No Worse

Trey Smith

Now we are told that the Newtown, Connecticut killer was unique, evil, crazed. He may have been all of those things but he was not the outlier we are told. If Adam Lanza had been wearing a police officer or soldier’s uniform, he could have killed anyone he wanted without fear of punishment. He also could have expected to have nothing but praise heaped upon him.

Lanza was no worse than the drone operators and soldiers who act on government orders. The only difference is that they have permission from the state and approval of the populace to kill at will. There will be no end to senseless violence unless Americans affirm that they want it to stop and that there should no longer be any sacrosanct killers.
~ from Freedom Rider: Killing Children by Margaret Kimberley ~

I realize that some readers may have grown weary of my continued insistence to focus on this overall topic. We get your point, they say. Why beat it into the ground?

My response is: It needs to be beaten into the ground.

Kimberley, a writer I have grown to admire, makes an astute point. We are a nation of killers. Non-sanctioned killings are met with horror and emotional angst. Sanctioned killings, too often, are met with a yawn, at best.

If you recoil in disgust and dismay at Newtown, you SHOULD experience the very same emotional response WHEREVER and to WHOMEVER it occurs. Senseless murder is senseless murder. The death of innocent babes is an atrocity, regardless of whose babes they are.

The abject sorrow wrought by families and friends knows no boundaries. Do you really think the agony felt by the parents of those 20 children senselessly slaughtered in Connecticut is deeper or more worthy than the agony felt by Afghan, Yemeni or Palestinian families who have learned that the lives of their children has been ruthlessly cut short?

I hope this is something you've thought about today amidst all the trappings of this holiday season.

Will You Let Him Get Away With It?

Trey Smith

While the president is certainly subjected to overtly racist attacks, that does not mean he should be above scrutiny and criticism. He is planning a tour “beyond the beltway” to make his case for a so-called “grand bargain” of austerity measures which will weaken the economy, cause great human suffering, and move us closer to eliminating the threadbare safety net.

The case for the grand bargain consists of two very big lies. One, that austerity will bring the country out of recession, and two, that entitlement programs played a role in creating the federal deficit. It is government spending which can bring the economy out of recession, but conservatives want none of it. They want to starve the beast as it were and kill all government spending that is not related to defense. It is hard to believe the second fact, that entitlements are not responsible for the budget deficit, when we are constantly told otherwise. If a lie is told often enough without rebuttal it is treated as fact.

Years of Democratic accommodation to corporate interests has brought us to the point where we must fight a Democratic president in order to preserve programs which came into being because of the Democratic party. Not so long ago Social Security was called “the third rail of politics” because it was politically untouchable. It was inconceivable that a Democratic president would take his entitlement cutting show on the road, loudly and publicly demanding support for making right wing fantasies come true. Steadfast support for Social Security was always the lowest hanging fruit for Democrats. Now we can’t count on the party that markets itself as protecting our interests to make even the smallest effort on our behalf.
~ from Freedom Rider: Grand Bargain is the Satan Sandwich by Margaret Kimberley ~

If you fancy yourself as a Democrat or a liberal, will you stand by while the Democrats help to eviscerate the social safety net? This is no mere rhetorical question. Our Democratic Party President desperately wants to usher in austerity for the masses, while shielding the rich from as much pain as possible.

So, the big question facing all of you Obama supporters is: Will you let him get away with it without putting up any kind of a fight?

Sadly, if we look at the past 4 years, the answer is a resounding YES! You'll wring your hands and twist in your seats, but you'll tell anyone who will listen that since "Obama is our guy, we mustn't criticize him." You'll rationalize that he wants to do the right thing, but those nasty Republicans have forced his hand. You'll come up with one hundred and one excuses to say it's not his fault.

He KNOWS you will do this for him. In fact, he's counting on it. He is like an abusive husband with a wife of low self-esteem. Every time he hits you, all he has to do is murmur a few sweet nothings in your ear and you'll take him back in a heartbeat. You'll blame yourself for his abusive behavior and you will promise him that you will be more faithful in the future.

For all the great faith you put in him, he is not going to change. He will continue to kick, hit and slap you until you -- and the rest of us -- are nothing more than a bloody pulp. Once the final deed is done, you still won't blame him for choosing to be an abuser.

What does this say about you?

A Moral Option

Trey Smith

Progressives are protecting less and less with each election cycle. The winner-take-all electoral system makes other parties irrelevant and relegates them to spoiler status, but the argument against supporting them is weaker as the system deteriorates. The argument that voting changes nothing for the average person is a valid one, and the sight of Romney and Obama declaring agreement on the issues of empire and finance makes that point quite clearly.

We are left with a plea to honor the memories of those who sacrificed, sometimes with their lives, during the freedom struggles of the 1960s. But those people fought and died for full citizenship rights, of which voting was just a part. No one today should worry about dishonoring or dismissing their sacrifice by refusing to take part in the farce that national elections have now become.

It is acceptable not to vote at all, or to vote for someone other than Barack Obama. Some who claim to be leftists argue against particular Obama policies only to conclude at election time that he should be elected anyway. These people undercut their own arguments and make a mockery of themselves. Their pleas to stop surveillance or drone assassinations or the destruction of nations such as Libya and Syria become hollow because they refuse to acknowledge the corruption that is an integral part of the system.

Arguing for the re-election of a person who so clearly is a danger to the nation and to the world is at best illogical, and at worst is immoral. The time for defending tiny victories should end. Barack Obama and the Democrats should know that their critics mean business, and will cease supporting them. Racist statements from right wing pundits and bizarre statements about rape and pregnancy shouldn’t fool anyone into supporting policies that are wrong for this country and for the world.

On November 6th it is perfectly acceptable, morally right, and politically principled to boycott the election or to vote for a party other than the Democrats.
~ from Not Voting for Obama by Margaret Kimberley ~

I realize that many US readers feel compelled to vote for tweedledee or tweedledum. That's what we've been taught since we were knee high. Voting both is a privilege AND a responsibility. If you don't vote, the thinking goes, you have no right to complain.

There might be some truth to this axiom IF we had two or more viable candidates who represented divergent perspectives. The problem we face, however, is that the only candidates who profess divergent views aren't viable (the system is rigged against them) and the only two that are viable agree on most of the salient issues facing the nation and the world.

What it comes down to is a moral dilemma. Do you choose to participate in a system rigged to produce an outcome acceptable to the elite or do you choose not to be a party to it? I've chosen not to be participate in the farce. How about you?

My, How Times Have Changed!

Trey Smith

Barack Obama’s health care plan is very much like a health care plan first presented by another president in 1971. Then president Richard Nixon presented a plan that was very similar to the over hyped Obamacare. Nixon proposed forcing private insurance companies to cover everyone regardless of prior health condition, and the government subsidizing those unable to pay.

The elation created by the Obama court victory is symptomatic of many things that are very wrong in the American body politic. Once again we see proof that the democrats of the 21st century are akin to the republicans of forty years ago. There is no other way to explain their bizarre rejoicing because a band-aid has been placed over a gunshot wound.

Nixon’s proposal ultimately failed because the late senator Ted Kennedy opposed it. Kennedy was the democratic point person on health care and he saw the obvious flaws in a plan which maintained a dependence on the rule of private health insurers.
~ from Nixoncare Finally Wins Margaret Kimberley ~

Just let this sink in for a moment. Obamacare is nothing more than a recycled proposal from a disgraced Republican president. It was defeated because Democrats viewed it as a worthless strategy.

Here we are 41 years later and it's the Democrats who are touting this legislation and the Republicans who are opposing it. The crazy part is that it's basically the same damn plan!!! What changed so much in four decades?

It wasn't the plan itself; it's the Democratic Party. The Dems have moved so far to the right that the only way the Republicans can exist now is to fall off the right edge altogether. Progressives like to blame the crazy GOP for this and that, but they've been made crazy because Democrats have stolen the conservative's turf!

All the time, I hear liberal pundits claiming that there aren't any moderate or reasonable Republicans left. Can you blame them? How does one expect a Republican to be reasonable and moderate when the Democrats are touting conservative policies? Since, by their very nature, the GOP can't move to the left of the Democratic Party, what is the only direction they can move?

Political Calculus 101

Trey Smith

...since the Obama administration itself initiated the most massive wave of deportations in US history, it also could have stopped them six months, a year, two years ago. So calling press conferences, as Chicago Congressman Luis Gutierrez did, to thank the Obama Administration for maybe stopping deportations just of vets and college-bound youth with spotless records is like expressing sincere gratitude to a brutal assailant who's beat every square inch of your body the last three years, when he announces he might start going easy on the head and groin shots from now on. If you ask him nicely.

This is not a victory for the human dignity of immigrants. It's a no-cost cynical ploy by the Obama Administration a few months before the election to shore up his sagging support in the Latino community.
~ from Obama Memo Deferring Some Deportations Not a Victory For Latinos, Immigrants or Human Rights by Bruce A. Dixon ~

I am always dubious of presidential proclamations and policy shifts in the lead-up to a presidential election. Too often, as in this case, the rhetoric of the announcement makes a tiny stone sound like it's as large as the Rock of Gibraltar! (If you read Dixon's column, you'll see Obama's memo isn't all it's cracked up to be.)

Dixon's fellow columnist at the Black Agenda Report, Margaret Kimberley, points out something rather curious about our current Commander-in-Chief.

When President Obama doesn’t want to do something, he pleads the limits of presidential power or resistance from Republicans. But, when a novel move is to his political benefit, the world is his oyster. So far, gays and Latinos have benefited from Obama’s newfound insights or powers. Obama could just as easily issue executive orders “to change policies on incarceration, or address the foreclosure crisis, or bring federal dollars to economically devastated communities.”

But he doesn't seem interested in doing any of that. Why? It's all based on political calculus.

Throwing a bone or two to gays and Latinos doesn't upset Wall Street all that much. As long as the titans of capital aren't impacted by such vote-chasing ploys, there is little political risk. The money from the well-to-do will keep flowing into Obama's campaign coffers unabated.

And that's really all that matters as the campaign season picks up steam. Obama can do about whatever he wants to shore up his base, so long as he does not cause corporate profit to fall by as much a penny. That's the one bridge he will refuse to cross.

Gun Them All Down?

Trey Smith

Barack Obama, who lots of deluded people not too long ago imagined was a man of peace, wants the American people to think of him as a cold killer. He’s betting that’s the kind of president his countrymen desire. Violence-wise, the U.S. is the home of the depraved. Conclusion: “Our president is a totally amoral psychopath, and the revelation of his condition has not hurt his popularity.”
~ from Bloodthirsty Americans by Margaret Kimberley ~

It pains me to think that Kimberley's assertion is true -- that Americans are, by and large, a bloodthirsty people. If you look all throughout our history, it is hard to argue with. If you look at the past 10 years or so, it is plain as day: We rally around the thug-in-chief (regardless of political party affiliation).

What really gets me is that, while we love our government and military leaders to act as thuggish as humanly possible, most of us don't act that way at all in our routine lives. More often than not, we go out of our way not to act aggressively or violently toward others.

So, why do we elect people who are aggressive and violent? Do most of my countrymen get a vicarious pleasure from it? Is it a way to live out their fantasies?

Let me ask you something. If you had a strong suspicion -- you don't know for a fact, you're merely "kind of" sure -- that "Bob" down the street was a pedophile, drug dealer, serial rapist or, maybe, an atheist homosexual AND you knew that the local police/district attorney would look the other way, would you have no compunction against burning down his house with him inside or shooting him dead the next time he happened to walk out in his yard?

I'm sure that some people wouldn't have any problem whatsoever rubbing out "Bob" based on their suspicions, but MOST people would. Most of us accept the concept of the "rule of law" and do not favor self-appointed vigilantes enforcing their own definitions of justice. We accept the notion that we no longer live in the Wild West where disagreements are settled with a six-shooter!

So, I ask again, why do we elect and support government leaders who behave like 19th century gunslingers or Mafia hitmen?

The Inhumanity of it All

Trey Smith

Call a Georgetown law student a slut, and the liberal universe goes into supernova. Destroy Somalia and Libya, or obliterate due process of law, and the same people just yawn. Attorney General Eric Holder “asserts that the president can in fact decide to kill anyone he wants, as long as he claims that person is a terrorist.” Liberals love the guy.
~ from Freedom Rider: Liberal Whores by Margaret Kimberley ~

By and large, Americans -- particularly liberals -- get themselves all out of joint over words, but not actions. Say the wrong thing and consternation boils over. Do the wrong thing and they hardly notice.

The US has become one of the great killing machines of human history. We kill with bombs and missiles as much as with economic shenanigans. We bully people inside and outside of our borders. We rape Mother Earth like a serial rapist.

And yet, while most of this is going on, the liberal intelligentsia sits on the sidelines. While it's true that they will muster some indignation if a Republican is at the helm, when a Democrat takes over the wheel, we see that the indignation is little more than a facade. All their cries for justice and peace fade away in an instant.

While few people would disagree that calling Sandra Fluke a "slut" is bad form, killing people and destroying the ability of the planet to sustain life as we know it is 100 times worse. Why is it that the liberal intelligentsia will jump to the defense of one individual, but turns a blind eye to the plight of the billions?