MSNBC's Gentlest Host

If you see a man's name repeatedly printed on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list, might you be tempted to think he is perhaps a dangerous character? What if the description of this wanted man included that he was "dangerous, year in, year out"; do you think that might get your guard up, at least just a little? What if the man was described as a terrorist, or what if he was your neighbor? What if the CIA, or the President, or your wife and children, told you that "so and so" is dangerous, year in, year out, and that he was repeatedly named the "Worst Person" in the world by authorities everywhere? Do you think you might find yourself a little anxious, a wee bit cautious? And would it upset you if, in the normal course of everyday life, the man deemed the "Worst Person in the World" was to meet an untimely or unfortunate death?

Let me ask you this: Could it have been possible during the 1930s and early 1940s that Adolf Hitler was considered the world's worst person? It seems reasonable to think so. But if that's the case, do you think it would have been unreasonable or immoral for someone to KILL the worst person in the world, Mr. Hitler? After all, what's the right thing to do with the world's worst person, one who is dangerous, day in, day out? Don't you wish for him to find the grave?

Tonight -- again -- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann listed Fox News' Bill O'Reilly as the WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD. That Mr. Olbermann is obsessed with Mr. O'Reilly is well-known; tonight he even alluded to critics who have pointed out his fetishistic fascination with Mr. Bill. But what was interesting tonight about Mr. Olbermann's  scolding of Mr. O'Reilly is that he presented Mr. O'Reilly as a threat to humanity; that Mr. O'Reilly was literally "dangerous, year in, year out." Mr. Olbermann even averred that Mr. O'Reilly is not a mere provocateur, but a hatemonger, inciting violence against politicians and other public servants. In Mr. Olbermann's opinion, Mr. O'Reilly is directly responsible for the assassination of George Tiller, the infamous late-term abortion doctor who was shot last year while attending church; apparently, or so Mr. Olbermann thinks, Mr. O'Reilly was culpable in that shooting because he opined on his national TV show that Tiller was an incorrigible killer of unborn babies, which, if I am not mistaken, was a statement of fact nearly tautological in structure.

But the irony, the sad, brutal irony, is that Mr. Olbermann is blind to his own hate. He claims Mr. O'Reilly incites violence with his hateful rhetoric. But I think Mr. Olbermann would be hard pressed to find a bit of evidence that Mr. O'Reilly has repeatedly labeled any person on the planet "THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD." There is ample evidence, however, that Mr. Olbermann has indeed  relentlessly abused Bill O'Reilly, reducing him to a hatemongering bigot who is "dangerous, year in, year out." Whose language, really, is likely to lead to violence? Whose rhetoric is aimed at creating animosity, hate, and a thirst for retribution?

Of course, Mr. Olbermann will dismiss his critics: "I am the good guy, and what I do is satire, parody; I tell jokes!" Indeed, Mr. Olbermann is nearly exclusively about jokes. But Bill O'Reilly also tells jokes, and his comments about kidnapping Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, though not hurting them (and MAYBE waterboarding Pelosi), clearly WERE a joke, absurd and silly on their face. Moreover, this is not the sort of joke Mr. O'Reilly tells over and over. But Mr. Olbermann "jokes" repeatedly without humor, without a wink or a smile, that Bill O'Reilly is the world's WORST person; that he is "dangerous, year in, year out" and that he really "is dangerous to Nancy Pelosi." Obviously Mr. Olbermann is not joking, and he knows we all know it.

Mr. Olbermann fails to see that his act of denouncing Bill O'Reilly as a man who "encourages hatred and violence" itself encourages hatred and violence -- against Bill O'Reilly.

This writer is no Bill O'Reilly enthusiast, not even close. In fact, I've hammered him here. But O'Reilly is no Olbermann. Without a doubt the former is a blustering buffoon; but the latter is undeniably and unapologetically hateful, seething with resentment.

What Mr. Olbermann did tonight is really just the bright side of stupid.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Unions Incorporate, Businesses Unite: On Campaign Spending

Numbers are a curious thing.

When the US Supreme Court last week handed down its 5-4 decision permitting corporations to exercise their free speech rights during elections, the hue and cry could be heard throughout the land: "Democracy is dead!" In fact, the lamentations were so passionate and sweeping one expected to see wailing and gnashing of teeth in every public square. However, what one hardly ever heard from the court's critics and the many prognosticators of doom is that the court's decision did two things, and not just one: A) It permitted all corporations full democratic participation, and not just SOME, as the status quo had permitted; B) It permitted UNIONS full democratic participation. Seriously, every person I heard complain about the court's decision never mentioned unions, or that some corporations were exempt from the law's restrictions, the law the Supreme Court essentially emended. Critics and decriers merely griped about faceless, nameless bogeymen -- business corporations.

Here's something you will find utterly amazing:

According to campaign finance data, businesses spent $1.96 billion in the 2007-2008 cycle, while labor and other interest groups spent $673.47 million.

Well, that's not all that amazing, is it? Maybe it will be after you read this:

However, while corporations far outspent unions and other interest groups in the last cycle, that spending, historically, has not benefited one party over the other.

Since 1990, corporations have divided their contributions nearly equally -- 49.4 percent toward Democrats and 50.6 percent toward Republicans.

Union political spending is not so balanced. In the same period, labor unions gave 92 percent of donations to Democrats, while just 8 percent went to Republicans.

So, then, let us do the math for the 2007-08 election cycle, admittedly based on loose percentages taken from the last 20 years of campaign contributions. No, never mind. Why bother? All it will likely show us (though not necessarily) is that BIG NASTY BUSINESS and UNIONS contributed more to Democrats than they contributed to Republicans.

I think the big news here, really, is that very little will actually change as a result of the Supreme Court's decision.

By the way, I am not convinced the decision handed down by the Supreme Court is all that good.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

We Love To Blame: Brief Thoughts On The Haitian Relief Effort

Only a few days after the Haitian earthquake, an old friend of mine said something like this: "Well, Obama sure responded faster to Haiti than Bush did to Katrina, so give one point to Obama."

My response to him was rather thorough, I can assure you, though my response did not include a defense of Mr. Bush. In that response, the secondary point I made is that Haiti was a United Nations and United States humanitarian project long before the earthquake struck. Hence, for Mr. Obama to respond in any positive manner was rather pedestrian, being no more than what any thinking person would do. Responding to Haiti, which was not protected by the levels of autonomous governance as was New Orleans in August 2005, presented little difficulty for a president whose country was already working in consort with other nations in that land.

The primary point I voiced to my friend was that not only were the two situations incomparable, ANY comparison was disgusting political gamesmanship by people exploiting an incident of mass suffering and death. This was NOT a time to politicize, second-guess or mock. This was not a time to sneer, or point scolding fingers. This was not a time for people, pols and pundits, who know nothing about relief efforts in disaster zones, to start barking out "shoulds" and "musts" from the safety of their proud ignorance.

The conversation with my friend ended really quite well, with both of us agreeing that Haiti was just too horrific to be used for sheer political posturing. Our parting was amicable.

Please note, however, that there is evidence I was not wrong, that people will gripe: Three New York City surgeons who immediately responded to Haiti have written that "[t]he U.S. response to the earthquake should be considered an embarrassment." And this from three gifted and heroic souls who were in the very thick of things; in 60 hours of non-stop labor, their teams performed 100 operations on some of Haiti's most damaged survivors. Even the most obtuse of us can understand their frustration: "The death toll from Katrina was under 2,000 people. Deaths in Haiti as of yesterday are at least 150,000. Untold numbers are dying of untreated, preventable infections. For all the outcry about Katrina, our nation [the US] has fared no better in this latest disaster."

I urge you to read the doctors' essay for yourself, which can be found here. The few details they share of the situation in Haiti are compelling, humbling and deeply moving.

It will do no good -- NOW -- to bicker. This IS REALLY a time to congeal together, to quickly learn from our mistakes. It is not a time to take credit or lay blame, or to tally cheap points, or to settle into bureaucratic complacency.

This is a time of war, a war against time, infection, death. Let's got on with it as best we can.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

The Donor MUST Be Cheney! The Company MUST Be Halliburton!

Continuing to maintain consistency with many of his predecessor's policies, President Barack Obama announced today that he has awarded a no-bid contract worth $25 million to a company owned by one of his biggest sponsors.

The White House is ecstatic in the wake of this decision.

"Let me be clear: People need to know I inherited this sort of deal-making when I came into office last year," the President said from the Oval Office, "and, because of the transparency essential to a vital democracy, I have taken the necessary steps to ensure the American public will not know about this sort of thing again."

Many have wondered if the donor was Dick Cheney, as critics of the former vice president often railed against him for his alleged ties with Halliburton, known as the very lair of Satan (and the setting for Dante's Inferno), which enjoyed no-bid contracts during Bush's War of Choice. Mr. Cheney could not be reached for comment, as he was too busy burying more "tectonic weapons" off the coast of Haiti.

PS. Satire intended.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Republicans, Beware.

If Republicans intend on improving their brand over the next few months and years, it seems important that the party learn what it can from the impressive victory of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. What are a few essentials the party should keep from the Brown upset?

Here is what I learned from Mr. Brown's campaign:

1. Stay within yourself. Don't over-reach or overstate. 
2. Just speak plainly, directly. 
3. Use anger gently, and make sure you intellectually, and not just viscerally, understand that anger.
4. Be humble, or at least give the appearance of humility. Steer clear of arrogance. 
5. Listen well. Then speak. When someone asks a question, look directly at the person the whole time. Speak ONLY when your interlocutor is done. (I am not saying Brown has this down perfectly.)
6. Know your neighbors, their worries and fears. REALLY know them. 
7. Don't EVER presume. 

What to worry about now?

1. That the mainstream media, and the DNC, are going to do EVERYTHING possible to up-end Mr. Brown.
2. That Mr. Brown and his party present themselves as entitled, inevitable, or invincible. 
3. That Mr. Brown lets his guard down and says or does something really, really stupid: The press will be watching him more intently than anyone else in Washington, even more than the president. Will he be cautious? circumspect? 
4. That Mr. Brown strays from his focus -- that of representing Massachusetts -- and instead gets pulled into the limelight, the celebrity limelight and all its trappings. Hopefully he shies away from TV appearances and book deals and all that stuff. He can do that later. He's not the new Ted Kennedy.
5. That Mr. Brown becomes too preoccupied with building bridges between disparate views, and thus compromises his convictions for political gain and camaraderie. He must not let himself be perceived as RINO. 

If the Republican Party hopes to succeed in leading America, it must do so with a measured, humble, normal and realistic message, attitude and voice. And if Mr. Brown wants to succeed in the US Senate, he must not spend his time bickering with his Democratic colleagues, debating opponents through the media, or letting others control the debates in which he finds himself. HE must control those debates when Massachusetts and its junior Senate seat are at stake; and he MUST spend time communicating with like-minded constituents at home and across the country.

One thing is apparent: Mr. Brown almost makes being a Republican look cool. And if he is as conservative as he claims to be (on some issues), then his biggest gift to the political maelstrom that is America may be to make conservatism not only look desirable, sophisticated and hip, but to show that it actually is.

Just a few hasty thoughts.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

CHANGE, ONE YEAR LATER

MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. -- Ambrose Bierce

[see also, Barack H. Obama; Keith Olbermann]

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Contratimes Goes Offensive: Talking About Tea Bags

Forgive me, dear readers. I am about to sin. Seriously, DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED. But sometimes you DO have to fight fire with fire.

There is a vulgar and extremely crude expression used by many in the mainstream media; if those who use it were not liberals, they would be excoriated as homophobes.

The expression takes two forms, "teabagging" and "teabaggers." These are used to describe or label people who have associated themselves with Tea Parties, which are grass-roots protests modeled on the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Such parties have been rather popular over the past year.

If you do not know what "teabagging" is, then brace yourself. "Teabagging" is (generally) a homosexual act in which a dominate male dips his testicles in the open mouth of his partner.

To refer to folks participating in Tea Parties as "teabaggers" is homophobic to its core; it proves my thesis that it is leftists who support gay rights who are responsible for homophobia. It is also patently crude, puerile and vulgar.

Keith Olbermann two nights ago called Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown a homophobic teabagger, proving Mr. Olbermann is a crass child.

How to stop such hate-speech? I have an answer, and it comes in the form of a headline:

Brown Wins In Upset: 'Tea Partiers' Dip Bags in Gaping Mouths of Stunned Democrats

I guarantee THAT will stop Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, and Janeane Garofalo from using such homophobic slurs in an instant.

(I am truly sorry to have to post this, but someone has got to stop this awfulness. If I have lost you as a reader, well, I apologize.)

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

With Help Like This: When Martha Coakley's Defeat Began

Massachusetts Democrat Martha Coakley tonight lost her bid for the US Senate left by the late Edward M. Kennedy the moment these words were said on July 22, 2009:

"I don't know all the facts... I don't know not having been there and not seeing all the facts... but... the Cambridge [MA] police acted stupidly...."

If there is one thing I know about Massachusetts folks, they don't like their policemen being abused by anyone, even if the abuser is the President of the United States. The Cambridge police department, it is worth noting, endorsed the Republican candidate for the "Kennedy Seat" over Ms. Coakley, and this despite the amazing fact that Ms. Coakley's husband is a retired Cambridge police officer. Really, what can be said when the police unions in the bluest state reject their own attorney general? One can't help but think her support of the president did not set well with those who felt Mr. Obama misused his power to support a Harvard friend and denigrate a whole city police department.

I think historians should always look back to July 22, 2009 as the beginning of the end for Barack Obama's term in the White House. At least, that date marks the beginning of the end for Martha Coakley and the Democrats' most hallowed Senate seat. That, at least, is how history should score it.

One commentator tonight, a long-time pol who lives in Massachusetts, summed up tonight's loss as a "referendum on arrogance." Interesting, and mostly right. But it is also a referendum on the Democrats' greatest vice, epitomized in the July 22, 2009 remarks made by Barack Obama. That vice is being utterly tone deaf to the truth, and the people.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Quick Hits: Haiti, "Cheating", and Obama's Truck Fixation

There was considerable confusion and turmoil delivering goods to the victims of the 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia. At the time, it was reported that goods, supplies and provisions were not getting to survivors. If memory serves me well, coordinators from DHL and FEDEX straightened out that mess; goods and supplies were routed efficiently and effectively once the professionals got involved.

Sounds like the public sector working in Haiti could use some big time private sector help. Hopefully DHL, FEDEX and UPS, among others, are helping to get things going. Swiftly. But I do understand how difficult such a task is, particularly in Haiti, since the infrastructure to begin with was so limited. If there are only a few roads out of an airport and they are closed, well, there really isn't much one can do.

It's not like many of us in America have had UPS, FEDEX, DHL or the US Postal Service drop packages in our yards from helicopters.

______________________

I have seen at least one TV journalist lose control of his objectivity while covering Haiti. It is clear he has not kept his distance. I am not saying he should, but it is clear his humanity has gotten the journalistic best of him. But there is one fact that people who believe relief is not coming swiftly enough seem to forget: There is no Spiderman. There is no action figure or super hero; there are no Jack Bauers in the world. Relief comes slowly. It's just the way it is. The real world is not TV; the real world is not a movie. No one is guaranteed a happy ending.

_______________________

In Massachusetts right now, voters are turning out to elect the successor to Edward M. Kennedy. The two nominees are Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown. As you probably know by now, Mr. Brown has a significant lead in the pre-election polls in a state that is so blue even its clams are Democrats.

In his speech Sunday in Massachusetts supporting Martha Coakley, Barack Obama mentioned Scott Brown's pickup truck six times (Mr. Brown drives a GMC pickup with 200,000 miles on it). Below are all six instances Mr. Obama referred to the "truck":

• "Now, I’ve heard about some of the ads that Martha’s opponent is running. He’s driving his truck around the commonwealth and he says that he gets you, that he fights for you, that he’ll be an independent voice. And I don't know him, he may be a perfectly nice guy. I don't know his record, but I don't know whether he's been fighting for you up until now, but --."
• "So, look, forget the ads. Everybody can run slick ads.  Forget the truck. Everybody can buy a truck."
• "Now, what we're proposing is to make sure that taxpayers get their money back from the rescue that we had engaged in at the beginning of this year, thanks to the bad regulatory policies of the previous administration.  And so we asked Martha’s opponent what's he going to do. And he decided to park his truck on Wall Street."
• "Now, there’s a big difference here.  It gives you a sense of who the respective candidates are going to be fighting for, despite the rhetoric, despite the television ads, despite the truck."
• "So I’d think long and hard about getting in that truck with Martha’s opponent. It might not take you where you want to go."

I have heard others comment about Mr. Obama's truck fixation, but none of these commentators seems to have heard what I hear. What I hear is a man using language that is sexist and racially-charged. Women should be particularly anxious about a man in a pickup truck, as Mr. Obama says: "I'd think long and hard about getting in [Mr. Brown's] truck... [he] might not take you where you want to go." And African-Americans should "think long and hard" about riding in a white man's truck; we all know what a white man in a pickup truck really means.

Maybe I have heard too much. Maybe I am so cynical I can't hear with clarity what a politician actually means. But I have no idea why the President of the United States would use a white Republican man's truck as a reason to steer clear of that man. I have no idea why a pickup truck should be an object of aversion. And I have no idea what a President of the United States is doing scoffing at one of his constituents and all those Americans who have put 200,000 miles on their trucks.

Note, too, Mr. Obama's lovely locution: I know nothing about Scott Brown. But I do know he is this and this and this.

Oh, and one last laugher. Mr. Obama intended to sow fear by suggesting Scott Brown would park his pickup truck on Wall Street. Nice! This from a man who sits in the Oval Office because the largest donors to his presidential campaign were Wall Street financial and banking firms.

Sick.

_____________________

MSNBC's Ed Schultz had this to say about the Massachusetts special election:

"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts I’d try to vote 10 times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I’d try. Yeah, that's right. I’d cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."

Splendid. And Fox News is Faux News!

Did you read Mr. Schultz' apology? Here it is:

"I misspoke on Friday. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I meant to say if I could vote 20 times -- that's what I would do."

___________________________

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann had some nice things to say about Scott Brown:

"In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible homophobic racist reactionary ex-nude-model tea-bagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees. In any other time in our history this man would have been laughed off the stage as an unqualified and disaster in the making by the most conservative of conservatives. Instead the commonwealth of Massachusetts is close to sending this bad joke to the Senate of the United States."

I am wondering if anyone can find for me a single personality on Fox News that is Mr. Olbermann's equal? If so, has that Fox News personality EVER said anything as vile about a candidate for public office as what Mr. Olbermann has said here?

Mr. Olbermann, by the way, is a strawweight.

_____________________

Just some thoughts.

Dear Fox Business News: DICK GREGORY SHOULD NOT BE INVITED BACK

This morning I wrote and sent the following email to Fox Business News. As you know, FBN produces and broadcasts the "Imus In The Morning" program. Because I care for an elderly woman every morning who likes to watch Mr. Imus's show, I end up watching or hearing a good portion of that program each day.

Here is my email to Fox Business News on this holiday:

To whom it may concern:

This morning's appearance of Dick Gregory on the "Imus In The Morning" program is particularly absurd considering he should have been disqualified from ever appearing again on FBN or Imus after his repulsive remarks of 11/12/2009 concerning the Fort Hood shooting. In November, Mr. Gregory had the temerity to suggest the US Army had somehow conspired to allow that horrible shooting to occur. Such remarks were not only offensive and paranoid, they were intended to sow hate, fear and doubt. Mr. Gregory should have been strongly rebuked and challenged at the very moment those cruel insinuations were voiced.

And the same goes for this morning's reprehensible remarks. That Mr. Gregory was permitted to imply, without evidence, that the US government and its military are not doing their best to help Haitians in the wake of last Tuesday's earthquake is patently obscene. His insinuation that something is suspiciously amiss with the Port-Au-Prince airport's runway being intact and yet the tower is not, and sundry other comments of similar paranoia, should be received with the swiftest and clearest censure FBN can offer. Moreover, Mr. Gregory's remarks about race relations in America are deeply divisive, offensive, delusional and demonstrably false.

Sorry, but that's just how I feel on this Martin Luther King Day.

FBN, and the "Imus In The Morning" program, not only should publicly and clearly distance themselves from Mr. Gregory's offensive comments, they should publicly apologize for NOT confronting such sick remarks immediately, and for inviting Mr. Gregory to speak after what he said two months ago.

Lastly, it strikes me as incredibly curious that Mr. Imus would have as a guest Debra Dickerson, the African-American scholar who wrote an article arguing Barack Obama was not legitimately "black," and Mr. Gregory, who said this morning that African-Americans do not categorize their own according to skin tonalities. Disgusting all around. And that Mr. Imus has not sought noted conservatives like Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, or Walter E. Williams as regular guests  -- outstanding people, all -- is also rather telling. To the casual observer, it appears Mr. Imus is still attempting to atone for something. Trundling out paranoid hate-mongers like Mr. Gregory does not amount to any sort of atonement whatsoever.

Sincerely,

Bill Gnade

A Dire Emergency

If ever the United States needed to respond to a situation, it is now, to the Haitian earthquake. This is a crisis few of us have ever seen. I urge the US president and Congress to act swiftly, fully, and without wavering. This will require the humanitarian equivalent of a major military conflict.

President Obama, I urge you to make an executive decision and extend the fullest -- I mean the FULLEST -- response to Haiti that America can give. This will make Katrina seem a small problem. Or so I predict. Please act. Please focus. Please think about this for more than a few minutes. This is a full-on national and international crisis.

The survivors of the Haiti quake, sadly, are not likely to be survivors for long. What comes next could be far worse than the few minutes of shaking ground. Disease is already afoot. No minute can be lost.

Tragic Thoughts

When I heard about Haiti early last night, I could feel, just for a moment, the despair of Port-Au-Prince. But I am safe in a nice home; I am far away from such suffering. Anything I felt was simply imagined.

It is hard for me to pray. I do offer up prayers, but what, really, do I say? It is not as if I know what the scene is like in that sad country. It is not as if I know what should be done. If there is a God, surely He knows what to do; surely He has already heard the news. I ask myself, as I pray, whether I presume to think my prayers matter when there are hundreds of thousands of Haitians crying out, their faces turned toward the stars. I also ask myself if I think I am hoping to phrase my words, and align my faith with those words, in such a perfect way that God must act, that God must respond? Do I think prayer is mere incantation, a voodoo spell?

I am seeing things, I know. I see a nation in abject poverty; I see chaos, death, despair. I see disease. I see crime. I see revolt. I see war. And I see someone, some Venezuelan or Cuban or even an American, stepping forward to intervene, to calm and charm the Haitian people: I see a peacemaker full of political guile.

It's what I see. I wonder what God sees. Better if I just keep my eyes closed.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Contratimes Fragments: Reid, Gold, Potatoes, Steroids and Mark McGwire

As I peeled potatoes the other night in preparation for the making of a very fine soup, I noticed during this lovely exercise in domesticity that the longer I peeled a potato, the smaller the peels were that I removed. In fact, the last few peels were tiny.

Talk about an observation of the obvious.

Peeling potatoes may be a dreadful parallel to what I consider an absurd optimism about the recent economic news, but so be it. Last month's job-loss numbers -- a mere 85,000 or so -- were considered good news by many who believe in the current president's economic policies. Why good news? Because the numbers were much larger when the current great recession first began; 85,000 is comparably few to what we're used to seeing. But I haven't a clue why this is good news at all, for anyone. All it means, or at least all it COULD mean, is that the peels are getting smaller because there is so little left to peel. Imagine if I took 3 minutes to peel a rather large potato; in the first minute I might have a hefty pile of peels on the cutting board. In the second minute I'd likely produce a smaller pile; in the third, well, even smaller. You get the picture: If all jobs were cut over the next few years would it be good news if, in October 2013, it was reported that the very last job available had been cut? I guess so, since only one job would have been lost that month. Absurd. (The possibility of a jobless recovery seems quite real, by the way.)

_____________________

Early last year, as I saw a sudden increase in TV commercials encouraging investment in gold, I made an off-the-cuff prediction that the next great bubble would be the gold market. I don't think, really, that my prediction is all that crazy, despite what G. Gordon Liddy says. Gold as a valued commodity strikes me as almost archaic; its value is not intrinsic, but extrinsic. If this was 1020 AD, gold would indeed be dazzling. But in 2010? Gold? For what?

Seriously, gold strikes me as one of the most inflated things on the planet.

_____________________

Sen. Harry Reid's rather indecorous remarks about Barack Obama and race were without a doubt an indictment not of America, but of the Democratic Party. In Reid's honest opinion, the Democratic Party was not ready to nominate* a black man whose skin was too dark, too quintessentially African; or who spoke in a dialect that was too "Negro." No wonder Democrats are coming to his defense; no wonder Al Sharpton has absolved him so quickly.

Pointing to the history of racism in the Democratic Party is a scary, scary thing.

*I note that this has not prevented the party from electing other African-Americans to lower positions who do not conform to Sen. Reid's image of a good candidate.

_____________________

Baseball legend Mark McGwire's recent admission of steroid use is interesting, particularly since he claims that he used the performance-enhancing substances for health and not performance reasons.

I have heard people argue that all steroids can do for baseball players is make them bigger and stronger, and that such drugs cannot help a batter make contact with a pitched ball: You still have to possess the coordination to make solid contact; strength does not help with that. But such an argument is really a load of bahooey.

Batters gain three advantages from steroids:

1. Since steroid-using batters are stronger and hence able to generate more bat speed more quickly, they can WAIT LONGER before swinging at a pitch. Hence, they have an advantage: they can study a pitched ball longer, and can therefore better predict its trajectory.
2. Since such batters are stronger and thus capable of generating more explosive bat speed, a mis-hit ball can and will travel faster and farther, even out of the park. "Normal" players who don't make solid contact will not get the ball out of the park, whereas abnormally strong players may. 
3. Steroids make all the muscles in the human body faster and stronger, including the muscles which focus and move the eyes. Therefore, steroids help with hand-eye coordination. 

Mr. McGwire should just accept and confess the truth. It's the natural thing to do.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Let's Face It: It's A Rough And Tumble World Out There

I've always suspected that life as a drug smuggler in Mexico is rather difficult, but I could never have guessed just how difficult it really is. Perhaps this headline sums it up:

Mexican Cartel Skins Rival's Face, Stitches It on Soccer Ball

Who, I wonder, would have been given the task, and who would possess the necessary skills to perform such a task, of skinning and stitching?

The story sure gives a whole new meaning to, "Wilson? Wilsssoooonn?!"

"Private Talks" On Healthcare: The End Of Public Service?

Moments ago, New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone, a Democrat, gave an interview on television about "transparency." His answer was stunning, and it included the use of the word "private" at least five times.

Recent complaints have been voiced that Mr. Obama's many campaign promises that C-SPAN would be permitted access to every step of the healthcare reform process (and other legislative debates), have been anything but kept. Mr. Obama, as you know, campaigned as a champion of transparency; his would be the most open and accessible administration in history. (Speaker Pelosi has made similar claims about the Congress she helps lead.) But it seems that C-SPAN is not really happy with the access it has or has not had.

And this is what Mr. Pallone was being asked about: Where, Congressman Pallone, is the transparency when C-SPAN is not permitted access to the current debates between house and senate delegates over the details of a final healthcare bill?

Essentially (and I am not making this up) Mr. Pallone dismissed the charge that legislative transparency appeared rather opaque, saying that the healthcare reform process has been the most transparent legislative process ever. But, he added in self-contradictory (?) fashion, NO BILL could ever be passed without "private discussions" or "private conversations"; that it was impossible that ANY legislation could EVER be passed without "private" dealings between legislators. Hence, C-SPAN had gone far enough, or Mr. Pallone averred. Not everything could be transparent.

So, what does this mean? First, it means Mr. Pallone shows us that Barack Obama's campaign was wrong: the amount of public access to the legislative process has ALWAYS been satisfactory. Mr. Obama's campaign promises that -- finally  -- America could witness for itself the legislative process were foolishly superfluous: NO LAW can be finally legislated EXCEPT in privacy. No amount of C-SPAN coverage will change any of that. In other words, if the amount of C-SPAN coverage of healthcare is fine for Mr. Pallone, coverage that is equal to anything that happened in previous years, then there was no need for promises of "greater transparency."

Second, Mr. Pallone has shown that Mr. Obama, who served a brief stint as the junior US senator from Illinois during his bid for the White House, was making promises out of utter ignorance, OR with utter disregard for truth. Surely ANY senator would know that there is a profoundly well-guarded "private" dimension to legislation. To imply American litigation would be finally fully transparent once Mr. Obama was elected president, as Mr. Obama surely did, was either born of Mr. Obama's ignorance of the PRIVATE legislature that exists in the secret chambers of a PUBLIC house and senate, or Mr. Obama was lying when he promised transparency. He either knew that "no bill" can be passed without "private talks" or he didn't. If he knew it, then he lied. If he didn't, then he was ignorant.

Interestingly, Mr. Pallone is not alone. His defense of "private conversations" -- and keeping C-SPAN at bay -- is also offered by progressive Igor Volsky of the Center for American Progress:

"It’s no exaggeration to claim that health care reform is only possible because of the ritualistic ping-pong back and forth that occurs through private conversations."

Mr. Volsky, in true progressive fashion, added that C-SPAN's access to the whole debate, while part of a transparent process, did not "improve" the legislation or the legislative process. In other words, transparency is wildly important -- at least when George W. Bush was in office -- but transparency does not really "improve" anything.

Huffington Post writer David Sirota summed up Mr. Volksy's argument perfectly:

"[Volsky is saying that] Transparency might be fine and dandy, but it didn't improve anything -- and the only thing that improves anything is secrecy."

In the end, what we discover is that the awful way things were done in the Bush Administration were not all that awful, and that those who have taken up the noble duty of "public service" can only do their best work in "private talks."

Who could have known that there exists such a precious and vital private sphere in the the public halls of Congress?

I, for one, would have liked it if the former senator who occupies the White House had known about this private-sector intrusion on the public sector of Congress BEFORE he ran for office.

©2010/Contratimes. All rights reserved.

Cover Your Ears! Brit Hume, Ann Coulter, And The Cross

Fox News contributor Brit Hume recently said something controversial -- on TV! -- about the nature of Christianity. Perhaps you heard his blasphemous remarks; perhaps you heard his great insult.

And perhaps you didn't.

Well, at least one person did -- Ann Coulter. I know, I know, she's a firebrand. She's a bombshell bomb thrower; a crass ideologue; a political pit bull. But set the caricatures of her aside for a moment and read what she has to say about Christianity, about it being the best deal on the planet. Is she right? Has Ann Coulter presented the gospel in a way that does justice to the "good news"?

You tell me. I'd love to hear what you think of "If You Can Find A Better Deal, Take It!" And I'd like to hear what you think of Mr. Hume's remarks, too. (Coulter quotes him at length.)

Peace.

Shelby Steele: Simply Unbelievable, And Right -- Perhaps The Best Commentary Of The Year

If you do not know Shelby Steele, he is a conservative intellectual whose mother was white and father was black (you know -- like Mr. Obama's parents).

Check out Mr. Steele's TRULY STUNNING commentary, "Obama And Our Post-Modern Race Problem." It is one of the year's finest essays. In fact, it might just be the best essay of the year.

Imperfect Pensées, Again

Last night -- somehow -- in the process of putting both my feet beneath the coverlet on my bed as I retired for the evening, I injured my right ankle. Imagine! Just the gentle movement of getting under the covers left me lame. What, pray tell, does this portend?

No doubt great things.

*

Does it bother anyone else that the year may end -- or next year might begin -- with a law dropped upon us from on high that everyone in the United States must have health insurance? Where, O, where are the radicals of the 1960s who helped shape me from my mother's womb? How is it that conformity -- by law -- to the "establishment" and its government is now seen as progressive? Where is the rebellion from authority? Where are those who urged me to live my life unfettered from authoritarianism; to "be my own person" at all costs? Where are those who shouted from the rooftops that the government had no right in our bedrooms, that it had no claims on our bodies?

Apparently they are in the United States government and its fawning class.

("You can't legislate morality." Yes we can!)

©2009/Contratimes. All rights reserved.

Bearing Glad Tidings

My dear friends, blessings to you. For those of you who celebrated Hanukkah, I send my belated wishes of joy and peace: may your light always shine.

To my Christian friends, I wish you a blessed and Merry Christmas.

Joy to the world, indeed!

The World's Greatest Golfer Seeks Relief From A Really Bad Lie

As Contratimes readers know, when the unfortunate story broke about the World's Greatest Golfer, I chose to criticize the media gluttons who would prey on that story. I feel, largely, that I was right to take that tack, as the indiscretions of the World's Greatest Golfer have pushed from the spotlight news about troop increases in Afghanistan, the Great Climate Clash, the racially-motivated assassination of 4 police officers in Washington state, and the religiously-motivated Fort Hood massacre. Instead of these important stories, the prurient media give us, apparently, what we "want."

A few minutes ago, for the umpteenth time, I listened to professionals explore the psyche of a man, a man known as the World's Greatest Golfer (WGG), who "has it all." The WGG is the "very embodiment of the American Dream," or so it goes -- a handsome and athletic man possessing fame and fabulous fortune; owner of mansions and yachts; husband to a beautiful wife, father to two lovely children -- and yet, somehow, none of this was enough to make the WGG happy. Why?

Here are just a few of the "answers" to that apparently very perplexing question:

• The WGG is under too much pressure as an athlete
• The WGG is under too much pressure as a competitor
• The WGG is under too much pressure as an archetype to the African-American community
• The WGG is under too much pressure as a business commodity
• The WGG is under too much pressure as a philanthropist
• The WGG is under too much pressure as a role model
• The WGG is bored with life; everything is too easy, and hence he seeks drama, danger, adventure
• The WGG is unmoored as a result of the death of his father, who probably served as an anchor to his son
• The WGG is in rebellion now that his overbearing father is dead. Finally, he's doing things "his way." Finally, the little boy who was so sorely repressed is now acting out
• The WGG is suffering an identity crisis: he is not sure of his race, or what his own heart is telling him about who he really is and what he truly wants
• The WGG is a victim of perfectionism, with its attendant expectations, all of which are absurdly unfair and unattainable
• The WGG is a victim of social stereotypes, among which is the stereotype that black men MUST philander, and MUST do so with leggy, buxom, and blonde white women

Enough. You get the picture.

But what is really at the heart of these bits of "analysis"? What are the underlying premises that go unspoken when we hear such things?

My sense is that a good chunk of the media are doing their very best to avoid denigrating the myth that "having it all" makes a person happier, better, and nobler than his or her less fortunate peers. In a sense what they're saying is that the WGG does not have it all: if he did, he would be happy "having it all." In the minds of the media, there is no defect in the myth, but in the possessing: The WGG is missing something. He does not quite have it all. And once he finds that missing something, he can be happy, whole, and the perfect incarnation of the American Dream.

And I am also under the impression that a very different chunk of the media are doing their level best to sabotage the idea that the American Dream is a good dream: it is, in fact, an unattainable, nightmarish fantasy. The WGG proves this.

Of course, I realize I am in a sense trying to have it both ways, i.e., some in the media seem to be suggesting that the WGG does not perfectly possess all the American Dream has to offer; if he did, he'd be deliriously happy; and some in the media want us to believe that the American Dream is a corrupting influence, victimizing the WGG, turning him into something unhealthy, even reprehensible.

But what if it is a lot more simple than all that? What if the WGG is just a lecherous pig? What if this is just about pure lust? What if it is just about narcissism in the basest sense? What if this is, in a very real way, best understood in religious terms; that this story is about sin, and not psychology or sociology or both? That this is more satanic than Freudian; that this is best fixed not by therapy but confession, repentance, absolution, baptism? Conversion?

___________________

Perhaps in reports that the WGG's wife had issued him an ultimatum -- "It's either me or golf!" -- we can find some sense of a "true story." No doubt the WGG, when caught by his wife, admitted his indiscretions (that's too mild a word) with these sorts of qualifications:

"There's so much pressure on the Tour! The competition, the press, the sponsors!"

"Even when I win on the Tour I need relief from the pressure. Sometimes I can't bear to win -- or lose -- alone. I just have to release all that built up tension! You've no idea."

"All the women look like you because I wish you could be with me. I can't stand to be away so long on the Tour."

"There are just so many women hanging around the guys on Tour. They're everywhere. You've no idea the pressure."

In other words, perhaps the WGG would want his wife to believe that the problem is extrinsic to the WGG, and not intrinsic. Or so it seems he might have led her to believe. Why else her ultimatum if he did not paint a horrid picture of the pressures and temptations associated with professional golf?

But let's pull Occam's Razor out of the bag. The best explanation is the simplest: The WGG is a sinner. Let's not give him excuses, especially the lamest one of all, given, no doubt, by countless husbands countless times: "There is just so much pressure. I need relief."

©2009 Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On A Particular Man Who Golfs: Can We Leave This Alone?

Should I say anything about the greatest golfer in the world?

This morning I heard a member of Big Media say that, despite all the important news that should demand at least some of our attention, a certain golfer's peccadilloes will dominate Big Media because, well, "that's what the people want."

But is that true? Do you call your local TV station or favorite news anchor and beg for reports on the most salacious aspects of a person's life? Do you thirst for gossip? Think of it this way, and it is all rather simple: Who first broke the story about the World's Greatest Golfer who crashed his car? Was it Big Media, or someone like you, a "consumer"? I think you know the answer.

Clearly, Big Media seeks to exploit any story -- let's be honest -- for fiscal gain. The tale about the World's Greatest Golfer has profits apparently written all over it.

But what is the news here, really? It would be nice -- wouldn't it? -- if someone stood up and said, "Move along, folks. There is nothing for you to see here. Move along." Didn't someone, somewhere, used to say and do exactly that? Move along. Mind your own business. This is a private matter.

The World's Greatest Golfer is naught but a fallen god. OK. We get this, and we've gotten this hundreds of times in the past: People are not perfect. Wow, thanks for the BIG LESSON.

OK. The World's Greatest Golfer might lose his endorsements. Is that really big news?

OK. He might have to mount a comeback, ask for a mulligan; he will have to "dig deep." Haven't we heard this sort of thing before, ad infinitum and yes, ad nauseam?

Yes, yes. We know our heroes are mortal, stained, blemished, weak. Yes, yes. There are indeed many who enjoy feasting on our heroes' sins; who find pleasure in others' pain. But are we not sick of all this -- YET?

Big Media: A fast-food joint that comes to you dishing out triple scoops of schadenfreude. For free. Everywhere. 24/7.

Resist Big Media. Let's kick the ever-living schadenfreude out of it.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Fouad Ajami: The Arab Street & Barack Obama

Once again Fouad Ajami does not disappoint in his essay "The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding Obama." I doubt you will feel you wasted the few minutes it takes to read Mr. Ajami's piece.

Be well.

A Contratimes Replay: The Death of C. S. Lewis Remembered

From the Contratimes archives, 2005:

Today I give thanks, though not in a holiday sense. I will wait two days for that fine American celebration. Instead, I give thanks for a man who died 42 years ago today, in England, his death overshadowed by the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Odd that this man, along with Kennedy and the great humanist Aldous Huxley, would have died within hours of each other.

I am talking of C. S. Lewis. No other person of letters, I believe, has had a more profound impact on my life, even if I admit that there are other writers and thinkers I prefer. For it was Lewis who set me on my way, speaking to both heart and mind; emboldening me to live a life where faith and reason, where mysticism and intelligence, are not exclusive one to another, but two sides of one glorious and mysterious coin. In him I met Christ the thinker, the poet; the creator. In him I met the Christian imagination with all its possibilities: Narnia, Ungit, Perelandra, the pantheon, and even Middle Earth. Hobbits came to life for me, largely because of Lewis' love and support of his best friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, and both men's unwavering devotion to the ancient creeds of Christendom.

And in the wake which Lewis left in my life, I fell on St. Francis and St. Thomas, George MacDonald, G. K. Chesterton, E. C. Bentley, Owen Barfield, Sheldon Vanauken, Thomas Howard, Peter Kreeft, Grady Spires (an unpublished elvish genius), T. S. Eliot (whose work Lewis abhorred), Charles Williams, Malcolm Muggeridge, Madelyn L'Engle, and even Annie Dillard. Though there might not be a causal chain between these writers' works and Lewis, there is indeed a causal chain between Lewis and my reading them, for he inspired me to be a thinking Christian, and I am all the better for that chain, and for that inspiration. And had not Lewis' books found their way into my life, I doubt that I would know of John Donne, Thomas Traherne, George Herbert, or even William Butler Yeats. And I am not afraid to say that I might even be dead now without the influence of Lewis' testimony.

This is neither idolatry, nor is it gratuitous beatification. Lewis is my mentor. He has, along with Christ, preached to me in prison; he has descended into hell and handed me a tiny silken thread, the very thread he found in the dark and venomous mines described in MacDonald's "The Princess and the Goblin." I hold that thread now, standing, as I so often do, in the deep and chilly dark.

Early this morning I was reading Peter L. Berger's A Rumor of Angels, a famous little book written by the lauded sociologist from Boston University. In his examination of the death of the supernatural in modern society, and the apparent death of God, Berger shared this anecdote:

A few years ago, a priest working in a slum section of a European city was asked why he was doing it, and replied, "So that the rumor of God may not disappear completely." [emphasis added]

Lewis could have been that priest, for surely he worked in the slums of so many forsaken and forsakeable ideas. Lord knows he worked in mine. And in small homage to him, I do the same, here and elsewhere, trying to keep rumors alive.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

I Am Sorry

To the few faithful readers I have, I want to apologize for my silence at Contratimes. Simply, I am exhausted.

Peace to you.

Bill Gnade

Hitchens: Mother Teresa Can Go To Hell (If There Was A Hell)

Christopher Hitchens, the erudite atheist and belletrist, recently had this to say about Mother Teresa:

"Mother Teresa spent her whole life saying (that what Calcutta needs) is a huge campaign against family planning. I mean who comes to that conclusion who isn't a complete fanatic? She took -- and I would directly say stole -- millions and millions of dollars and spent all the money not on the poor, but on the building of nearly 200 convents in her own name around the world to glorify herself and to continue to spread the doctrine that, as she put it -- when she got her absurd Nobel Peace Prize -- that the main threat to world peace is abortion and contraception. The woman was a fanatic and a fundamentalist and a fraud, and millions of people are much worse off because of her life, and it's a shame there is no hell for your bitch to go to." [emphasis added]

Mr. Hitchens offered his charitable, lucid opinion of the beloved saint during Dennis Miller's Internet radio program.

UPDATE: November 10, 2009: Mr. Hitchens apologizes

Washington Post: Obama's Nobel Prize May Be Unconstitutional?

Please read this very interesting article.

Homecoming

It was homecoming at my alma mater
And I stood at the Welcome Tent
A prodigal son, penniless, spent
A wandering squanderer
There was no mother, father
No friend running toward me
To slay the fattened calf
There was no welcome
At all
Just a tent
And a map to the familiar

I went unrecognized as I wondered
If 25 years were too many
For me to recognize my own memories
Or the dreams dreamt along the
Night-lined fringes of the Quad:

A rucksack of philosophy texts
Pulling one shoulder toward arthritis
A young philosopher
Unaware his path would be littered
With pages ripped from a hundred prayer books
Each dabbed in tears

I stood in the provost’s office
And listened to professional philosophers
Steeped in the tradition of profundity
Practiced in the argot of academia
The adoration of abstraction
And a lightning stroke of profanities
Coursed through this common mind
When the department chair spoke in
Tongues without fire
And repentance blasted through me
Like a cold-front on a barren plain:
“What the hell is he saying?”
Asked the crushing hailstones
And I sought cover beneath
Quiet incredulity and the promise
I’d never sound like that (again)

I spoke in haste, compressing 2.5 decades
Into a handshake, a canape
A splash of red wine
And when he assessed
The soundness of my
Abridged ontology
I saw a priest reach
Down and take bread from
The tip of my tongue

None could know I left the
Premises as presented
Or that I concluded that
(All things remaining equal)
Nothing remains equal
Not even between brothers
A simple syllogism
Crafted without fallacy
Carved on the oracle’s breast:
There is no home.


Without a father.

©2009/Contratimes. All rights reserved.

Ignoble Surprise

The holy writings of Jews and Christians appear incredibly insightful as we analyze the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama.

For example, people familiar with the ancient story of Israel's King David will recall that, according to the Jewish scriptures, God would not permit the beloved king to build a temple in Jerusalem because there was blood on his hands and war on his borders. Apparently God -- and David -- noticed something incongruous about a warrior building a temple to a God Who ultimately (if not ironically, at least to God's more modern critics) represented peace. The temple would be built by Solomon, David's son.

That Mr. Obama has called the war in Afghanistan the only "necessary" war -- and in the process of executing that war expanded the fighting into Pakistan -- might have given the Nobel committee pause before that esteemed committee conferred the mantle of peace onto a man who has blood on his hands, even fresh blood. Mr. Rush† Limbaugh, noted American conservative talk-radio 'god,' today pointed out that the Nobel committee has imposed its will on Mr. Obama's foreign affairs: by calling him a man of peace, the committee has assured the world that Mr. Obama cannot act with violence against his neighbors, thus tying his hands (and America's). It is an ingenious ploy, and it will possibly work, especially since it appears Mr. Obama is vain enough to actually accept the award (though deferentially admitting he does not deserve it). He is the change we've been waiting for.

So much for expecting any bellicosity to come from the White House any time soon. Or, I should say, Israel should not expect much assertiveness from this man of peace.

In the Christian New Testament, St. Paul warns his protege Timothy not to award novices with too much praise or responsibility, as this inflates egos, tempts pride, and more often than not leads to tremendous downfalls. Novices are in a vulnerable place: too little praise may discourage them, while too much encourages conceit. What, pray tell, does the awarding of the Noble Peace Prize to a man who has done nothing for peace portend for that man's -- and his supporters' -- egos?

I do not know if Mr. Limbaugh invented the following or whether he was citing something that originated elsewhere, but it does deserve praise for its ingenuity: With the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Obama is not only the post-racial president, he's the "post-accomplishment president."

Brilliant! Post-racial, post-partisan, post-imperial and now, post-accomplishment -- that's Mr. Obama in nuce. A person doesn't have to do anything to make great strides. Heck, a person doesn't even have to stride. Words voiced with hope and sincerity -- that's sufficient to be king of the world.

_____________________

I don't know about you, but I have grown weary of hearing about the world's opinion of America. What about America's opinion of the world? If the Nobel committee represents the world's views and opinions, then this writer thinks the "world" a small, petty, and shallow thing. The world shouldn't care whether pre-Obama America saw itself the laughingstock of the world. The world should care that the world as represented by the Nobel committee is the laughingstock of America.

Message to the "world": Don't you know that Barack Obama is an abject mediocrity? Don't you see that he is a mirage, a fiction, an illusion?

Barack Obama, man of peace who sends missiles into Pakistan. Barack Obama, a man awarded for not achieving anything. He's post-violence. He's even post-peace and post-conceit.

Here's to hearing laughter in a thousand tongues.

____________________

A NOTE TO MR. OBAMA

You should politely and courteously reject the award -- in total. Don't delay. Tell us about your initial shock; how you were initially confused by the surprise of the honor and got caught up in the moment. And then say, sincerely and without your typical equivocation, that you cannot and will not accept this award. Honor it as generous, and denounce it as too generous. Reject it as premature, and, without setting any preconditions, tell the world that no Nobel Peace prizes should be given to anyone until there is, in reality and not in aspiration or in theory, a real, lasting, comprehensive and universal peace.

THAT's what a real man of peace should and would do. It is also the sort of thing a novice would not do.

And it's the sort of thing King David actually did.

Peace through dissent.

†On a day like today how could I not listen to what Mr. Limbaugh had to say about the Nobel committee's decision?

©Contratimes/2009. All Rights Reserved.

The Nobel Peace Prize: The New Spirit In Old Wineskins

Welcome to Fantasy.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama is fantastic in the strictest sense of the word. Truly, when I saw the headline that he had won my initial conclusion was that I was reading parody, satire or spoof. Now I realize I was reading a frightening fantasy, for this fantasy is reality (and far too few people discern it as fantasy).

In the span of a few short minutes listening to talking heads on the radio this morning, I learned that Mr. Obama was awarded this prize a priori; the deadline for nominating him was a mere two weeks into his term, well before he had accomplished anything. And yet, fantastically, he is given this honor, in part, for his great work in fostering a diplomatic spirit throughout the nations. I also learned that Mr. Obama was chosen as the very epitome of peacefulness for his "aspirations and attitude" and for giving the world "hope."

In other words, this is a spiritual award, even a religious one: Barack Obama has baptized the planet with optimism. His term as American president is like a new pentecost: nations speak his name in many tongues that portend peace, unity, hope. This is not about ACHIEVEMENT, but mere sentiment, and the ephemera of personality and perception. It is about the subjective warmth of thought and emotion: Barack Obama has set, like a new Holy Spirit, a fire that burns hot in the breast of the yearning, expectant nations.

I heard someone from the Nobel committee earlier today talk about Mr. Obama's popularity in the world. She said that "his predecessor" was not popular among the nations; that Mr. Obama, in fact, had restored, not so much the popularity of the United States in the world's eyes, though he has helped, but the office of the presidency. But, she added, he has somehow raised his own popularity above the office; that he has elevated his own well-cut figure among the peoples far beyond the mystique of the Oval Office. He is a sign. A portent. He brings hope.

What the world fails to understand about the office of the United States presidency is that the office is not about personal excellence, achievement, or capacious ability. It is about successfully winning a national popularity contest, a national beauty pageant. Mr. Obama is hardly what one would describe as achieved. After all, what has he REALLY done? Granted, one could ask this about many a president; many have asked this of others who've been elected. But Mr. Obama REALLY has done little with his life other than win popularity contests. In fact, his presidency -- like all presidencies -- is not something earned but something conferred: Mr. Obama's success is really nothing more than what has been given him by others. Any president's success, as president, is the result of the will of the electorate. Mr. Obama is not special; he is where he is because millions of people put him there.

Hence, for the world to think that Mr. Obama DESERVES something like the Nobel Prize is patently absurd. It is fantastic, illusory, confounding in its weirdness. Yes, he can read a fine speech, and read it well. But he has not accomplished anything (at least on his own). "Mere words?" Yes, mere words are all he's given.

Of course, the Nobel committee has also stated that Mr. Obama is being honored for his work in calling for the reduction of nuclear arms throughout the world. As if anyone in the western world is calling for the proliferation of nuclear arms and Mr. Obama stands unique in his position; that Mr. Obama is honored for calling for what the nearest child would call for is ridiculous on its face. And when I heard two weeks ago that his great diplomatic achievement as the moderator of the UN Security Council -- the first American president to ever serve in that capacity -- was to pass a resolution calling for a world-wide reduction in nuclear weapons, I guffawed in disbelief. This is the best our president can do? Nothing more than what countless high school student councils have resolved to do for decades?

And that is what I actually think of Mr. Obama. To me, he is, at best, a high school student council chairman. I don't see the brilliance, the expansive intellect, the singular and unique vision, the mastery of language, the openness to new ideas. His whole presidency is rooted in old, stale, hackneyed ideas, the sort of ideas bandied about in AP high school social studies classes and those lecture halls in which matriculating American students gather for Political Science 101. Does anyone really think that universal health care is not the sort of thing that children propose in 8th-grade class assignments about "building utopia"? Does anyone think there is anything one whit adult and "new" and "progressive" about "international, multi-lateral diplomacy" or "reducing the nuclear arsenal"? Or am I the only one Barack Obama's age who recalls being weaned on this stuff from birth? Barack Obama's vision of the world, his views of science and consensus and health care and war and peace all amount to pablum.

Lastly, let us note one important thing. America was rejected (by many) during the Bush years because of its apparent arrogance, aggression; its uni-lateral bullying and its imperialistic "we are right and have the might" attitude. America was disdained in part because it perceived itself as so essential, so necessary; as the super-power par excellence. It pushed democracy on nations that did not want it within their own borders.

Mr. Obama recently said that no world order can succeed when one nation or people dominates, or sees itself as supreme, or the best, or more equal than others. Of course, what this means is that Mr. Obama wants to impose democracy on the world in a different way than his predecessor Bush: he wants to show that the United States, no longer caring that democracies thrive within the borders of its many neighbors, is ready to let all nations democratically give voice not only to the direction of the new world order but also the United States itself. He is a consensus builder, announcing in his many apologies that the United States is now ready to see itself as equal to every other country; it is no longer the best, it will not impose itself on the world without the world's approval. It will lead, yes, but only by following.

What is so insidious, so deeply pernicious, is that Mr. Obama -- merely the winner of a nation's popularity contest -- has presented to the world that while the United States is not absolutely right or absolutely honorable or absolutely necessary or absolutely indispensable, he is indispensable and necessary and honorable and right; that while the United States can't do all the "heavy lifting" and that it ought not to, he himself is necessary to bring the world together, that he is the heavy who lifts the world from divisiveness and strife and hopelessness. He is needed. He is wanted. All nations are to be colonies of his magnanimous vision, his glorious unifying voice.

The world does not need America like it once did, or believed it did. America is not the model or force of empire. But the world sure needs America's Barack Obama, because he is hope.

___________________

Last year about this time, as the election drew near, I told family and friends that I thought Mr. Obama would lose the election in the United States and that charges of racism would course through the country and the world: that it would be perceived that Mr. Obama had been rejected by America because America is a vicious, backward, racist place. I also told family and friends that I thought his defeat would engender world sympathy and that the world would work to place him atop the United Nations. I was wrong. What seems more likely is that Mr. Obama will pass through the Oval Office so he can eventually assume the throne in New York City. Perhaps in 2016, when Michelle Obama runs for the White House and loses, her loss, interpreted as rejection rooted in sexism and racism, will secure Mr. Obama's position as President of the United States of the World.

Lest we forget: Dissent is not unpatriotic. Dissent we do.


©Contratimes/2009. All rights reserved.

Dear Israel

You won’t like what I have to say,
because it is what someone else said.

Turn the other cheek.

They want your eye. Your tooth.

They are trying to lure you

to react,
to defend,
to protect

And they will
describe

it

as overreaction
aggression
terrorism

a grave transgression

against humanity
a clear human rights violation

a provocation
destabilizing
derailing the peace process

The goal is to isolate
Spurn
Ostracize
Banish

You.

A single star. In the heavens.

Pensive Pensées

• You know that odd spoon or fork in your silverware drawer that you never use or remove? You know the one I am talking about. Well, that's me.
• Mel Gibson, drunk as a skunk and obviously fraught with pain, once said some stupid things about "the Jews." I wonder if Woody Allen and Martin Scorcese signed a petition demanding Mr. Gibson be forgiven. Maybe they would have if Mr. Gibson was an Academy Award-winning movie director like Roman Polanski.
• If global warming is real then why do I feel chilled (tonight)? A touch of mortality, no doubt.
  
• The other night I stepped out of a friend's house (I was pet-sitting, sort of) and saw, somewhere in the southern sky, what looked like the end of the world. My mind searched for an explanation: was it a nuclear attack? an exploding planet? the return of Christ? The first thing I told my wife when I finally returned home was that "I saw something." The night sky had never before left me so unsettled. More than a week later, I learned that it was a rocket launched from Virginia sent heavenward to make a noctilucent cloud. To freak me out.
• I see that a mega-church in Florida has fractured because of disagreements over succession. It seems the great flock does not entirely like its new shepherd; when the old shepherd, who first raised the flock, died a couple of years ago, well, things went to hell. Which proves, does it not, that such is less about God's "mighty spirit" and more about the cult of personality?
• How often do we use language that is deceptive? Take, for example, how men answer their wives' questions: "Does this dress make me look fat?" The other day, I watched a talk show host prompt a guest whose lengthy anecdote had failed to elicit an entertaining payoff: the host's cue, articulated as a seemingly innocent question, invited the guest to embellish the tale to give it the necessary nudge from the banal to the amusing. The guest got the cue, invisible and inaudible as it was, to add the necessary punchline that was not part of the original tale; false as it was, it did finally make the audience laugh. I am reminded of Father Zosima's argument in The Brothers Karamazov, that we all push each other into sin, consciously and unconsciously; we are not our brother's keeper but his betrayer. Dmitri was damned by his neighbors; his sin -- the one he did not commit that nonetheless led to his conviction -- was encouraged and created by the townsfolk with whom he lived. And yet, apparently, none of them could spot a thing they may have done wrong. Is the discipline of prayer God's answer to that? That if we pray for each other we are declaring to the cosmos that we -- despite our convoluted language and our much-veiled envy -- wish not to destroy but to save our brothers? Let your yes mean yes. Let your no mean no. Yes.
• Is it true that what is newest under the sun in American civil discourse is incivility? Really? Imagine that. People are claiming to be checking themselves out of the political arena because things have gotten "too divisive." Where have they been the last 20 years (or 200)? The thing I resent is not this sudden umbrage, as if incivility has just fallen from the sky. What I resent is that politics has become so all-consuming. So important, so pervasive. One can't find solace in music, art, theater, film, poetry; there is no safety in the words of a sports columnist, or a game show or sitcom, or even in the phone call from an old friend. Politics is ubiquitous, demanding, scolding; pleading its case -- against you. Don't you care? Are you not engaged? Are you not paying attention? Have you not chosen sides? What is your answer? (No. I will hide here in the silverware drawer.)

Pax vobiscum.

Prolepsis

I posted a piece today (see below, September 16) that I have been holding in my queue for a couple of weeks. It is about, mostly, the left's apparently broad concern that right-wingers, full of bombast and vitriol, are fomenting violence, violence that gravely threatens the government and the President of the United States. What I posted was written before I heard Nancy Pelosi's sobbing that she had not seen such divisiveness since the late 1970's when, in her beloved San Francisco, the rhetoric there led to violence in city hall (and a Democrat killed another Democrat). What I posted was written before I heard Jimmy Carter -- without any evidence -- posit for consideration that most of the opposition to Mr. Obama's policies was born of racism. My essay was also written before I had heard that New York Times essayist Thomas Friedman averred violence seemed, if not inevitable, at least explicable and expected. And what I wrote was drafted before I had heard Hugo Chavez at the United Nations General Assembly "pray" that God protect Mr. Obama from the bullets that killed John F. Kennedy. (It's interesting that Al Qaeda recently threatened Mr. Obama but nary a word was said about that; perhaps there really is no war on terror because there is no terror.)

My reluctance in posting what I began writing September 16 was due to what it suggests, namely, that there is a faction, perhaps even a very large faction, of leftists in the world who seem to be longing for violence against the president. I know that I don't have such a longing; I denounce ANY violence that might be brought against the office of the presidency or the person of the president. But I believe that there is something akin to a hope in America (and elsewhere) that something DOES happen, and this hope resides in the breasts of those who most ardently support the president.

Even mentioning that these people may be participating in some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy freaks me out, largely because I fear my own comments will become part of an overall self-fulfilling prophecy I pray my words will actually derail: maybe my noting what seems a dark desire of my leftist peers fuels the craziness and leads to horrors.

Please, I ask you not to take these words in these few paragraphs as all I have to say on this matter. I am quite aware of what I am doing and saying; I try hard not to be reckless or myopic. It was circumspection that led me to hold the essay for as long as I did; it was the remarks of Mr. Chavez and Mr. Friedman that led me to finally click the "publish" icon.

I pray that Mr. Obama remains safe in a cultural climate that seems intent on amplifying the very worst impulses and inferences of people; that seems to derive dark pleasure from horrific daydreams.

Blame It On Racist Rio: Prince Hamlet Stumbles in Denmark

None dare whisper it in good company, but since I keep such notoriously bad company, I will shout it from the rooftops: when the International Olympic Committee, and the presumptuous delegates from Rio De Janeiro, worked to award a city in the southern hemisphere the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, the only motive for such an outcome is simple and obvious: blatant racism. How else to explain how the most popular people in the world -- Barack and Michelle Obama, and Oprah -- could not get their hometown beyond the first round in the IOC's selection process?

It is AMAZING how far-reaching is that vast right-wing conspiracy President Clinton spoke about last weekend. Even Denmark bends to the will of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Even the Danish hope Mr. Obama fails.

Oh, yeah. Remember the amazing essay linked to here at Contratimes: "Mirth In Funeral, Dirge In Marriage"? You know the link. It was to the glorious essay by Sam Schulman that compared Mr. Obama to Prince Hamlet. It's worth reading again.