How Cool is Our New Prez?

Having sat through the last (LAST!) insufferably weird and awkward TV appearances of the totally lame George W. Bush, a new tone of cool has already been set for the new administration of Barack Obama and his Posse. The opening event of the three-day inaugural celebration featured a free rock/soul/country/folk concert at the Lincoln Memorial that had people recalling the 1969 Woodstock festival with a lot more vibrant color and less mud (not sure about how the quality of available drugs compared).

Seriously, though, if there are any doubts about the smartness of Obama and the people he has surrounded himself with, this event should do a lot to dispel them. In short, THIS huge musical event is exactly what was needed right now - in the days between our last good riddance to Bush and the necessarily staid swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday. The artists appearing truly derived from the widest range of styles, genres and generations that could be expected to headline any event. The political messages were upbeat and unifying with passages read from past significant speeches by Kennedy, Lincoln, Roosevelt and even Reagan. There was just enough religious and spiritual content to satisfy those who adhere to religion while not alienating those of us who are duly tired of the gross religiosity that has come to pervade so many governmental functions like this. If there was not something for everyone it was not for lack of trying.

The highlight of the program for me was the always fabulous Stevie Wonder crooning his funky-licious 1973 hit "Higher Ground" that pulled the Obamas out of their forced "oh so adult" presidential shell and got them up on their feet shakin booty like a couple of kids for just a few minutes.



I am always surprised by my reaction to Country Pop star Garth Brooks whenever I happen to catch a glimpse of his live performances. If I had to pick a representative from the CW genre to bring cool to the stage I might have to go with somebody like the Dixie Chicks but old Garth is pretty cool (and total bear eye-candy). With his rendition of "Shout!" you just can't avoid resurrecting the spirit of John Belushi dancing on his back, shaking hands & feet in the air... Party on, Garth!



Of course, there was the obligatory appearance by Bono and The Edge bringing a hint of Irish pop star U2 rebellion to the show while also reinforcing every other allusion to the bygone days of America's Camelot the spin meisters are making (Kennedy? Irish-American? Duh.) Auctung, Baby!



With all this feel-good, fun-filled, inspirational inclusiveness and hope does anybody else start to feel a wee bit nostalgic for the bad old days when the most fun we got to have at an inauguration was hurling vulgarities at the Commander-in-Thief as he slinked past the angry mobs gathered in protest along the parade route?

Well, just so we never forget what we are saying good riddance to, let us preserve a couple of videos from Bush's inauguration festivities...





Ah, good times huh? May we never have to go THERE again.

Coming back to the future now, imagine how different yesterday's concert might have been if, God forbid, John McCain had won the election. From his list of favorites this might have been the scene on the Mall...



Of course, we would just have to have a Youngbloods tribute band leading the alternative inauguration concert bringing back the spirit of the Hippie From Olema

Well I’m proud to be a hippie from Olema
Where we’re friendly to the squares and all the straights
We still take in strangers if they’re ragged
We can’t think of anyone to hate

We don’t watch commercials in Olema
We don’t buy the plastic crap they sell
We still wear our hair long like folks used to
And we bathe often, therefore we don’t smell

Well I’m proud to be a hippie from Olema
Where we’re friendly to the squares and all the straights
We still take in strangers if they’re ragged
We can’t think of anyone to hate

We don’t throw our beer cans on the highway
We don’t slide a man because he’s black
We don’t spill our oil out in the ocean
’Cause we love birds and fish too much for that

And I’m proud to be a hippie from Olema
Where we’re friendly to the squares and all the straights
We still take in strangers if they’re Haggard
In Olema, California, planet earth

In the real world, though, yesterday's concert for the future closed with an appreciative bow to the ancient but ever-cool Pete Seeger (turning 80 this year) leading the Jersey Shore's Bruce Springsteen in Woody Guthrie's folk classic anthem, "This Land."



Of particular note was the surprise (to me) inclusion of Washington DC's Gay Men's Chorus, uncredited as all the back-up ensembles were. But if your gaydar failed to identify them as gay (I had no problem at all) the 100 male singers provided a helpful clue: each one wore a red AIDS ribbon on his lapel when they sang "My Country Tis of Thee" behind Josh Groban and Heather Headley.



All in all, the concert was a pretty good start on washing out that bitter after-taste left in our mouths still burning from the ultra-toxic uncool Bush years.

It is incredibly smart to use musicians and popular music to convey the message of unity. If for no other reason, it is smart to put on such a show because even celebrity musicians, if they possess any amount of serious musical artistry, tend to be innately inclined to appreciate the artistry in other serious musicians despite their ethnic cultural or racial differences. It was a very effective symbolic example of example-setting for those in this country who still hold irrational prejudices on those bases.

On a very deep level, even the most reasonable and enlightened of us still crave symbolism and meaningful rituals in our lives. But these human necessities are too often subverted by the enforcement of empty dogma such as that which brought us the despicable Bush regime and his religious-right fundamental crusaders. American popular music in its many divergent styles that appeal to distinct audiences almost always finds a way to meld in various kinds of fusions while also acting as vehicles for new informal rituals and communities around the music, not necessarily supplanting religious fellowships but providing adjunct relationships where identities are established and propagated.

Presenting this concert as part of the initiation of a new era was a stroke of genius.

Our long national nightmare is over - Rock on to the future!

Rock on, Barack! Rock on!

What's Left, Doc?

Not that I would ever try to claim it as an original idea but I have ranted here before on the lopsided political mind-scape in this country and the lamentable lack of a true Left Wing perspective in our political discourse. Unlike us, other democracies in the Western World respectfully embrace a wide spectrum of viewpoints including those on the far Left which balance ideologues on the Right and far Right.

In America, however, "conventional wisdom" promulgated by the mainstream media has long held that there shall be zero tolerance for voices coming from any further than just a tad left of the political center.

In fact, the fourth estate has been at least complicit - if not even more culpable for this than either major political party. Vilifying the Left has been de rigueur for the press even before the Republican Party propaganda machine known as Fox News became the standard-bearer for all news organizations with a nation-wide audience.

Media Matters takes note of this in a current article concerning the various health care proposals under consideration in Congress.

In the United States, slavish adherence to "moderate" positions is often construed as exhibited "pragmatism" that's in distinction to the more "ideological" views of people with less centrist views. In fact, moderation can reflect ideology every bit as much as extremism can.

If political "moderation" assumes a point of equilibrium between Left and Right, ideology is still reflected in a "Centrist" position because the American "Center" is in truth only "Center-right."

These parameters are set by the media in the interest of ratings and audience share. Unpopular points of view are given short shrift, though they may represent the most practical solutions, because unpopularity does not produce advertising revenues. Under the guise of "pragmatism" then, the media declines to give serious consideration to any Leftist point of view even when it is objectively more appropriate, workable, or potentially more effective to a situation than a centrist or right-wing proposal.

"Ideology" is a negative word when used in conjunction with the Left. It is seldom used to identify Right-wing points of view that are in fact equally ideological. The Media Matters article makes the point that the best proposal now on the table is the one that is decidedly from the Left-most end of the spectrum. As such it stands little chance for passage simply because it is considered "extremist" by the media that sets the parameters. Scary allusions to Socialism will be raised loudly by Right-wing ideological critics, giving the best proposal a stigma that will be difficult to overcome. It will be the irrational ideological reaction that will be considered newsworthy because those who are predisposed to buy into it uncritically will eat it up.

Notice too how Obama's announcement of his intention to create a new position of Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change has also rankled ideologues on the far Right who have been screaming that his appointee for the position is - gasp! - a Socialist!

Carol Browner, who will serve in that high-level position is the longest-serving administrator in the EPA. The UNITED STATES EPA. She ran the Environmental Protection Agency under President Clinton and then served on the board of directors for the National Audubon Society, the League of Conservation Voters, the Center for American Progress and former Vice President Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection.

She earned her alleged single Socialist credential as a member of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, an international action group on climate change convened by Socialist International: an umbrella group for many of the world's social democratic political parties such as Britain's respected Labor Party of which Bush's former lap dog, Tony Blair was the leader.

The Commission has issued statements that urge the entire developed world to reduce consumption and commit to binding and punitive limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

The Obama transition team said Mrs. Browner's membership in the organization is not a problem and that it brings experience in U.S. policymaking to her new role. With predictable moronic virulence Right-wingers have seized on Browner's involvement with the international commission in order to regurgitate their baseless and thoroughly discredited attempts to brand Obama himself as a radical Socialist. And news organizations such as the Washington Times have dutifully reported their claims with little criticism of the source and with no sense of irony at all.

"The Commission for a Sustainable World Society includes world leaders from a variety of political parties, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair in serving as vice president of the convening organization," Obama transition spokesman Nick Shapiro told the Washington Times in an article headlined "Obama climate czar has socialist ties."

Of course, this is the same ultra conservative newspaper owned by Korean Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church ("Moonies") that angered its conservative readership last year when it announced its editorial decision to cease enclosing the term "gay marriage" in quotation marks in their news articles.

"Carol Browner was chosen to help the president-elect coordinate energy and climate policy because she understands that our efforts to create jobs, achieve energy security and combat climate change demand integration among different agencies; cooperation between federal, state and local governments; and partnership with the private sector," Mr. Shapiro said according to the Times (Obama climate czar has socialist ties, 01/12/09).

The appointment does not require Senate approval which is fortunate on the one hand, since it averts any attempt to derail it or to waste time by Republican ideologues who would love to obstruct the new Administration as it starts working on their recovery and reclamation of the catastrophes wrought by eight years of Right-wing extremism under Bush. On the other hand it potent fodder for the idiotic pundits who still peddle the laughable lies their devotees still buy into about Obama's secret plan to install a Soviet-style oligarchy in Washington.



Obama is no Socialist. But socialist ideology is, in fact, no more inherently un-American than is capitalist ideology. The image of socialism dredged up by the Right wing invariably harkens to that of the corrupt and detestable Third Reich Nazi Party. What Americans are not allowed to understand is that the National Socialist Workers Party (Nazis) was merely a vehicle for the egomaniacal Hitler to exploit for ends totally at odds with the tenets of socialism. The Bush Administration and its devastating effects on our democracy can be more reasonably equated to Hitler's regime than anything about that brand of socialism that may be said to pertain to Obama.


Bush's rise to the presidency and the Republican Party's resurgence in the 1990s came about on the strength of a concerted exploitation of fundamentalist Christian ideology in a manner similar to Hitler's appeal to the base feelings of superiority and entitlement packaged as German patriotism. We must not forget that Hitler was democratically elected although the ballots that put him in office were no less suspect than the two elections that stole the Presidency for Bush.

Now I Understand

NOW I UNDERSTAND WHY THEY HATE US: How a middle-class white guy came to accept the evil embedded in American political and military might. 

I had never heard of David Hilfiker until this week. This remarkable essay is cross-posted at Alternet.com where I was so moved upon reading it that I feel compelled to do whatever I can to help spread his story and analysis.

Though we are obviously very different people in many ways, I can relate to Hilfiker's experience and conclusions. I'm betting that others who may have their own differences with him may find some clarification of their own troubled feelings about what the militarization of America has done to us.

Early in his article Hilfiker describes how he grew up in the 1950s which would make us about ten years apart in age. Like I suspect most Americans who came of age during that post-war era he was instilled with a sense of pride in his country as savior of the world and exemplar of all that is good about civilization. By the 1960s and early 70s of course, the direction in which our leadership had taken us was already eroding the truth in any basis of such a claim while the grandiose self-image imprinted on our collective consciousness was defiantly enforced and guarded. 

Hilfiker articulates a viewpoint that verifies one of the major differences between his contemporaries and many of us coming of age in the 60s and 70s. Rather than awakening to a world of exuberance over conquering an enemy of the world our experience was defined by mass confusion, at best, owing to the contradictions between that guarded, high-minded image and reality. 

I, for one, have never understood how any impressionable young American could survive into adulthood unaffected by disillusion having lived through the tumultuous era of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War uprisings. The struggles that were waged then happened right in our living room TV sets if not in our neighborhoods and we absorbed images of the bloody executions of one president, a number of the greatest social leaders of our time along with the suppression and countless murders of activists who may as well been any of us. 

Still, so many of us continued to buy into the outmoded image indelibly imprinted on our collective consciousness as a nearly infallible good and moral people despite the horrible shenanigans our government has been up to since then - that continually contradict that hardened image. 

Only now, after a half a century or so of denial and exploitation of that denial, the reality behind the image impressed on all of us has perhaps begun to bring us to a humbling position where denial is no longer a reasonable - or even sane - option.

Hilfiker describes how he opted out of involving himself consciously in the events of the 1960s and 70s that were formative years for many of us. I suspect that this is how many of us justify our recent awakening to the ills inherent in our system: by opting out, if only in our minds for those of us who lived through it.

The last two decades of the Twentieth Century saw much less overt trouble than the two decades before. But this does not mean that the ills of that time were resolved. It does, perhaps, explain why Americans who were born or came of age during the 80s and 90s were instilled with an attitude more like those of Hilfiker's era. It was another age of prosperity and Reagan-inspired egotism all built on a false, manufactured image.

For the one millionth time, I will repeat what has been said by everyone alive: 9/11 changed everything. Unfortunately, with George W. Bush at the start of his reign of error, the change it brought until recently has been wrong-headed in the same ways that it was in the fifties: notably with the exploitation of the moment for purposes of those holding all the power. 

After eight years of the disastrous Bush regime, however, maybe we are lucky this time since so many of us from all possible coming-of-age eras realize that we are all in the same boat.  

Explicit: Another California Tragedy

Dec. 31, 2008 Oakland, CA: On this New Year's Eve, 22-year old Oscar Grant was shot execution-style by transit police officer Johannes Mehserle. He was shot in the back while lying face down on a subway platform, unarmed and restrained by other officers.

The shooting was caught on film by commuters waiting on the BART platform. The video presented here is EXPLICIT.

The gun shot that killed Mr. Grant is recorded at 01:26 on the counter.



Despite such damning video evidence, it took nearly two weeks for the District Attorney to arrest Mehserle and charge him with murder.

In 14 years as Alameda County District Attorney, Tom Orloff had never before charged a police officer for an on-duty shooting. And when asked, several legal experts were unable to come up with any examples of officer-involved shootings becoming murder cases in California.

The DA admitted that it was only due to massive public pressure that he moved even at that pace, pressure that included more than 20,000 people speaking up after this video was distributed via email by the organization, ColorOfChange.org.


Johannes Mehserle's arrest is important, but it's only the first step. In cases like this, history has repeatedly shown that as soon as the public eye turns away the prospect of justice fades.

Oscar Grant's family and survivors deserve to see justice carried out. Making sure the prosecution does its job and pushing for much-needed reforms requires all of our voices.

Add your voice here: http://www.colorofchange.org/oscar_update/?id=2515-253960

1. WRONG Response! (2. Right Response)

Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast and contributor to outlets including The Nation, Al Jazeera English, Salon.com, Alternet, the Huffington Post, and the Washington Monthly. A winner of the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Award for his investigative print journalism, he has produced numerous widely-recognized video reports that have garnered hundreds of thousands of views on Youtube. His book, "Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party," will be published by Basic Books in 2009.

On January 11, Blumenthal covered a rally in front of the Israeli consulate in midtown New York that drew an estimated 10,000 people in support of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip. The rally, which was organized by UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York in cooperation with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, featured speeches by New York’s most senior lawmakers. 

While the crowd was riled to righteous anger by speeches about Hamas evildoers, the event was a festive affair that began and ended with singing and joyous dancing.

But as Blementhal shows in the video below, provided courtesy of www.Alternet.com, the deep animosity of the participants toward the Palestinians, and their total indifference to their suffering - even the bombing of schools and hospitals in Gaza, and the humanitarian crisis their attack has brought could barely be contained. 

In the words of these fired up demonstrators, their belligerent, hateful attitude is based on an ingrained delusion of superiority over their Palestinian neighbors as if ordained by God. If this is permitted to represent the American response to the complex and detestable aggression the State of Israel has exercised against the people of Gaza in recent weeks, it does not bode well for the future of this planet. It is high time we break ourselves from the knee-jerk bombastic tendency to go along with -- much less support -- disproportionate military action overriding diplomacy. The attitude and actions of Hamas and the entire Islamic World against Israel have been egregious for sure. But do Israel's leaders actually believe that their jughead response to the persistent missile assault on their territory will do anything other than strengthen Palestinian resolve and that of their allies who deny their right to exist in the first place? 

Where do Israel's obstinate leaders get the idea that the US will back them up militarily as they provoke their enemies and irresponsibly escalate the kind of terror and hostility that has already brought so much shame and divisiveness to America within our country and in our relationships with the rest of the Western World?   

2. RIGHT Response

Rep. Dennis Kucinich sent the following letter to his colleagues in the US House of Representatives. 

January 9, 2009

Dear Colleague:

As the number of causalities in Gaza continues to climb to well over 750 deaths and more than 3000 injured in just two weeks, it is imperative that we focus on the humanitarian crisis that is growing every day.  I ask that you support a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian access in Gaza.

The Washington Post and New York Times have reported that aid agencies such as International Committee of the Red Cross and Medicine without Borders are unable to reach even the most desperate victims.

The United Nations has been forced to suspend all aid operations in Gaza following attacks on its facilities and personnel who were trying to provide aid.  The UN is reporting that more than one-third of the deaths are civilians and that 1000 of the 3000 injured are children.  One day after the bombing of a UN school that killed 42 civilians, at least 30 people–including children–were found dead four days after a house where they were told to seek shelter by Israeli Defense Forces was bombed.

Nearly the entire population has had no access to water or electricity since the beginning of the blockade in February of 2006. As of January 2, 2009, hospitals in Gaza have been without electricity, forcing them to run on back-up generators that are reportedly on the verge of collapse.  Not only are doctors unable to cope with the number of injured, but these hospitals also lack the most basic necessities, such as gauze and medicine.  Access to medical supplies and food is protected by the Geneva Conventions.

We should oppose Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel. And we should oppose Israel’s military response.  But we should, first and foremost, stand for an end to the humanitarian crisis this conflict is creating.  If you would like to be an original cosponsor of the resolution, please contact Diala Jadallah in my office.  A draft is included below.

Sincerely,

Dennis J. Kucinich

RESOLUTION 

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives concerning the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Whereas over 95 percent of the deaths incurred since the escalation of violence in Gaza beginning December 27, 2008, have been Palestinians;

Whereas over 50 percent of the population of Gaza is under the age of 14;

Whereas on January 7, 2009, the United Nations found that one-third of the Palestinians killed in Gaza were civilians, while over 1,000 of the injured are children;

Whereas on January 6, 2009, 40 civilians were killed and 55 civilians were injured when the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) bombed two United Nations facilities, including a school, where Palestinians were seeking shelter;

Whereas nearly the entire population of Gaza has no access to potable water or functioning water systems, and sewage and wastewater systems have seized due to lack of water and electricity, causing sewage overflows in some residential neighborhoods, creating a public health crisis, according to the World Bank;

Whereas since the beginning of the Israeli imposed blockade in February 2006, approximately 262 Palestinians in Gaza have died due to lack of access to medical goods and aid, according to Mustafa Barghouthi, the Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative;

Whereas on January 7 and 8, 2009, the International Committee of the Red Cross found a total of up to 65 bodies in two separate locations, both of which included a number of emaciated children , in houses bombed in the south of Gaza after four days of lack of ambulance access;

Whereas the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and the International Committee of the Red Cross have completely halted all aid shipments, following the death of two United Nations aid truck drivers; and

Whereas Articles 55 and 56 of the 4th Geneva Convention require ”ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population” and ”ensuring and maintaining…the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene”:

Now, therefore, be it Resolved, 

That the House of Representatives calls on the Government of Israel and representatives of Hamas to implement an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and to allow unrestricted humanitarian access in Gaza.

3. What YOU can do

Write your Representative and tell them to support Rep. Kucinich's Resolution.