorism. It is because I want to win the war on terrorism. And it is now obvious from reports in my own paper and others that the abuse at Guantánamo and within the whole U.S. military prison system dealing with terrorism is out of control. Tell me, how is it that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody so far? Heart attacks? This is not just deeply immoral, it is strategically dangerous.

It makes so much sense—I’m with you, Mr. Friedman.

Daddy, if Kerry Won, Why is Bush President?

The 2004 presidential election was stolen by the Bush professional scam team. No, not the one in 2000 where the bought-and-paid for friendly members of the Supreme Court got their guy into office. That one was done right before our eyes. I’m referring to the very last, most recent, run for the White House when the media dropped the ball on covering the obvious voting problems in Ohio, the state whose electoral votes decided the winner. One could argue this was done right before our eyes, too, but for some reason the fourth estate said “the hell with it.”

I have already quoted Christopher Hitchens’s fine summary of how the votes were lost or changed in Ohio. Keith Olberman tried to keep the story alive in his blog for MSNBC and on his show “Countdown,” but to no avail.

Today, in his blog entry for Arianna Huffington’s “The Huffington Post” Jim Lampley opens the issue all over again and makes a very hard case for major election fraud. Lampley has been a professional broadcaster in sports and news for 30 years. He has turned to political blogging recently, and his well-read research serves to enlighten us all.

I'll remind you again that the truth of Watergate was still well-submerged at this point in 1973. But the New York Times and the Washington Post ultimately did their jobs back then. The Post showed its colors yesterday, moving a story about the vast disparity between pre-Iraq war military assessments and what the Bush Administration chose to tell the public from its original placing on page one to a main edition spot on page twenty-six. I don't think we can count on Katherine Graham to shepherd the truth anymore, and Ben Bradlee's gone. As for the Times, it is of course the constant target of the right-wing media conspiracy which labors so hard to cover the crimes of this Administration up.

I am wondering why, with polls showing a majority of Americans against the Iraq occupation and believing the incursion was not worth it, and Bush’s approval rating at an all time low for second-term presidents—why is the issue of a fraudulent election so hard to get going as a major press story? Watergate sold newspapers, wouldn’t a major expose on Ohio voting irregularities create a snowball effect of interest? Congressman John Conyers is doing an investigation right now into the matter--why doesn’t this get more coverage?

Or do the powers-that-be who arranged for the stolen election also have enough clout to bury the depiction of how they did it? Are we the people too afraid to face the truth that 1,600 of our brave soldiers may have died in vain in a phony war? It’s time to face facts, bring the troops home, and start impeachment hearings into Bush’s and Cheney’s high crimes and misdemeanors. That will honor the war dead more than anything else.

Nazi Regulations: Something to Aspire to

Leave it to Drudge to dig up a Washington Post column about the FBI trying to ditch the Constitution under the guise of security protection. What’s the point of having a government “by the people,” if that government tries to subvert the protections guaranteed "the people" by the document on which the government is based? Pursuant to Patriot Act allowances for leniency in perceived areas of security problems, the FBI will ask congress for permission “to investigate terrorism without first securing approval from a judge.”

In Nazi Germany, the same sort of precautionary laws were passed while the Germans were told it was for their own protection. By the time those who were threatened woke up to what was happening, it was too late. The only hope now is that congress will tell the FBI where to get off with their reckless ambitions—or have we already crossed the line where it’s too late for us too?

Info vs. Oil; a Disney Tale

---close May 23, 2005

Drudge tonight has the “O WOW!” headline:

'GOOGLE' NOW VALUED AT $71 BILLION... More than Walt Disney Co and General Motors -- combined???!!!

My friend Stu Cooper, stockbroker extraordinaire and heads-up on the important trends, told me 30 years ago that energy is the source of wealth for the 20th century, but information would be the key to wealth in the 21st century. Stuart was not a conjurer, nor a medium, nor a practitioner of the “black arts,” whatever that means. But he was right! How’d he know? At the time I thought gasoline got us everywhere, even to the moon, what could we tangibly gain from “information?” Based on the graph above, Stuart proved smarter than me. Or he was a time-traveller who saw what email, search engines, immediate connection to all corners of the world via satellite—all of these could provide in terms of cash dollars.

Whatever Stu foresaw, or heard about, or understood—who would have imagined, back in the olden days of 1975, that Google--a web concept that flashes across our desktops and laptops as the arbiter of all knowledge—would be worth more money than General Motors and Walt Disney combined? Then again, back in 1975, who’d have thought we’d still be driving vehicles that use oil for fuel in 2005?

The Magic of Medicare

For two years, health policy experts have been warning that Medicare beneficiaries may be confused by complexities of the new prescription drug benefit. Now it turns out that Medicare officials were also confused, not just about the drug benefit but also about other options.

The Bush administration is revising a preliminary draft of the 2006 Medicare handbook - the main tool for educating beneficiaries - after discovering that many statements in the document were inaccurate, misleading or unclear, even to people who have worked on the program for decades. Members of Congress, insurance companies, advocates for beneficiaries and state insurance regulators all told the Bush administration that the new handbook was flawed.

For example, in describing the drug benefit, the handbook says,"After you meet the deductible, you pay part of the cost of covered prescription drugs, and the plan pays part." The handbook does not mention that beneficiaries face a gap in coverage. After the beneficiary pays a $250 deductible, Medicare pays three-fourths of the next $2,000 in drug costs. But then the beneficiary is normally responsible for all of the next $2,850, and Medicare pays nothing. Beyond that, Medicare pays about 95 percent of drug costs. --Medicare Will Revise Guide to New Benefits for 2006 By ROBERT PEAR

So far, the mumbo-jumbo of the Medicare program as translated by Mr. Pear is fairly clear. But toward the last third of his article it is pretty unclear what the program represents, what options there are in private coverage—in short, the 106 page handbook that Pear says is being revised won’t cut through this bureaucratic grease any better than the present version does now, mistakes and all.

What is clear, is the magic of Bush the prestidigitator and his assistants. If you can’t fix a broken system like the fractured American health care morass, just don’t deal with it as a priority, and redirect your audience, as would a true professional magician, to the other program that just needs some minor tweaks to temporarily fix—Social Security. You make the real problems seem to disappear before the audience’s eyes. Everyone applauds, and you haven’t really done anything out of the ordinary. In fact, if the audience knew what you were really doing, they’d be disappointed and probably want their money back.

Call a Spade a Spade--Criminal

Forty-one months after the United States entered World War II, we had achieved victory in Europe. We've been in Iraq for over half that period. What reasonable person would say we have reached the halfway point in Iraq? --Neil Abercrombie and Dennis J. Kucinich, USA Today May 16, 2005

I saw Dennis Kucinich speak in Laguna Beach during the presidential campaign. He was coherent, he clearly delineated the issues of the Iraq war and the economy, and he posed definite substantial solutions--I learned from what he had to say. The two men who wrote the column quoted above--Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, is a member of the House Armed Services Committee; Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, D-Ohio, is ranking member of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations—are dedicated to supporting our troops by bringing them home from foreign occupations and dangerous futile missions.

The analogy to WWII should not be taken lightly, nor should the cost in dollars and lives be minimized despite the Iraq colonialization not being a “world war.” The congressmen also make the case of Iraq turning into Vietnam:

We feel this course, with its echoes of Vietnam, is unsustainable. It has already added $200 billion to our national debt and costs U.S. taxpayers more than $1 billion per month. It jeopardizes the strategic interests of the United States, particularly in Asia and the Pacific. It alienates allies in the Muslim world and elsewhere, hindering efforts to create a united global front against al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

41 percent of Americans think the war in Iraq is "worth fighting" and only 42 percent think it's going well. Americans can’t sleep forever and assume this foreign war is not affecting every one of our lives. Men like Abercrombie and Kucinich appeal to the rationality and morality of their fellow citizens. It is about time Americans recognize Bush’s policies as criminal, and stop verbally tiptoing around the issues. Our lives, liberty, and prosperity are at stake.

Strangelove Sworn in

Turgidson:

Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, the truth is not always a pleasant thing, but it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless, distinguishable post-war environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed.

Muffley:

You're talking about mass murder, General, not war.

Turgidson:

Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say... no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh... depending on the breaks.

Muffley:

I will not go down in history as the greatest mass murderer since Adolph Hitler!

Turgidson:

Perhaps it might be better, Mr. President, if you were more concerned with the American people, than with your image in the history books.

--Continuity transcript Dr. Strangelove: or, how I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

The New York Times reported this week that the Air Force is planning to ask the Bush administration for a directive to put weapons in space.

The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space.

A senior administration official said that a new presidential directive would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more pacific use of space, including spy satellites' support for military operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts.

Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological, political and diplomatic hurdles, although no treaty or law bans Washington from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass destruction.

The story alone has raised international ire, especially among the Russians during a time when relations between Bush and Putin are not as cozy as it looked with them tooling around together in a 1950’s era automobile. From the Financial Times:

Russia would consider using force if necessary to respond if the US put a combat weapon into space, according to a senior Russian official.

Stanley Kubrick’s and Terry Southern’s version of Armageddon gone crazy still seems outrageous and funny. The dialogue was partially quoted from actual writings of "think tanks" and Pentagon scenarios of the time--it is as real today as it was in 1964. How careless our elected officials and their appointees want to be with the lives they were sworn to protect seems to be, as my daughter would say—totally!

The Force of Power

When Nelson Rockefeller, heir to one of America’s richest fortunes and worth over $1 billion, ran for vice president in 1974, my dad asked “why does he need that job when he already has so much money?” That question could be asked about many super rich people who run for office, or who choose to do anything entrepreneurial, charitable, or any productive tasks other than perpetual vacation and retirement.

I answered my dad’s question from my self-assumed lofty pedestal of higher learning as a student in graduate school; I told him that money was a means to an end, the end being power and control, and what better place to command as much power as possible than being second to the most powerful man in the world?

There has been a lot of press about the politics of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith.

Since early screenings of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith began last month, film critics, commentators and Internet bloggers have been debating whether filmmaker George Lucas is comparing President Bush and the Iraq war to the Dark Side of the Force. The conservative film site Pabaah.com has called for a boycott. The topic even made NBC's Today show.

Quotes from the movie have been sighted as direct parallels to current events, about the surrender of liberty in favor of security, even to statements Bush has made about terrorism. I saw the film yesterday, and what sticks out the most as a theme that can echo in any age comes from the Chancellor as he moves to seduce Anakin to the dark side. The Chancellor speaks about power and how it changes those who achieve it.

In another galaxy, far far away, famed historian Lord Acton (1834-1902) stated simply

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Acton also said

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

We need to remember this when we choose to divest of our hard-won liberty by heeding the powers that be to renew the Patriot Act, to continue occupational expansion overseas in the name of freedom, to ignore real problems at home in favor of smoke-and-mirrors issues such as repairing social security instead of universal medical coverage. That’s the lesson of Star Wars, and what we the people should be vigilant about with our leadership in America.

Don’t it Make Ya Proud

My wife’s cousin is getting married this weekend and the location is a property that is outside on a hill which is difficult for foot traffic to negotiate. I asked why of all places this was chosen for the ceremony and reception. One of the reasons was that the bride and groom are not members of a church, so any church at which they inquired about having the ceremony said they had to be members. I said that was also true of most Jewish temples and synagogues—I didn’t know of any where you could get married without being a dues-paying member of the congregation. They won’t even let you in to the popular High Holiday services without a special separate, and usually costly, ticket. I understand everyone’s gotta make a living, but this tradition always seemed unseemly for a spiritual organization devoted to non-material heavenly worship.

I said the same thing to my wife about membership in organized religious facilities that I said the day Orthodox Jews threw stones at Reformed Jews who were praying at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, “Don’t it make ya proud?”

Bad joke. Right after our conversation, I stumbled onto a quote to balance any bad jokes and thoughts you may hear today about religion in politics and faith-based anti-filibusters etc—a quote that can reaffirm all of our pride to be members of the human race, and it comes from a cleric:

The way that I see Christianity is that its role is to enhance the life of every person. My basis of morality is this: does this action enhance life, or does it denigrate life? Does it build up or does it tear down? And if that's your basis, then you can't possibly be a sexist because sexism diminishes women. You can't possibly be homophobic because it diminishes homosexuals. You can't possibly be a racist because you can't tell people they are lesser because their skin is black. Or any of the other things that have discriminated against people.

This is from an interview on the web site Beliefnet.com with former Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong of Newark, N.J. The intelligence and rationality of Spong’s remarks make the entire interview worth reading. That’s no joke.

Star Wars: I Miss Kubrick or How I learned…

28 years ago today, Sgt Pepper taught the band—oh no, that’s the Beatles and that was more like 38 years ago…28 years ago I went to a movie theater in downtown Boston with my high-school friend Tom Feldman, to see the new movie Star Wars. I was not that impressed. The story was in sections, the characters were not empathetic, and I missed the grandeur and panache of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Oddysey, my favorite movie at that time. At least if you’re gonna emulate, emulate with style!

What I didn’t understand was Lucas’s homage to serial movies of the late forties and early fifties that guys like him and Spielberg grew up enchanted by. I had the same lousy feeling after I first saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was waiting for a profound religious experience and instead all I got was good old-fashioned suspenseful entertainment.

I told my wife to expect our 16-year-old son, a major Star Wars fan, to be bummed by the latest in the Lucas entry of his monolithic epic saga—if I remember the many viewings of Star Wars and the evil of Darth Vader and the Empire as I think I do, then watching the germination of that kind of character from someone who was born of man and woman, untainted at birth, into the devil—that’s going to remind us all of the possibilities and the pitfalls we face. The key is how we all rise above; May the Force be with us! I’ll let you know.

Conspiracy of PR

Gotta go on record about this ridiculous Guantanamo Bay story about the Quran desecration.

The Newsweek retraction of this story, under immense pressure from all sides, smacks of the same cover-up when Kennedy was in office, and it was still possible to inhibit the press into suppressing the news, as evidenced by the delay on reporting the Cuban missile business. Now Newsweek is made to look foolish for publishing a story that was nodded and winked at by those of authority, who might also be trying to create a scapegoat.

In a virtuoso example of editorial gumption and hard-core research and synthesis, Keith Olberman of MSNBC sets out the sinister underpinnings of the Bush Administration's dealings in this fiasco:

Last Thursday, General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Donald Rumsfeld’s go-to guy whenever the situation calls for the kind of gravitas the Secretary himself can’t supply, told reporters at the Pentagon that rioting in Afghanistan was related more to the on-going political reconciliation process there, than it was to a controversial note buried in the pages of Newsweek claiming that the government was investigating whether or not some nitwit interrogator at Gitmo really had desecrated a Muslim holy book.

But Monday afternoon, while offering himself up to the networks for a series of rare, almost unprecedented sit-down interviews on the White House lawn, Press Secretary McClellan said, in effect, that General Myers, and the head of the after-action report following the disturbances in Jalalabad, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, were dead wrong. The Newsweek story, McClellan said, “has done damage to our image abroad and it has done damage to the credibility of the media and Newsweek in particular. People have lost lives. This report has had serious consequences.”

Whenever I hear Scott McClellan talking about ‘media credibility,’ I strain to remember who it was who admitted Jeff Gannon to the White House press room and called on him all those times.

Whenever I hear this White House talking about ‘doing damage to our image abroad’ and how ‘people have lost lives,’ I strain to remember who it was who went traipsing into Iraq looking for WMD that will apparently turn up just after the Holy Grail will - and at what human cost.
--Keith Olberman's Blog at MSNBC.com

Newsweek needs the same PR pros that the White House uses to diffuse potential backlash traumas like this one. Obviously there are planted stories, just like there are planted drugs on suspected hoodlums. The Pentagon got what they wanted, probably way more than they could hope for, in an embarrassment of a major media institute. It’s time for the rest of us to maintain cool heads and remember the lying liars for who they are—greedy warmongers who sniff out oil like bloodhounds.

Jesse Kornbluth States the Truth

Jesse Kornbluth has decided he will not continue writing daily for his blog, at Beliefnet.com. Instead he will post once per week. I for one will miss reading his entertaining and choice culls of what’s important and interesting in our world every day. However, one section of his farewell last Friday is ringing with me constantly as a higher truth, ideas and writing to which we all aspire:

The War is thus the primary spiritual event of our time. Rooted in fraud, destined to fail, it is a death factory for Iraqis and Americans alike. Everyone who calls himself or herself a spiritual leader ought to be screaming about the real cost of this war--the price our souls pay for the lies told in our name, the deaths of women and children we don't bother to count, the wounds we are inflicting on our planet. And the press should be asking what's next--something in Syria? The bombing of Iran? And you, out there in America, should be marching
in the street, calling--in the name of Christ, Buddha, Muhammad, Krishna--for the killing to stop and our kids to come home.

Goodbye for now, Swami—I look forward to this week’s entry!

Star Wars Our War

"When I wrote it, Iraq didn't exist," Lucas said, laughing. "We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass destruction. We didn't think of him as an enemy at that time. We were going after Iran and using him as our surrogate, just as we were doing in Vietnam. ...The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable."—George Lucas at the Cannes Film Festival

The audiences at Cannes are comparing the themes and plot of the final Star Wars film to current political events and the US occupation of Iraq. Two lines from the movie are significant:

This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause," bemoans Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi. "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Hayden Christensen's Anakin - soon to become villain Darth Vader - tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). The
line echoes Bush's international ultimatum after the Sept. 11 attacks, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

We’ll soon all be able to draw our own conclusions. It is a refreshing thought that the creator of the number one pop-culture mythology of the twentieth century also might engender some serious reflection among younger viewers of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith about what course this country is on.