Dispatches From the Edge - Playing With Fire In Korea

Why is the Obama Administration creating obstacles and throwing cold water on talks with North Korea, and why is it binding itself to right-wing South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, whose politics just took a shellacking in the recent race for

mayor of Seoul?

The answer seems to be a convergence of U.S. concerns over the growing power of China, a desperate battle by American arms manufacturers to fend off military budget cuts, and a fantasy by President Lee of a uniting the Korean Peninsula under the banner of the South.

Consider the following:

The day after Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special envoy on North Korea, described two days of talks in Geneva between the Americans and North Koreans as “very positive and generally constructive,” U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta dismissed the possibility of a diplomatic breakthrough. “I guess the word skepticism would be in order at this time as to what may or may not happen in those discussions.”

Panetta was in Seoul as part of a weeklong swing through Asia firming up U.S. alliances in the region. The Secretary not only blew off the talks, he threatened the use of atomic weapons. The U.S. he said “will insure a strong and effective nuclear umbrella over the ROK [Republic of Korea] so that Pyongyang never misjudges our will and capacity to respond decisively to nuclear aggression.”

Unless it is raining, President Lee is a dangerous guy to whom to hand an umbrella. According to the Guardian (UK), a Wiki leak cable from the U.S. Embassy says “Lee’s more conservative advisors and supporters sees the current standoff as a genuine opportunity to push and further weaken the North, even if this might involve considerable brinkmanship.”

According to Peter Lee in the Asia Times, “Lee’s dream” is of “unifying the entire peninsula and its population of 75 million under the banner of the democratic, capitalist South in alliance with the United States, replacing Japan as the primary U.S. security and economic partner, and confronting China with the prospect of a major pro-western power on its doorstep while reaching out to the sizable Korean minority in China’s northeastern provinces.”

While at first glance Lee’s “dream” would seem more poppy-induced than policy driven, South Korean -U.S. joint maneuvers have war gamed scenarios that envision a North Korean collapse and a subsequent intervention by Washington and Seoul. In August of last year, an 11-day drill involving 56,000 South Koreans and 30,000 Americans—Ulchi Freedom Guardian— practiced exactly that.

According to the Korea Times, Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of U.S. forces in Korea, the exercise was aimed at responding “to various types of internal instability in North Korea,” which is a rather different mission than the one that Panetta was talking about during his Seoul visit.

And the North is not the only target in these exercises.

During a visit to Italy in October, Panetta said, “We’re concerned about China. The most important thing we can do is to project our force into the Pacific—to have our carriers there, to have our fleet there, to be able to make very clear to China that we are going to protect international rights to be able to move across the oceans freely.”

Coincidently, naval forces, with their $5 billion aircraft carriers, numerous support vessels, submarines, and high tech aircraft are expensive, big-ticket items that arms companies are fighting to keep in the military budget.

The month before the Ulchi Freedom Guardian drill, the U.S. and South Korea carried out a major naval exercise in the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea that included the aircraft carrier George Washington Certainly China had no illusions about the objective of the war game. “In history, foreign invaders repeatedly took the Yellow Sea as an entrance to enter the heartland of Beijing and Tianjin,” said Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, deputy secretary general of the Academy of Military Science. “The drill area is only 500 kilometers away from Beijing,” adding a metaphor from Mao that seems to lose something in the translation: “We will never allow others to keep snoring beside our bed.”

It was the second time in less than a year that an American carrier had taken part in maneuvers in an area China considers a “military zone.”

Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have continually put pre-conditions on any negotiations with the north, including ending Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program and accepting responsibility for the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in September, 2010 that killed 46 sailors.

This past January when Kim Jong-il said Pyongyang was “ready to meet anyone anytime anywhere,” U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that before any talks, North Korea “needs to demonstrate its sincerity” by getting rid of its nuclear weapons and admitting to culpability in the Cheonan incident.

A delegation to North Korea aimed at easing tensions, featuring former president Jimmy Carter, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, former Irish president Mary Robinson and ex-Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, was ignored by Washington and dismissed by South Korean Foreign minister Kim Sung-Hwan as a “purely personal” trip.

According to Seoul, the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo, but that conclusion is hardly a slam-dunk. The team of “international experts” that examined the evidence was handpicked by the South Korean military, and Russian and Chinese experts who examined the evidence are not convinced. Indeed, a poll commissioned by Seoul University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies found that only 32.5 percent of South Koreans were confident in the findings.

North Korea is hardly going to unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons while its two major enemies are designing war games to “stabilize” Pyongyang in the advent of major unrest. The recent NATO bombing of Libya certainly caught the attention of the North Koreans, who essentially said that it would never have happened if the Gaddafi regime had not abandoned its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Libya is “teaching the international community a grave lesson” an unnamed Foreign Ministry official told the Korean Central News, “The truth that one should have power to defend peace.”

South Korean President Lee and the U.S. have put the onus for current standoff with North Korea on China. “I think China can do more to try to get North Korea to do the right thing,” argued Panetta, while Lee said he hoped that “China will continue to play an important role in denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and leading North Korea to reform and openness.”

According to the New York Times, President Obama told Chinese President Hu Jintao that unless Beijing took a “harder line” toward North Korea, the U.S. would increase its buildup of military forces in Northeast Asia.

There is no question that Beijing has influence in Pyongyang—China is North Korea’s main trading partner—but the theory that the Chinese can simply dictate to the North Koreans is a myth. In any case, since China is convinced that the U.S. military buildup in Asia is directed at them, not impoverished North Korea, why would Beijing expend political capital to aid potential adversaries?

The North Korean regime is an odd duck, with a system of succession more akin to the 12^th century than the 21^st, and a penchant for bombastic rhetoric. But is it a threat to other countries in the region? By the terms of a 1953 treaty, the U.S. would come to South Korea’s defense if the North attacked, and the Pyongyang government is well aware of what would happen to it in a confrontation with the U.S.

If the U.S. is seriously interested in denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, it should ratchet down its joint war games with South Korea and stop threatening to use nuclear weapons on China’s doorstep. The U.S. may view North Korea’s nukes as destabilizing, but it was not Pyongyang that introduced nuclear weapons into the region, but the Americans.

The six-party talks, which collapsed in April 2009, may or may not resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, but they are the only game in town. Instead of throwing up roadblocks, and casting its lot with the increasingly unpopular South Korean president, the Obama administration should be pressing to reopen the discussions as a way to dampen tensions in the region and bring the North Koreans to the table.

Read Conn Hallinan at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com, and middleempireseries.wordpress.com

Oil and the Human Struggle for Power, Domination, and the Right to Exist-Part III

It is true: war and oil go together quite well. But what if we lived in a world of windmills and solar-powered machines and collectors that provided us all the power the peoples of the earth could ever use? Imagine a world where oil was not king, a world where first and foremost oil was used to produce plastics and lubrication for windmills and solar furnaces? Is such a world total fantasy? Or is it a reality that was snuffed out long ago with petro dollar propaganda that lobbied, bought, and paid off governments which would thwart green and other forms of energy not tied to oil? Maybe it was no accident that Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the White House roof when he was president. And likewise, when Ronald Reagan had them taken down.

Just imagine. What if we had solar and wind power up to speed by the time of the Arab Embargo to where we could have kicked OPEC to the curb?  What if we Americans had made an intelligent decision to just stop being addicted to oil then and used our splendid technology and factories to rethink and to retool our lives, our very existence, our future? What if we had Germany’s example and instead of giving government subsidies to Exxon and Chevron the United States would have had a solar program such as the stunning one Germany promulgated some 2 decades ago? See, Germany owned its own electric company. It was the only game in town. The going rate back then for electricity was about 15 cents per kilowatt hour. But Germany told all the people, the villages, and the townships that if they were to construct their very own solar panels to produce electricity, that any excess energy produced, the government would pay the producer a whopping 55 cents per kWh??!! It happened. The program went on for years, and as the German 100-year-old, worn out electric grid was replaced with new and more efficient solar panels, gradually, the government weaned the newcomer producers of energy off the higher 55 cents per kwh subsidized price. It went from 55 cents to 50 to 40 until the price stabilized ad a normal price of between 10 and 15 cents per kWh once again. Everybody won. The common citizen made lots of money off selling excess electricity back to the German grid. The German Government and Electric Company got a brand new grid that would not fail like the present day American grid does often and which at best is only 50% efficient and subject to Brownout failures at any time. Just imagine millions of acres of land in America with solar panels, with no moving parts to lubricate with oil. Just imagine how many more sun days we have here than Germany does, where trying to collect energy from cloudy overcast skies is tough to do. And try to imagine a nation that wanted to share in the prosperity of all its citizens by subsidizing them well in a joint endeavor that brought real wealth and prosperity to all of Germany. Just imagine.

Just imagine such an America that produced enough energy from the sun to power not just our own nations’ needs, but with an abundance of electricity to sell to Canada, Mexico, all of Central America, and South America as well. Just imagine. 

Such an America would not need to filter smokestacks because there would be none. Neither would there be exhaust tailpipes in a nation of electric cars powered by electricity from the sun. There would be no desperate need for nuclear power or the dangers associated with radiation and disposal of radioactive waste. There would be no mercury and other toxic chemicals in every cubic centimeter of the Western Hemisphere because there would be no coal-fired electricity production. Burning any fossil fuels which puts the mercury into every trout, salmon, mackerel, and bass in every pristine lake and stream in the world, would be a faded memory of a time back when we thought as a stone age people that cared little for our planet, our home, and yes, the very earth. Global Warming would be an argument that would ring hollow because the demise of a society that burns oil in internal combustion engines would be history.

Imagine if we had put our solar furnace technology into force the way Germany did. Schott Solar, a German company that makes extruded hollow glass rods as a component to carry a saline solution, the apparatus of which is cradled in a system of long convex mirrors to track and follow the sun, produces megawatts of energy. Just from the sun. The saline solution heats quickly to a temperature that will turn water into steam which is used to propel giant electric turbines. Megawatts. From the sun. No CO2 production.   No mercury. No acid rain and no pollution of the planet. No more need for the EPA.

Schott’s gift to the planet

One such Schott system could power a medium-sized city.

Spain is no slacker either when it comes to creating wind and solar power. Gamesa and Acciona, 2 of the top 10 producers of electric generating windmills account for the installed power of over 3,880 megawatts in various countries of the world. Denmark companies (Vesta and Siemans) at almost 6,000 megawatts take the title of the world’s largest producer of installed windmills on earth. 

World’s largest wind-power companies

Spain has fields of solar-powered furnaces where acres of mirrors are programed to follow the sun’s path and to focus a concentrated solar beam to the top of a tower where steam is created to propel electric turbines. It is ingenious and all powered by collecting the sun’s energy.

Spain fires up world’s largest solar tower

So now Spain has sold its technology to the United States where millions of megawatts of these solar electric generating devices are placed and to be expanded in Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and New Mexico. It means billions of dollars for Spain and over 100,000 new jobs. America had the technology to do all this and more, so why didn’t we rise to the demand and the challenge? The answer is simple: MONEY.

Instead of leading the world into the 21 Century, the United States is dragging both feet in the new and promising field of alternative energy. Why? Why can’t we make the change? Why cannot Exxon and Shell Oil retool and get with the transition to solar and wind power? Why do we want to just give up on alternative energy that just might save the planet, our jobs, and our dollar just to maintain the status quo of BIG OIL? Simply put, the Big Oil and Big Electric and Gas want it that way. They are quite mad about making money for the short term and letting the rest of America go to hell in a hand basket.

First, it would take too much money and time for Big Oil to retool and rethink the problem. It is easier for them to just keep on doing what they have known to make billions of dollars of profit each quarter. They have paid billions in ads to demonize Environmentalists who support Green Energy. “Tree Huggers” they call them. When oil controls the purse strings of the world and every country, it is not likely that Big Oil will give it up or transition to other forms of energy. Oil is power, and the real estate, the very ground over which the oil is pumped and flows is the most valuable dirt in the entire universe, at least according to Big Oil.

Second, just think of all the secondary businesses and companies that would get screwed and blued if the world switched to a kinder, softer, quieter, less-polluting technology like solar and wind power. The first to feel it would be all the companies dependent on the protection business. This means the Military Industrial Complex of War Corporations. General Electric, Boeing, Lockheed, the missile companies that charge $1 million dollars per Tomahawk Missile and even more. All the nuclear weapon facilities that manufacture bombs and delivery systems would go hurting. There would be no need for arms and weapons if there was nothing to protect, namely, Oil and the real estate where it is sucked out of the ground. Small arm companies would shrink to insignificance no matter how many Billy Bob’s still might clamor about protecting themselves with a rifle in the gun rack of their pickup truck rear window.

Third, there would be no more need for the United States to have overseas foreign military bases. With over 797 military bases and over 2.5 million overseas billets, it would be high time to bring them all home were Oil to become a secondary energy source for Planet Earth. China, Japan, Germany, Spain, and Denmark (imagine that) are all leading the way to the inevitable: conversion to alternative means of energy production such as wind and solar. There would be no more real estate to protect such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan, ad infinitum when it comes to oil sources. Instead of fretting about Iran and nuclear weapons the world would have to make up its mind if it wanted to keep to the old ways. Instead of protecting oil and feuding with, occupying, and fighting with countries and terrorists who want to hurt us because of oil and our addiction to it, we all would just make the switch to solar and wind power for all the planet’s needs. All our soldiers could retrain for meaningful jobs in saving the planet and producing electricity for all of mankind.

It is likely though, that it will never happen. Big Oil and the money behind it and maintaining fear of the threat of terrorism in the hearts of humans are too lucrative. Think all the no-bid government contractors could give up selling Uncle Sam (nee us taxpayers) all those $500 hammers? Think those good old boys could get by on selling a hammer for the reasonable Wal-Mart price of say, $9.95? If you think they could make the transition tune in next time for Oil Part IV when we discuss some of the devices and chicanery involved in keeping the vast American population dumbed down as to what is going on with Energy in the USA. And why George W. Bush, in this land of the free, exercised Executive Privilege to seal the minutes of Cheney’s Energy Department Meeting minutes from all of us right before Cheney met with Ken Lay just 4 days before Enron fell. The US Government Accounting Office really got pissed off over that and filed suit against Bush and Cheney. But Executive Privilege got exercised once again and slam dunked the GAO and the truth. Again.

Dr. J.’s BF Commentary No. 181: The Lesser of the Evils: Hindsight is 20/20, but McCain Shudda Won

The Great Debate on the Left about whether to support President Obama for re-election had been building already, even before the debt limit debacle of this past summer, which led directly to the “failure” of the Special Committee of the Congress. When Chris Christie says that Obama has failed as a leader, he is absolutely correct (although Christie’s reasons for saying so and mine are rather different.)   As exemplified by his poll numbers showing increasing dis-satisfaction among leftists and liberals too, now it is on in full force and will be with us right up until Election Day, 2012.   You can tell from the title of this commentary which side I am on. Except for the election of 1980, when I supported and actually did some work for John Anderson (until for reasons to this day entirely unknown to me he finked out right after Labor Day), I have been a “lesser of the evils” guy. But not this time around. 

The arguments on both sides are pretty well-known and I am not going to retell them here. Neither am I going to go into the details about why I think that the debt limit debacle was a debacle for our side, except to say that if Grover Norquist and Paul Ryan view it as a victory, if Mitch McConnell has the biggest smile on his face I have ever seen, if John Boehner says “I got 98% of what I wanted,” if Nancy Pelosi makes it very clear that she would have voted against it if she were not Minority Leader, if 95 House Democrats did vote against it, if respected moderate left-wing commentators like Bob Scheer and Paul Krugman say that it’s bad stuff, that’s enough for me. 

In previous Commentaries on BuzzFlash@Truthout and elsewhere, I have made it clear that I understood that Obama was a DLCer from the git-go. I have also revealed that on a few occasions, early on, I was taken in by the rhetoric.   And he is good at it. But, I am convinced that one has to take the long view of what is happening to our nation. We might, if we are very, very fortunate, before the true GOP night descends, squeeze our way out of it. But not with Obama in the White House. Thus I do have to tell you that: A) I will not be voting for Obama in 2012 regardless of who the GOP candidate is; B) admittedly with 20/20 hindsight I now fully believe that over the long haul our nation would have been better off had McCain won in 2008, yes, even with that nit-wit of a running mate who was forced upon him.

Why? Well briefly, as James K. Galbraith has laid out very clearly (1), on issue after issue Obama has either been following GOP or GOP-lite policies or he has not been getting into contentious issues, like doing something real about climate change, by just letting them drop. Why, according to the Richard Mellon Scaife Right-Wing Rag NewsMax (2) the economist Austen Goolsbee, formerly of the Obama White House and still consulted by them, recently entertained the author of the infamous “Laffer Curve,” the basis of the even more infamous “Reaganomics,” otherwise known as “voodoo economics” (George HW Bush’s term for it before he was offered the Vice-Presidency by Reagan). The economic fantasies that this man is still peddling 30 years later, that are fully responsible for total economic mess we find ourselves in, were given a respectful listen.   And so we have the outcomes of the GOP policies they have spread all over us since the Reagan Presidency. At the same time the GOP is able to blame all the ills of the nation on Obama, as if the policies were his and/or Democratic ones, not those of the GOP.

But suppose the barons of the Fed and Wall Street had been able to do just a bit more of their behind-the-scenes legerdemain (which, we continue to find out, goes on all the time) and had postponed the September 15, 2008 Lehman Brothers meltdown until, let’s say, November 7, 2008. That would have been a couple of days after the 2008 election and, funnily enough, on the Gregorian calendar the 91^st anniversary of the Russian Revolution. As it happened, McCain had overtaken Obama in the polls by mid-September 2008, when the bankruptcy did occur, with the subsequent collapse of the real estate bubble, the subsequent collapse of the economy, the Paulson/Bush first bank bailout, and so forth and so on. 

But if the collapse had not occurred then, if it had somehow been postponed until after the election, if McCain had maintained the momentum that he had had in mid-September, Obama’s best rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding the aging cancer survivor might actually have become President. (And yes, so-and-so would have been Vice-President.) And so, let’s look at a list of what might have happened in that alternate reality of a McCain Presidency, comparing it to what has really happened under the Obama Presidency. Has to be a big difference, no? After all, the (remaining) Obama supporters and the (supposedly defunct) Democratic Leadership Council (3) tell us so. 

Consider, then, if McCain had been elected President: The war on Afghanistan would have been expanded, with no firm withdrawal date; the bank bailout would have happened, but with even fewer requirements set for the banks; the Minerals Management Service of the Department of the Interior would have been allowed to go on its love-the-oil-industry-let’s-not-do-anything-to-upset-it way and a huge BP gusher disaster would have occurred in the Gulf of Mexico; Guantanamo would have stayed open; “Don’t ask/don’t tell” would remain on the books until now; there would be no real progress on settling the Israel/Palestine problem; plus, plus, and most importantly plus, given that there would not have even been the Obama weak-at-the-knees so-called “stimulus package” the economy would be mired in an even worse massive unemployment/continued export of jobs/no-growth mess.  True, General Motors and Chrysler would have been allowed to go bankrupt and there would have been no "health care reform" legislation (otherwise known as the private “health care” insurance industry subsidy act). But the main features of the Obama Presidency would have been very much in place, with one big exception: The Republicans would have been getting the blame for them, as they should, right into the 2010 elections.  

Guess who would not now be speaker of the House. Guess which GOP Front organization you would have never even heard of. Guess which Minority Leader of which House of Congress might not even have the 40 votes he would need to continue governing-by-just-saying-no. Guess which wing of which party would be preparing to take it over for the 2012 elections. And it ain’t the blue dogs. Guess how many state governments wouldn’t be under total GOP control (starting with Wisconsin and Michigan). Of course, hind-sight is 20/20 and if McCain had won we would be bemoaning what-might-have-been, given the Obama rhetoric. But what we need to do now is face the Obama reality.

If the GOP and the Corporate Power it represents are not stopped soon, our nation is headed for fascism and civil war (4, 5, 6). Obama is only helping to pave the way, both by his actions and by his inactions. The only way to stop this mad dash to hell is for a truly organized, mass-based party to be formed by splitting the Democratic Party, just as the Whig Party was split in the 1850s (7). Yes, it is very unlikely that anything like this will happen in time for next year’s elections. But if Obama is re-elected, the GOP/Corporate Power will continue to have their target-of-blame for the negative outcomes, one after the other, of their very own policies. They and their propaganda pets like the Fox”News”Channel and “News”Max will continue to use that target just as they do now, every day in every way. And then they will roar into the Presidency in 2016, and good night, USA.

Our only hope is for a truly progressive Democratic party, with a significant number of elected officials and liberal moneyed interests being part of it, to rise for the elections of 2014 and 2016, with a true chance of winning, which it would have. But the only way that can happen is if Obama and the right-wing Democrats he represents are out of the picture and do not continue to give the political cover to the Republicans that they just love having. Yes indeed, taking the long historical view, the lesser of the evils for 2012 is anyone-but-Obama.

An earlier version of this was published on The Planetary Movement, The Greanville Post and OpEdNews.

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Links:

1.            http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/08-4

2.            http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/laffer-obama-reaganomics-gop/2011/08/10/id/406893?s=al&promo_code=CCF5-1

3.            http://www.dlc.org/

4.            http://blog.buzzflash.com/jonas/202

5.            http://blog.buzzflash.com/jonas/208

6.            http://blog.buzzflash.com/print/12913

7.            http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12362

Proof is Lacking for Republican Claims That God is on Our (U.S.A.) Side: Beware of Republicans Promoting Theocracy

There have always been assaults on the American tradition that holds separate church and state, but there may well be more today than ever before. We should all do what little we can to express our opposition to this trend. Separation serves church and state - it safeguards all religious freedoms while protecting the rights of those who choose no religion. America has managed to safeguard this separation, more or less, for over two centuries. Most Americans, except Right Wing Christians, support the establishment clause. Christians and others who prefer a secular Republic should recognize the dangers of creeping theocracy.

Five candidates for the Republican Party nomination for president are theocrats. All believe we are "under" their god and that this nation is "exceptional" because their god is a big fan and protector of America. These candidates are Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Congressman Ron Paul, Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Senator Rick Santorum. Consider the following from statements made at the "Thanksgiving Family Forum" in Iowa last week.

Michele Bachmann:

American exceptionalism is grounded on the Judeo-Christian ethic, which is really based upon the 10 Commandments. The 10 Commandments were the foundation for our law. That's what Blackstone said-the English jurist-and our founders looked to Blackstone for the foundation of our law. That's our law . . . I have a biblical worldview. And I think, going back to the Declaration of Independence, the fact that it's God who created us-if He created us, He created government. And the government is on His shoulders, as the book of Isaiah says.

Herman Cain:

What we are seeing is a wider gap between people of faith and people of nonfaith. ... Those of us that are people of faith and strong faith have allowed the nonfaith element to intimidate us into not fighting back. I believe we've been too passive. We have maybe pushed back, but as people of faith, we have not fought back.

Rick Perry:

Somebody's values are going to decide what the Congress votes on or what the president of the United States is going to deal with. And the question is: Whose values? And let me tell you, it needs to be our values-values and virtues that this country was based upon in Judeo-Christian founding fathers . . . in every person's heart, in every person's soul, there is a hole that can only be filled by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rick Santorum:

Unlike Islam, where the higher law and the civil law are the same, in our case, we have civil laws. But our civil laws have to comport with the higher law. ... As long as abortion is legal-at least according to the Supreme Court-legal in this country, we will never have rest, because that law does not comport with God's law. . . The idea that the only things that the states are prevented from doing are only things specifically established in the Constitution is wrong. Our country is based on a moral enterprise. Gay marriage is wrong. As Abraham Lincoln said, the states do not have the right to do wrong. ... As a president, I will get involved, because the states do not have the right to undermine the basic, fundamental values that hold this country together.

Newt Gingrich:

And part of what I would like to explore is whether or not you could get the Congress to pass a law which simply says: Personhood begins at conception. And therefore-and you could, in the same law, block the court and just say, 'This will not be subject to review,' which we have precedent for. You would therefore not have to have a constitutional amendment, because the Congress would have exercised its authority under the 14th Amendment to define life, and to therefore undo all of Roe vs. Wade, for the entire country, in one legislative action.

All five of these Republicans want a government that applies their religious values to our laws. All seek laws that apply their Christian version of Sharia law. These Republicans are committed to their notions of god-given truths and standards of morality. The source of these laws that they would seek to impose on all Americans? Not the Constitution but the Holy Bible.

The code word for much of this talk is "exceptionalism." It has been used by several recent presidents. It is another approach to the eventual elimination of the wall of separation much like the infamous "faith-based" funding of religious institutions initiated by Bush and expanded by Obama.

It's a pity that all citizens who are not enamored of this direction do not laugh out loud when pols proclaim that we are divinely ordained. Do Republicans really think that a god gave a certain country a mission to manage, guide and lead the rest of the world? It sounds preposterous, yet, presidents and others have been getting away with it. Ronald Reagan once referred to "some divine plan" that placed America here. Reagan quoted Pope Pius XII on this theme, "Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind."

Wow. How did the Pope know that? Did he offer evidence? Did everyone (or anyone) in other countries agree?

Who can forget the time George Bush got into the theocratic mood? In 2004, he said: "We have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom."

No kidding? Where, exactly, beyond the stars did that call come from and who heard it, besides George? I didn't hear it. Did you?
I believe it was Voltaire (Philosophical Dictionary, 1764) who observed that "the truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning."

Take a stand against this trend. Write letters, tell your friends and let the candidates know they are full of bullbleep. Join campaigns to discourage theocratic meddling. Want a recent example?

Did you know that U.S. Catholic bishops have launched a campaign to defeat new rules adopted by Health and Human Services requiring employers to offer health care to cover contraception? This is simple prevention. While religious institutions were exempted, the Catholic bishops want more restrictions. They want a "conscience clause" to exempt larger population groups.

You can join the Freedom from Religion Foundation's campaign to "ensure American women's right to preventive contraceptive care" by petitioning the HSS to retain the rules first set out for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Ask that the government not exempt religion-related universities and hospitals from new guidelines requiring contraceptive insurance at no added cost to insured women. Keep the matter of whether or not to utilize family planning options is a private decision for individuals - not employers, pastors or priests.

You can E-mail the president at this address:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

You can make a phone call the White House - 202-456-1111

Or, you can write a letter to The White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500.

Consider sending a CC to Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.

It won't turn them around but at least they'll realize that you are not likely to vote for a theocrat.

Donald B. Ardell is the Well Infidel. He favors evidence over faith, reason over revelation and secular perspectives over the gobbledygook of spirituality. His enthusiasm for reason, exuberance, athleticism and liberty are reflected in his books (14), newsletter (598 editions of a weekly report), speeches and most recently, a full deck for playing a REAL wellness card game. Write Don for a sample copy of his newsletter at awr.realwellness@gmail.com

MUCKRAKERS IN THE DOCK: Britain’s Tabloids become The News

Any of the three million devotees of Rupert Murdoch’s top-selling daily tabloid, The Sun, with sufficient curiosity to take their eyes off page three, might have noticed something rather curious about the paper’s front page during the week commencing 21 November. A headline-grabbing news story involving a succession of celebrities and bereaved families with whose lives and activities the paper would normally have shown a very keen interest, had passed without comment. In fact, to find any reference at all in the paper to an event of great public interest and full of sensational revelations, they would have had to turn to page 6, where, on 22 November, it received a cursory mention at the bottom of the page. It was treated similarly by most of the other tabloids. Very puzzling? Not really.

The reason for the tabloids’ stony silence, or at best minimal grudging mention of the story, had nothing to do with lack of interest on the part of their proprietors and editors. It was because they themselves, used to being the unchallengeable makers and fakers of sensational and lurid “news” stories, had become the news. The spotlight was being turned on the shabby, disreputable and criminal activities that lie at the very heart of tabloid journalism in Britain. And they don’t like it one little bit.

In the wake of the scandal at News International that resulted in the peremptory closure of News of the World (The Sun’s Sunday sister), David Cameron, anxious to distance his government from their toxic association with Murdoch and to reclaim the initiative from Ed Miliband, announced in July that there would be a public inquiry into the relationship between the press and the public, the police and politicians. This would also extend to a consideration of media ethics, practice and culture. It is worth recalling that none of this would have happened had it not been for the diligence of a single journalist at The Guardian newspaper and a few MPs in working to expose the cover-up of criminality at the News of the World. Indeed, Cameron was a close friend and confidant of Rebekah Brooks, former News International chief executive, recently arrested and bailed in connection with phone hacking and corruption. He also chose as his director of communications former editor of News of the World, Andy Coulson, also arrested and bailed on similar charges. Lest it be thought that mentioning this is to unfairly accuse the prime minister of guilt by association, it need only be said that a huge pile of evidence was already building up against these people long before Cameron chose to dissociate himself from them. Indeed, he clung to them until the last possible moment. But in this Cameron was not alone. Celebrity and power, particularly when the latter was associated with Murdoch, cast its spell only too easily on his predecessors, Blair and Brown. Clearly it was also about patronage - and fear; the need to receive and retain the blessing of the great, all-powerful media mogul, without which all electoral hopes may as well be abandoned. And all this really tells us is that governments have been – and continue to be – in the grip of global corporate power. The deepening international financial crisis makes this clearer by the day.

So, the inquiry led by Lord Chief justice Leveson has begun its deliberations at the Royal Courts of Justice. Its first days have caused something of a stir and at the moment it looks as though it is likely to be thorough and exhaustive. It is unnecessary here to report in detail on the testimony of witnesses who have appeared so far. They have included celebrities and the parents of murder and abduction victims. All have had their phones hacked. They have given devastating accounts of the intrusive extremes to which tabloid journalists have gone in pursuing and harassing them. The actor Hugh Grant exploded what he called the “10 Myths of Tabloid Journalism”, cleverly debunking such hoary canards as the self-serving claims that any attempt at regulation means that we are “heading for Zimbabwe”, and that the current right to privacy under the human rights act “muzzles the press.” Harrowing accounts of the torments they have suffered at the hands of hackers and paparazzi have been given by parents of murdered and abducted children. Such behaviour has not been limited to the “main culprits” – Murdoch’s tabloids. Papers named also include the Daily Mail (self-styled champion of respectable middle class values), Daily Express, and Daily Mirror. These are the daily papers with the largest readership. They have a combined circulation of about seven million. Most of the tabloids thrive on prurient gossip, muckraking and sensationalism. When questions are raised about the ethics of their brand of journalism (to dignify their activity with a term it does not deserve) they retort that they are simply giving their readers what they want. They interpret “the public interest” as whatever the public (meaning their readers) finds interesting. It would be too easy to infer from this that peddling the salacious and superficial, however lamentable, is non-political. But this is far from the case.

It is often claimed that press freedom is not compromised by corporate ownership. This claim usually rests on the argument that the sine qua non for a free press is a “free society” by which is almost always meant, a capitalist society. The argument goes that only a free (capitalist) society permits the competition necessary for the free flow of ideas and the freedom of expression essential for a free press. Proof of the supposed truth of this contention is evinced by reference to the state controlled media of the former communist countries, and now of dictatorships such as those in Libya and Syria. So, just as it is claimed that in view of the failed socialist experiments in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, there is no possible alternative to capitalism, it follows that if we want a free press and communications media, we have no alternative to accepting the control of such media by corporate capitalism. Liberal critics of corporate control and the kind of egregious excesses exposed in the News International scandal, believe that the worst of these can be dealt with by tighter regulation. Before addressing these arguments it is worth looking again at the nature and extent of corporate power over the British press, and considering the political interest and influence of such power. For our present purposes only the tabloids will be considered.

In a market where newspaper sales are falling, four large corporations are dominant. News International (The Sun); Associated Newspapers (Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday); Trinity Mirror Group (The Mirror, Sunday Mirror, The People) Express Newspapers (the Daily Express, Daily Star) account for sales of 11.6 million tabloid titles. The editorial policy of most of these papers is solidly right-wing. The overriding concern of their proprietors is to extend their market share. Ethical considerations play no part in this. One only has to consider three of the main players in this field to see the point. Murdoch’s News International, the most powerful, is now too notorious to require further comment. Associated Newspapers is dominated by Lord Rothermere, one of the last of the old fashioned press barons. The Daily Mail has for more than a century followed an unswerving right-wing agenda and, in the 1920s and 30s was outspoken in its support for fascism. Its current editor, Paul Dacre has been described as “one of the most feared men in the country.” The newcomer, Richard Desmond, who owns Express Newspapers, made his millions as a pornographer. His company also owns TV Channel Five.

Those who defend the tabloids – primarily of course their owners, their editors and the journalists who work for them – claim that they are only giving readers what they want. Curiously, they have also sometimes argued that the largely right wing editorial line of these papers does not influence the voting behaviour of their readers. That this is nonsense may be adduced from the political stance of The Sun in general elections over the past twenty years or so. The most notable of its many crude anti-Labour admonitions was its front page on the eve of the 1992 election, which Labour was widely expected to win. It depicted a light bulb with the caption “Will the last person to leave Britain put out the light.” Following the surprise Tory victory, the tabloid proclaimed “It Was The Sun Wot Won It.” By 1997 the Tories were a busted flush and, prior to that year’s election, Murdoch summoned Tony Blair to an audience to assure himself that he would promote the interests of News International. He was so persuaded and duly threw the weight of his tabloid titles, especially The Sun, behind New Labour.

This is not to argue that the 11 million or so readers of the tabloid press in Britain are so gullible that they swallow whatever they are fed. But it is obvious that the strident right-wing, Europhobic and frequently xenophobic outpourings of these papers have an effect. The proprietors and editors intend that they should. The skill of the most popular tabloids lies in their deliberate cultivation of a journalistic style which persuades many working class readers that they “speak their language.” But this is only part of the purpose of tabloid journalism. Its main purpose is to encourage and perpetuate a preoccupation with trivia. Celebrity gossip, scandal – particularly involving the sexual peccadilloes of film actors or footballers – a studied anti-intellectualism and mock plebeian promotion of “common sense” are the common components of the most successful tabloids. The Sun, which is at once the most successful and the most unpleasant of them, bases much of its appeal on crude sexism, daily demeaning women by publishing pictures of topless nudes in provocative poses, thus perpetuating the immature “lad” culture on which it thrives.

There is a political purpose to all this. As long as the multi-million readership of papers such as The Sun continue to be preoccupied with trivia and worse, they will, it is hoped, take little interest in serious politics. They may be persuaded to meekly accept their declining living standards, severe cuts to public services, millions of unemployed, the abandonment of young people to a future without jobs or hope. They may, it is hoped, be persuaded that the two million public sector workers who are about to stage the biggest strike since the 1980s in defense of their pension rights, are “irresponsible troublemakers” who are “holding the country to ransom.” This is the political agenda behind the scandal that the Leveson inquiry is now exposing to the light of day.

What is now being exposed is a modus operandi by tabloid papers that should have been obvious to anyone who gave the matter a moment’s thought. The methods used to obtain the stories on which such papers thrive, involve criminal activity, unconscionable harassment and persecution of those targeted by the hacks and a breathtaking lack of concern for the misery they wreak in pursuit of their stories and their victims. For the first time all this is now being exposed to the light of day. Will it radically change the nature of tabloid journalism? Probably not. It is nevertheless a welcome development in what will be a long and arduous struggle to break the corporate power over the communications media. Until that power is broken, we will not have a free press.

Who Served Such Poisonous Advice? Who Accepted?

In recent decades, the conventional political wisdom is for any freshman President to immediately race to positions held by opponents, hence governing from the “center” by homogenizing divergent views. The theoretic objective is to secure power.

Thus, Obama’s advisers advised.

Meaning? Supporters that just got the man elected were fed to the wolves, Bush’s extreme right executive orders issued four days before the blessed farewell weren’t withdrawn, and Obama started discarding most of his campaign pledges. Expectations of progressives were dashed.

Obama’s boys saw picking up “independents” as the only way to win the next cycle – as if “independents” were impressed by a President breaking promises to the faithful. So, they started working on it from Day One. Guantanamo was one of the first to go, then single-payer, government option, Copenhagen, labor bills, torture, off-shore justice, drilling pristine lands, infrastructure bills, no-taxes for the rich, illegal surveillance, CIA rendition, etc. It was as if we elected another damned GW.

Sure, the Stimulus bill squeaked through, GM-Chrysler bailout, and a watered-down Healthcare. Repeal of DADT took two years, but that’s no feather in the cap to most. After Republican spin got through, even Bin Laden’s capture was no accomplishment. His other notable foreign policy achievements are all but specks on America’s screen – given the state of the economy and the mesmerizing power of FOX.

“Independents” are not enthralled by disloyalty but influenced by a passionate base of either stripe. When Democrats are energized, “independents” swing Democratic. When Republicans are energized, “independents” swing Republican. That should be the political conventional wisdom, not lethal advice offered by the Davids Axelrod & Plouffe, Harold Ford, and old-school Clintonites. The “centrist” DLC is not in tune with the grassroots. Obama should be if truly concerned for the country; that’s my advice.

Obama’s voters were suppressed for the sake of “winning” the independent vote. We saw how well that turned out in 2010. Trial balloon? Consultants should have been shown the door. But insane moves to the right continued up until realizing recently the base has been neglected.

Axelrod and the Democratic Leadership Council set the stage for the 2010 defeat, and if left to their erroneous devices, will lead to a repeat in 2012. The only reasons Barack Obama is limping along in the polls are his extraordinary intelligence, verbal skills, appealing charisma, and charming family. And, oh yes, Republican clowns running against him.

A year out, I predict him to win, but only marginally. Unfortunately, if saddled with a Republican Senate and House, the country faces further decline. It cannot be pulled from the ashes by a Congress determined to favor the rich and myth-passionate culture warriors.

The rise of the Occupy Movement only came about because Obama dampened his base. A void was created when DLC and White House consultants advised the President to gravitate right toward the “center” instead of keeping promises. Turning right required Obama to focus on the interests of the 1% at the expense of the 99%. Millions of his followers were disillusioned and have now turned to other means. And I doubt he can recapture their support.

As Seth Meyers so aptly put it at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner last spring: “Candidate Obama 2008 could beat Obama 2012.”

The situation would have turned out differently had Obama listened to true progressives. Sorry advisers not only damaged him, but the country. Think what better condition we’d be in had Democrats stood for something and kept the House. The Tea Party only got their way because Obama’s consultants advised a race to the right.

Pandering to conservatives suppressed the base. They felt no energy after their change-president let them down. Independents leaned toward the Tea Party Express only because the right was energized, the left demoralized.

On the other hand, GW’s advisers broke with conventional wisdom in 2001. The base was kissed, opponents were kicked. Bush-Cheney stormed into office with both feet on the ground – cutting taxes for the rich, draining the treasury, prepping to invade Iraq, attacking labor-environment-social issues, politicizing justice, cementing a secret energy policy favoring Enron and Exxon, and taking a wrecking ball to the nation’s economy. His base loved it.

In January 2009 we thought it was OUR TURN to set things straight when the new sheriff was sworn in. Instead, we were served shit from centrists who prioritized 2012 over removing the nauseating Bush dung heap.

Their political theory impaired a renewal most urgent. But which actors are most responsible – the consultants or the client? Obama didn’t have to listen to idiots, did he?