Paralysis of the Mind

A voice of reason, Digsby, posted a wonderful question on his blog recently:

Please tell us again why the Spanish translation of the National Anthem is making wingnut heads explode when they all but genuflect at the waving of the Confederate Rebel flag?

Tell me please, which of these was meant to turn hearts to America, and which is meant to tear the country apart?

This touches -- albeit indirectly -- on a point I've often wanted to bring up, and tonight seems like the best time to do so. I've noted before how Bush talks about al-Qaida with awe, fear and reverence. According to Bush, we live in a time of unparalleled danger. Oceans cannot protect us. We'll see mushroom clouds, etc etc.

These are very odd, of course. Bush apparently believes that terrorism is a greater danger than Hitler was. Or, than the Soviet Union was.

I'm sure, if you asked him, he would say that Hitler was a terrible dictator (Perhaps he'd start sizing Germany up for modern-day invasion). No doubt Bush was backing the red, white and blue in our struggle against the Soviets. But I have often wondered which side Bush would be on in what was, in fact, the bloodiest and most violent war in American history: the Civil War.

Don't get me wrong. Unlike Kanye West, I don't believe Bush is -- at least openly or consciously -- more racist than any other white scion born into a life of luxury. But Bush isn't a student of history, so like most Americans he probably sees nothing wrong with the Confederate flag. And to me, that's a tacit acceptance of the Confederate cause.

It's not OK today to suggest you can see the terrorist's point of view. It is not cool to stroll the grounds with a swastika T-shirt. Heck, we're not supposed to like the French -- and all they did was turn the tide in the Revolutionary War for us.

But the Confederate flag? That's fine -- so fine that some states continue to use it as all or part of their own flag to this day.

Southerners (and plenty of Yankees, too) argue that the flag doesn't stand for slavery. There's a variety of reasons why not: the war was about state's rights and not slavery; not everyone who fought in the war held slaves; and, my personal favorite, it's a big part of the South's past.

So, I handle all three. Firstly, I'm willing to accept the premise that the Civil War was not entirely about slavery. However, if the lead-up to the war did not entirely focus on the slave question, that was the rallying cry among slaveowners -- the rich plantation barons who funded the Confederacy rebellion.

And that's where it gets really bad for that argument. Once Reconstruction ended, what happened in the South? Well, former Confederates returned to positions of power and the South ended its open racism for the state-sponsored Jim Crow laws. Which means, in no uncertain terms, that once the states had those rights they were supposedly fighting for, they used it against former slaves as quickly as they could.

Second on the list: Obviously the kids who fought in the war didn't own slaves. The more things change, the more they stay the same because the men and women fighting in the Iraq war are not the ones profiting from it, nor were they part of the big think-tanks that got us into this Charlie Fox to begin with. No scions of Cheney (skipped Vietnam), Bush (skipped Guard duty), Wolfowitz (no duty) or Rumsfeld (no service) are going to war. They skipped Vietnam, their heirs won't be seeing the deserts of Iraq anytime soon. So that's hardly an argument.

And finally, that the Confederacy is a part of the South's past... why? Very few Germans proudly boast of their country's past Jew-killing skills. I know that's blunt, but it throws a sharp contrast on how Southerners seem to be completely OK and even proud of how their forefathers kept slaves -- and then kept blacks down for generations.

I see nothing to be proud of there.

This "Southern heritage" claim is insidious. It has changed the debate on the Confederacy for so long that it's too late to change minds. Think of it: they celebrate a group of Americans who seceded from the nation and took up arms against the legitimately-elected President. They seceded for the right to subjugate black Americans. They put up statues honoring people who did this to other human beings:

But because this "heritage" -- this sick adulation -- isn't considered sick by a majority of the country. Part of the problem is that this all happened a long time ago. Part of the problem is that groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy act as though they're celebrating heroes of America, rather than the open traitors they really were. Part of the problem is racism.

But the biggest part of the problem? There was no Nuremberg for the South.

In 1945, trials opened in Nuremberg for Nazi war criminals. Many were executed over the next four years for their crimes. One of the famous quotes from the trial, talking about how many of the worst criminals seemed like such normal and well-adjusted people -- "the banality of evil" -- still applies so vividly today, when talking about the South.

There was no punishment for the traitors. Lincoln did not want to injure the South further once the Union had re-formed. And so, 20 years later, the South set out to remake what they had lost, and accomplished many of their aims that they couldn't reach through rebellion and warfare. Until Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the South had won on racial rights.

Imagine it: It had taken more than 100 years from the beginning of the Civil War for blacks to be guaranteed the same basic rights as whites across the country. I wouldn't call that a Union victory. Would you?

Like Nazi Germany, there was not 100 percent agreement (then or now) on the slave question. Not all Southerners today would join a Confederate army. Not all Southerners were racist; not all of them are racist today. But unlike Nazi Germany, there was never a cut-and-dry moment where the South was shamed for its stance. Few Confederate leaders were put to death for treason. Soldiers went home vowing to continue the fight. And for generations, these feelings have lingered.

That's why it's so strange, in an age where our President leads with such items like, "You're either with us or you're against us" it's hard to imagine why so many of HIS followers are primed to defend the most treasonous act in our history. By any account of law, "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid is no more or less of a traitor than every Confederate soldier. Somehow, though, I doubt Reid will ever be honored in granite and bronze in America.

When LBJ signed the Civil Rights act in 1964, he said something very famous. Talking about the Democratic Party, he said, "We have lost the South for a generation." He was wrong; the party's lost the south ever since (other than Jimmy Carter... go figure). Can we reconcile that with a supposedly equitable America? Not as long as the power and myth of the Confederacy can go unchecked in America, we can't. And we don't. Perhaps, we won't.

Given all that, it's hard to swallow that terrorism is more dangerous than the Confederacy. I would be very curious to know which side our President would have fallen on, had he been of age in 1860. Is he with us or against us? Was he a traitor... a terrorist?

And will the Civil War ever really end?

"Keep movin' movin' movin'
Though they're disapprovin'
Keep them doggies moving, Rawhide

Don't try to understand 'em
Just rope 'em, throw and brand 'em
Soon, we'll be livin' high and wide

...

Move 'em up (head ’em up)
Head 'em up (move ’em on)
Move 'em on, head ’em up
Rawhide!
Cut ’em out (ride ’em in)
Ride ’em in (cut ’em out)
Cut ’em out, ride ’em in
Rawhide

-- Theme from the TV show "Rawhide"

Somewhere on the cattle train back East, the herd got an idea while sitting together one night while chewing their cud. What if, one cow akwardly gestured, we asked the rancher why we have to walk across the country when he says we should?

And thus, at some point after those questions would have mattered (say, October 2004) the Washington press corps realized that reporting what the President and his pals, Cowboy Cheney, Rancher Rumsfeld and Mama "Cookie" Rice said straight up wasn't getting the job done.

Now, every cowboy knows when cattle have an idea in their head, they're hard to stop. Be it skittish at a lightning bolt or a steep downhill trek, a herd will take off if you don't watch them closely enough. Young Scotty McClellan wasn't doing his job, reckoned Boss Rove. And when Boss Rove speaks, everyone listens.

But where was he going to find a new cowboy? They don't make 'em like they used to, he knew. Getting Cheney and Rumsfeld out of jail retirement had been a stretch, even for the smartest man in Dodge City.

And so, the boss had himself a in a pickle. And then, it hit him. Who would the cows listen to? Obviously, he had to find a cow -- a cow smart enough to know that it was in his best interests to toe the company line.

Lo and behold, there was a group of cows who were simply smarter than the other cows. Although they had a tendency to start fake stampedes, those fake stampedes always ended up leading the cows back to the ranch. And cows who hung out with this group never complained when the rancher couldn't fix 'em up with enough to eat or drink. In fact, they complained when the grass was long and the rainwater fresh; they often gave their rations back to the rancher and refused to eat on principle. Old Boss Clinton had not cared for those cows; he'd warned Rove about them, but Rove knew they'd be useful someday.

So it was quite a scene that blustery morning when ol' Boss Rove went down to the grazin' patch to rustle himself up a cow-cowboy. The other cows, though they no longer believed anything the boss said, respectfully kept their distance, as you have to be respectful at the ranch or else you'll get sent to the back of the line for Ol' Georgie's Meatpacking Emporium...

And we all know how the story goes from there. Rove taps Tony Snow, from Fox News, to be the new press secretary.

As a journalist, I'm not against having a good relationship with a source. I'm against journalists offering preferential treatment in return for better scoops, but I'm also aware that this happens all the time and is pretty much human nature.

But hearing that Tony Snow is taking on the job as Press Secretary, I vomited in my mouth. Twice.

It's not exactly a closed secret that Fox News is a half-step from being the propaganda arm of the Bush administration. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to note that a) Dick Cheney gives interviews only to Fox b) they play down anything that could be harmful to Bush and c) they've hired Sean Hannity (nutjob), Bill O'Reilly (loony) and give air time to racist black holes like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin.

But this step doesn't just publically seal the deal. This actively makes Fox News part of the Bush administration, for better or for worse.

Fox, at the moment, sees this as a great way to have every more insight into the workings of the Bush White House. Or, in other words, they can clap louder and hope nobody hears what's actually going on.

While there will always be enough angry white men to keep Fox News in business, what happens when Bush finishes his Residency? Tying your wagon to one man isn't a long-term winning strategy -- just look at what's happening to Republicans across the country right now. And while I could care less if Fox collapses into itself, so long as it says it's a news organization, it's a black mark against journalism.

It's also a black mark against America. People get information from Fox News under the guise that it isn't propaganda. At one point in time, it was a flimsy claim, but at least theoretically possible. Now? Fox, by official fiat, is no better or worse than a propaganda office. State-run media are not the first step to dictatorship, but state-run media have propped up brutal tyrants from Nazi Germany to Russia to Rwanda.

We're often fond of saying "That couldn't happen here" or "That won't happen again." But look a little closer. If the fourth estate can be neatly co-opted in the name of profits and politics, we must ask again who will watch out for the people? If one party controls the Federal branches, most state goverments and now the media... what's left to take? And what's left to lose before we start admitting what's really going on?

We aren't quite there... yet. But our net neutrality is under attack. A media source for millions is officially revealed as straight propaganda. And our top leader has officially stated he's above the law?

What more do they need? Answer: Not much. And if there's another terror attack or another war, you can bet they'll be back for something else to snatch away if they can take it. Because this cattle drive toward plutocracy is just starting to roll.

When you're hungry and its late at night, you're pretty much forced to grab something quick at a convienence store. So, late last night, I picked one out on my way home from work and pulled into its parking lot. I went in to by Ju Ju Fruit, thus reaching my daily allotted dose of fruit.

The clerk gave me a weird look and then, oddly, looked down and hissed, "Be careful in the parking lot. There's someone out there."

"What?"

The clerk shook his head, and wordlessly handed me the Ju Ju Fruit. Perplexed, I turned and opened the door, and walked out to my car quickly. But before I could get in to it, I heard footsteps and an odd click. Whirling around, I saw a man -- dressed quite snappily in a two-piece pinstriped suit.

And he was carrying a pistol. A fancy, pink pistol.

"Hey man, I don't wanna hurt you, gimme all your money."

Unfortunately, I'd popped a few Ju Ju Fruits in my mouth and I could only stammer: "Mblaurgh?"

"I said gimme your money." He waved his pistol at me. I snuck a glance back inside the store and noted that the clerk had pointedly turned his back on me. Looking back at my assailant, I suddenly had a flash of recognision. After swallowing my Ju Jus, I said:

"Hey, I know you. You're Exxon Mobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson! Wow! You're a celebrity! I buy your gas all the time!"

He looked confused. I stuck out my hand to shake his, and he took a step back, the pistol shaking in his hand. "Hey man, I don't want any trouble. Just your money."

I took a step back as well. No need to aggravate the man with the pistol. He took a quick glance at his platinum and gold Rolex watch on his wrist and then said, "Look, you going to give me money or do I have to shoot your... butt."

He stared at me, and I was pretty sure I could see the crazy in his eyes. So I put my hands up, because that's what you do when you're being held at gunpoint. And then I said, "Look, I've only got 30 cents on me. These Ju Ju Fruits took what was left of my cash. I've got credit cards, but you're not going to get far once I cancel them. If you want 'em, fine."

I very slowly lowered my left hand and retrieved my wallet from my front pocket. Without his pistol wavering an inch, he whipped out a little plastic contraption from his back pocket. "Slide your credit card in here. NOW!"

Impressed at his preparation, I quickly slid my bank card out of my wallet and held it out for him to take. He grabbed it with the hand holding the pistol and he deftly swiped my card in his credit card reader. He then tossed my card on the ground, which I thought was rude, but again, I wasn't going to yell at the guy with the pistol.

We waited for a minute. The reader beeped and flashed, and then he smiled.

"Go ahead, pick up your card. You were approved. What do you want?"

What do I want? This guy was redefining crazy.

"Unleaded regular OK? I'm a little light on premium."

"What are you talking about? I thought you were holding me up," I said, a little peeved that I was wasting my time on this empty suit. And also, I was still hungry.

He pulled a capped beaker full of a clear, light-colored substance out of another pocket. I was again impressed. Not many people show up to holdup with a pistol, a credit card reader and...

"Is that gas?"

"Of course! Mind if I put it in your car for you?"

He stepped around me and opened my gas flap, spun off the gas cap, and quickly poured the beaker's contents into my car. "All set. Half a gallon of gas. And it was only five bucks."

"WHAT?!" I flailed my arms into the air cartoonishly, forgetting about my earlier rule of not ragging the nutbar on. "Five dollars for half a gallon? That's outrageous! And you make millions of dollars a month!"

His face tightened up. He raised the pistol to eye level, and held it sideways, like he was Samuel L. Jackson or something. But I wasn't done yet.

"And your company makes billions of dollars. I can barely afford to buy your damn gas."

In the distance, I heard police sirens. Tillerson had obviously heard the same, and he whimpered. "Look, you don't understand. You know how rich kids want to go to good schools? Really expensive schools?"

I nodded.

"My granddaughter wants to buy Harvard. So I need the money." And with that, he turned and fled across the street through a graveyard, into the night.

True story.

What's your Exxon extortion story?

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends.

The Washington press has been all in a tizzy lately with the supposed shake-up in Bush's inner circle. The fact that nothing has changed (and it's exceptionally hard to believe it will) doesn't stop the breathless reporting: Card out, Bolten in! Rove changes jobs! Scott "Human Lie Machine" McClellan to be replaced by a tape recorder!

What's really changing here? Not much, really. Bolten has arrived with a new act to fool everyone for a few days that he can really change where this administration is headed. And, at least for a while, the press is willing to watch his jazz hands and forget that the stage he's standing on is on fire.

It's not Bolten's fault he works for a boss who's big on the BIG IDEA. Anyone who didn't think Bush was thinking "Iraq" from the very second 9/11 happened is an eternal optimist. Bush has Titanic-sized ideas; his only shake up is going to be the ceremonial reshifting of the deck chairs while the press looks on adoringly from a lifeboat.

The problem, though, is that the ship is sinking -- and Bush still has 33 months to steer the country into another iceberg or three. He might have to give up his big plans of nuking Iran (sad, I know) and his blitzkreig on France, but he'll find a way to bog us down in another land war somewhere.

Rolling Stone (you know, that magazine that used to be cool?) ran a wonderful article by a historian opening wondering if Bush is the worst president in history. It's a nice listing of everything that has gone wrong in the past 6 years, but its also a damning look at how blind Bush's followers are -- and a rather scathing commentary (without trying to be) on how poor a job the media has really done in tying this story together.

What is it going to take for The Washington Post or the New York Times to just say what a majority of the country are slowing waking up to realize: that everything Bush says and does is a sham? All this talk of changes in Bush's circle is galling. Cheney is still pulling strings, Rumsfeld's working the mouth organ and Condi Rice is singing backup. They, along with a few other neocons concoted this whole mess to begin with... so long as they're still around, nothing will change.

But that, apparently, isn't a story for the front page. Nor is the careening deficit. Nor was it a front page story after 9/11 that Bush was, in fact, the President when one of the worst attacks on American soil happened. Which, I guess, removes him from all responsibility... ?

But the show, oh, the show! That's worth a front-page story every day of the week.

I said this would happen eventually: Two sex offenders are shot and killed in Maine and then the gunman took his own life.

If you go around putting scarlet letters on people, you simply have to expect that someone is going to use vigilante-style justice to prosecute by their own rules. I'm sure we'll find out later that the killer was, perhaps, abused. Or had a child abused, or a family member who was abused.

But it certainly brings up the question of where the punishment line can be drawn. I wouldn't really want to live next to a sex offender either -- but there isn't an Internet site that would let me know if my neighbor was a thief, committed manslaughter, rape or tax fraud. Child abuse is such a horrifying crime that the abusers are marked for life -- and then broadcast on the Internet.

As terrible of a crime as sex abuse is, it is not right to freely give up their face and home address. I know people who look at those websites on a daily basis. It's sick. And, it was bound to happen -- and will certainly happen again. A lot of people don't care if sex offenders get offed... "They had it coming," will certainly be a rallying cry. But in America, if you've served your time, you're free. And the murder of a free man or woman is murder, no matter what he or she has done in the past.

But, these days, in the hard rightward bend of America, not everyone sees it that way. There's not a simple answer here, but you can bet Maine's sex offender website won't stay down forever. Justice, indeed.

When is a leak a leak?

When is an is an is?

Our favorite hillbilly, William Jefferson Clinton (from Hope, Ark.) once deployed some superb maneuvering when it came to trying to get out of weighty perjury charges, dropping the now-famous: "That depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

In a hilarious bit of post-lying jiu jitsu, our current Resident, the one and only George not-H OK-W Bush, has decided that, indeed, he leaked classified information to journalists in an attempt to get his war going.

And, in fact, Bush and his incompetent cronies are mostly right when they say, "If the President authorized the leak, it's not really a leak." I give them that, because if my boss told me something I wasn't supposed to know, but didn't swear me to secrecy, that pretty much makes it fair game, yes?

Well, depending on what "boss" means, anyway.

A lot of news outlets are all over the leak, but they're mainly missing the "point." (If "point" is to mean "point.") The President can authorize whatever sort of leak he wants -- that's his business. But the media's business is a) not to accept it at face value and b) to disseminate the real information to the public.

Bush and Cheney toured the country saying that if we weren't in Iraq soon, we could very possibly see Cleveland go up in a mushroom cloud. Like everything else Bush has done during his term in office, it basically came down to a campaign speech he took on the road. (I think he's afraid of actually leading from his desk, so he sticks to what Republicans are good at -- lying on the campaign trail). Shortly thereafter, Bush and his pals leaked classified information suggesting that, yes, Iraq's nuclear program was -- maybe -- seven minutes from having a late-generation ICBM capable of destroying whatever state Bush was currently in.

Obviously, to those of us who didn't completely lose their shit on 9/11, that was a totally ridiculous claim -- no matter WHAT intelligence Bush was flaunting. But most of the country DID lose their shit on 9/11, and so, Bush took the time to frighten a nervous nation by leaking.

Which is his right.

But by turning around and realizing, after the fact, that the intel was heavily weighted toward Bush's point of view (which is to say, not really intelligence, and more like fanciful wishmongering), Bush got screwed.

Which was a ridiculous shame, but still his right.

BUT, the key here is not bad intel. It's not selective leaking. It's Bush's defense after the fact that he never leaks, he doesn't believe in leaks, and -- the killer -- his utter hypocrisy over his claims on the intelligence, because he only leaked half of the story, as it turns out.

The supposed slam-dunk (oh, woe is George Tenet) was actually a hotly-contested piece of information. Many in the CIA did NOT think Saddam Hussein was close to nuclear weapons. But Bush chose to leak what he liked, ignore the rest, and then say "Nah, I don't leak -- and the intel is perfect!"

Hypocrisy is one thing. I mean, Bush uses his faith to connect with the voters, but goes against Jesus by starting wars, taking from the poor, supporting the death penalty, and, my personal favorite, taking his Lord's name in vain on a nearly constant level. And that's OK. Lots of people are snarly and hypocritical when they try to act Christian -- and most never even come remotely close.

But it's entirely another thing to lie to an entire country. And then to take those lies to start a war where thousands of Americans have died, tens of thousands of Americans are wounded physically AND mentally, God only knows how many Iraqis have died -- and the country in question looks like its already well into a civil war where plenty more people will get an opportunity to have their lives ended.

There's hypocrisy, like being Christian yet hating the neighbors because they have it better than you. And then there's hypocrisy which is being Christian and signing off on the deaths of thousands and thousands of people. And then saying that, "Oh yeah, by the way, we weren't as sure about this stuff as we said. But we don't leak. Oh yeah, we do. Sorry."

Many of us who were against the Iraq war from the start were criticized for not being for American security. We were laughed at. I'd like to not be bitter, but you know what, I have a better question for them: Who WAS looking out for our security? That idiot in the White House? VP pathological liar? The Secretary of State who can't read when a document says bin Laden is striking inside the U.S. with airplanes? The supposedly holy Christians who want to turn Iran now into a flat sheet of glass with nuclear weapons?

Warmongers are big fans of saying: "We have to fight the terrorists over there so we're not fighting them here." And hey, that's cool: all we've done is let thousands of American kids go over to Iraq so the terrorists CAN kill them there. And kill Iraqis, which they're apparently REALLY adept at doing. And for what, so Iraq can degenerate into a civil war, just like us crazy commies said might happen in the first place?

Every piece of evidence points to what us "insane liberals" and "America-haters" said from the beginning: Every time Bush moves his lips, it's a lie. And golly, it's just politics -- except for every Mom or Dad that isn't coming back home. Every son or daughter that suffers from PTSD. Every husband or wife who lost a piece of their body in the desert. And for everyone who still has someone they know over there.

That wasn't supposed to be taken lightly. Starting a war wasn't supposed to be just a political plan hatched in a back room by one political party. But, bingo, it's 2006 and here we are, trailing a few thousand coffins behind us, because Bush -- who doesn't leak -- leaked half-assed intel about complete nonsense. And Bush -- who doesn't lie -- hasn't stopped lying since 2000. And the media -- who misses nothing -- completely lost the other side leading up to Iraq. And we -- who always pay attention -- have been told that leaks are small potatoes... right?

Yeah, it is just another inside-the-Beltway leak scandal. Depending on what "is" is.