AMERICAN HYPOCRISY AND THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL OF OUR DEMOCRACY

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

AMERICAN HYPOCRISY AND THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL OF OUR DEMOCRACY

.
 This will be an unwelcome comment but I believe we should shut off this thread at least overnight and have a space while we think about the officers killed today in Baton Rouge and the black former marine who shot them. And the families of all of them.
by Flavius on Sun, 07/17/2016 - 11:28pm

Flavius,
.
Your comment is not unwelcome at all, because it clearly points out a very serious area of hypocrisy that we have in this country. We'd have to shut down the site indefinitely if we decided to honor all of the innocent Black people and their families who are being brutally murdered by rogue cops - and this comes from the father of a federal agent, so I'm definitely not a cop hater. In fact, I love one.
.
So the tension that led to the brutal murder of both these officers, and the scores of innocent Black people who have been killed is exactly what this thread is SUPPOSE to be about - unequal justice under the law, and its inevitable consequences.
.

But what makes your comment particularly enlightening is out of all the threads on this site, why should we shutdown THIS particular thread? While your comment may have been completely innocent and well meaning, it speaks volumes regarding our social conditioning in this country. In fact, you couldn't have said more if I had written it for you myself.  It begs the question, what makes one person's life more valuable than another? That's what all the hoopla is about. It seems that no matter how "liberal" some White people profess to be, Black lives just don't seem to matter as much - either by rogue cops, White juries, or even many Black accommodationists.

.

But this is a question that White people need to be very concerned about - especially if they are a part of the working class - because we are now knee-deep in a class struggle, and race is meaningless to the corporate oligarchs and their political cronies. They'll send your child to his or her death in a heartbeat if it means they can make a dollar, as they've already demonstrated.  

.

So White working-class people should be very concerned about the growing devaluation of human life, and start putting the value of life in perspective.  Because this hierarchy of injustice starts at the top with the political elites, and then it trickles it's way down. The elitists can do no wrong and we can do no right, unless we're in complete lockstep with their desires. Then the legal impunity of the elitists filters its way down to their surrogates, the rogue cop on the street, and then finally ends in the mass brutalization of the average citizen who is not in complete lockstep with their plutocratic agenda.
.

And we can witness no better example of how that system works than the sham that took place in the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton. Just imagine what would happen to you if you worked for the State Department and put classified files on your home computer. Do you think they would worry about your "intent?" I don't think so. What Hillary did is called "Gross (criminal) Negligence," and "Endangering National Security," both, very serious crimes. She should have, at the very least, lost her security clearance, but that would have prevented her from running for president. So in Hillary's case it was just fluffed off, while in another case, Sandra Bland was dragged from her vehicle, brutalized, and died under "suspicious circumstances" while in custody, for smoking a cigarette in her own car.
.
So anyone who supports the double standard at work with respect to Hillary Clinton and Sandra Bland is guilty of supporting classism, plutocracy, and the perpetuation of the White supremacist system, and that includes President Obama. I hate to admit that, because I've always been a big supporter of Obama, but one cannot edit truth. We must follow it wherever it leads.

.

And what's completely unbelievable about how blatant the class system has become is the fact that President Obama scheduled campaign appearances with Hillary even before the investigation was complete! Does that send any kind of signal to the investigators or what!!!?
.
That said a lot to me. The most benevolent spin that one can put on Obama's actions is that it was politically clumsy. But Obama is not known for being a clumsy politician.  He is known, however, for acknowledging the political lay of the land - that's why Bush and Cheney aren't in prison. So while I have always been a strong Obama supporter, I support truth, justice, and a fully functional democracy much more. I don't see President Obama, or any other politician, as my leader. I see them as my employees, and as one of his employers, I don't like what he did, at all.  For that reason, I will always criticize him for failing to take action against Bush and Cheney, and now, I will always criticize him for this Clinton decision.
.
I mean, this was a woman who tried to dog-whistled his assassination! So something MUST be going

JEEVES, GO FETCH ME A SENATOR . . .
ANY ONE OF 'EM WILL DO.

on behind the scenes in this country that the American people aren't privy to. Obama's actions tell me that this situation has become much more ingrained in our system than most of us ever realized, and therefore, much more dangerous to our democracy.

.

But this hierarchy of "justice" is nothing new; it's simply becoming more blatant, and much more pronounced.  It started with the pardon of Richard Nixon, and then Reagan committed outright treason in the Iran-Contra affair, and then flooded the Black community with crack cocaine (with Bill Clinton's help) with complete impunity. Thereafter, George Bush Sr. sent our troops to die in Iraq, for the first time, in order to take his son, Neil Bush's, name out of the news after an investigation found him guilty of "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest."   The story regarding the investigation was reported by UPI on June 29, 1990, and we invaded Iraq one month later. Then, of course, we had George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sending our troops back into Iraq where 4500 of our troops were killed, and countless others maimed for life (this time with Hillary Clinton's help) in order to enrich war profiteers.

.

This kind of thing has been going on every since the corporate and political elitists found out just how gullible the American people have become when we bought into the supply-side economics scam. It's been open-house on the American people every since, and the American middle class has been in a downward spiral every since.
.
Supply- Side Economics was a scheme hatch by U.S.C. economist Arthur Laffer and the Reagan crowd which was supposed to cut the deficit and balance the budget. The theory behind Reaganomics was ostensibly, if you cut taxes for business and people in the upper tax brackets, and then deregulated business of such nuisances as safety regulations and environmental safeguards, the beneficiaries would invest their savings into creating new jobs. In that way the money would eventually "trickle down" to the rest of us. The resulting broadened tax base would not only help to bring down the deficit, but also subsidize the tremendously high defense budget. When the plan was first floated, even George Bush, Reagan's vice president to be, called it "voodoo economics."
.
Reaganomics, for the most part, sought to undo many of the safeguards put into place during the Roosevelt era and create a business environment similar to that which was in place during the Coolidge Administration. That's also what Bill Clinton did when he ripped the guts out of Glass-Steagall, and with the very same result.
.
Instead of taking the money and investing it into creating new jobs, the money was used in wild schemes and stock market speculation. One of these schemes, the leveraged buy-out, involved buying up large companies with borrowed funds secured by the company's assets, then paying off the loan by selling off the assets of the purchased company. This practice cost the citizens of this country its industrial base. In addition, the bottom fell out of the stock market. On Monday, October 19, 1987 the Dow-Jones Average fell 508.32 points. It was the greatest one-day decline since 1914 - 15 years before the Great Depression.
.
And what about Ronald Reagan's promise to balance the budget and lower the deficit? By the time he left office he was not only the most prolific spender of any president, but he also added more to the deficit than all of the other presidents from George Washington to his own administration combined. And what does the Republican Party propose to do about that? One of the Republican proposals was their "contract with America," a capitol gains tax cut -- for the rich.
.

HERE ARE BUT A FEW OF THE GAMES RUN ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE BY THE ELITISTS WITH IMPUNITY

.
Due to the continued freewheeling fiscal policies of conservative Republicans, between 1986 and 1989, spanning the presidencies of Reagan and Bush Sr., the FSLIC had to pay off all the depositors of 296 institutions with assets of over $125 billion.
.
Then in 1988 Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $1.3 billion. It was headed by Neil Bush, brother of George W. The investigation alleged that he was guilty of "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." The issue was eventually settled out of court with Bush paying a mere $50,000 settlement.
.
Then there was the Lincoln Savings and loan scandal in 1987, involving John McCain. The scandal was very similar to the one that is currently playing out on Wall Street. He was one of a group of senators dubbed "The Keating Five" involved in a scandal by the same name.
.
In 1976 Charles Keating moved to Arizona to run the American Continental Corporation. In 1984, shortly after the Reagan era push to deregulate the savings and loan community, Keating bought Lincoln Savings and Loan and began to engage in highly risky investments with the depositors' savings. In 1989 the parent company, which Keating headed, went bankrupt, and it resulted in over 21,000 investors losing their life savings. Most of the investors were elderly, and the loss amounted to about 285 million dollars.
.
After having received over a million dollars from Keating in illegal campaign contributions, gifts, free trips, and other gratuities, the Keating Five--Senators John Glenn, Don Riegle, Dennis DeConini, Alan Cranston, and Sen. John McCain--attempted to intervene in the investigation into Keating's activities by the regulators. Later, they were admonished to varying degrees by the senate for attempting to influence regulators on Keating's behalf. Charles Keating ended up being convicted for fraud, racketeering and conspiracy, for which he received 10 years by the state court, and a 12 year sentence in federal court. After spending four and a half years in prison, his convictions were overturned. But prior to being retried, he pled guilty to a number of felonies in return for a sentence of time served.
.

Then came the George W. Bush administration that caused close to a million people to die uselessly in an illegal war in Iraq, robbed the American people blind, whose fumbling ignited the longest war in American history in Afghanistan, and whose greed came very close to sending the nation into yet another depression, so people of every race need to open their eyes, because we're being treated like pawns.
.
So it hasn't been lost on me that no matter how much evidence is brought to the table about how unjust the Clintons have been to Black people - Bill’s role in flooding the Black community with crack cocaine, followed by the mass incarceration of Black people, and then creating the prison industrial complex - it's been like spittin' in the wind. It’s simply been either brushed off or outright denied and other issues are brought up in their place. The reason for that is regardless to what people say, or what their political persuasion, they've been conditioned to believe that Black lives don't matter.  But now, just one or two White cops are killed and you want an evening of silence to commemorate their deaths. Are you completely blind to the gross hypocrisy in that!!!?

.

It clearly demonstrates that regardless to how well-meaning many White people are, they just can't see life, death, or gross injustice from the perspective of a Black person. That's exactly why I'm often misunderstood as being militant, but it's also why I don't give a damn. Not all, but most White folks are completely blind to reality, along with many of their accommodationist Black stooges - though I suspect that many of the stooges choose to be blind, because it helps to promote their accommodationist agenda. But it can really be a frustrating thing to watch, because most people want to think that their fellow citizens have, at the very least, simple common sense. When they cease feeling that way this can be a very scary and lonely place. So I must admit, after what I've seen in this past primary year, and watching many of my fellow citizens just sitting on their hands and letting it happen, the chill is beginning to roll in on me.
.
So the bottom line is this - while demonstrations do have their place, we'll never be able to resolve this problem by simply shaking our fists in the street and then going home to be misinformed and distracted by the five corporations that control everything that we see, hear, or read in the media.  We've got to come together as a people and clean house in Washington.  We've got to get rid of all the plutocrats at the top (like Trump and the Clintons), two-thirds or more of both houses of congress, and then take back our democracy.  If we don't, it'll be you and your family's turn soon, because the plutocrats don't care any more about the White working class than they do Black people. When they send your children to war, send your jobs out of the country, or rob you of your lifesavings (and the Clintons have done all of those things), they're clearly demonstrating that your lives don't matter either - it's just not as politically acceptable to shoot you down in the street . . . yet.

Eric L. Wattree

http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
 

Sphere: Related Content

The Actual Factuals About the Democratic Loss in the 2010 Election

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

The Actual Factuals About the Democratic Loss in the 2010 Election

In President Obama's own words, the Democratic party received a shellacking in the midterm elections, but what's amazing is that he still doesn't seem to understand the reason why. He seems to have bought into the Washington punditry that the Democrats lost because unemployment was at 9%, and historically the party in power loses seats in congress during the midterms. Those things might have contributed to the loss, but he's completely missing the real reason why so many Democrats were voted out of office.

The actual reason that Democrats were turned out of office was because they deviated from the reasons they were voted into office in the first place. The voters made it clear in the two previous elections that they were fed up with the Republicans, and they believed Obama's pledge that the Democrats were going to bring in an era of "change that we could believe in." They were excited by that pledge. But once the Democrats were given the presidency and the largest majority in congress in a generation, they immediately turned into Republicrats. Their turncoat behavior angered independents because they felt lied to. It also made the Democrats look weak and unfocused to the people who were on the fence, and it absolutely disgusted the Democratic base.

President Obama took too many of his campaign advisors into the White House with him. These people are not about governing. They're constantly in campaign mode, so instead of advising the president to simply adhere to the promises that got him elected, they're continually triangulating to position themselves for the next election.

A lot of us were disgusted by that because it made us feel manipulated - after all, progressives are progressive because we're not dumb, so it's insulting to us when we feel like we're being "handled." Thus, when the campaign finally began in earnest and the Democrats came around with those very same rousing speeches that we bought into the first time we were bamboozled, they were counterproductive, because they only served to remind us of how disgusted we were over being lied to in the 2008 election.

But obviously the administration is so mired in the fallacy of beltway wisdom that all they can see is from one campaign to the next. So let me put this in campaign terms and maybe they'll get the point. Mr. President, how successful do you think you would have been if in the 2008 election you would have gone out and made the following stump speech?

"If elected, I promise to circumvent the rule of law by instructing my attorney general to let Bush and Cheney off the hook for their war crimes so as not to upset the Republicans and energize their base. I also promise to allow the Republicans to water down all legislation, even though we know they're not going to vote for the legislation in the end. And finally, I promise to never counter Republican lies and relate the truth to the American people. Again, we don't want to upset the GOP."

Maybe I'm politically naive, but I don't think Obama would have gotten very far with that message, but that's exactly the strategy he followed in his first two years. So I can't see for the life of me why the administration is so shocked that their base didn't turn out to defend the Democratic Party.

On the other hand, if the president had walked through the door and kept his mouth shut - as he should have, since the attorney general is suppose to be independent - freeing Attorney General Holder to investigate and then charge Bush and Cheney for lying to congress to take the nation into war; illegally attacking the sovereign state of Iraq; the conflict of interest, misuse of funds and corruption; the torture, killing, and displacement of a million people, among other war crimes, the Republicans would have been so busy trying to cover their butts that they wouldn't have had the time to cause so much trouble.

Yes, it would have ignited the Republican base, but it would have also energized the Democratic base, in addition to most young people, who tend to believe in Justice. It would have also done more to protect this nation from terrorism than all the bombs in our arsenal, because it would have sent a message to both the Muslim people, and the world, that the American people stand for justice.

Now that would have been a change that we could believe in, and the American people would have rallied around the administration, if for no other reason than having the courage and integrity to put the rule of law before political considerations.

But it seems that this administration still hasn't gotten the point. The new congress isn't even sitting yet and they're already sending out signals that they're ready to compromise on adding four trillion dollars to the national debt to give billionaires a tax cut.

If President Obama caves in again, he's done. He's playing right into Republican hands, because, you see, the Republicans have made it clearly obvious that they're not really interested in the issues. Their main objective is to make Obama look weak, because they understand what's most important to the American people - a strong leader.

So if Obama continues to cave in, he's going to end up the most brilliant, charismatic, and beloved president ever to be voted out of office after his first term. Because the bottom line is, the American people want John Wayne, not Mr. Rogers.

Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

The "Me-First" Attitude of American Politicians is Trashing the U.S. Constitution

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

The "Me-First" Attitude of American Politicians is Trashing the U.S. Constitution

The founding fathers understood the dangers of vacillating public sentiment, so they established the United States Constitution to protect America from the ebb and flow of public opinion. The Constitution was designed to set in place a set of American values from which the nation should never deviate in response to public sentiment.

But the GOP and the Democratic Party are working hand-in-hand to undermine those standards - first, the GOP creates a toxic political environment to circumvent the people's common sense, then instead of defending the Constitution, the weak-kneed Democratic Party simply goes along in order to protect their political interest. This unholy alliance has been going on for nearly forty years now, and America has been racing downhill every since. The primary victim of this unholy alliance, is the rule of law - the very foundation of the Constitution.

Immediately after President Nixon resigned in response to the Watergate Scandal, instead of bringing Nixon to justice for violating the law, only his subordinates were jailed. On September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford issued a full pardon, "In best interest of the American people," immunizing Richard Nixon from any further prosecution, and thereby corrupting the Constitution, and setting a precedent establishing a class of people who were above the law.

The American people were caught sleeping, but Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, two young politicians in the Nixon and Ford administrations, respectively, were wide awake, and fully cognizant of the ramifications of this new development.

Then on January 20, 1981, the newly elected Republican president, Ronald Reagan, entered office under a cloud of suspicion. On November 4, 1979, the American embassy was stormed by Iranian militants and they took sixty-six Americans hostage. The hostage crisis went on for 444 days, greatly enhancing Ronald Reagan's bid for president against President Jimmy Carter. Many believe that Reagan forces negotiated with the Iranians to hold the American hostages until after the election. That has never been proven, but what adds fuel to the allegation is that the hostages were released six (6) minutes after Ronald Reagan was administered the oath of office as the 40th President of the United States.

What has been proven, however, is that even though the Iranians were considered an enemy of the United States and had held sixty-six Americans hostage for 444 days, Reagan entered into a secret agreement with the Iranians to have Israel ship them military arms, then resupply Israel in return for payment under the table (treason). Reagan needed the money to fund the Contras in a war in Nicaragua in which congress outlawed funding under the Boland Amendment. Reagan also drummed up funding for the Contras by flooding the nation's inner cities with illegal drugs - an act of treachery that thirty years later, the nation is still feeling the negative effects.

While several of Reagan's high-level subordinates were convicted of conspiracy and obstructing justice ("So many White House documents were shredded that the White House shredder became choked"), the convictions of Col. Oliver North and John Poindexter were overturned on technicalities, and others who were convicted were later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush - "in the best interest of the nation."

So, again, instead of impeaching Ronald Reagan and sending him to prison for his grossly unthinkable crimes, airports and an aircraft carrier was named after him, many Republicans began to hold him up as one of our greatest presidents - and once again, while America slept, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were watching from the wings.

So this "not looking back in the best interest of the nation" mantra is getting a little overworn and tiresome - not to mention being total nonsense. If Richard Nixon had been sent to jail for his part in Watergate, and Ronald Reagan and his gang had been made to walk the yard with him, chances are Bush and Cheney would never have dared to initiate their illegal war in Iraq that led to the death and displacement of over a million Iraqis, the death, and dismemberment of thousands of American troops, and the near bankruptcy of the nation.

America is on a toboggan hurling down a very slippery slope. Every political generation is taking the assault on the U.S. Constitution to the next level. We've gotten to the point where the Supreme Court is taking the election of our presidents out of the hands of the people, war crimes are simply being redefined as "enhanced interrogation techniques," and the freedom of religion is under serious assault.

Where will tomorrow's young demagogues take us? Yesterday it was a war on terror, today it's a war on Muslims, tomorrow it could be a war on Black Muslims, and the next day, a war on Black people in general. That doesn't seem as far fetched as it once did.

Wake up, Mr. President. It's 3:00 a.m., and reality is on line one.


Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

If the U.S. Postal Service Really Wants to Honor Black People, Try Emancipating Them.

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

If the U.S. Postal Service Really Wants to Honor Black People, Try Emancipating Them

On July 10, 2010 The United States Postal Service issued two 44-cent postage stamps honoring the Negro Baseball League. During the ceremony held in Kansas City, MO, Thurgood Marshall Jr., vice chairman of the Postal Service's Board of Governors, spoke on behalf of the postal service. While the issuance of the stamps was a laudable gesture, the gesture and the ceremony itself was fraught with irony.

Considering the postal service's abysmal record of employee abuse, the gesture was nothing less than a slap in the face to both the Negro Baseball League, whose members were the victims of the worst kind of discrimination, and to Thurgood Marshall Sr., who dedicated his life to the struggle for human rights. The ceremony was perfectly akin to having the first born of Frederick Douglass honoring the work ethic of former slaves at a Sons of the Confederacy convention.

I'm virtually certain that if the members of the Negro Baseball League were around today to see the deplorable conditions that the majority of postal workers are forced to endure, they'd say, "Never mind the stamp. Honor us by emancipating our people - all of the people, of every race, creed, and color. " And if Justice Marshall was alive, he'd be overcome with shame to see the human degradation that his son is presiding over.

There is yet another irony here, and perhaps, one even greater than those listed above. The blatant theft of employee wages, intimidation, physical and emotional abuse, and employees being forced to work between four and six hours a day without pay is going on in a United States government agency, and under an African American president. The fact is, that's more than ironic, it's absolutely unbelievable.

President Lincoln was willing to go to war to end slavery on his watch, where President Obama can emancipate over 600,000 American citizens with a simple phone call. Yet, in spite of repeated White House contacts and extended articles written and posted on the Democratic National Committee website, President Obama has failed to make that phone call.

It's hard to believe that the administration can be so tone deaf - then, they don't understand why the president is dropping in the polls. The problem is simple - the president is so preoccupied with trying to win over people that he'll never get, that he's ignoring the people who put him in office.

It's like deja vue. President Obama is making the exact same mistake that Tom Bradley did. After becoming the first Black mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley failed to stand with his core constituency. After the unconscionable Eula Love shooting by the LAPD, Major Bradley came up missing in action. So when he ran for governor he lost just by a hair - and that hair represented the main people whose vote he thought he could count on. I know, because I was one of those voters.While I didn't vote for Republican, George Deukmejian, I simply decided to skip the gubernatorial race on the ballot.

I like President Obama . He's one of the most intelligent presidents we've ever had.  He saved the nation from another Great Depression, and he's accomplished more in his first two years in office than most presidents manage to accomplish in their entire eight years. But there's more to being a good president than what the president manages to do. We must also take into account what he fails to do - and unfortunately, what Obama is failing to do is protect the rule of law, and that can place us all in serious jeopardy.

Even before he became president Obama backpedaled on FISA and failed to hold Bush accountable for spying on Americans. Then once he became president, he turned a blind eye to Bush and Cheney's war crimes. Now President Obama is allowing 600,000 American citizens to be mugged by a United States government agency. That's unacceptable.

Maintaining the rule of law is THE most important function of government. Everything else hinges on it - it was the government's failure to maintain the rule of law that allowed lynchings to take place in the South. Without the rule of law you cannot maintain a democracy, since it is the rule of law that makes a democracy possible. That is exactly why the president is made to swear in the oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" -  because the Constitution IS the law.

So regardless to how much good you do, President Obama, if you fail to protect the people from government corruption and abuse, it ain't enough. So while I'm one of your biggest supporters, if you come up short in that area, as far as I'm concerned, "what's love got to do with it?"

--
Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

Is there a Method to Liz Cheney's Madness?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Is there a Method to Liz Cheney's Madness?

Many observers have found Liz and Dick Cheney's fervent crusade to ensure that President Obama define terrorists as "enemy combatants," and the fight against terrorism as a "war" on terrorism quite curious. Why would a former vice president break the long established tradition of fading into the woodwork to engage in a silly debate over semantics? Now we also have his daughter, Liz Cheney, attacking standards set down by the United States Constitution guaranteeing due process and equal protection under the law. Liz Cheney has now branded attorneys who defended 'alleged terrorists' the "Al Qaeda 7," and she's calling the United States Department of Justice - that's simply carrying out the prescription set down by the United States Constitution - "The Department of Jihad." Could there possibly be a reasonable explanation behind such radical behavior? I think there is.

The Cheneys are engaged in a preemptive strike against the Obama administration in general, and the Justice Department in particular, in order to stir up public opinion against the prospect that the Obama administration will finally decide to prosecute Dick Cheney for war crimes - as the rule of law demands. They're busily laying the groundwork to incite insurrection across this country to counter the application of the rule of law.

While the GOP is atrocious when it comes to governance, they're absolute geniuses when it comes to stirring up their base for war - and in this case, they're preparing the nation for an all out internal conflict. One can hear it in every speech as they sprinkle little gems like 'secession', 'socialist', and 'government takeover' into the political dialogue. Thus, the threat that they pose to America makes Al Qaeda pale in comparison.

They started exactly one month after President Obama entered office when on February 21, 2009, the New York Post published a cartoon portraying President Obama as a monkey being shot by the police. There was a lot of subliminal messaging in that cartoon. True to their usual method of operation, they began to dehumanized the enemy, just like they did Saddam, by portraying the enemy - President Obama in this case - as a monkey. They then show the police shooting the president in order to prevent him from pursuing what they consider an unpopular initiative. By showing the police - respected authority figures - shooting the president, that's intended to lend legitimacy to the action.

I immediately recognized what was afoot, and I pointed it out in my article, The Assassination Cartoon:

"That cartoon literally sent a message out to every deadbeat, and bigoted loser in the country that they can finally make something of themselves. They can finally find purpose in their previously miserable and lackluster lives by assassinating the President of the United States. Thus, what the New York Post is calling a meaningless joke is actually a clarion call to every bigoted fool in the United States. It says that there are people in this country who will consider you a hero if you bring violence against the president–and they know it. Can you imagine the hue and cry coming from Republicans if the New York Times had run a cartoon depicting the assassination of Ronald Reagan?"

I also pointed out that -

"We’ve had enough experience with neo-cons and radical conservatives where anyone with even an ounce of common sense recognizes that nothing is a joke with them–especially when they’re out of power. They’re dead serious, and they’re desperate. Conservative Republicans know better than anyone that considering their atrocious eight years of governance, combined with President Obama’s competence and responsible statesmanship, that the Republican Party faces an extremely bleak future. So they’ve gone to plan B, to eliminate Obama at all cost, and by any means necessary. As ugly as it seems, anyone who doesn’t recognize that reality has blinders on.

"Look at the facts. Their proven method of operation is to demonize, dehumanize, then eliminate. When the neo-cons decided to exploit Iraqi resources instead of going after Osama, as was the intent of the American people, they first began to demonize, then dehumanize Saddam Hussein–a former ally--in order to prepare the American people to accept the idea that it was necessary to take him out."

If there was any doubt about my contention, however, it should have been immediately resolved when they trotted out turncoat and perennial loser, Alan Keyes. Keys called into question President Obama's legitimacy as president. He referred to the president as "a radical communist." He went on to say, "He's [Obama] going to destroy this country and we've either got to stop him, or America will cease to exist." He also indicated that since Barack Obama wasn't legitimately the president, if something wasn't done about it we were going to end up in "civil war." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DlTgrMCxPg&feature=player_embedded

Thus, these are people are clearly without limits, and have an absolute disdain for the United States Constitution. They're only concerned with one thing - power, and that's the only thing they respect. So President Obama's inclination to compromise and appeasement is totally lost on them. All appeasement does is give the GOP the breathing room to engage in further calculation and plotting. Their strategy was clearly demonstrated in the healthcare debate. Even after the president allowed them to water down the bill, they voted against it. That's their method of operation. They're not interested it compromise - they want nothing short of complete control.

So when the president signaled Attorney General Holder that "we should look forward, not back," even though the president was obviously ignoring the rule of law to accommodate them, they didn't appreciate that. They didn't say, "Wow, this is a good guy;" they said, "This guy is weak - we're going to run all over him."

Had President Obama followed up on his campaign promise of change, on the other hand, and simply allowed the rule of law to play itself out, his entire base would still be behind him, and the Republican party wouldn't have dared engaged in the obstructionism that they are currently engaged in. First of all, politics as usual wouldn't have flown in such an environment; and secondly, the roots of Bush and Cheney's corruption undoubtedly sink so deep into the Republican party that in response to a DOJ investigation a large percentage of the GOP would be too busy trying to cover their own butts to have time obstruct the president's agenda.

During a recent debate I was having on this issue a gentleman indicated that this was no time to investigate war crimes. "President Obama has to pick his battles." While it is true that it's important for the president to pick his battles wisely, there is no battle more important to the American way of life than protecting the rule of law.

One can only wonder if the gentleman would have taken the same position if one of the charges involved the torture and murder of a member of his own family. I think not.  Thus, the day that America can turn a blind eye to the injustice and murder of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children - including our own troops - is the day this nation ceases to be America, and thus, effectively place us all in jeopardy. How long would it be before the Cheneys decide it's necessary to murder attorneys who represent people they don't like?

This goes beyond a personal or political issue. The fact is, in any democracy, maintaining the rule of law must always take priority over all else. Without the rule of law there can be no democracy, since a democracy is established by the rule of law.

After all, what's the sense of enacting healthcare reform, or any other law, if a precedent has been established that renders the rule of law meaningless?


Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

Who is barack Obama?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Who is Barack Obama?

Hello, Rosemary. I was just sitting here contemplating our earlier discussion. You know how much I respect your opinion, so I'm up in the middle of the night contemplating what you had to say about Obama, and my reaction to his policies. Since you're generally so in touch with the mood of the people, as an after thought, I decided to run this response as this week's column - that gives me an excuse for being so long-winded.  You said:

"E, I don't think the President is trying so much to be a kiss-up to the Republican Party as he is trying to show that he cannot help it if the Republicans have decided they would rather be unprofessional and not fit to hold the offices they hold in Congress. Think about it. If he came down to their level, what would his credibility really look like? He's still trying to show that he's the President for everyone, no matter if some want to be ignorant. A lot of times people mistake kindness for weakness. NO, I am not looking at him through rose-colored glasses. I'm being realistic. He has a hard road to navigate, and his choices are bad and worst ."

Much of what you say is true, Rosemary, but that doesn't explain why he's circumventing not only the U.S. Constitution, but international law to give the Bush/Cheney regime a pass on their war crimes. He's betraying a serious case of American arrogance by declaring that we need to look forward, and not backwards. He's a constitutional scholar. He knows full well that's not his call. He swore to uphold the Constitution, and through extension, the rule of law.

So as much as I like the president personally, I can't ignore such a serious circumvention of the law, and blatant assault on American ideals. So I'm speaking out because I have a responsibility to speak out. It's not just government's role to uphold our values, that's the responsibility of each and every American citizen. We cannot just sit back and expect justice to prevail - we must raise hell to see to it that it does. And we must always give principle priority over politics.  If it were not for malcontents speaking out on principle, President Obama would be in a cotton field instead of the White House.

The man that I though I voted for, and supported so passionately, would be the very first to recognize that his failure to adhere to the rule of law in this matter diminishes America. He'd understand that his failure to act creates a class of people who are above the law, and sets an ominous precedent that will allow future demagogues to act with impunity against both the American people, and the people of the world. Who's to say that the next group of tyrants won't start by rounding up 'suspicious' Muslims, then Black Muslims, then Black people? Why shouldn't they - we've set a precedent saying they can do it with impunity.  Obama is supposed to be protecting us from that slippery slope, but instead, his proposed course of action is to look the other way for political expediency.  That's not a change I can believe in.

So some things are more important than worrying about providing political ammunition to the opposition. I'm more concerned about becoming so loyal to one man or ideology that we allow ourselves to be caught flat-footed like so many others throughout the course of history. I wonder how many families were destroyed by financial ruin after blindly opposing healthcare reform during the Clinton administration, for example, who put ideology and blind loyalty before common sense when some politician told them that healthcare reform constituted socialism?  Thousands I would guess. So if the Democrats were on their game, instead of anxiously caving in to the insurance industry, they would have gathered up some of these people and featured them in political commercials during this current debate.

Because yet again, the Republican leadership is using that very same tactic to manipulate their base. Yet again, they're manipulating the people who have blind faith in their leadership to promote the status quo. And once again, they're actively exploiting the concerns of their base over being displaced by minorities and having 'socialism' disrupt the lives that they've come to know - even though many of them can't even define socialism.

But while many of us on the 'left' like to make fun of these people as dim-witted (as I just did), I actively correspond with many people on the right, and they're far from ignorant.  The fact is, many of them are quite intelligent. It's just that they feel such a vested interest in refusing to accept the glaring reality before their eyes, that it's causing them to cling to a group who is blatantly acting against their best interest. And if we're not aggressively vigilant, the very same thing can happen to us.

Now don't get me wrong, I doubt very much that President Obama is a demagogue. I think he's a good man, and potentially, a great president, who's simply taking a course of action that I disagree with.  But then, the Republican base feels the same way about that people they support. But we can render this issue moot with a simple rule of thumb: We must never forget that we're dealing with politicians. We must always remember that their very profession centers around the manipulation of smoke and mirrors, which makes it incumbent upon us to always hold their feet to the fire - liberal and conservative alike.

We must never allow ourselves to become so blinded by what a politician is supposed to represent, that we ignore what his actions say he actually represents. History has taught us that we must ALWAYS judge ALL politicians on what they DO, not what they say - and that includes Barack Obama.

So just call me cynical, but I need a very important question answered: If we're willing to exhaust our treasury and sacrifice the lives of our youth to chase Osama Bin Laden for allegedly killing just under three thousand Americans, how does that square with president Obama casually waving off the fact that Bush and Cheney killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children as inconvenient to address?

I have a problem with that kind of 'justice', as every American should, because it was done in our name. So as much as I like President Obama, simple logic tells me if he doesn't have a problem with such a glaring injustice, I have to consider him a part of that injustice - an injustice that will never allow America to be completely safe.

This attitude that we have, and that President Obama seems to share, that the United States can walk away from the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people as simply 'collateral damage' is nothing short of American hubris. And I cannot be comfortable with any president that's willing to embrace such a philosophy, because as long as the lives of Iraqis are deemed unimportant, so is mine.

America needs to wake up. While we're demonizing the people of Asia and the Middle East, we need to recognize that we wouldn't even have a conflict with these people if we weren't meddling in their part of the world. They're not over here - we're over there.  How can I break into my neighboor's house, wipe out his family, and have my pockets filled with his possessions, then claim I was acting in self-defense?  There isn't a court in America that would accept such a defense.

So America doesn't have to spend trillions of dollars to protect our security. That money could be spent on educating our children, providing affordable healthcare, and revitalizing our infrastructure. All we have to do is 'just say no' to the military/industrial complex, and stop meddling in the affairs of others.

Thus, when I look at President Obama, even in spite of how much I admire him, I have to ask myself, "doesn't he know these things?" If he doesn't, we have a problem with his intellectual acuity; but if he does, we have a much more severe problem - why is he continuing to play a game that's causing the death and suffering of so many people around the world?

So Rosemary, when I speak of President Obama caving in to the Republican party, I'm not just talking about on the single issue of healthcare, I'm talking about caving in to the status quo - which is much more serious, and goes directly to the issue of his overall character. During the campaign he promised change. That leaves me asking, where, and when?

So yes, many progressives in this country are mad as hell, and not just over a frivolous partisan issue. They feel lied to. They know that Obama's not dumb. He knew exactly what message he was sending when he campaigned on change, and so do we - so we're going to hold him to it.

So while I reserve the right to criticize President Obama, it's not because I've turned on him, but because I'm pulling for him. I'm pulling for his integrity. I'm pulling for his intellectual honesty, and I'm pulling for his sense of global humanity to overwhelm political expedience.  In short, I'm pulling for the fact that he's one of those great men that just may need to be dragged up Mt. Rushmore.

Tell Gaddis I said hi.



Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content