Columns

CIVITAS: A failure to own, in an ownership society

editor — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Four years ago, President Bush outlined his vision for an “ownership society,” a society where, “if you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of our country. The more ownership there is in America, the more vitality there is in America, and the more people have a vital stake in the future of this country.”

This “ownership society” would be one in which the individual, not the community, increasingly took title to everything. Success, property and credit would flow to those who deserved them, and away from those who didn’t.

In doing so, Bush told us, our nation would be better. More fragmented. Less homogeneous. But more market-oriented, more dynamic, more equitable in allocating to those who won.

Bear Stearns and other bare sterns

editor — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Don't look now, America. You've just been mooned by the masters of Creative Greed.

Wall Street has shown its ass again. Buns of Steal!

Now we have to pay for the show, as usual. But pay with what? We don't have anything left. All the commonweal is gone, sucked up by our coddled billionaires, siphoned off into the coffers of our oil-rich friend/enemies on the Arabian Peninsula and our own insatiable oil tycoons, and shoveled into the black hole of Bush's Iraqi Horror Picture Show.

With what are we supposed to pay for this glorious glimpse of gluteus?

MEDIAlternative: Business as usual

editor — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

This semester, I'm teaching a course that examines U.S. press performance during the Iraq War. We've been using books -- such as Michael Massing's eminently readable, if deeply disturbing, Now They Tell Us -- that document the extent to which American journalists uncritically accepted the Bush administration's rationale for war with Iraq.

My students are bright, and they certainly appreciate the importance of critical thinking. Nonetheless, they have had a hard time accepting the awful truth that the U.S. press corps was complicit in the administration's propaganda campaign to secure popular support for the war.

The insider’s guide to the outdoors - Part 5

editor — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

We gnomes have been here many, many years guarding the secrets and treasures of the Earth against all sorts of threats, so we don’t scare easily.

But as I snoozed in the sun recently, snuggled between the roost of a big maple tree in an Interstate Highway Rest Area, a couple of men in suits came out of the vending machine building and sat down at a picnic bench with colas and potato chips, and they were talking business, and they used a phrase I’d never heard before, and it stuck in my heart. It sounded like this:

“The Glowball Economy.”

CIVITAS: Reparations

editor — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

If you haven’t heard already, we’re in big trouble. I’m not talking accidentally let the goldfish go down the drain trouble. I’m not talking backed the car out of the garage while the door was still shut trouble. I’m not even talking you committed a hit-and-run in a School Zone, and now your face is on TV, trouble.

I’m talking big trouble. Macro trouble. Makes the Great Depression look like a bounced check to Pizza Express trouble.

Four two years now, the nation’s housing bubble has been deflating. Starting somewhat slowly at first, it’s now plummeting to earth and opening up a black hole that has spread beyond just our shores and to every country on the planet.

Nation inflation

editor — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

The first time I obtained a passport was in 1983, when I was planning to visit Scotland, the homeland of my ancestors. It was plain little booklet with a navy blue cover, impressed with an eagle-and-shield emblem in gold, and the words "United States of America."

The inside front cover contained identifying data, a long string of cryptic numbers and a mug shot of me that evoked the old joke: "If you look like your passport photo, you're not well enough to travel."

There followed a couple of pages of terse instructions and rules about customs, immunizations, visas, embassy contacts and so on, and a place to write name and address of next-of-kin. All the rest of the pages were blank spaces where visa entries would be stamped when you arrived at and left foreign countries. These pages were faintly underlaid with a pattern of Liberty Bells and red-white-and-blue shields, barely visible.

Very neat, compact, well-made, understated, easy to fit into a small, secure pocket. But it had a feel to it, beyond the booklet itself, a kind of potent little unspoken statement that the "bearer is one of America's people; we expect him to behave, and we expect you to treat him decently while he's in your country." Being a veteran and a taxpayer, I felt that the passport and I were made for each other.

OUT IN BLOOMINGTON: The choice is clear

editor — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Remember when the buzz word was “diversity?” Everybody and everything was diversified, meaning that the power elite admitted to the inequities in our system and a bunch of conscientious workshops and events were organized to address them?

Glad that all worked well and we are just one big happy national family now.

But, moving on, we have a new buzz word, and it’s called "change." Seems that everyone -- all the politicians, media and general populace -- is talking about change. And while we certainly recognize the need for a change in governmental direction, we have to ask what kind of change is all the chatter about? There is good change and bad change, and those concepts are constantly being redefined by both sides.

CIVITAS: The big lie

editor — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:17:10 -0500

The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous. -- Joseph Goebbels

***
Like a lot of liberals, I spent much of last week in front of the TV, transfixed by the ugly spectacle of the Republican National Convention. Anxious to learn more of their presumptive vice-presidential nomination, curious as to what issues their presumptive presidential candidate thought important, wondering how the Party that Wrecked America was going to cast itself.

Now I generally like to keep the subject matter of CIVITAS as locally relevant as I can, meaning I generally like to write about local issues. But not today, not after what I saw, and heard, last week. And not after what superficially appears to be a national issue might instead be one of the most locally relevant, ever.

The past is foreplay

editor — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

It's hard to refrain from saying, "I told you so."

I first began pleading, way back about 18 years ago: "Let's not start wars in the Middle East. Please. Don't attack Iraq, George Bush."

The first time, I was speaking of George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States. He was getting ready to hit Iraq for attacking Kuwait. Old George's popularity ratings were way down (as Bush popularity ratings tend to go as soon as they get in the White House), and here was a chance for him to look righteous and strong, even if it meant turning suddenly against an old ally, Saddam Hussein.

We know Hussein was vicious and nuts, but we'd been sucking up to him because of certain oil-supply realities and because he was an enemy of our "enemy," Iran. Maybe you remember that photograph of Donald Rumsfeld bowing to and shaking hands with Saddam, who had been gassing Kurds with chemical weapons acquired from American businesses. It's one of my favorite news photographs of all time, because it is the purest image of political hypocrisy that ever stood before a camera lens.

MEDIAlternative: Annals of censorship

editor — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Ohio Congressman and former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich delivered one of the more rousing and impassioned speeches at last month's Democratic National Convention.

Unfortunately, convention planners didn't grant Kucinich a prime-time slot, effectively denying millions of television viewers the opportunity to hear his urgent plea to "wake up America."

And despite clear enthusiasm for Kucinich's remarks among the assembled delegates (a C-SPAN recording of the speech is available on YouTube) and the subsequent buzz his wakeup call generated in the blogosphere and the alternative press, mainstream media outlets took little notice of Kucinich's speech.

Of course, there's nothing new in all of this. Neither the corporate media nor so-called public service broadcasters give Kucinich much play. Typically, establishment media either ignore Kucinich altogether or portray him as a left-wing extremist whose views cannot be taken seriously.