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The Crisis Papers on DU
| Ernest Partridge |
It is very difficult for an old liberal like me to be sympathetic about the plight of the corporate media, given the way they have behaved of late. But the simple fact of the matter is that the commercial news media have fallen into a deep financial pit, and that is both good news and bad news for the political health of our republic.
In 2005, newspaper circulation with the largest declines posted in the major newspapers. Still worse, in 2007, As a result of this shrinka...
| Bernard Weiner |
Dear Wolfgang and Jacqueline:
Finally some time to respond to your recent letter, where you asked me to explain the "crazy American political situation" and why "the U.S. is behaving so recklessly" with regard to Iran. Your terms are right on the mark.
First off, it's important to know that "the U.S." you refer to is mainly the Bush Administration. In poll after poll in recent days, Americans have indicated they regard this presidency as the worst ever in U.S. history. Mor...
| Ernest Partridge |
The pre-convention Democratic campaign could not be working out better for the Republicans even if the GOP had planned it this way.
Perhaps they did.
If so, their wholly-owned subsidiary, the corporate media, appears to be dutifully following their instructions to the letter.
Prolonging the Agony
The optimum course of events for both the GOP and the media is a continuation of the Clinton-Obama slugfest for as long as possible. The media benefits with sustained public in...
| Bernard Weiner |
The political noose seems to be tightening on the key members of the remaining miscreants down in the White House bunker -- mainly Bush, Cheney, Rice, Addington and Mukasey. (Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Powell and Tenet were pushed out the door earlier.) But will the Democrats, having been provided with smoking gun-type evidence of these officials' high crimes and misdemeanors, take the next logical step to end this continuing nightmare of law-breaking at the highest levels...
| Bernard Weiner |
Most of the books I've read about the awfulness of the Bush presidency remind me of the old story about the blind men trying to figure out what an elephant looks like. Each one feels the part in front of him and describes the elephant within that singular context. The blind men's descriptions are correct but they don't really capture "elephant-ness," the totality of what such an animal might be.
"The Shock Doctrine" by The Nation/Guardian writer Naomi Klein gets the pieces o...
| Ernest Partridge |
Randi Rhodes has left the building, but the controversy lingers on.
I rarely write about personalities, being much more interested in issues and ideas. Celebrity-obsession is a major pox on the American body-politic, and I'd just as soon ignore the AAR-Rhodes contretemps. But l'affaire Rhodes bears larger implications that deserve examination.
Quite frankly, I will miss the Randi Rhodes show on Air America Radio. She is smart, sassy, witty, and she deftly stroked my poli...
| Ernest Partridge |
Some of my best friends are libertarians.
We read each others' papers, we exchange ideas by e-mail, and we invite each other to participate in our seminars and conferences.
On numerous occasions, my libertarian friends have treated me with generosity and respect. I've found them to be personable and tolerant of my progressive opinions.
And also unyielding in their convictions.
My libertarian friends, I have discovered, are like the kindly Catholic bishop, who will patie...
| Bernard Weiner |
In the hour of the wolf, I am visited by a number of nightmarish political scenarios. No doubt, dear reader, you have your own scary visitations. Here are just ten of mine:
1. MOVING CLOSER TO IRAN WAR
That some major false-flag terrorist attack, perhaps arranged by our own black-op agencies, will be unloosed in a major American city -- maybe a dirty nuke, or some virulent toxin, or a bomb -- and the planted "evidence" will seem to lead back to Iran. CheneyBush, perhaps in ...
| Ernest Partridge |
How is industrial civilization to deal with the end of the petroleum age and the onset of global warming?
The answer seems obvious to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. On Air America's "Ring of Fire" radio program ten days ago, he remarked: "Solar energy is hitting the earth for free - the tides, the wind, the sun are all free. All we need is to implant the infrastructure to harvest those electrons, and in a few years we'll be off of foreign oil."
Typical wooly-headed liberalism! An...
| Bernard Weiner |
My neighbor's cattle operation had a huge number of prized Black Angus steers and Holstein dairy-cows. I wanted them and the lush range they fed on. I tried making some sort of deal with the owner, but he was one ornery sumbitch.
He knew his Double I-Ranch was prime real estate, with super cattle herds, so he made sure to hire the strongest guards and gave them the latest weapons so nobody would consider making a move on him. He was taunting me, telling me he wouldn't deal, ...
| Ernest Partridge |
Some African tribes have devised an ingenious method of capturing monkeys. They cut a small hole in a coconut, large enough for a monkey's hand but too small for a monkey's fist. They then put a few peanuts inside the coconut. When the monkey reaches inside and grabs the peanuts, it is unable to extract its hand.
The monkey is then faced with two choices: let go of the bait and go free or hold on to the bait and be captured. Escaping with the bait is not an option. African...
| Ernest Partridge |
"The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman." -- Shakespeare, King Lear
Some forty years ago, I interviewed the late William F. Buckley, Jr. although I had to bribe him to agree. But it wasn't so bad. I bribed him for a song - or more precisely, for a couple of Bach lute pieces.
At the time, I was a graduate student at the University of Utah, and I also hosted a talk show at a local AM radio station, KSXX. I was a rare liberal among a solid roster of right-wingers. When word ...
| Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers |
The Middle East is undergoing yet another paroxysm of violence. An attack from one side or the other, be it Israeli or Palestinian in origin, leads to reprisal attacks, which leads to -- well, we all understand the vortex that both sides continue to fall into.
This state of warfare has been going on for at least 60 years, since the founding of the State of Israel, and, in a sense, much much longer than that. And the situation is getting worse.
Those on th...
| Bernard Weiner |
If anyone still harbors any illusions that the lame-duck CheneyBush Administration will taxi relatively harmlessly to its departure gate in January 2009, recent events suggest otherwise. It's been made abundantly clear that in the next ten months, these guys are going to behave even more brutishly in amassing and misusing their power, and in screwing things up, than they've already done in the past seven-plus years.
In essence, the message emanating from the White House to t...
| Ernest Partridge |
This past week I revisited an essay that I wrote in May, 2000: Reading it was a sobering reminder of how much we Americans have lost, economically, politically, and morally, since then - how much our sense of hope, our self-esteem and our international reputation have disintegrated under the Bush/Cheney regime.
In that essay, I contrasted a "well-ordered society" of citizens bound by a shared sense of justice, with a "private society" of autonomous individuals, loyal onl...
| Ernest Partridge |
With an abundance of intelligence, energy, eloquence, and "audacious hope," Barack Obama has opened a commanding lead over his sole remaining rival, Hillary Clinton. If he captures the Democratic nomination, in the general election he will face in Senator John McCain a shopworn supporter of an unpopular war, tainted with scandal, and despised by the right-wing base of the Republican party. Despite all that, for he will have at his disposal the Justice Department's coast-to...
| Bernard Weiner |
Here's a brief survey of where we are now in the Election 2008 cycle, which might just help progressives figure out where we want to go and maybe even what the post-CheneyBush future should look like. Four quick observations:
1. Let's assume, at least for the sake of argument, that the November election proceeds without attempts at intervention or "postponement" by CheneyBush, and that it is a reasonably honest one, with a minimum of electoral fraud involved. (Certainly, wha...
| Ernest Partridge |
"The man that once did sell the lion's skin while
the beast lived, was killed with hunting him."
-- Shakespeare: King Henry V
Happy days are here again!
The GOP is in disarray. The factions of this improbable alliance of religious fundamentalists, neo-con war hawks, and market absolutists have discovered, with the emergence of their presumptive nominee, John McCain, that they have little in common. James Dobson, leader of the fundamentalist "Focus on the Family," has anno...
| Bernard Weiner |
I received the coded message from "Shallow Throat" -- the high-ranking GOP mole in the Bush Administration -- and quickly arranged a Bethesda meeting at the place I was housesitting.
ST didn't even wait to sit down on the sofa before starting the vent: "Everytime I think you and your Democrat friends have some smarts, and are showing some moxie that might lead to a turnaround in public policy, you screw it up.
"You guys fell right into Karl Rove's trap," said ST, taking of...
| Bernard Weiner |
It's the usual M.O. from CheneyBush. They still act and speak as if nothing has changed politically from when they first fired up their juggernaut nearly eight years ago.
Ignoring the irony, for example, they've appointed Paul Wolfowitz -- the always-wrong neo-con architect of Iraq war policy -- chair of the State Department's arms control and disarmament panel. They continue to nominate for high posts incompetent ideologues. They have re-vetoed the popular SCHIP bill that w...
| Ernest Partridge |
Today, Don Siegelman, former governor of the state of Alabama, sits in a federal prison, sentenced to a seven year term for bribery.
Every day that Siegelman remains in prison every American citizen who openly dissents from the policies and protests the criminality of the Bush/Cheney regime is less free and more vulnerable to politically motivated prosecution.
For the plain fact of the matter is that Don Siegelman is, in effect, a political prisoner. The formal charge aga...
| Bernard Weiner |
As we get deeper into primary season, here are a number of issues -- including even more disquieting election anomalies from New Hampshire -- that are worth considering.
For all intents and purposes, the Democratic Party might well know in a few weeks, after Super Duper Tuesday February 5, who its presidential nominee will be. The Republicans, despite wide divisions among its various party factions, may also have their nominee chosen.
However, the situation is so fluid in b...
| Ernest Partridge |
In the United States of America, the public selects the candidates of each of the two parties. Several candidates of these parties offer themselves to the citizens of a number of states, the free US press presents the policy positions of the candidates to the public, and the free broadcast media conduct debates in which the issues are openly discussed. Then the states hold primaries and caucuses, in which delegates are chosen by the voters, whereupon the delegates choose th...
| Bernard Weiner |
There are reasonable explanations for why Clinton was declared the winner in New Hampshire in the face of all the late polls saying Obama would take it big: undecideds swinging to Hillary on the final day, women heading to the voting precincts in larger-than-expected numbers, some Independents deciding to vote for McCain rather than the ostensible big-winner Obama, Clinton's more personal appeal in her "tearing-up" incident, hidden racism, Clinton supporters messing with Obam...
| Ernest Partridge |
Have you ever been betrayed by a old and trusted friend?
If so, you might understand my rage at and disgust with The New York Times.
While I gave up on the Times some time ago, I can't allow the latest outrage, the hiring of William Kristol as the newest Times columnist, to pass by without complaint.
The New York Times and I go way, way, back. Since before I was born, my parents subscribed to the Times. Throughout college, graduate school, and early career, the NYT was m...
| Bernard Weiner |
Here's what I think could happen in 2008, some good, some bad, and a whole lot of ugly.
For purposes of stimulating some out-of-the-box thinking, I've come up with some scenarios that may seem over-the-top, but I hope the extreme visions might provide lessons for action.
Let's start with the more positive 2008 scenario:
1. The House Judiciary Committee votes to begin impeachment hearings against the Vice President; Cheney resigns, "for reasons of health," before he has to ...
| Ernest Partridge |
When Willard "Mitt" Romney announced his intention to run for the Presidency of the United States, one might suppose that there was joy in Salt Lake City among the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
I suspect that by now those leaders may be having some second thoughts.
For while it was a good thing for the American public to learn about the Mormon faith, Church leaders are now discovering that it is possible to have too much of a good thing.
en...
| Bernard Weiner (with assistance by C. Dickens) |
Bob Cratchit turned up the thermostat in the office another notch, to take the chill off the 49-degree room, steeled his courage and walked up to the boss, who was oiling his shotgun.
"Sir," said Cratchit, "I was wondering if you would be considering a holiday bonus this year, so that I can buy a goose for our family's Christmas dinner."
"Bah, scumbag!" said Dick. "You lazy bum, trying to sponge off us hard-working citizens. Don't try to bam...
| Ernest Partridge |
The earth orbits the sun, as it has for four billion years, in perfect balance of two opposing forces: the centrifugal force which, in accordance with Newton's first law of motion, draws the planet outward, and the centripetal force of the sun's gravity which draws it inward.
Analogously, political rule remains stable only as long as centrifugal forces that would overthrow it are successfully resisted by centripetal forces that contain them. Among these centripetal forces...
| Bernard Weiner |
So, let me see if I've got this straight:
The Cheneyists wanted to bomb Iran based on the same fear-scam Americans fell for when CheneyBush were pushing the invasion of Iraq: nuclear weapons. Here's how their scheme fell apart -- or did it?
In 2002-2003, you may recall, Rice and Bush and Cheney kept hyping Saddam Hussein's alleged robust nuclear-weapons program -- all that "yellowcake" uranium supposedly obtained from Africa and so on -- and warning about "mushroom clouds" ...
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About the Crisis Papers
Ernest Partridge and Bernard Weiner are co-editors of The Crisis Papers, and have published their essays on Democratic Underground since 2001. Bernard Weiner, an activist journalist and public speaker, holds a Ph.D.in government and international relations, has taught at various universities, worked as a writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently co-edits The Crisis Papers. Visit Bernard Weiner's blog Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy. He has taught Philosophy at the University of California, and in Utah, Colorado and Wisconsin. He publishes the website The Online Gadfly and co-edits the The Crisis Papers. He is at work on a book, Conscience of a Progressive, which can be seen in-progress here. Visit Ernest Partridge's blog Visitor Tools
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Previous Crisis Papers Archives
To view the Crisis Papers archives from March 2005 to March 2006, click here. To find Bernard Weiner's earlier essays on DU, click here. To find Ernest Partridge's earlier essays on DU, click here. Random Journal
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