Crimes Against Humanity

The disparagement of science—true science, objective knowledge—is, generally, a function of ignorance or stupidity. The muzzling of scientific facts is a power play. But when a group of moronic thugs hide information that is crucial to the well-being of the planet and all living things out of self-interest or the short-term financial interest of their constituents in a particular industry, that's pretty much criminal.

Apparently, the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney administration hid "[g]raphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic ... taken by spy satellites over the past decade, [which]confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months. The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week."

The avowed antipathy of the Bush/Cheney regime to anything smacking of environmental concern and global warming grew out of their favoritism to the entrenched interests of their constituents in the oil industry. To hide such direct evidence of the "devastating impact of global warming" is a vicious, misanthropic act. In the face of such clear and compelling evidence, to argue publicly against the "devastating impact of global warming" is nothing short of a crime, a fraud.

And why must the revelation of such misfeasance (suppressing it) and malfeasance (lying about it) on this scale be relegated to a foreign newspaper? Where is the outrage in this country? Besides trying to remediate the global problem, is there nothing that can be done about the devastation these men have wrought through their outright mendacity?

Failure of the Will?

I had originally thought about writing a post called "Failure of the Will!", alluding to Leni Riefenstahl's notorious, monumental propaganda film celebrating the Hitlerian Reich, "Triumph of the Will". According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), "The overriding theme of the film is the return of Germany as a great power, with Hitler as the True German Leader who will bring glory to the nation."

The theme was striking and found echoes in the partisan rhetoric and actions of the previous U.S. presidential administration on many fronts: 

• Karl Rove, the strategist behind George W. Bush's two electoral runs, is on record as wanting to create a "permanent Republican majority". 
• Grover Norquist, conservative thought leader and single-minded proponent of cutting taxes, has declared that his avowed goal is "to cut government in half ... to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." 
• The Reagan so-called revolution, the glorious ascendance of American conservatism, was propagated on the belief that "government is not the solution, it's the problem." 
• Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the House (R-GA) during the Clinton presidency and currently chief strategist and mouthpiece of the conservative 'movement', is the father of the obstructionist 'just say no' tactic that now pretty much defines Republican congressional action. Perhaps Gingrich's most remarkable coup (especially given the hypocritical failure of his Contract With America) was the shutdown of the Federal Government out of pique over some mostly minor budget matters, and, if Tom Delay is to be believed, because he felt President Clinton snubbed him by making him sit at the back of Air Force One on the way back from Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in Israel. 
• Tom Delay, subsequent Republican Speaker from Texas, was known to have spearheaded, along with former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) and the aforementioned Norquist, something called the "K Street Project" whose primary goal, while Republicans held power in both the Legislative and Executive branches, was to purge lobbyists in Washington with Democratic ties by refusing to do business with any firms that had Dems in positions of authority. 
• This mission did not come cheap. Financing for this goal came from Jack Abramoff, the basic outlines of whose corrupt practices we are only just now beginning to learn as cases work their way through the legal system. One suspects there are many, many other 'off the books' financial tentacles pumping cash into these operations—including the billions of dollars on the Pentagon's 'off-budget' budget that went missing during the Bush Administration's lax regulatory regime. 
• It was further theorized that, with the coming of conservative dominance, human polity had reached "the end of history": the secular, self-regulating free-market democracy.
  

There is an ancient political theory that only the elites should be allowed to rule, Plato's philosopher-kings. And that there is an unbridgeable gulf between the few who should, by nature, be allowed to rule and the many who, by nature, are suited only to be ruled by them. The elite should, thus, be secretive about their true plans and intentions. The only ones who should be allowed to know the truth are the rulers and the ruling class, and they don't need to talk about it because they instinctively recognize the truth and they recognize each other's other's adherence to these absolute goals. The ruled need to be fed myths about the motivations of the rulers and the ways of the world in order to legitimize their rule. In their view, religion is a useful fiction and its practitioners are instrumental in preserving culture and cultural values. The truth that no higher power exists should be kept away from the people, and God should be invoked to justify the actions of the elite.

In modern times, this view is often attributed to Leo Strauss and those of his students who congregate as, but craftily reject the label of, neo-conservatives. A further, more controversial political view ascribed to the Straussians is that the ruling elite are justified in tearing down societal and political institutions (to the extent they are designed to bring this special knowledge to the non-elite and serve to bring the masses into the arena of political governance) and fomenting chaos in order that an eventual Nietzschean superman can salvage culture: this, of course, is the age-old battle of absolutism against relativism. Relativism, which in its radical form approaches nihilism (the absence of values or standards), is a vulgar product of the Enlightenment and must be resisted with all the power of the state. Hypocrisy, projection, faux populism, faux piety, adventurism, belligerence, bellicosity, secrecy, extraordinary accretion of power, disregard for laws and rules: these are all justified, indeed countenanced, on the Straussian, neo-conservative view.

On this view, "culture" is:

"another word for history, civilization, convention, civil society, country, city ... The word culture is of fairly recent extraction. It emerges as a reaction to the rational, calculating, and commercial society that is a result of Enlightenment thought ... Culture offers man something loftier and more exalted than anything he could find in nature ... Culture wages a war against chaos, nature, and brutishness. Culture is the triumph of order over chaos, art over nature, and humanity over brutishness ... Culture decides what a people bows before and regards as sacred ... Myths are the stuff of culture and culture is the cement of society." (Shadia Drury, Alexandre Kojeve: The roots of postmodern politics. New York: St. Martin's Press 1994:162-163).

Culture is the last refuge against relativism and barbarism. It is essential to civilization, existential in the direst sense.

Given the foregoing, I find myself asking whether the entire conservative movement which got it wings in Goldwater's ignominious drubbing, took flight under Reagan, leveled off under Bush pere, and via Newt, Delay, Rove, Norquist, Bush fils, et al., ascended the commanding heights was a crashing disaster or, indeed, a crashing success.

As a result of their mis-rule we are currently mired in two expensive foreign wars, we are in a recession that shows no signs of letting up, GDP is actually shrinking, the banking and financial systems of the country (and, indeed, the world) are crumbling, Americans are un- or under-employed by the millions, mortgages are underwater as asset values plummet, private and public debts are beyond out of control, oil companies and their Middle Eastern counterparts are awash in luxe profits, etc., etc. The question, then, is whether this represents a triumph of conservativism, in some esoteric formulation, or its abject failure:

Is this what they wanted?

Don't Let the Door Hit You...

As Pres.* Bush makes his farewell star turn, he keeps repeating one message: At least his administration kept the country safe after 9/11. Indeed, after that terrible day, there have been no more attacks on the "homeland".

But, the President* is being far too modest in his accomplishments. This guy named Jon Swift, I think, gets it just about right:

"After Hurricane Katrina President Bush kept our cities safe. ...

After the October 2008 stock market correction there have been no Great Depressions. ...

After Iraq and Afghanistan took a turn for the worse, President Bush kept us from losing any wars. ...

After the District Attorney firing scandal, the outing of Valerie Plame and other scandals, President Bush restored integrity to government. ...

After divisive elections President Bush united our country. ...

After Abu Ghraib, President Bush reaffirmed America's adherence to the Geneva Conventions and against torture. ..."

I would note, too, that after the President's re-election in 2004, we no longer needed to keep up with those color chart threat alert levels to know how much danger we were in. And it is truly comforting to know we are leaving precisely none of our children behind.

BTW: Mr. Swift, if you're reading this, I enjoyed that travelogue of yours about the horses and giants and such.

In an age of Jesters...

As most of you probably know (WoW, believe it or not, has a number of international readers), the U.S. is having a Presidential election this year. George W. Bush and Richard Cheney will no longer control the reins of executive power; under our Constitution they must step down voluntarily. I shall never forget in January 2001 with their administration about to assume power, The Onion ran a satirical piece entitled: "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over.'" I laughed uneasily at the time. Who knew how prescient those comics would be? Here, in its entirety, is the text of the piece:

WASHINGTON, DC–Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."

President-elect Bush vows that "together, we can put the triumphs of the recent past behind us."

"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.

Wall Street responded strongly to the Bush speech, with the Dow Jones industrial fluctuating wildly before closing at an 18-month low. The NASDAQ composite index, rattled by a gloomy outlook for tech stocks in 2001, also fell sharply, losing 4.4 percent of its total value between 3 p.m. and the closing bell.

Asked for comment about the cooling technology sector, Bush said: "That's hardly my area of expertise."

Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge's coastal plain to oil drilling. As a sign of his commitment to bringing about a change in the environment, he pointed to his choice of Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior. Norton, Bush noted, has "extensive experience" fighting environmental causes, working as a lobbyist for lead-paint manufacturers and as an attorney for loggers and miners, in addition to suing the EPA to overturn clean-air standards.

Bush had equally high praise for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, whom he praised as "a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman's right to give birth."

"Soon, with John Ashcroft's help, we will move out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened time when a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic," Bush said. "We as a nation can look forward to lots and lots of babies."

Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state."

The speech was met with overwhelming approval from Republican leaders.

"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."

"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."

An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.

"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."

"You have no idea what it's like to be black and enfranchised," said Marlon Hastings, one of thousands of Miami-Dade County residents whose votes were not counted in the 2000 presidential election. "George W. Bush understands the pain of enfranchisement, and ever since Election Day, he has fought tirelessly to make sure it never happens to my people again."

Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

"The insanity is over," Bush said. "After a long, dark night of peace and stability, the sun is finally rising again over America. We look forward to a bright new dawn not seen since the glory days of my dad."

They missed the whole torture mess and underestimated the opposition to Bush's plan to privatize Social Security (Thank goodness! Can you imagine where we'd be if all our SS funds had been gambled in the market?), but that pretty much nailed it.

What kind of world are we living in when it is the jesters of our society (Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, Steven Colbert, The Onion, etc.) who are calling bullshit and the 'serious' professional journalists who are essentially taking dictation from the powers-that-be? What happens to the virtues of truth and questioning when the journalists who are not openly biased (as are Fox News, NY Post, Wall Street Journal editorial page, The Weekly Standard, etc.) only report the controversy, not the facts much less the context (e.g., when a Democrat declares that the world is round and an opposition Republican claims, to the contrary, that it is flat, the press reports that there is controversy over the shape of the world)? We, the people, suffer. They are in bed with the powerful: would-be courtiers. They are afraid of losing access. They are loyal only to their careers and they know how to preserve them. They are too timid to challenge such inveterate liars as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld or such idiots as George W. Bush or Sarah Palin. Or, maybe they just don't know the truth. Either way, I despair sometimes for the state of our country and, because of America's power and influence, the world.

Because of this, I am taking a few days off from blogging to focus on this election. I will putting my legal skills to use here in the state of Georgia working with a non-partisan Election Protection effort. I will be manning a hotline to answer legal questions from potential voters who have been disenfranchised or whose right to vote has otherwise been challenged.

Multitask!

Amid the chaos of the political campaign and the alleged financial meltdown and Wall Street bailout (about which more later), never forget: the Bush administration condoned and promoted torture in contravention of U.S. and International Law and treaty obligations, not to mention all standards of morality and human decency.

In today's New York Times we read that high level Bush Administration officials—Condoleeza Rice, John Ashcroft, and Donald Rumsfeld—played "a central role" in meetings to determine whether so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" (i.e., Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove-speak euphemism for torture) should be used:

Senior White House officials played a central role in deliberations in the spring of 2002 about whether the Central Intelligence Agency could legally use harsh interrogation techniques while questioning an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah, according to newly released documents.

In meetings during that period, the officials debated specific interrogation methods that the C.I.A. had proposed to use on Qaeda operatives held at secret C.I.A. prisons overseas, the documents show. The meetings were led by Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, and attended by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top administration officials.

The documents provide new details about the still-murky early months of the C.I.A.’s detention program, when the agency began using a set of harsh interrogation techniques weeks before the Justice Department issued a written legal opinion in August 2002 authorizing their use. Congressional investigators have long tried to determine exactly who authorized these techniques before the legal opinion was completed

There are documents. And these meetings took place before the CYA memos-to-file from John Yoo and the DOJ were produced to "justify" their crimes. Were VP* Cheney's and Pres.* Bush's fingerprints on any of them as well?

Who cares, right?

UPDATE: In answer to our rhetorical question above, Andrew Sullivan, for one. And he gets a heckuva lot more readers than WoW. Way to go, AS.

Of Doleful Countenance

In answer to our earlier question, looks like it's going to be this guy: Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced thirty-five articles of impeachment against Pres.* George W. Bush. The full text of the articles can be found here(pdf). Apparently, it took him over five hours to read the resolution into the record. After a reading by the clerk, the House of Representatives voted 251 to 166 to send the articles of impeachment to the Judiciary Committee, which is not likely to hold hearings before the end of his term—the same fate as his earlier articles of impeachment against Vice Pres.* Richard Cheney.

Here is the index of the charges:

Article I: Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.

Article II: Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.

Article III: Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.

Article IV: Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat
to the United States.

Article V: Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.

Article VI: Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.

Article VII: Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.

Article VIII: Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.

Article IX: Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor.

Article X: Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes.

Article XI: Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq.

Article XII: Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation's Natural Resources.

Article XIIII: Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries.

Article XIV: Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Article XV: Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq.

Article XVI: Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors.

Article XVII: Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives.

Article XVIII: Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy.

Article XIX: Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to "Black Sites" Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture.

Article XX: Imprisoning Children.

Article XXI: Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government.

Article XXII: Creating Secret Laws.

Article XXIII: Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Article XXIV: Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment.

Article XXV: Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens.

Article XXVI: Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements.

Article XXVII: Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply.

Article XXVIII: Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice.

Article XXIX: Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Article XXX: Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare.

Article XXXI: Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency.

Article XXXII: Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change.

Article XXXIII: Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.

Article XXXIV: Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001.

Article XXXV: Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders.

Any guesses as to how this turns out?

Pres.* Bush Greets His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI at Andrews AF Base

Or, to put it another way:: Unindicted torturer and war criminal George W. Bush meets a former member of Hitler youth and contemporary pedophile protector at the airport and escorts him onto American shores.

What is the symbolism of this photo-op? Does Bush meet him at the airport because the Pope won't have dinner at the White House? The Pope flies into a U.S. military base: does that mean he tacitly approves Bush's Iraq adventure? Or, possibly, the next adventure into Iran? Is this, indeed, turning into a Crusade? And what sort of salute is that anyway, Herr Ratzinger? And to whom is it extended? We, the American people? Your closeted right-wing constituencies here? Who is Mr. Bush smiling at? And exactly who is he saluting with his downward-pointing left hand? Could it be S-A-T-A-N? Yeah, I guess that's funny in a frat-boy sort of way.

Did I miss anything? Oh yeah, love the red shoes!

Socrates is wise

The whole politics thing is baffling to me. So much of what goes on in campaigning is based on emotional appeals. Images are created and marketed, or branded—think of the 'W' campaign, particularly in 2004, targeted particularly to the aspirant middle class—while opposing images are tarnished—think of the Kerry 'flip-flopper' and 'coward, hippie, war-protester' assault that same year. In 2000, George Bush was marketed as the guy most Americans would like to have a beer with, while Al Gore could never overcome the 'stuffed-shirt, policy wonk' image he was cast as.

Candidates must have policies. And they, or their retainers, must have thought these policies through (you'd think). There is a certain rationality to whatever policies they have; whether it is 'this is the policy we need to hold to correct a certain problem' or 'this is the policy we need to hold to get elected' or 'this is the policy that best serves the interests of our constituents and pleases our partisans.' These are all rational, practical political calculations. And, indeed, certain people pay attention to these things and make decisions based on them.

But it seems to me that the vast majority of the American electorate is ignorant of the actual policies and positions of the candidates seeking office. They are easily fooled by the emotional appeals of the images sold to them by those seeking office—if they care, or even vote. One partisan analysis of this feature of American politics struck me as spot on: Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas looks at the reasons rural, agrarian Kansans voted against their own economic interests and sided with plutocratic Republicans in the 2000 election. Another analysis, this one by a psychologist, Drew Westen's The Political Brain, agrees that emotional appeals to values—the use of rhetoric—has been a major factor in swaying elections in recent campaigns because our brains are hard-wired to be susceptible to our gut-level responses. And George Lakoff, a linguistics professor, has demonstrated how political marketers (can) use "frames" in their craft—the careful selection of words and terms for their connotations, allusions, and emotional appeal—to communicate subtle values that appeal not to the brain but the gut (or heart).

Lest you think I'm being overly partisan here, Frank Luntz, the conservative Republican pollster and consultant, has written a major book on precisely this topic: Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear.

If that all feels like too much reading, you can see Lakoff, Westen, and Luntz discussing these issues in a terrific forum from the New York Public Library back last November here.

But if you want to get back to the roots of this age-old issue, you need look no further than Plato's depiction of Socrates in his debates with the sophists—the teachers of rhetoric and political oratory of his day.

The opinion of the majority about knowledge is that it is not anything strong, which can control and rule a man; they don't look at it that way at all, but think that often a man who possesses knowledge is ruled not by it but by something else, in one case passion, in another pleasure, in another pain, sometimes lust, very often fear... . Protagoras 352b3-9.

Bottom line: The appeal to the emotions—to greed or fear, pleasure or pain, love or hatred—is strong medicine and often causes people to vote against their own rational interests (knowledge).

This leaves us with the question for future postings: Is demagogy the best or, indeed, the only way to win a heavily contested election in this country?

Election Year: Change?

Here, in the U.S., this is an election year. One of the big issues is change. There seems to be an outcry for change from the status quo. Some say the status quo we need change from is the regime of the past seven years—the Bush/Cheney regime. Others say it is from the past fifteen years, somehow likening the Clinton presidency to that of Bush.

The common thread is that there can be change within the system given our form of government.

I'm not so sure.

Why? See, e.g., here. Though ostensibly we have freedom of choice between (usually) the representatives of two parties, these candidates can only sail through the process on the winds of big money. And the only change in sight appears to be this: