The GOP gets taken out to the woodshed

Today was the funeral for Coretta Scott King. I had heard the various news reports about the speeches by President Carter, President Clinton Reverend Lowry, Maya Angelou, Senator Kennedy, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, and Presidents Bush- jr & sr.

Many of the speakers made pointed political comments, the most surprising of which came from President Carter, who made the sharp points that MLK and Coretta Scott King were both subjected to illegal wiretapping by the government and that "We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi" affected by Hurricane Katrina to know that inequality still exists. Reports are that both Bush Jr and Sr squirmed noticeably when Carter said that.

I put on CSPAN to hear those speeches but I tuned in a bit late and missed those speeches. However, I heard Reverend Elder Bernice King, and what I heard blew me away, so much so that my original intent of the post- to note the various slams- fell by the wayside, so taken was I with Reverend King's sermon.

It is no coincidence that many of the greatest orators in the African-American community are (or were) preachers. The first time I heard a speech from Rev Jesse Jackson, when I was a freshman in college, I was electrified. He knows how to work a crowd, how to build a speech, how to capture a moment. Sometimes you might not understand exactly what he is saying, but you can feel it in your bones.

One of the other things is that black Southern Baptist services are unlike most other religious services. People respond, they sing joyously, they dance, they moan, they shout out, they pour their hearts out and are involved in the service, whereas, say, Catholics just listen quietly.

I listened to Reverend King's eulogy to her mother and let me tell you, she worked it and worked it hard, very much in the tradition of her father and of Rev Jackson. Her voice rose and fell like ocean waves, people clapped and shouted out and she cajoled and teased and inspired the crowd. She was not mourning the passing of her mother but celebrating her life and using her death from the effects of reproductive cancer as a vast metaphor for the state of society and the moving away from the promise given by god.

Those of you who know me know I am not especially religious. I have some serious differences with god. But after listening to Reverend King, it caused me to pause. So many people use religion in a perverse way to judge and oppress and condemn others, but Reverend King's moving eulogy was an example of religion as love. It inspired, not condemned. It was a call to look at how we treat one another and not ask but demand that we do better.

If any of you get a chance, watch her speech. They'll be replaying it on CSPAN a number of times. I still want to see the other speeches, but I wouldn't mind hearing hers again.

Tags: Martin Luther King Coretta Scott King Elder Bernice King Bush Bill Clinton Jimmy Carter President Bush President Carter President Clinton

Europe saves our ass

As most of you know, the Muslim world has exploded in fury over the publication of a dozen political cartoons that show the prophet Mohammed and that this is considered a grave offense against Islam.

Rather than kowtow to Islamic sensibilities, a number of papers around Europe republished the cartoons as a show of solidarity. Denmark's government has refused to apologize, saying it cannot be held accountable for the actions of an independent newspaper and stands fully behind the concept of freedom of the press.

Now, a couple of problems here...

First of all, it is not true that European papers are truly free. In many European countries, there are strict laws against matters relating to Nazism and Holocaust denial.

In a surprising show of snarkiness from a government not known for its sense of twisted humor, {AP gank-->>} a prominent Iranian newspaper, Hamshahri, invited artists to enter a Holocaust cartoon competition, saying it wanted to see if freedom of expression - the banner under which many Western publications reprinted the prophet drawings - also applied to Holocaust images. {<-- end gank}

Well.... what to say about that, eh? It puts the West in a rather tight spot and there are only two options, neither of which is pretty.

Now initially I was please at the official US reaction to the publication of the Danish cartoon, that while the US fully supports freedom of the press, it nonetheless was disturbed by the irresponsibility of their publication. However, Bush has now come around and is standing behind the Danes come hell or high water.

I find this bewildering, given that the US had laid out a very good position that covered all the bases. Now.... well... we're back in it.

What has happened with all of this is that suddenly Europe finds itself dragged into this holy war that has erupted between Islam and the West. News reports from countries like Finland and Norway say that the people up there are completely befuddled and bewildered that Muslims are now raging at them and they can't quite grasp why. There's a similar reaction across much of Europe, that it was just a cartoon.

Now following 9/11, Europe was firmly on the side of the US in wishing to tackle Muslim extremists. But when Dubya cowboyed up, said fuck you to the United Nations, and sent in the troops to steamroll and occupy Libya {Libya??? What the fuck was I thinking? Interesting slip..} Iraq, Europe- with the exception of England, Poland, and Spain- told the US to piss off and they wanted nothing to do with it.

Which made the US the prime target, along with England and Spain, and there was an underlying attitude that having this bullseye on our backsides wasn't entirely undeserved.

But now.... now Europe has really stepped in it and suddenly find Muslims turning against them as well and I think we will find that when the US talks of Muslim extremists, it will find a much more attentive ear in Europe.

This brings us almost full-circle back to 9/11. Not many people get second chances in this life, and the Prodigal Idiot Son aka Dubya, now finds himself back in the same position he was prior to his fateful decision to go crack fucking crazy and invade Iraq. Will he now do what he should have done before and take the course his father took in the first Gulf War and go to Europe, hat in hand, and build a coalition? Or will he again go Crack Cowboy and, oh, I dunno, invade Iran?

Honestly, I have no idea. The idealistic side of me likes to think that people can learn their lesson, but then again, I remember that famous scene from Cool Hand Luke and the quote "What we have here is a failure to communicate. There are some men you just can't reach."

So what's it gonna be this time?

Tags: Bush Europe Denmark Mohammed cartoon Iran Holocaust 9/11

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

Greetings all,

Missed me? I've been a busy little beaver of late but now I have some time to get caught up a bit. I'll be doing a couple of posts here.

Ok, folks, once again we have El Presidente and his administration forgetting history.

Treasury Secretary John Snow, testifying before Congress, said that they should adopt the Bush plan of cutting taxes to reduce the deficit.

No, this is not a typo, and for those of you wondering, yes we have heard this one before. Back in 1979, while running for the GOP nomination, Ronald Reagan became enamored with a policy drawn up by a young policy wonk, David Stockman. One night in either a restaurant or a bar, he drew out a plan on a cocktail napkin with a chart showing that as taxes get cut, more money flows into the treasury because economic activity increases, which means there's more money to tax albeit at a lower rate. Reagan added a little twist, increasing military spending as well.

His opponent in the primary election, George H. Bush, blasted the plan, calling it "voodoo economics", pointing out that that everyone except pointy-headed economists knew that if you cut taxes and increased spending, the deficit (which is the yearly shortfall) would increase. Bush was later forced to quietly accept it after he became Reagan's vice president and the plan was adopted.

It turned out to be a complete disaster. Of course the deficit skyrocketed into record territory and the national debt (the cumulative sum of the deficits that is total amount money borrowed/owed to cover the deficits) increased 188% from $789 billion to $2.05 trillion. The policy was so horrible and the results so devastatingly bad that even Stockman, who was the architect of the policy, disavowed it.

Under Bush Sr, the situation improved slightly. The debt increased to a touch under $3 trillion.

Enter the supposed tax and spend liberal Bill Clinton. Here's where the numbers shatter the rhetoric.

Clinton's first year in office, the deficit dropped from $290 billion to $255 billion. The next year it dropped to $203 billion. It continued to drop between $50 to $75 billion each succeeding year and in 1997 the deficit was only $27 billion. The debt was $3.72 trillion.

In 1998, we saw the extraordinary. There was a budget surplus of $69 billion. And the surpluses continued to grow each year to 2001, which was the last year of Clinton's budget. When Bill Clinton left office and El Presidente took over, Clinton handed them a budget surplus of $128 billion (down from the previous years' $236 billion) and a national debt of $3.31 trillion, an increase of only 10% from the time he took office.

Once El Presidente took over, we have seen the following:

2002 deficit $157.8 billion
2003 deficit $377.6 billion
2004 deficit $412.7 billion
2005 deficit $318.3 billion

Note the 2002 number. In 1 year of Dubya, the country went from a budget surplus of $128 billion to a deficit of $157.8 billion, a swing of $285 billion.

Ok, now everyone will say "but 9/11".

Remember, folks, during Clinton's term there was also an attack on the WTC. And war? Well there was this ugly little thing happening in Bosnia but rather than play cowboy, Clinton used the United Nations.

So now we have 'Back to the Future' with Dubya and we see him once again stepping away from the (relatively) prudent course set by his father.

Tags: Bush budget deficit voodoo economics Reagan Clinton