US Attorney-Gate Was About Carol Lam

Once the press get's its narrative, it's almost impossible to change it. The narrative on the firing of eight US attorneys? Politics, of course. "And that's just wrong. Not a crime mind you. But wrong." Even many on the left are a bit speechless when asked what the crime is here. Bill Maher's eyes glazed over when promted.

Here's the freakin crime:

18 U.S.C. § 1512 c. which states:

(c) Whoever corruptly—
(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or
(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

It is simply incredible to me that months have passed over this scandal and the talking heads, the Democratic leadership, and many in the blogosphere have failed to clearly stake out this relatively simple case.

Kyle Sampson's email proves intent:

McClatchy:

In an e-mail dated May 11, 2006, Sampson urged the White House counsel's office to call him regarding "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam," who then the U.S. attorney for southern California. Earlier that morning, the Los Angeles Times reported that Lam's corruption investigation of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., had expanded to include another California Republican, Rep Jerry Lewis.

Perhaps what is lost in all this confusion over who said what when and which prosecutors were bushies and which were not is just how significant Lam's investigation was. This paragraph from an August 2006 article in Vanity Fair will instruct:

Tens of thousands of pages of congressional documents going as far back as 1997 have been demanded by the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego. The C.I.A., Pentagon, I.R.S., and F.B.I. are conducting investigations, and at least three congressional committees are cooperating in hopelessly tardy fashion. "We are scrubbing" is how a staffer on the intelligence committee puts it. Washington is unraveling.

Remember, this was published in August of last year. It was almost certainly written many weeks earlier. Washington was unravelling. But the very next paragraph brings it home:

"What these revelations provide is a window into Babylon or the last stages of Rome," explains a source with knowledge of the multiple ongoing investigations. "Many felonies went undetected because in the Defense Department a lot goes on in secret, and these crimes grew in the shadow of both 9/11 and one-party rule—with little scrutiny. So what you're looking at is a world where money, secrecy, sex, and indulgence were all in play. Where everyone is guilty of something."

Carol Lam simply had to be stopped. The name of that article by the way is 'Washington Babylon'. I highly recommend everyone read it.

As Josh Marshall said, "By almost any measure this is a public corruption indictment of historic proportions." Indeed.

Remember, as a direct result of her investigation, the head of the CIA, Porter Goss resigned. His number three was indicted. It had been leaked that the investigation was now to include the Republican chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. There was even a Wall Street banker to complete the picture.

But if Washington's cesspool of corruption has a heart, it is the Committee on Appropriations and it's little stepchild the Subcommittee on Defense. That's where all that dirty defense money comes from. You know, phony contractors, war profiteers and Bush Pioneers.

Carol Lam's investigation threatened to shine a big bright light on the darkest, most most secretive corner of the federal government. The place where the so-called Military Industrial Complex and their armies of lobbyist go to drink from the cup that overfloweth - otherwise known as the US Treasury.

"the highest levels of government"

Then, last week, it was revealed that when Lam had "requested additional time to ensure and orderly transition in the office, especially regarding pending investigations and several significant cases that were set to begin trial in the next few months", it was rejected by the "highest levels of government."

From Lams statement:

"He [Michael Elston] insisted that I had to depart in a matter of weeks, not months, and that these instructions were "coming from the very highest levels of the government."

This is obstruction and it points right to the White House.

On a scale of 1 to 100, the Lam firing was 100 to the seven other's 3. In fact, it is highly reasonable to suspect that the other seven were merely fired to cover for ousting Lam.

Only in TV Land is Carol Lam just another fired prosecutor. And only in the cesspool of corruption that is the Washington establishment is this all just "politics".

Now, I think the politization of the justice department is a huge story. And so is, of course, voter fraud, false claims of voter fraud, and especially the use of the justice department as a political weapon as exposed by Donald C. Shields and John F. Cragan's studywhich was reported by Paul Krugman.

All of this is grounds for an independent prosecutor.

But make no mistake, Carol Lam was "the real problem" and her firing was a real crime.

Sweeping Jim Webb Under the Rug

I've argued for some time that the real bias in the media is not left or right per say. It is pro Wall Street. And never has this bias been more transparent than with the coverage of Jim Webb's response to the State of the Union address.

My interest in the way the establishment media would react to Webb's speech began somewhere around the time he said "fairly" in the same sentence with "globalization" and "international marketplace." By the time he got to "robber barons" and "corporate influence", I was speechlessly stumbling for my laptop.

You see, there are just some things one does not say in proper company. Much less in a national address. And Jim Webb said a few of them.

Recently, to explain the devotion and commitment working class Americans once had to the Democratic party, Mudcat Saunders described how in the old days, people had two photographs on their living room wall: Jesus and Franklin D Roosevelt. It reminded me of my grandparents, who had lived through the Great Depression, with one exception - they had no photo of Jesus.

So for many of us, it is a sad fact that for a Democratic senator to use the language of class and wealth, and to speak utterances of robber barons and corporate influence, that it should be big news. But big news it was. As I pointed out in an absurd diary claiming that Webb "disappointed", this speech was nothing less than a shot across the bow of the entire establishment. It was rebuke to the Washington Consensus of neoliberal trade policies, class warfare, corporate corruption of our political process, and unchecked greed at the expense of "national wealth." Even the term 'national wealth' conjures up the bygone days of the sense of national purpose that marked the post-Depression era.

And while most, even many in the leftosphere, missed the full significance of Webb's populist appeal, I assure you the barons of Wall Street did not. As I also commented in the absurd diary, Webb should stay out of small planes.

But as significant an event as it was, providing clear indication that the populist uprising largely born out of the netroots and "people powered" movement has reached its way into the echelons of American political power, it received barely a mention in the corporate press.

It was almost funny watching Anderson Cooper's deer in the headlights face after Webb's speech, as he appeared to be receiving instructions from his producer through his earpiece. There's no way to know what he was told, but the way he and his panel completely skipped Webb's speech and resumed talking about Bush as though the Webb speech had never happened seemed just a bit awkward and unnatural.

It wasn't lost on my incredulous companions. "Their speechless", one said referring to Cooper and company. "Nothing to see here, move along", said another.

In the last four days since the speech, I have dedicated a good bit of time to tracking the reporting, or lack thereof, of the populist aspects of Webb's speech. As Devilstower noted yesterday, only a few (3) articles have even mentioned it.

Then, today, we finally get this from the New York Times: 'Looking for the Angry Populists in Suburbia'.

Note how the title editor cleverly frames Webb's speech as a political ploy. Just trying to win middle class voters. Now, the entire thesis of my post is based on the assumption that Webb is sincere. If the Times has information to the contrary, they should present it.

But the real fun happens within. David Leonhardt appears to be covering a different speech than the one Webb gave. He frames it as a Democratic appeal to middle class voters, but wonders how effective it will be since the economy is so rosy:

It was the sort of speech that one might have expected during a deep economic slump. Yet it came instead as most workers have started receiving significant pay increases for the first time in years and as polls show that most Americans think the economy has grown stronger.

This contrast was arguably the most significant part of the speech. As they plan their strategy on Capitol Hill and begin the 2008 presidential campaign, the leaders of the Democratic Party are betting that the temporary swings of the economic cycle no longer have the political power they once did.

Instead, they say, the economic shocks of recent years — technological change, globalization, the decline of labor unions and business icons like Ford Motor Company — have left many swing voters feeling anxious and insecure about the future.

After years of fighting losing battles against tax cuts, Democrats argue that this economic anxiety has altered the political landscape, making swing voters open to a new role for government — a form of what Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois has called "suburban populism."

With issues like energy policy, immigration and health care having gone largely unaddressed in recent years, Democrats see a way to define themselves as the party that can help Americans survive the 21st-century economy.

An unanswered question, though, is whether suburban populism can still have appeal during good economic times.

This is Wall Street sophistry at its finest.

"Swing voters"? Feeling "anxious" and "insecure"?

Notice how he removes the class component and replaces it with political baseball. But Jim Webb wasn't talking about swing voters. He never mentioned swing voters. He was talking about, and for, the 80 plus percent of Americans who are not just feeling anxious and insecure, but are fully aware that they are getting screwed by the new corporate economy.

These are people who can't afford health care, have no savings, are watching their grocery bills triple in 5 years. They are seeing their good jobs replaced with service jobs and their security lost in competition with third world labor.

But with all the ink invested in painting a pollyannic picture of the economy, and deflating Webb's populist call to arms as a cheap, political stunt, Leonhardt completely omits the far more poignant parts of the speech - wealth inequality and corporate influence. For corporate influence is the one subject that must never be discussed.

Webb's speech should have spurred a lively discussion on the issues he raised. But instead is was effectively blacked out. So determined to sweep him under the rug, our Wall Street press even forfeited, to a large extent, the opportunity to champion his forceful and resounding opposition to George Bush's Iraq policy - which is something Wall Street, for the most part, does support.

So this is the situation we find ourselves in in 2007 America: a handful of Wall Street corporocrats, who have so infiltrated our mass media that they can almost make a speech broadcast live to millions of Americans disappear.

How could they do this you may ask? Is it a grand conspiracy? No. They do it with a wink and a nod. Rule number one in becoming a TV personality is you never bite the hand that feeds. And the same goes at the Post, the Times and all the main news outlets.

Everyone knows the game and everyone who values their careers plays along. But Jim Webb, by breaking the rules for one evening, gave us a glimpse in the dugout. A look behind the curtain if you will. That look on Anderson Cooper's face, as they cut back to him following the speech, reminded me of a scene from The Truman Show when Truman has figured out that his whole world is a facade. That illumination is what Jim Webb gave us Tuesday night. An opportunity to see, with blinding clarity, the facade that is the Wall Street owned, corporate controlled, national media.

Defining Debate Down - How Language is Making Us Stupid

Language plays a far greater role then just communication. It defines how we think. The reason you can't remember when you were six months old is not because your brain wasn't recording events. It's because you had yet to develop the intellectual framework from which to retrieve the memories of those events.

That intellectual framework, in terms of child development, is known as representation - how we convert our perceptions of the the outside world into concepts and ideas in our minds. Language is the higher development of representation - when the big round thing becomes a "ball."

Likewise, our representation of political observations not only effects our ability to communicate, but how we make sense of those observations.

Left, Right, and Center

The language of politics has been severely dumbed down by the duality of left vs right and their tripartite accomplice, the center.

These dim representations as a spectrum of political thought, and their respective correlation to philosophy and policy positions, shortchanges not only debate, but our ability to even conceive of the landscape of complex issues facing our world.

When one characterizes Hillary Clinton as a centrist, what does that actually mean? And can such a characterization have any value to the assessment of the pros and cons of her candidacy for office?

I think the answer is clearly no. The political landscape - which is just a representation of our political world using a geographical metaphor - is immensely complex. We all develop our own conceptions of it in relation to specific issues and their application to an overarching philosophy.

By relying on the LeftRightCenter framework to define this landscape, critical information is omitted. Worse, misinformation is introduced.

For example, where does Howard Dean fit into the LRC spectrum? I doubt any self-declared "leftist" in Vermont would claim him. He's been characterized as pro environment, fiscally conservative, progressive on social issues, and yet support gun rights. In terms of the LRC framework, Howard Dean is clearly schizophrenic. The fact is, Dean is all over the board on the LRC spectrum because the LRC spectrum is a myth.

All we have are positions on issues, and occasionally, an overarching philosophy from which these positions are derived.

Now, there could be an argument made that the LRC framework is code for convenience. 'So and so is a centrist on economic issues' actually means a lot of complex things that we all are capable of deciphering. But are we?

Where does candidate A stand on tariffs and trade, progressive taxation, monetary policy? Does "centrist" tell us? Even the language of conservative-liberal fails to inform. I found it striking that Ned Lamont, champion of the netroots, wasted no time after the primary to declare from the pages of the Wall Street Journal that he's a "fiscal conservative." What does that mean? Balanced budgets? Trickle down economics? Laissez Faire? The term is meaningless in the absence of clearly defined positions and an overarching philosophy from which they are derived.

Not Just What We Say, But What We Think

If you ever find yourself with a sense that something is wrong, or you disapprove of a policy, but you can't quite put your finger on why, that is usually a sign that your language of representation is ill equipped to actualize, or conceptualize the issue.

Many of the issues we face, from globalization to privatization of government functions, are so new in our political experience that it's hard to clearly define our opposition to them.

What's wrong with "outsourcing" our prison management or military intelligence to private contractors? Is there an overarching philosophy or belief system that these policies are in contravention to?

I've spent over thirty years developing my political philosophy and belief system and yet I have trouble understanding many of these issue within the framework of that philosophy. It's not that I have trouble opposing private prisons. The challenge is clearly defining, based on pre-established, proven principles why.

My working explanation is that I believe fully in the institution of democracy as acted through government and that the outsourcing of such functions undermines, and creates a barrier to the democratic institutional oversight necessary to maintain the integrity of any state action that would remove a fellow citizen's sacred freedom.

And that was an easy one. Where does candidate X stand on trade, globalization, the abject failure of the Chicago School of Economic's little experiments with neoliberal policies of the World Bank, or the WTO?

'She's a moderate.'

Oh, I see.

The Source of American Political Power and Why You Have None

Years ago, when I first began participating in the experiment of online political discourse, I held great hope that this new medium would allow ordinary citizens to eventually break the stranglehold that the monied interests have imposed upon the American political process, including the American media, and give voice to the voiceless. It almost seemed divine providence that just when that stranglehold was on the verge of choking the very life from our democracy, this little miracle called the Internet emerged allowing us to bypass the primary conduits of political power and rescue ourselves from the inevitable descent into a kind of mass media slavery. After all, if religion is the opiate of the masses, television is a coma.

But it is clear to me that the potential of the Internet to restore control over the government by the people also poses the threat of being used to expand control over the people by the government - or, as is usually the case, the monied interests that control the government.

Instead of seeing the People Powered web being used crash the gates and reclaim power from the monied interest who have seized both political parties, I'm beginning to see signs of sites such as Daily Kos being used as an arm of the establishment, enforcing an almost militant loyalty to the party line, censuring dissent and criticism, and even subverting the truth in the name of expediency.

The Machiavellian rationalization behind much of this towing and subversion is derived from a very real and just understanding of the threat posed by the Bush junta, and the need to defeat it. That is certainly the reason I helped raise money for Harold Ford Jr. - despite my strong opposition to his ascension to the Senate.

But now that the election is over, we must ask ourselves where our loyalties really lie. Is it to political leaders whose own loyalties lie with the same monied interests who have waged class warfare on the American people? Is it with a complacent establishment that profits from the status quo, and resists every effort to change it? Is it with people who have chosen to protect their own power at the expense of their country and its citizens? Is it with a brand or label that has come to mean nothing in terms of ideology or action?

Or do our loyalties lie with the American people, ourselves, and the ideal of restoring our government of the people, to the people? It is fortunate that we Democrats still have leaders in whom our support does not conflict with that goal. But aside from the necessary task of defeating the Republicans, where is the benefit in loyalty to those who are Democrats in name only?

It is the nature of people to coalesce around leaders. As any sociologist will tell you, if you throw a group of people together in a room long enough, a leader will eventually emerge. This tendency to coalesce has survived over millions of years of evolutionary development so there's no doubt that it offers benefits. But in modern American politics, where groups are formed from tenuous strings of long-distance wires and radio waves, the process by which we choose our leaders is so easily distorted, so easily manipulated by those who control the wires, that we must be vigorous in our skepticism and, most importantly, we must never blindly place our loyalties at the feet of power. For it is loyalty to power that inevitably strips the people of their own.

loy'al·ism n

1. Support or loyalty to the establishment, government, political party or leaders without condition or merit.

What could compel self-ascribed conservatives to blindly follow a regime that has violated every principle on which conservatism stands? Loyalism. Indeed, conservatives in large number embraced the violation of the very foundation of conservative ideology itself - the limit of government power - in their willingness to follow president Bush and his unprecedented expansion of such power in the name of loyalty.

When one steps back and beholds the scope of government power under the Bush regime, from the massive, secret and unaccountable national security apparatus, to the more than eight hundred radio stations that blanket the nation with pro-Bush, pro-government propaganda 24 hours a day, to their very own pro-Bush, pro-government television network - not to mention countless local television stations and newspapers, even the most dedicated Bush loyalist must wonder if so much power is safe in any politician's hands. And after the 2006 election, they should also be wondering if such loyalism has been good for their party.

Likewise, we Democrats should ask if it is good for ours. Our party is certainly not immune from the unmeritorious loyalty of our members. Perhaps by design, the dualism of our two party system perpetuates loyalism. The old saying, 'he may be a crook, but he's my crook' is the axiom of modern Democratic loyalism when victory over their "crook" is not just a preference, but a moral imperative.

But we must also acknowledge that loyalism, however rationalized, comes with a severe cost. For as long as your loyalty is given freely, without merit, without condition, and with only the promise that your guy is not their guy, you have sacrificed your political power.

MONEY, VOTES, and the POWER of FEAR

For all practical purposes, there are only two forms of political power available to ordinary Americans: money and votes. And the ability to deliver either, in significant quantities, will certainly get you invited to the parade. But real power comes from not just being able to deliver money or votes, but from being able to take them away. Just ask any politician who has tried to take on big oil, or the finance and insurance industries. The real power of big money unveils itself not when it is in your favor, but when it has set you in its sights for destruction.

Currently, the Netroots has raised a lot of money for Democrats. By my estimate, around $5 million for the 2006 midterm. And yet our power remains marginal compared to K Street. Why? Because they do not fear us. Fear is the product of conditionality. And as long as our support, our loyalty is unconditional, we lose that card to play.

For years, the Democratic establishment, the Corporocrats, have been able to walk all over many of their constituent blocks - labor, African Americans, us - because of the rationalized loyalty I mentioned above. Their campaign slogan may as well have been, 'Where ya gonna go?'

If the People Power movement is ever going to break this cycle of lesser of two evils and instigate real reform in the Democratic party, we are going to have to learn how to use real power by ransoming our support. Only when the Democratic establishment fears us will they bid to our will.

There are those in the Netroots movement who advocate a different tack. They profess that the way to bring the Democratic party back to the people is for the people to infiltrate it. To run for local office, precinct captain, or your local committee chair. While these are all valuable efforts, and certainly will not hurt, this strategy is the equivalent to leading the sheep to slaughter.

There is a fundamental flaw to this strategy: It assumes that the current precinct captains etc. are the problem. They are not. We do need more local participation to recover from the failed Twelve State Strategy. But by and large, the current local party officials are pretty much the same as us. They oppose the corporatization of our party by the DLC types. They want the party to represent the interests of ordinary Americans again. And they want out of Iraq.

A massive invasion of local party politics by the Netroots would certainly be a good thing, but it is naive think it will have much effect on the core problem that is ruining not just the Democratic party, but American politics as a whole. This, of course, is money.

I think it would be safe to say that most Democratic politicians started off with high hopes for reform. Not all, but most. And just like us, they wanted to see fundamental change in the way Washington, or their states, work. But the problem is what happens once they get a little bit of power. I've seen the process up close and it ain't pretty. It takes no time at all before every freshman congressman or senator, and their many staffers, figure out the game, who the hands that feed are, and who not to piss off. And after a while, the reformer gets slowly beaten out of them. The glamor of the beltway cocktail parties, trips to Bohemian Grove, lobbyists funded weekends abroad, all add up to a powerful persuasion not to rock the boat. And pretty soon, they no longer work for us. They work for the big money contributors who can sustain their power.

The forces of the status quo have trillions of dollars at stake in the way things work. Do you really think they are going to put that in jeopardy by allowing the Democratic leadership to start embracing people power? To allow Howard Dean any power beyond raising money? He's already being shown the door in case you didn't notice. This is Steny Hoyer's party now. And Hoyer is not one of us.

There is no political change without conflict. And the only way we are going to reclaim our party, and our country, is by force. We must become a voting and fundraising block that instills fear. We must learn to hold our support for ransom. Only then will the People Power movement actually gain any real power.

The US Media is Not Just Bad, It is the Enemy

You know, I've been seeing stuff like this for years. But it's almost always more subtle. A comment here, some background footage there. Always enough to know, but never quite enough to call them on. Little pieces which, by themselves, don't say very much but, when taken together, a clear pattern emerges: The Corporate Media is not on our side.

Earlier tonight however, on NBC News, something amazing occurred. In a piece by Mike Tiabbi titled, "Near-record rain, warmth in U.S.", the producers at NBC News showed their hand.

They would have done better to not cover the story at all.

I thought this was so important, that I transcribed it myself from the video which you can find online at the above link.

It opens with Brian Jennings (or whatever the latest empty shell of a human being they have anchoring now is called). He proceeds to describe some of the severe weather we're having around the country:

BRIAN WILSON: Near record rains in the West and here in the East, it's springtime for a few days at least. And so our own Mike Taibbi saw his shot to take in a day outdoors and he took it...

TITLE: Meltdown
by Mike Tiabbi

FADE IN to normal winter weather footage:

TIABBI: January in New York is usually non-stop, button-up misery. But these days with temps in the 50s and climbing, you want to take off your hat - or at least change it - and lose the top coat, and the fleece liner, right down to your, OK, your golf shirt.

CUT to Tiabbi hitting golf balls in short sleeve shirt:

TIABBI: It was, in fact, a perfect day to hit a bucket of balls, and ask teaching pro Jim McNann about your backswing.

JIM MCCANN: There you go.

TIABBI: But the unseasonable weather isn't restricted to the northeast.

CUT to mudslide and some other disaster footage:

TIABBI: With twenty-five straight days of downpour Seatle and the Pacific Northwest are approaching rainfall records. Extreme heat and lack of rain have fed the wildfires tormenting parts of Oklahoma and Texas. Rare Ocean tornados (this is some disturbing footage) have been seen of the Florida coast.

CUT to nice zoo footage and some kid eating a popsicle:

TIABBI: And in usually frigid Chicago kids eating ice cream cones watch flamingos and giraffes take the sun.

CUT to zoo official:

MEGAN WILSON (Lincoln Park Zoo): Just like the people of Chicago, the animals appreciate a break in the weather as well.

(I need to interrupt here and point out her statement is not spontaneous. It is almost certainly contrived.)

TIABBI: While skaters circled in shirt sleeves and the local snow sculpting contest was called off, for now.

Around the world, more extreme weather: the snowiest winters in generations in parts of Japan and China. The cause of all this?

JEFF RAINERI (NBC meteorologist hack): I wouldn't say that this is, uh, a long term pattern that we're stuck in. It's just.., it's mother nature and it's just how it's working in the beginning of January.

(I need to point out here that Mr. Raineri has this kind of childish grin as he says this lie. Just like a child who knows he's about to be caught lying but continues anyway)

CUT to park bench folk singer:

PARKBENCH FOLK SINGER: Oh some day everyone..(unintelligible)

TIABBI: Back to the thoroughly enjoyable weather in New York...

CUT back to golf range:

TIABBI: Up on the range, Jim said I was locked in.

Jim McNann: "Get ready for the tour baby."

CUT to favorite golf course:

TIABBI: So I hustle over to my favorite course... only to find...

Closed!!!

I guess it's a good thing. I might not have come back to the office. Brian...

So NBC decides to cover the bizzarre weather occurring worldwide by sending Mike Tiabbi out to a golf course. And the zoo. And to explain it all, they bring out Jeff Raineri who, as far as I can tell, was just plucked up the ranks from a local affiliate out of New Jersey.

Perhaps NBC couldn't get one of their more senior, respectable meteorologists
to stand there and lie through his teeth.

So here's the jist of the story as NBC would have Americans see it: this sure is some strange weather we're having. But don't worry, it's just mother nature acting up so get out your golf clubs and enjoy the afternoon.

There is a special place in hell for Jeff Raineri.

The powers that be at NBC and other coprorate networks could have all kinds of reasons for deliberately misleading the public about what is happening to our planet. But there is not one that is remotely justifiable.

And while there may be some instances where withholding information or even misleading the public is a right course of action, there is zero evidence that such considerations are at play here.

No, it is far more likely that the most obvious reason why the corporate media continues to deceive the public on this issue is the correct one: it is in their own interest to do so. Both financially and politically. (NBC's parent corporation, General Electric, is one of the worlds biggest carbon-dioxide emmiters. SEE: New Report: Top Greenhouse Gas Emitters Not Diclosing, Acting of Financial Risks of Climate Change

With the amount of power that these corporations have to use our airwaves to influence public opinion and policy, and to the extent that they use that power to serve their own interest against the interest of the public, in matters of life and death, they cease being merely inept or corrupt, and move fully into the station of an enemy of the American people and, indeed, the human race.

And the degree with wich my words may appear too harsh or extreme is directly proportional to your own lack of understanding about just what is about to happen to you.

Deconstruction of the Myths

It is with almost divine providence that exactly one year to the day after Rudy Giuliani stood before the nation and declared "thank God George Bush is president" we would find ourselves watching in horror as thousands of American citizens fell destitute, first to a natural disaster, then to a federal one.

It was August 30, 2004, the opening night of the Republican convention, when Mr. Giuliani gave the headline speech that would set the theme for the rest of the days to follow: George Bush is a resolute leader. George Bush will keep us safe.

But on the first anniversary of that speech, as the long feared nightmare of a flooded New Orleans became a reality, it was clear that we are not safe.

Indeed, every night of last summer's convention, as one speaker after another belied the perils of trusting our nation's security to any lesser protector than George Bush, can be marked by it's own anniversial adducation of the contrary.

On Rudy's Tuesday, the day after New Orleans began to flood, and New Orleanians began to drown, we find George Bush flying to Coronado, Ca. to plug the leak in his Iraq war support. As Mayor Ray Nagin tells WWL radio that federal officials "don't have a clue what's going on down here", the president is photographed attempting to play a guitar.

Wednesday was Arnold's night to lay out "why America is safer with George W. Bush as president" and marks the return of the president from his vacation in Crawford, TX. New Orleans, fully flooded and descending into chaos and despair, sees little or no sign of federal intervention. Some did, however, see Air Force One fly over earlier in the day.

Thursday brings us the vitriolic Senator Zell Miller who declares George Bush "the man I trust to protect my most precious possession: my family", and Vice President Cheney who informs us that the president "gets up each and every day determined to keep our great nation safe." But on this day, one year later, it has become obvious to even Bush's ardent supporters that something is severely wrong with the federal response. As it becomes clear that people who survived the hurricane are now dying from abandonment, Bush tells Diane Sawyer that no one "anticipated the levees would breach."

Friday, Sep 2. Final night of the convention: "I am running for President with a clear and positive plan to build a safer world and a more hopeful America." Five days after the flooding of New Orleans began, National Guard troops begin arriving. The AP reports that a "mix of cheering and swearing has greeted National Guardsman pouring into New Orleans." Stranded victims continue to die waiting for rescue.

Of course, some of us knew all along that the image being projected of George Bush was just as fictitious as his National Guard service. But the fickle media, always a sucker for a good show, declared the convention a "masterpiece".

Perhaps if any good comes out of Katrina, it will be the realization by those in the media that elections are not just about the horse race. Perhaps they'll realize that those we put in positions of power, and the decisions they make, have real effects. Not just in remote, foreign lands, but right here at home. Perhaps next time they'll check that reality bears resemblance to the myth.

But the myth of the right's pre-eminence in all things security related, which was never supported by evidence anyway, is not the only one found gasping beneath the waves of Lake Pontchartrain. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has exposed the tepid foundation of conservative thought itself: that society as a whole functions better when its participants pursue their own self interest over the interest of society. Of course, the mathematician John Nash disproved this abject fallacy decades ago for which he won a Nobel Prize. But inevitably, the forces of nature, incommensurate to human frailty, speak far more persuasively than some obscure college thesis.

This isn't the first disaster to lay bare the fundamental flaw, even inhumanity of conservatism. Just last year, in the wake of Hurricane Charley, Florida's Republican Attorney General Charlie Crist announced he would "vigorously target" those engaging in "price gouging." And he did, bringing numerous suits against vulturous businesses including Days Inn.

But isn't price gouging just the free market at work? And isn't Mr. Crist's vigorous pursuit of gougers a blatant admission of the limits of a free market to expedite our higher, moral obligations to our fellow human beings?

Some conservatives must think so. Ideologues to the end, or just sensing the threat to their very existence, they have constructed "arguments" for why gouging is not the vile, unethical exploitation of the destitute, but actually a benefit. They argue that gouging provides the market incentive for outside providers to sweep in and take advantage of the high demand thus flooding the market and ultimately lowering prices. So disaster consumers get needed supplies and services that they may not otherwise have had and eventually the normalization of prices from the abundance of supply.

There are too many flaws in this reasoning to address here, so I will just point out the most glaring: disaster victims don't have time for the market to work itself out, they need food, housing and medical supplies now. It's just one of the pitfalls of being a disaster victim.

Fortunately, the vast majority of people don't need to labor over such ideological fixations. They just know that charging a family who has just lost everything to a hurricane $50 for water is nothing less than monstrous. This is why the overwhelmingly Republican, Florida legislature has still not repealed the 1992 anti-gouging law. They wouldn't dare.

So this begs the larger question: If it is wrong to gouge the victims of a hurricane, why is it okay to gouge the sick and elderly? Is not over a million people with terminal cancer or AIDS a national disaster? Or is their only difference the political influence of the gougers?

The sudden onslaught of a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina evokes our humanity and compels us to respond. But Katrina also exposed a hidden disaster which has been playing out in slow motion for many years: poverty. This disaster kills far more people than Katrina ever could. Indeed, without it, Katrina would have killed far fewer than it did.

But poverty is a hidden disaster. Hidden from television, hidden from our gated communities, stashed away in prison cells. The press has just had an epiphany, "Where did all those poor people come from?" But they've always been there. Living out the disaster that is our two-class system. All across America, our two Americas.

And this exposes the most glaring flaw: to sustain itself, conservativism relies on the invisibility of weakest among us. The other America, always conveniently out of sight.

Katrina has proven that most people, when confronted with tragedy, will respond with compassion and humanity. They will open their homes and their hearts to those in need and even support government funded reconstruction and "socialist" price controls. Decency trumps ideology every time.

So why do we allow so many to perish every day at the hands of poverty? If the millions of Americans, destitute, sick, homeless had met their fate suddenly, in real time as have the victims of Katrina, would we not be just as appalled at the government's failure to respond? To keep them safe? Beneath all of this lies a deeper truth: George Bush's apathetic response to the people of New Orleans is merely an extension of his, and his party's apathy to the plight of millions of Americans who were already suffering.

Encapsulating that apathy perfectly was the recent statement by Barbara Bush: "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Hopefully this disaster in the Gulf will compel us to revisit what kind of America we want to live in and the role that democratic government has in shaping it. Conservativism professes that man only achieves by striving for profit. That without greed, there can be no good. But we have seen, in the story of Hurricane Katrina, a thousand contraventions to that lie. When we look in the mirror, do we really want to see the face of Barbara Bush, or do we want to see the faces of those many compassionate Americans who selflessly acted to relieve the suffering of others while expecting nothing in return?

The Wolves Among Us

If you can block out the movie production of Troy long enough to think about the legend of Troy, remind yourself of what that story really says. It says that the enemy within is a far graver threat than the one outside your gates. It says that traitors, turncoats, spies and general wolves in sheep's clothing will cause more damage than all the armies combined.

This is, of course, because it is always easier to destroy something from the inside.

Keep this in mind when considering the wisdom of focusing solely on the Republicans while ignoring the wolves that currently occupy our hen-house. Wolves like the ones who voted for CAFTA, the bankruptcy bill, or the energy bill.

How can so many Democrats vote for legislation that goes against everything the Democratic party stands for and expect to get away with it? Because they know we'll let them.

They know that as election time rolls around, we will flock in droves to defeat the evil Republicans so that they won't pass such legislation as CAFTA, the bankruptcy bill, or the energy bill.

They know that many of us will argue that we need to be a big tent party and not benefit the Republicans our internal strife. That our only objective is to get back into power so we can pass CAFTA, the bankruptcy bill, or the energy bill. At least then we'll have the fancy congressional offices again.

Meanwhile, the corporations and their lobbyists are laughing their way to the bank. They actually benefit from the Democrat's and Republican's pre-occupation with each other. They love the culture war. They love Plame-gate. They love everything that takes our eyes off the ball while they quietly amass all of the wealth and power into their few hands. And they know that they can count on neither Republicans or Democrats to interfere.

It's funny. Most people know that our politicians are bought and paid for. We know that Big Money is really pulling all the strings. But who knows who Big Money really is? Who are these people who are actually running the country from the back rooms of Washington? Here's a clue, none of them are named Karl.

In our quest to "take our country back" and restore power to the people, wouldn't it be wise to know who we're taking it back from? Here's a clue, it ain't George Bush.

And meanwhile, our people continue on their mass migration to the services sector. According to the Dept. of Labor, service sector jobs are the only thing keeping Bush's employment numbers out of the red. The SEIU is the largest and fastest growing labor union in the country. Yes, we are well on our way to waiterdom. Unfortunately, only so many can serve frappes to the 2% of the population that owns everything.

And then there is the Democratic Party®. I put that little trademark symbol there to get a point across. The Democratic party is more than a group or organization of people. It is a trademark. It is a core set of beliefs that are encoded into those two words.

We all have variations on those core beliefs. And we all have different ways of describing them. And indeed, those beliefs have evolved and expanded over the last century. But always, always at it's root, the brand Democratic Party has stood for protecting average Americans. It has stood for protecting and empowering the many against the tyranny of the few. Whether manifest in the fight for civil rights, progressive taxation, the protection of the elderly, or the disassembly and regulation of monopolistic corporations, there has always been a consistent, underlying statement beneath every act: America, under Democratic watch, will not allow the interests of the monied few to prevail over the commonwealth of the many. It has been so since its inception.

And then came the DLC. Like wedding brokers with solicitation of the dowry, they showed us a new way. With an endless supply of crisp, corporate cash, they forged a pact. Let our sheep graze pittantly in the electoral pasture and we'll give the wolves the keys to the hen-house.

And the Third Way began. And when the wolves rewarded the sheep with the installation of one of their own into the presidency, the sheep were so overjoyed that they stopped guarding the hen-house altogether. The wines of glory spilt over as the wolves and sheep celebrated their thirst. Good days would surely follow.

But out here in the real world, good days did not follow. Jobs, whole towns dried up and frittered away. Many families struggled to survive working three jobs. Urban and working class neighborhoods began to resemble combat zones. Small businesses failed as corporate chains moved in with scale advantage and third world imports. Public schools became holding cells for disadvantaged youth while prison occupation reached record highs. Suicide rates also reached record highs. As did drug and alcohol abuse as the sheep found their own good days in substance and television induced oblivion.

And, almost without notice, we awoke to find the brand, Democratic Party®, had lost its meaning. The leadersheep no longer spoke about the plight of the commonwealth. To many, they were starting to sound like wolves themselves. Then large flocks began to mistrust their party's alliance with the wolves. Many stayed home on election day. Many others formed their own party. And the sheep's long sworn enemy, the pigs, began to grow in power.

You see, the pigs alliance with the wolves went back to the beginning of time. And the sheep feared that alliance. They saw how the wolves would protect the pigs as they tried to hog all the food so that, at a time of the wolves choosing, the pigs would sacrifice one of their own to the wolves feast.

But the wolves found it difficult to elect a pig. No matter how many bows and ribbons they adorned, they still looked like pigs.

But when the sheep saw other sheep drinking with the wolves, the pigs no longer looked so bad. This is a new era, some would say. We are all wolves now.

The wolves also bought up all the TV channels, so they were able to make the pigs look like ponies. And everyone loves ponies.

And yet some of the sheep were not fooled. They said, "that's not a pony, that's a pig. And those aren't sheep. They're wolves in sheep's clothing." And they vowed to fight the wolves in sheep's clothing. But the other sheep cried out in horror. "How can you turn on your own? Don't you realize these are sheep? We must all stick together. A bad sheep is better than a good pig", they would say.

But the wise sheep knew better. They knew that the wolves in sheep's clothing were worse than plain wolves or the worst pigs. They remembered the legend of the pony, long told around the water hole. It was the story of how the wolves and the pigs had once conspired to build a giant pony to give to the sheep. But it was not a pony. It was a giant meat packer.

And yet, when they tried to warn the other sheep, they would not listen. They did not remember the legend of the pony. And they believed that if it was covered in wool, it was good. No matter where that wool came from.

To be continued...

There is nothing new in American politics. There is no Third Way. This is the same story mankind has been living out for eons. It is the age old struggle between the wolves and the sheep, retold for the new millennium. The ponies are only prettier in the television lights.

Our founding fathers fought the wolves and won. American history is speckled with such fights. Not all victorious.

But in our immense history I can find no fight more imperative, no threat to the average American so grave as the one we are witnessing now. Animal metaphors aside, the watchers and the keepers have all been turned. Every institutional protection of the common man has either fallen or is under siege.

There is only one intuitional agent left to our defense: democracy. And the only democratic institution which has any hope of providing The People with remedy is the Democratic party.

We can be a big tent on a lot of issues. But on one central point there can be no compromise: Democrats, in all their affairs, must as their final, chosen allegiance, serve the interest of ordinary Americans. Service to any other is betrayal.

Update [2005-7-31 2:50:4 by TocqueDeville]: A note about purity.

Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic party to empower the commoners. He saw the inevitable inclination of wealth and power to accumulate into the hands of the few at the expense of the many. His Party of the People was its remedy.

The root principle I have laid out above is not my invention. It is what, historically, the Democratic party has stood for since its inception. To claim that the expectation of our party to adhere to that principle -- and to solely represent the interest of common Americans -- reflects some form of ideological “purity” is bane Sophism.

The Democratic party, until recent times, has always stood for protecting common Americans against the potential tyranny of the few. And while such language may be somewhat out of vogue, it has never been more applicable. Looking out for the common man is to Democrats what “lower taxes” and “less government” are to Republicans. If you do not know this, then you are either too young to remember, ignorant of history, or worse.