The K.F. Stone Weekly

In the Words of Joseph Nye Welch

    Which is worse:  Really truly believing that President Obama was born, raised and thoroughly indoctrinated by Communists -- and as such is consciously doing everything in his power to destroy the United States of America, 

    Or: 

Knowing full well that the above is a total crock, but nonetheless broadcast it ad nauseum because:

A) You're an entertainer merely posing as a journalist.

B) It's great for ratings, which keeps those advertising dollars flowing.

C) You think your listening/viewing audience is made up of gullible cretins.

Sorry to disappoint, but I really don't know which of the above scenarios is worse.  

   Anyone who really truly believes that our president is a Communist (is that Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist, Maoist, Trotskyite, Shachtmanite or Lovestoneite?); or that there are already plans  on the drawing board to build mass internment camps for any and all who do not purchase health insurance; or that the various "Democrat" proposals for health care are nothing more, nothing less than "an agenda for death" . . .  Anyone who really truly believes this kind of moronic prattle is either terminally gullible or a direct descendant of the late Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. Like "Tailgunner Joe," folks holding these beliefs -- whether they possess microphones or not -- see enemies under every bed and easily ascribe those things they neither understand nor agree with to a pernicious, highly organized and malevolent conspiracy. As we well know, there are any number of folks with access to broadcast microphones and cameras spewing what is essentially neo-McCarthyism seven days a week, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year.  And just as in the days of McCarthy and McCarthyism, there are millions of people who firmly believe they now see the world clearly -- because they are looking through "lenses of understanding" provided by "physicians" like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Mark Levine.

   Remember, what we're discussing here is who or what is worse: those who really truly believe the things they broadcast, versus those who merely create scripts that permit them to reach the top of the entertainment heap.  

   There are times when it seems nicer and more generous to give guys like Limbaugh the benefit of the doubt and say "Well, he's an entertainer . . . he couldn't possibly believe all the drivel he spews.  He's figured out how to make $50 million a year.  Who can fault him for that?"  Then again, there are other times when it seems nicer and more generous to conclude that guys like Limbaugh really truly do believe what they broadcast; otherwise, they are breaking a prime Biblical injunction: "Do not put a stumbling block in the path of the blind." But, if they are innocent of violating that Biblical command, they are guilty of being spiteful, hateful and filled with fear.  

   So which is true . . . which is worse . . . and how to decide?

   Perhaps Senator McCarthy can provide answers. . . .

   Nearly 40 years ago, I wrote my senior thesis on the role that Senator McCarthy and McCarthyism played in the 1952 presidential election.  In doing research on the senator, I discovered that prior to "discovering the menace of Communism," he had tried to make a name for himself by becoming identified with two very different issues: Pepsi Cola and the Malmedy Massacre. 

   Early in his senate career, McCarthy decided that it would be smart -- and profitable -- to lead the fight for continued government regulation of sugar prices.  He managed to successfully keep the government ceiling on the price of sugar.  His dalliance with Pepsi became so blatantly obvious -- he accepted bribes from the soft drink giant -- that his colleagues derisively nicknamed him "The Pepsi Cola Kid."  

   Oops!  On to another issue . . . the Malmedy Massacre.

   On May 17, 1944, members of the 1st Panzer Division (Kampfgruppe Peiper) murdered 90 American prisoners of war -- in clear violation of the Geneva Convention of 1929.  A trial, in which the highest-ranking officer charged was SS General Sepp Dietrich, was held at the Dachau concentration camp in May-July 1946. The soldiers were found guilty and sentenced to death; enter Senator McCarthy.  Desperately looking for a way to garner publicity, he actually decided that it was in his best self-interest to lobby for the commutation of the death sentences meted out to the Waffen SS soldiers!  McCarthy was highly critical of their convictions because of -- unsubstantiated -- allegations of torture during the interrogations that led to their confessions.  McCarthy accused the U.S. Army of engaging in "a coverup of judicial misconduct," but never presented any evidence to support his accusation.  Shortly after this, a poll of the Senate press corps voted him "the worst U.S. Senator" currently in office.

   Oops! That's when he "discovered" the Communist menace.  

   In other words, he never believed there were Communists infiltrating the Army, Navy or Federal Government.  He "broadcast" it because it greatly increased his visibility -- his political "Neilson Ratings."  McCarthy continued blithely on for several years, destroying lives and careers by accusing thousands of being part of a mass Communist conspiracy. 

   Joe McCarthy finally got his comeuppance on June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the so-called "Army-McCarthy Hearings."  On that day, McCarthy accused Fred Fisher -- a young Jewish lawyer and assistantant to United States Army counsel Joseph Nye Welch -- of being a Communist. (While a student at Harvard Law School Fisher had been a member of the "National Lawyers Guild," which J. Edgar Hoover had at one time tried to get the Attorney General to add to a list of supposed "subversive organizations.")  

   As McCarthy was dragging Fisher's name through the mud on nationwide television, Joseph Nye Welch interrupted him and uttered several sentences that would effectively destroy first the senator's  "ratings," and then his career:

   Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness . . . . If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. I like to think that I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me . . . . Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild . . . . Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency? 

   At that point, the gallery erupted into applause.  Senator Joseph McCarthy had been unmasked for the egregious unprincipled bully he truly was.

   I say the same thing to Rush Limbaugh: "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

   Yesterday, November 12, 2009 Limbaugh, like Joseph McCarthy before him, went too damn far.  He began his show by accusing the president of being "a destructive ideologue," and proclaiming that Obama "doesn't really want to create jobs," but instead wants to "wipe out the rich."  Nothing terribly new here. But then he compared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Adolf Hitler and Health Care Reform to what transpired at Dachau!  

THIS IS GOING TOO DAMN FAR!

If you really truly believe that Speaker Pelosi is no different than Hitler; if you really truly believe that health care reform is "how Dachau got started," than I urge you to take an extended leave of absence, go back and devote a couple of years to studying the real history of the 20th century.  For it is obvious that you haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about. 

   However, if you really truly do not believe that Speaker Pelosi is no different from Hitler; if you really truly do not believe that health care reform is "how Dachau got started," then I say:

"HOW DARE YOU?" 

"WHO IN THE HELL DID YOU LOSE IN THE CAMPS?"

"DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT A DISGRACEFUL DISSERVICE YOU DO TO THE DEAD?"

"HOW CAN YOU SO TRIVIALIZE THE MOST BRUTAL EVIL IN ALL RECORDED HISTORY?"

"ARE RATINGS POINTS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU THAN BASIC HUMANITY?"

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT A TOTAL ASS YOU ARE?"
 

And, in the immortal words of Joseph Nye Welch:

"HAVE YOU AT LONG LAST NO SENSE OF DECENCY?

You don't have to answer this last question Rush; we all really truly know the answer.  

©2009 Kurt F. Stone

      

SHOYN GENUG!!

   By now, we have all the seen media clips of the so-called "grass-roots teabag protesters" hectoring, screaming, debasing, threatening and otherwise disrupting Democratic town hall forums across the country.  By now, we are all painfully, angrily aware that, far from being an organic, bottom-up rebellion made up of "average Americans voicing real concerns" about the future of health care in America, these boorish, uncivil protests are being stage-managed by highly professional lobbying firms with unlimited financial resources at their disposal.  And, as much as we may disparage the tactics, demeanor and dishonesty of what's going on, it is all perfectly legal; it is all covered by the First Amendment.

   But just because something is legal -- like converging on a town hall meeting and shouting down an elected official, calling him or her a liar, a scoundrel or a traitor -- doesn't make it right or tolerable.  To my way of thinking, there are -- or at least should be -- limits to what's acceptable; a place where we all draw a line in the sand. One of these limits, one of these lines is likening the President of the United States and members of the United States Congress to AdolF Hitler and the Nazis.

   To this I shout out SHOYN GENUG!! Enough already!

   Over the past weeks and months, we have seen more and more placards, and heard more and more commentators comparing President Obama to Hitler,  labeling his programs as fascistic, and warning of dire consequences unless he is stopped in his tracks.  

   On July 30, Orly Taitz, the dentist/real estate agent/attorney who is leading the so-called "Birther" movement took her case to the "Colbert Report."  Taitz started speaking in defense of Major Stephen Cook, who said his orders to deploy to Afghanistan were "invalid," because "President Obama wasn't born in America."  After listening to Taitz's defense of Major Cook, Colbert said,

   "It's good for the country for the soldiers to be questioning their Commander in Chief." 

   Whether or not Taitz understood that Colbert was being both sarcastic and ironic is debatable, because she responded, 

   "Well, I think that if in Nazi Germany, the soldiers and the officers would have questioned the orders that came from the commander in chief, maybe 65 million people wouldn't have died."

   To which Colbert, not believing what he had just heard responded,

   "Thank you.  So few people are willing to compare the Obama administration to Nazi Germany.  It's refreshing to hear that."

   One could only wish that what Steven Colbert was hearing was rare.  But it's not:
 
   At a recent protest held outside the Ft. Collins offices of Representative Betsey Markey (D-Colo), a woman protesting Democratic plans for health care reform was photographed holding up a sign of a Swastika, with the president's name below it, encircled and crossed out by a red line.  The clear implication, of course, is that President Obama is a Nazi, though in the protester's defense she did add a question mark.  Similarly, at a town hall meeting in Texas Representative Lloyd Dogget's district, one protester carried a sign emblazoned with the Nazi S.S. symbol, a second with a cartoon of the congressman sporting horns, and yet a third, a tombstone with Dogget's name on it.   The other day, out on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Representative Frank M. Kratovil, Jr. was met  with protesters -- one of whom  who had the tasteless brass to place an effigy of the congressman hanging from a noose just outside his office.  On August 6, Rush Limbaugh told his ditto-heads that "Obama's got a health care logo that's right out of Hitler's playbook," and asked "What are the similarities between the Democratic Party  of today and the Nazi Party in Germany?"  His answer, in part:  

   "Well, the Nazis were against big business -- they hated big business.  And  of course we all know that they were opposed to Jewish capitalism.  They were insanely, irrationally against pollution . . . . They were against cruelty and vivisection of animals, but in the radical sense of devaluing human life, they banned smoking. . . . It is liberalism that's the closest you can get to Nazism and Socialism . . . . Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate."

   SHOYN GENUG!!

   One wonders whether it has dawned on the likes of Rush Limbaugh and such sponsoring organizations as FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, or  Conservatives for Patients' Rights that they are making it look as if the entirety of the Republican Party -- and not just a gullible gaggle -- is made up of nothing but "wing nuts," Luddites and other assorted "Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton." (For those not familiar with this latter allusion, see Marat Sade).  If this be the case, it's fine by me; occasionally one does reap what they sow.    
  
   To all those being goaded by radical right organizations into doing their bidding; to all those who persist in comparing Democrats to Fascists and liberals to Socialists; and, to all those who find the leap from "Barrack Obama" to  "Adolf Hitler" to be measured in microns  and not temporal dimensions I say precisely two things:

   Shame on you!  and

     "SHOYN GENUG!! 

    Enough already!!

 

©2009 Kurt F. Stone

  

Marys-With-Mikes

  

   I actually expected to have this article -- which was supposed to be entitled The Children's Hour -- finished and posted yesterday.  But then, as I started reading the opening paragraphs to Annie, she commented "Didn't you use that title just a couple of weeks ago?"  Astute woman, my wife.  For in checking over  recent op-ed pieces, I indeed did find that I had used The Children's Hour for a May 28 piece on the Sotomayor nomination.  And so, I dutifully deleted this week's article.

   But then I got to thinking, and said to myself, "What the heck . . . let's revisit Lillian Hellman."

   And so, here goes.

   You may recall that Hellman's 1934 play deals with Karen Wright and Martha Dobie, two women who together run a successful New England school for girls.  One of their students, Mary Tilford, an angry, mean, mischievous, diabolic teen runs away from the school.  In order to avoid being sent back, she tells her grandmother that Karen and Martha are lesbian lovers.  As a result of this lie -- and the community's willingness to believe it -- the women lose their school and reputations; Martha winds up committing suicide. 

   To my way of thinking, what has always made The Children's Hour so incredibly acerbating, so gut wrenching -- and so great -- is that it is oh so very real.  Since just about forever -- to coin a weird phrase --we have had "Mary Tilfords" living among us -- angry, mean, mischievous diabolical sorts who are more than happy to spread untruths for their own warped reasons.  Likewise, since just about the dawn of time, far too many have been happy to listen to -- and repeat -- "Mary Tilford's" untruths, whether they believe them or not.  And, like the fictional Mary Tilford, these folks seem at best to be unaware -- at worst unconcerned -- that lies, rumors and innuendos can have extraordinarily tragic results. 

   It would seem that of late there has been a virtual population explosion within the Tilford "clan."  For not a day goes by without some new lie, rumor, innuendo or mis-characterization hitting the airwaves or clogging one's inbox. Precisely what has Mary been up to?  She has been repeatedly telling anyone who will listen that:

• The president is an "African-born alien who by law must be removed from office."
• That the president and his wife are "angry black racists."
• That he is a "virulent anti-Semite bent on the destruction of Israel."
• That the Democratic health care proposal would enable the government to "tell us where we may live, what we may eat, and what medical procedures we may have."
• That the Democratic health care plan "is very specific that private insurance would be ended."
• That the Democratic health care plan contains "mandatory counseling sessions for the purpose of telling seniors 'how to do what's in society's best interest . . . and cut your life short."
  
• That the president "fooled the vice president into thinking he likes white people."
• That Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has recently said "he agrees with Malcolm X that 'the white man is the devil.'"
  

   One will undoubtedly note that from the above, it would seem that the Mary Tilfords of this world tend to be conservative Republicans. And while I have not done a statistical analysis to either prove or disprove that proposition, I will tell you that its been hard finding equally obvious -- and egregious -- examples of untruths emanating from the more liberal side of the political aisle.  Rest assured I will get a slew of examples from my more conservative readers before the day is out. Be that as it may, the truth remains that "Mary" has far more access to mikes and cameras than the so-called "state run media."

   What is it that these "Marys-With-Mikes" expect or want to happen?  Merely that their ratings remain sky high and their salaries stratospheric?  That next time around all these horrible liberals get voted out of office and replaced with people who think like they think, see what they see, and love what they love?  How would they feel or respond if one or more of their listeners/viewers were actually to take matters into their own hands?  After all, just how long can a group be told that a person, a platform or a program is purely evil and bent on  destroying all they hold as dear without someone deciding that definitive action is required?  Remember, in The Children's Hour, it was likely not Mary Tilford's intention that Karen and Martha's school be destroyed or that Martha should commit suicide . . . but it did happen.  What did she think her rumor would lead to?  Likewise, what do all the "Marys-With-Mikes" think their untruths will lead to? Shouldn't they bear some responsibility for what they put out over the airwaves?

   Now, I am neither so naive nor innocent as to wonder why people can't play fair,  "just make nice" and stop spreading malicious lies about each other. Politics is after all a full-contact sport, and definitely not for those who are either weak-hearted or thin-skinned.  (Note to Sarah Palin: repeat this last sentence out loud at least 100 times.)   I fully realize that while the relationship between public and private interest should be symbiotic or mutualistic -- in which both parties benefit -- it is far too often parasitic -- in which one party benefits while the other is harmed.  What does fill me with fascination and frustration is how relatively easy it is to convince folks to oppose that which is ultimately in their own best self interest.

   I suspect that the overwhelming majority of you who read The K.F. Stone Weekly have not -- and will not -- buy in to the mendacious drivel our present day "Marys-With-Mikes" broadcast.  Good for you.  But what of all those who, like the community complicit in destroying Karen Wright and Martha Dobie, find nothing wrong in believing and repeating that which is either demonstrably untrue or patently absurd? What can be done about them?  (Note: This is not to say that Karen and Martha being engaged in a lesbian relationship was 'patently absurd.')     
  
   In some cases, and with some people, facts can overcome fiction.  That is why it is good to have such debunking resources as the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.ORG and Snopes. Of course for many others, fiction is just one whale of a lot more fun (and much easier to grasp) than fact; witness those who continue to pass along the "fact" that the Democratic health care plan includes "forced euthanasia" despite an easily accessible copy of the bill in question -- see The Truth About End of Life Care. (Please be warned: legislative language ain't literary!)

  I for one would love to see a revival of The Children's Hour. Its theme and message is as poignant today as it was 75 years ago -- or during the early 1950s when its revival was construed as an attack on the House Un-American Activities Committee. A revival today just might serve to remind people that those who  consciously play fast and loose with the truth -- for whatever reason -- are possibly setting in motion events that are well beyond their power and potentially tragic.  

©2009 Kurt F. Stone    

Sam Goldwyn Was Right

   Back in mid-1920s, film producer Sam Goldwin [Schmuel Gelbfisz] tried to interest his fellow moguls in an "investment with a purpose."  It was Goldwin's idea that he and his colleagues [Goldwyn would have undoubtedly been more comfortable calling them his lahntsleit] should purchase some  distant, sparsely inhabited desert island.  According to Goldwyn, they would then divide the purchase price -- whatever it might be -- equally amongst the natives of said island, in exchange for the right to make the islanders the "bad guys" or "villains" of all their future movies!  Not surprisingly perhaps, Goldwyn's fellow moguls turned him down flat; to them it was utter meshugas -- insanity.  What's worse, from that point on, they considered Goldwyn himself meshugeh ahf toit -- crazy as a loon.  But as g'mahtert -- as farfetched -- as Goldwyn's scheme was, it did address a serious problem: society's need to blame the blameless, to make targets of the innocent. 

    Goldwyn simply couldn't live with the filmic stereotypes of his day; most if not all movie "heavies" were portrayed as Gypsies, pawnbrokers as Jews, drunkards as Irish, and drug addicts as Chinese.  Although he may not have had the ability to put it all in words, he obviously understood the great power film had to shape both thinking and prejudice.  By suggesting that he and the rest of the moguls purchase that as yet unidentified island, Goldwyn may have been amusing, but in his own way, was being deadly serious.  He was highly sensitive to the fact that he and virtually every other major producer was a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe.  He was terribly concerned lest the Jewish community in general and the "motion picture minyan" in particular, become targets of blame during times of frustration, crisis and confusion. 

    Nonetheless, despite his perceptive intentions, Goldwyn's fellow moguls -- Mayer, Zukor, Fox, Selznick, Thalberg, Cohen, Loew, Warner and Lasky -- considered him ah leytz un ah pyeahtz -- both a buffoon and a clown. 

   Despite having less than a grade-school education and frequently coming off like a baggy-pants comedian, Samuel Goldwyn possessed an innately sophisticated understanding of the link between tough, uncertain, changing times and racism, bias and prejudice. He also grasped what tremendous power the "flickers" had to influence taste, style and people's "understanding" of the world around them. To his way of thinking, it was better to "blame it all on the folks of Tristan de Cunha" [who were going to be well paid for being the targets of blame] than to place real people in real harm.

   Sam Goldwyn was right.  In tough, rapidly-changing, challenging times (such as ours), some people seek to affix blame and then do something about it. They are the ones who see change as inherently evil; as the desired, self-conscious product of malevolent, internationally-connected conspirators. Sam Goldwyn took his role as a shaper of public opinion very seriously; he sought to exercise both restraint and even-handedness.  Despite the fact that the term "mass media" did not yet exist, he -- along with his lahnsleit -- had just of much of an impact on society as the modern shapers of opinion, people like Limbaugh, Hannaty, Savage, O'Reilly, Gingrich, Beck and Buchanan.

   Because of the fact that they always need to blame someone, to inflame the already confused and whip up the fires of frustration, people like James von Brunn seek to "cleanse" the world of those they see as "pernicious vermin."  Now, I am not blaming the "Fox Phalanx" for von Brunn's atrocity; they are not the proximate cause of him taking a rifle into the Holocaust Museum and killing guard Stephen Tyrone Johns.  They are obviously not responsible for the many decades this man spent as an obviously deranged, vicious, anti Semitic, Holocaust-denying bigot who firmly believed that Jews exercised malevolent control over virtually every aspect of American society, culture and economy.

   But while they were not the cause of this 88-year old psychotic mess doing what he did -- or of Dr. George Tiller being shot point-blank in the head by "anti-abortion activist" Scott Roeder -- they nonetheless do bear responsibility for their words.  As much as a Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly may take valuable air time to deplore Dr. Tiller's murder, they are the ones who spent months -- if not years -- referring to him as "Tiller the Baby Killer."  O'Reilly once told his rapt viewers that Tiller "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up the birth date for $5,000."  No, O'Reilly never told anyone to kill Dr. Tiller, but what did he expect his viewers and listeners to think?  That O'Reilly was being hyperbolic?  That he was merely exercising his First Amendment right to speak and was really nothing more than an entertainer?  I wonder.  Certainly those with microphones have advertisers.  And where there are advertisers, there are demographic charts.  And where there are demographic charts, there's a finely-honed understanding of precisely the sort of person who is watching or listening . . .

   Then too there is Rush Limbaugh, who has repeatedly:

• Accused President Obama of being "more dangerous than Al Qaeda"
• Proclaimed that "He (Obama) has one thing in common with God -- he does not have a birth certificate"
• Announced that "Socialism is the Obama vision for America"
• Said repeatedly that he hopes the president fails
• Has termed the president's recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Germany "The International Apology Tour" in which he "proclaimed that America is a Muslim nation," and flat-out said that "The president equated the Holocaust with what Israel is doing to the Palestinians." 

   As Samuel Goldwyn or your Tante Ruchel would have said: NARISHKHEYT!!

   What are we to understand Limbaugh's (or O'Reilly's, Beck's, Shnitt's or Savage's) motivation to be? If its higher ratings, then shame on them; they have placed their own narcissism far above the safety and security of the President of the United States and millions of utterly innocent, blameless people.  If they truly believe what they are saying about Obama, abortionists, and all those folks they tar with the brush of "liberal" or "progressive"  then what in the Hell do they expect their acolytes to do?  Just sit back and continue being angry and frustrated?  Doesn't Rush, like the rest of his conservative talk show brethren, bear some responsibility for the effect their words have?  

    Sam Goldwyn must be turning over in his grave.

   I have spent the better part of the past 36 hours monitoring various conservative radio talk-shows in order to hear what they have to say about von Brunn's attack at the Holocaust Museum.  In many cases, the hosts and commentators -- Schnitt, Savage, Van Susteren and Levine most notably -- have gone to great lengths to deathlessly inform their listeners/partisans/true believers that "There are just as many -- if not more -- crazy, violent, murderous whack jobs on the Left as on the Right."  They want their listeners to know that they are not -- God forbid -- singling out conservatives for blame or opprobrium.  And, unbelievably, Rush Limbaugh actually blamed the recent growth in anti-Semitic rhetoric on President Obama, Progressives and -- who else? -- Liberals.  He actually went so far as to characterize James von Brunn as . . . ready for this? . . . A LEFTIST!

   Permit me to quote his narcissistic rotundity at some length [emphasis added]:

   Very predictably, ladies and gentlemen, the media, the American left, is trying to score some political points as a result of this tragedy at the Holocaust Museum . . . and as predictable [sic], they are trying to blame this on me, other conservatives, and right-wingers.  It's the traditional approach taken by the American left.

   The facts of the case, however, are such that if we want to start assigning blame for this beyond this nutcase Jew-hater . . . and notice that very few people actually want to do that.  They want to claim this guy didn't have the ability to act on his own.  He only could act if he was inspired by somebody.

   Well, who did he hate?  He hated both Bushes.  He hated neocons.  He hated John McCain.  He hated Republicans.  He hated Jews, as well.  He believed in an inside job conspiracy of 9-11.  This guy is a leftist if anything. This guy's believes [sic], this guy's hate stems from influence that you find on the left, not on the right.

   Now, this Jew hater who killed yesterday was a nut . . . . It is not helpful when a political party and a president and leaders of Congress engage in a very dangerous political game that creates anxiety, hostility, and down-right hate among citizens.

   The Left runs our government.  It is creating a very dangerous climate, folks, on purpose, for the purpose of distracting us so that they can accomplish their socialist games . . .

   Sorry Rush, but you've got it all wrong. Sorry Greta, you're having perpetual brain cramps; sorry: President Obama is not some alien bent on destroying America; he is not being guided by the "dangerous Communist operative" William Ayres or viewing society through the eyes of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright -- who just the other day told an interviewer that "my son" the president is a captive of all the Jews who surround him.

   Yes, the Constitution does give all of you the freedom and protection to call the president "Nobama" and "Mr. Teleprompter," and to "knowingly" inform your audience of what his "true" motivation is. Yes, you all have the legal right to blame everything from 9/11 to the current state of the economy on "liberals," "leftists," and "socialists."  No one has the right to stop you from calling anybody anything you wish, just so long George Carlin's "seven little words" are not employed.

   But know this:

  Words do carry consequences just as certainly as Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms require responsibility.  Just because you possess powerful microphones that doesn't make you political scientists . . . just entertainers with big mouths, outsized egos and one hell of a lot of chutzpah. 

   Now there's a truth Sam Goldwyn understood. 

©2009 Kurt F. Stone

 

 

That's "Madoff" as in "Made-Off"

  

Question: When is an allegation not an allegation?
Answer: When the one against whom the allegation has been lodged, has already  confessed.
Example: Wall Street titan Bernard Madoff's confession to a mind-boggling Ponzi  scheme in which he made-off with approximately $50 billion of his client's money.

   Madoff's victims' list is a scandal-monger's wet dream; an eerie amalgam of the Wall Street Journal, Daily Forwards, Financial Times, Palm Beach Shiny Sheet, Chronicle of Philanthropy, and Congressional Record with more than a touch of People and The Hollywood Reporter thrown in. The roster of victims includes many of the best-heeled and most-accomplished stars in the financial firmament.  Most sadly, one notes amongst the file of the fleeced a preponderance of Jewish individuals and organizations: Spielberg, Katzenberg, Roth, and Zuckerman; Yeshiva University, the Shapiro Family , Hadassah, and the Los Angeles Jewish Federation, to name but a few.  And that's not even taking into account all his foreign investors.

   The issue of his having so many Jewish victims is perhaps THE classic example of what most every Yiddische kinder's bubbe or zayde called a shanda fur die goyim, namely, "An incredible embarrassment for the Jewish people that is available for all the Gentiles of the world to see . . ." (Yes, it IS simply amazing that it takes 19 English words to translate a measly five words in Yiddish!) 

    When Senator Larry Craig messes around in some airport men's room, that's hypocrisy; when Governor Eliot Spitzer messes around with prostitutes, that's a shanda fur die goyim.  When California Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham gets convicted of selling votes, that's a scandal; when Jack Abramoff goes to prison for bribing the Dukester, that's a shanda fur die goyim. 

   Are we all clear on this? 

   Of course, questions about the Madoff shanda abound:

• How could Madoff's scheme go undetected for so many, many years?

• How could such a who's who of supposedly savvy, accomplished people be so blind?
• Where was the Securities Exchange Commission?  
• Should the scammed shoulder any of the blame?
• What became of all the money?
• Is there any hope of restitution for the victims?
• Are there further surprises looming just over the horizon?

   As to the last question, I understand there is the possibility that those who made-off with their Madoff profits -- even if it were years before the scandal came to light -- may have to forfeit a sizeable portion of said profits according to a legal principle called "Fraudulent Conveyance."  Imagine that!  Say in 1998, a Madoff investor called Bernie and told him to cash him out, and then put the proceeds into a dozen apartment buildings.  The buildings all appreciated in value and said investor then sold them for an enormous profit. Under terms of the "Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act," he (or she) could easily be liable to give up a hefty percentage of the final profits in order to help pay off other Madoff investors who were not so lucky!

   Will this in fact happen?  I don't know; my crystal ball is still at the cleaners.  What I do know is that were such a legal principle to be enforced, it could be, as financial writer Lee Stewart notes, "Key to reforming financial markets and a return to regulation based on social conscience . . .[and] due diligence."  Over the years, there were quite a few hints that not all was kosher at Bernard Madoff Investment Securities LLC.  And yet despite a haunting feeling that there was more than a hint of trayf mixed in with the kreplach, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) -- which did do a bit of investigating -- declared that all was kosher at BMIS. 

   For nearly 50 years, BMIS portrayed itself as the epitome of financial rectitude; investing with Bernie was as safe as investing with your favorite uncle.  According to the BMIS website, "In an era of faceless organizations owned by equally faceless organizations, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC harks back to an earlier era in the financial world: The owner's name on the door.  Clients know that Bernard Madoff has a personal interest in maintaining the unblemished record of value, fair-dealing, and high ethical standards that has always been the firm's hallmark."

   The SEC's failure to find anything amiss at BMIS has already begun the process of accusatory finger-pointing.  One can only hope that the SEC's failure will also lead to the blessed end of the era of unfettered, unregulated markets. It is also to be hoped that once he takes the oath of office, President Barack Obama will appoint someone with far more investigative chops than Christopher Cox to head the SEC. 

   There are no doubt plenty of people already secretly gloating over the incredible losses suffered by billionaires like Spielberg, Katzenberg, Zuckerman and Shapiro. What these gloaters would do well to understand is that in most of the high-profile cases, the ones who will suffer the most from the Madoff debacle aren't Spielberg the filmmaker or Shapiro the clothing magnate to cite but two examples, but rather all those who might benefit from their charitable foundations.  What Bernard Madoff has made-off with is not just the dreams of a secure retirement or an estate to pass on to one's children and grandchildren; he has also made-off with all those millions upon millions of dollars that fund Tay-Sachs testing programs, study trips to Israel, meals-on-wheels for the elderly and thousands of other selfless acts of humanity.  Bernard Madoff has not only made-off with $50 billion in wealth; he has plunged a dagger into the very heart of hope.

   One fascinating question deals with the potential culpability of the defrauded; of what we might refer to as the obsido caveo ("Investor Beware") factor.  Most of us have heard at one time or another that "If something sounds too good to be true, it likely isn't."  Well, didn't Bernard Madoff's investors have some inkling that not all was sweet-smelling in Denmark?  Did not one ask him or herself how it was that BMIS continued reaping such wonderful returns-on-investment when others were not?  Did they all believe that Bernie Madoff was the smartest man in the world, or did they just simply not want to challenge the assumption? 

   In the Jewish world, we have a concept quite the opposite of obsido caveo; something known as "chezkat l'adahm kashayr," meaning roughly, "We make the presumption that a person is kosher -- honest."  Now, this does not mean that we simply take someone at their word; to do so would be foolish.  Let us say that we enter a store that has a sign on the door proclaiming "We Sell Kosher Meat."  Something about the store's layout makes us wonder if indeed, the meat is kosher.  Let's say we then put our concerns aside and make a purchase because this merchant sells meat for a lot less than any other kosher butcher in town.  If it then turns out that the meat is trayf (not kosher), we can certainly blame the butcher and say, "I presumed that he wouldn't have put up that sign unless his meat truly was kosher.  Shame on him for leading me astray!"  Then too, according to Jewish law, part of the culpability is ours for not exercising due diligence.  This is where obsido caveo meets chezkat l'adahm kashayr.  

   The same could possibly be said for some of Madoff's investors -- that they did not exercise due diligence.  Some were undoubtedly convinced of Madoff's honesty, integrity and financial acumen by the fact that someone they respected or trusted gave him their "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval."  Others likely just did not want to question how he could be providing such a wonderful return on investment where others could not.  In either case, the results were the same: deep losses and even deeper depression.

   The strategy by which Bernie Madoff bilked his clients is generally called a "Ponzi Scheme."  It is named for Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who cheated tens of thousands in the early 1900s.  In this sort of scam, the con pays off his early investors with money gleaned by later marks.  Most know the term even if they never knew of its eponymous ancestor.  One wonders if perhaps "Madoff" won't soon replace "Ponzi" as the ultimate financial scam.

   For indeed, Bernard Madoff has "Made-Off" with a fortune.

   Let us just hope and pray that something good comes out of it . . .

 

©2008 Kurt F. Stone

Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

   Let's see if we've got this straight:

   Senators McCain and Clinton have endorsed a "gas-tax holiday" for the 2008 peak summer driving season.  If the proposal is enacted, the government will forgive and forgo collecting the 18.4 cent federal tax that is added to each gallon we pump. Senator Obama, who has come out against said tax holiday, has been widely trashed for his opposition. 

   Let's do a little math: 

   My 2003 Toyota Solara, which has four cylinders and a manual five-speed transmission, gets about 33 highway and 28 city miles to the gallon.  The tank holds just a shade over 15 gallons, which means I get about 450 miles per tank. I religiously fill the old girl up once a week.  At 18.4 cents per gallon, I am putting $2.76 into Uncle Sam's coffers each time I fill up.  Multiply that for, say eight weeks of "peak summer driving," and I will save precisely $22.08 in federal tax.  Factor in Annie's Toyota four cylinder Highlander, which has a slightly larger tank and gets about about 4 miles per gallon less, and we save a whopping $45.00 over this eight-week period. 

   Now, add to this the $1,200.00 rebate we're going to be receiving in the next couple of weeks, and we'll have just about enough to fly out to California and visit Alice, Riki & Bob, Mitzi &  Matt, Leon & Ximena, Leanna, Alan and the gang.  Car rental will of course be extra. 

    Call me crazy, but I'm with Senator Obama on this one; I think the gas tax holiday is a ridiculous idea whose time has come . . . to be expunged from  political dialog.  Far from being any kind of quick-fix for the nation's dolorous economic woes, it is yet another misguided, ill-conceived attempt to curry favor with voters by convincing us that there is such a thing as a free lunch. 

   WRONG!

   Last time I looked, if you want bagel 'n lox with a side of cole slaw and an iced tea, you'd better be prepared to pay. 

   Yes, I certainly understand that those who  fill-'er-up up more than once a week, along with those who make their living driving the nation's highways -- especially truckers -- will be saving quite a bit more than Annie and me.  But what is missing from the equation are a couple of sobering facts:

• For every tax dollar that is forgiven, another indebted dollar gets swallowed up by the bankers of Beijing.  This is yet another case of puffing a putative short-term "gain" at the expense of a very real long-term  calamity.
• If we assume that tax-forgiveness will permit folks to add even one additional fill-up during the eight week period, that will put more money into Saudi coffers.
• Oil company profits continue setting records [Exxon Mobil, weeping  like Bessie Smith, just announced that it earned $10.9 billion in the first quarter of 2008.]

   Some have suggested that if McCain, Clinton et al are so hellbent on enacting this gas tax holiday, they ought to at least figure out where the offset money is going to come from.  How's about let's tax excess oil company profits?  Yeah right.  So long as this -- or any other -- oil-besotted administration reigns, there's about as much chance of that happening as my waking up tomorrow, looking in the mirror, and discovering I've become a five-foot redhead.

   In a hastily called press conference the other day, President Bush addressed soaring gas prices and what we can do about it.  So what was his prescription? Drilling in the Alaska Natural Wildlife Reserve [ANWAR], building new oil refining plants, and taking another long hard look at both coal and "nukular" energy.  All of these are -- or ideally should be -- nonstarters.  The proposal to open up ANWAR to drilling is most monstrous of all.  For not only would it irreparably damage much of what the Good Lord created [Something I am sure no Bible-thumping pol would ever want to do!], it would take more than a decade to be up and running.  And, to add insult to injury, even if the president's prediction of "one million barrels a day" is correct, it would likely lower gas prices by no more than a penny a gallon. 

   Of course what's going on here is nothing more, nothing less, than the 2008 version of "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic;" changing light bulbs while the whole house is on fire.  No one is addressing alternate sources of energy.  No one has the words "wind," "solar" or "geothermal" in their vocabulary. No one is sounding an alarm or issuing a challenge.

   The creation and development of renewable sources of energy is both essential and makes good sense from many different perspectives:

• It is the moral thing to do: All people of faith -- regardless of whether one pays obeisance to God, Allah, Vishnu, Buddha or Mother Nature -- agree that we have been placed here to be stewards of the earth.  To act otherwise, to blithely denude the good earth of its riches, is to churlishly hurl the works of creation back in the face of the divine.
• It makes good economic sense: The creation, manufacture and sales of alternate renewable energy devices can and will create thousands of new businesses and millions of new jobs.  It can have the added bonus of taking an overwhelming economic weapon out of the hands of some of the most corrupt, inhumane regimes on earth.
• These epochal changes are not only essential, they are energizing: It has been close to a half-century since JFK issued what many deem to be the last significant challenge to the American people.  In challenging us to "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," JFK energized an entire nation.

   I don't know about you, but if a leader were to, say, issue a "10-Point Program to Create an Energy-Independent America;" have the political skill and courage to get Congress to go along with him or her, and then tell the big oil companies to either get with the program or suffer the consequences, I would feel more focused, more energized, more optimistic about the future, than at any time in my life.  For that leader would, in essence, be instilling within us the belief and understanding that we are a significant part of the solution.  Today, all we hear is "there may be a slight problem; trust us to take care of it."

   So far as the Stone household is concerned, the government can take our $45.00 in gas tax savings and apply it as a credit to any company that is building solar panels, wind turbines or an automobile that runs on steam.  Meanwhile, we'll keep the $1,200 and make a visit to the folks back home.

      ©2008 Kurt F. Stone

       

When Good News is No News

   On Monday December 3, 2007, the New York Times reported that the National Intelligence Estimate [NIE] has concluded that Iran put a halt to its nuclear weapons program way back in 2003.  According to the NIE -- a consortium of all 16 American intelligence agencies -- "[Iran's] decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon,irrespective of the political, economic and military costs." For anyone who follows the current of events or indeed, is a sentient being, this should come as good news.  After all, it would seem that this report is more than enough to puncture the administration's bellicose balloon; its ratcheting up of the rhetoric of war against Iran.  One might have imagined that logically, the administration's dire warnings of "World War III" would now fall into desuetude like the slide rule, the rotary phone or the flash cube.  To an intelligent being, it would seem that the very reason for even considering war in the first place -- the existence of a nuclear weapons program -- has now been removed.

   To assume this would be both logical and consistent.  It would also be wrong.  To President Bush and the brains behind the throne, this bit of "good news" is, in reality, "no news."

   Within 24 hours of the NIE being made public, President Bush held what must be considered one of the most disingenuous press conferences in the history of the Republic.  Defying the precepts of both Aristotelian and Boolean logic, Mr. Bush:

• Warned that despite the NIE, Iran remains an ever present danger;
• Claimed that his administration's use of diplomacy and sanctions are the reason that Iran has called a halt to its nuclear weapons program;
• Concluded that the very possibility of Iran's having halted said program offers convincing evidence that they will start it up again in the future ["I view this report as a warning signal that they had a program.  And the reason why its a warning signal is that they could restart it."]   

   Got all that?   

   When it was pointed out that this NIE was made available to him as early as 6 -- and as late as 3 -- months ago [the time when he began talking up war with Iran], Bush replied that he had no knowledge of what it contained; merely that he had been told that there was a new report on Iran's nuclear program.  Regrettably, not one member of the press asked the obvious follow-up questions: didn't you ask what was in it?  And if not, why not?

   Responding to the president's claim that he was not aware of the NIE's content until just the other day, Senator Joseph Biden [D-DE], Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said, "I refuse to believe that.  If that's true, he has the most incompetent staff in American, modern history, and he's one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history."
 
   "Look," Mr. Bush explained, "Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous, if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon . . . . What's to say that they couldn't start another covert weapon's program?"  Pushing even harder against the outer walls of logic, he termed the NIE  "A report  that says what has happened in the past  could be repeated, and that  the policies used to  get the regime to quit are effective policies."

  I don't know about you, but I seem to remember that over the past several years, this administration has steadfastly refused to engage in any diplomatic efforts whatsoever with Iran.  So what "policies used to get the regime to quite" is he talking about?  And why, if he had access to the NIE at least 3 months ago was he talking up World War III?

   To borrow a quote from former Tennessee Senator Howard Baker, "What did the president know and when did he know it?" 

   Turning what appears on the surface to be good news into no news is a frightening turn of events.  It hearkens back to George Orwell's classic 1984, where the strategy is perpetual war, and the Outer Party's political slogan is "War is peace, freedom is slavery, intelligence is ignorance."

    One has no other option than to conclude that this administration has long desired to strike Iran -- regardless of whether they have a nuclear weapons program or not.  Even before the current NIE's release, experts predicted that Iran would not have full nuclear weapons capability until the middle of the next decade.  And now, with the four-year gap in their program, Iran likely could not obtain that capability until the end of the next decade -- if at all. 

   This episode is the icing on the cake; it paints, in excruciatingly fine detail, the portrait of a president who has lost the last vestige of credibility. 

   Is it any wonder that during last week's Republican presidential "debate," that the name of President George W. Bush was only mentioned twice, while that of Senator Hillary Clinton was referred to no less than 65 times?  Even his own partisans see him as damaged goods.

   When good news is no news, that's bad news.

©2007 Kurt F. stone

Habeas Crapus

Dear President Bush:

   Now that your public approval ratings have sunk to such a low ebb [26%] that you're in grave danger of breaking "Tricky Dickie's" record for disapprobation [23%], the time has come to have it out, California Kid to Texas Troglodyte.  While I cannot find it in my heart to hold animus for you as an individual, I do, nonetheless, damn, detest, despise and execrate your administration and all that it has done to bring American down to the level of a rogue nation.  Still with me, Mr. President?  Let's get to the "down-and-dirty" details:

• You have lied us into a fraudulent war -- a war that has no end in sight.
• You have gutted our treasury in order to enrich the "haves and have-mores."
• You have attempted to privatize everything from Social Security to Homeland Security.
• You have virtually ignored the poor folks of New Orleans, who are still living in substandard trailer parks.
• You have managed to steal not one, but two presidential elections.
• You have utterly failed the nation's schoolchildren with this inane "No Child Left Behind" nonsense. [Or is that "No Child's Behind Left?"]
• You have bypassed Congress by permitting the nation's most powerful lobbyists to write legislation.
• You have stood in firm opposition to the collective wisdom of science -- can you say "Global Warming," or "Stem Cell Research?"
• You have seriously blurred the line between politics and policy.
• You have foist upon this great nation public servants whose only claim to fame is being a friend or factotum for the rich and powerful.
• You have shown an almost total disregard for the rule of law.
• You have eviscerated the Constitution of the United States of America.
• You have virtually extinguished that beacon of light that was, until recently, the hope of the world.

   

Get the point?  Can you understand why your ratings are in the crapper? In less than seven years, you have changed this nation's motto from E Plurbis Unum ["Out of many, comes one"] to  Sacro Egoismo ["Consecrated Selfishness"].
   You know something, Mr. President, I haven't yet listed what is, to my way of thinking, the most frightening, treacherous and patently un-American of all your administration's activities: the revocation of Habeas Corpus, otherwise known as "The Great Writ."

   Now, just in case you were absent or sleeping one off the day habeas corpus was being discussed at Andover, Harvard, or Yale, permit me to turn the lamp of enlightenment up just a click.

    Habeas corpus ad subjiciendum [that's the term in full] is Latin for, roughly, "We command you to show us the body." It is an incredibly important legal right.  As originally construed -- and as embodied in our Constitution -- habeas corpus is the inalienable right of people to seek relief from unlawful imprisonment; to know why in the heck they're being detained in the first place.  Believe me, Mr. President, habeus corpus wasn't the brainchild of some secular humanist from Boston or Beverly Hills, 90210.  No, it has been around ever since the 12th century.  Way back then, England's King Henry II [who, for all I know is one of your relatives] issued what was probably the first such writ. As explained by Blackstone [a pretty sharp legal beagle], The king is at all times entitled to have an account, why the liberty of any of his subjects is restrained, wherever that restraint may be inflicted.

   What this means, Mr. President is that no one should be arrested without a warrant, or imprisoned without knowing the reason for that arrest.  Further, they may not be denied a speedy trial.  If this sounds like the work of some devious lefty with terrorism on the brain, you may want to check out our Constitution.  For there, enshrined in Article One, section 9,  are the words, "The privilege of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, or the public safety may require it."

   Now I realize that you and your brain trust consider the horror of 9/11 to qualify under ". . . or the public safety may require it" part of the clause.  Which is why, smack dab in the middle of the "Military Commissions Act," which your Republican Congress passed without so much as a whimper last September 26, the right of habeus corpus was suspended. In your signing statement, you said, "This legislation . . . is part of making sure that we do have the capacity to protect you.  Our most solemn job is the security of this country."  With a simple stroke of the pen, you, Mr. President, did more to undermine that which makes America worth fighting for, than any of your predecessors. 

   The senators who did read the fine print were appalled.  Senator Leahy said, "The bill before us would not merely suspend the great writ -- the great writ -- the writ of habeus corpus, it just eliminates it entirely. . . . Conditions for suspending habeus corpus have not been met. "  Even Senator Specter -- a member of your own party -- said, "We do not have a rebellion or an invasion."

   How is it possible that we, the American people were unaware that one of our most basic rights had been taken away?  I guess we were just too busy paying attention to the Mark Foley scandal -- which broke precisely two days after the bill was passed.  It reminds me of my old professor, Tom Lehrer, the mathematician/satirist, who, when introducing a song about a critical government program, mused "I guess you people in San Francisco wouldn't have read or heard about this, because it happened during baseball season." Well, we've all heard about it now -- the suspension of habeas corpus -- and we're going to do something about it.

   I know you claim that this suspension was enacted only to go after "enemy terrorists" and will never apply to American citizens.  To be terribly blunt, Mr. President, I neither believe nor trust you.  You have ringed your administration with such a cordon of extra-legal invincibility as to make the Divine Right of Kings pale by comparison.  Once power is given, it takes a truly strong, far-sighted individual to resist the temptation to use it.  And you, Mr. President, I fear, are not that individual.  I well recall the words of Alexander Hamilton, which he wrote in the Federalist Paper [no. 84]: The practice of arbitrary imprisonments, [has] been in all ages, [one of] the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.

  [Note]: On June 26, tens of thousands of Americans are going to be rallying in Washington for a Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice.  For those who cannot attend in person, you may wish to sign a virtual petition demanding the restoration of this most basic legal protection.  You can sign the petition by logging on to 

                         http://www.pfaw.org.go/RestoreHabeas     

    The suspension -- or elimination -- of habeus corpus makes a mockery of our claim to be a nation of laws.  With a single stroke of the pen, you have turned habeus corpus into habeas crapus.  You have made us a pariah nation in much of the world, a place where  rendition, false imprisonment and torture are carried out under the guise of "national security."  Where oh where, Mr. President, will it all end?

    Yours truly,

    Kurt F. Stone

©2007  Kurt F. Stone

 

When in Doubt Say "Takallam Besch Wesch . . ."

   Back in the fall of 1975, I accepted a position as student rabbi at a small congregation in Carmel, California.  It was a truly beautiful setting: majestic cypresses, crashing waves and architecture to beat the band.  In those days, Carmel -- and nearby Monterrey -- was home to lots of artists, writers, and semi-retired professionals.  It was also the home of Fort Ord and the Defense Language Institute [DLI] -- the place where future "spooks" took intensive foreign language courses in preparation for careers in intelligence and espionage.  Several of our congregants were Hebrew instructors at the Institute.

   About three months after I arrived in Carmel something disturbing happened: the Defense Language Institute got rid of its Hebraists, and replaced them with speakers and teachers of Arabic.  The firings were a hardship on our little synagogue, for most of our Hebrew School teachers were DFI employees.  I well remember a chat I had with one of the instructors, an American-Israeli named Rachamim.  I asked him why the government decided to jettison the Hebrew instructors in favor of Arabists; did he consider it to be anti-Semitic?

    "Not at all," Rachamim answered in his delightfully-accented English.  "Its got nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with our future foreign policy."

    "How's that?" I asked.

    "It's as obvious as the nose on your face," Rachamim explained.  "You see, whenever the government decides that they're going to effect a shift in foreign policy, the first thing they have to do is insure that they will have people who can speak whatever language is going to become important in the years ahead."

   I looked at him rather blankly.  Sensing my lack of understanding, Rachamim continued:

   "Getting rid of all us Hebrew instructors and bringing in the Arabists, points to the fact that within the next three to five years, American foreign policy is going to be getting much more involved in the Middle East. It takes about that much time to teach people the languages they're going to have to know if they're going to be effective.  I mean, you can't just go around saying 'takallam besch wesch' all day long."

   "Say what?" I asked.

   "Takallam besch wesch" -- that's 'speak slower' in Arabic. That will never do.  You see, speakers and translators are at the very root of foreign policy and national security.  In that sense, DFI is a pretty good barometer of things to come.  And besides," he concluded, a twinkle in his eye," anyone who's anyone in Israel speaks perfect English anyway.  Have you ever heard of an Israeli who needed a translator . . .?"

  I was reminded of this long-ago conversation while reading this morning's New York Times.  There, in black-and-white, was a story headlined "Pentagon Assailed on Firings."  The article detailed Congressional pique over the Pentagon's firing of 58 Arabic language experts.  Their crime?  That they were suspected of being gay.  How in the world can the Pentagon justify letting these experts in Arabic, Farsi and Urdu go at the very time when their services are most urgently needed?  Seems to me that both the administration and the Pentagon are placing homophobia above national security.

   Under the 1994 Clinton-era "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, gays can serve if they keep their sexual orientation private and don't engage in homosexual acts. As flawed and tepid as it was [and is], "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" actually represented a quantum leap in the military's attitude toward homosexual men and women.  Before World War II, the then-Department of War assumed that gays would make bad soldiers because of stereotypes of effeminacy.  During World War II, even though homosexuality was deemed a psychological affliction, tens of thousands of gays served in the military.  The reason behind this seeming contradiction?  We needed every able-bodied soldier and sailor we could get.

   With the Cold War came the 1951 Uniform Code of Military Justice, which explicitly forbade "unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex."  Gays were seen as vulnerable to blackmail and therefore supposed security risks.  During the Vietnam era, the Pentagon continued to view homosexuality as a "moral defect."  Indeed, being gay was a surefire way out of the draft. 

   In 1988, the Defense Personnel Security Research and Education Center, a nonpartisan military policy think tank, released a study finding that homosexuality "was unrelated to job performance in the same way as being left- or right-handed."  When Dick Cheney became Secretary of Defense under the first President Bush, he opposed a ban on gay civilian employees in the Pentagon.  Seen in this light, Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy wasn't all that radical afterall.

  Now, with the firing of the 58 supposedly gay Arab language experts, we've reentered the Dark Ages.  Unless I'm totally misreading the situation, it would seem that the Bush Administration is, as stated above, placing homophobia ahead of national security.  If this is the case, it represents just one more nail in the coffin of an administration that places moral posturing above anything else -- save outrageous profits for its allies. They simply don't live in the real world.  And even if the current case is nothing more than a cynical wink and nod toward the religious right disguised in the sackcloth of moral rectitude, it nonetheless shows just how blind and uninformed this administration truly is.

   According a recent Pew Research Center poll, the litmus test of abortion and gay-related issues has been steadily losing traction among hardcore conservatives -- the administration's most voluble cheerleaders.  The Pew poll found that 31% of GOP voters name Iraq as their top priority, and 17% choose terrorism and security.  Amazingly, just 7% name abortion and  a microscopic 1% name gay marriage. And yet, Bush and the Pentagon keep playing up to the religious right by firing many of the very people who are most critical in our War on Terror.

   The current inanity reminds me of a classic Bill Mauldin cartoon that ran at the very end World War II: "Willie" and "Joe," Mauldin's two grimy dogfaces, are hunkered down in a foxhole.  In the distance are the charred, smoldering remains of a once proud metropolis.  Everywhere is total devastation.  The caption has Willie say to Joe, "Well, at least our side won!"
   If the administration is truly serious about "winning" what they call a "war against terror," it should embrace all those who have the skill, ability, knowledge and desire to assist in that fight.  I hope that Congressional efforts to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy will succeed, and that those 58 Arabic lanaguage experts will be reinstated.

   Otherwise, we will all have learn to say takallam besch wesch.

They Actually Let These Guys Drive?

  Quick now, what is the hottest topic for right-wing talking heads this past week?  What is it that has Hannity, Prager Savage and Co. frothing with righteous indignation and dire warnings of doom?  The Baker-Hamilton report?  Global warming?  The fast-approaching  ascendancy of Pelosi, Hoyer, Rangel and Boxer to positions of leadership?  The precipitous decline of the Miami Hurricane's football team?

   Not even close.  That which has their knickers in a collective twist is incoming Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison.

   Ellison, as you may know, is the first Muslim ever elected to the United States Congress.  He won in a landslide, capturing 56% of the vote in Minnesota's Fifth Congressional District, which had been represented for nearly 30 years by the retiring Martin Olav Sabo.  Several days ago, Ellison quietly announced that at the ceremonial photo-op following his official swearing-in, he will be placing his right hand on a copy of the Koran.  And while the flashbulbs pop, he, like all the other new members of the House and Senate will be shown swearing to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.    

   So where's the news?  What's causing all the outrage and dire "sky-is-falling" predictions of the Cassandras of the radio right?  Didn't you know?  Don't you understand and realize?  In being photographed swearing to uphold the Constitution while holding fast to a copy of the Koran, Ellison is actually sending a message of encouragement to every Muslim fanatic from Canada to Kashmir. 

   Please do understand that your leg is being pulled.  Or is it?

   According to what we've heard and seen in the past several days, Hannity, Prager, Savage & Co. really, truly believe that that's what Ellison's swearing-in will do; provide aid, comfort and encouragement to America's Islamic enemies.  Incredible, no?  They actually let these guys drive cars and live in rooms without padded walls?

   To my way of thinking, Keith Ellison's election shows what's best about America; that we are a country, a society, that despite its human flaws, can occasionally see beyond labels and identify the genuine good in others -- regardless of their race or religion.  For what is it that Keith Ellison -- an African-American-Catholic-turned-Muslim campaigned on?  What were his promises?  What did he tell voters of Minnesota's Fifth District about himself, his aims, priorities, and guiding principles?

   In his campaign literature, Keith Ellison wrote:

    "As a young man I was outraged and frustrated by the racism and injustice I saw in my community and the world around me. Those experiences propelled me to become a social activist, using my words and actions to draw attention to the very serious problems of inequality, racial injustice and poverty in our society."
   
  "As I matured, I had to confront my anger and face it down.  I eventually realized that it is easy to be a critic pointing out problems and failures, but it is a far more difficult thing to be part of creating the solution."
   
   "As my father used to say, 'Any jackass can kick a barn down; it takes a carpenter to build it back up."
   
   "Eventually I understood what my father had been telling me, and I committed to being one of the carpenters.  I began to help create a world where everybody counts and where there are no throwaway people."

  "People draw strength and moral courage from a variety of religious traditions. Mine have come from both Catholicism and Islam. I was raised Catholic and later became a Muslim while attending Wayne State University. I am inspired by the Qur'an's message of an encompassing divine love, and a deep faith guides my life every day."

  "I believe in a value system that invests in people and asks citizens to work for the common good. I decided to run for office because I believe our government has a positive role to play in creating a better future for all people."

  "We need leaders who are committed to peace, a clean and sustainable environment, strong public schools and a health care system that works for all people."

Sounds pretty good to me. . .

   And yet, because he is a Muslim and because he is going to take his oath while holding the Koran, the self-appointed guardians of patriotism and American values have sounded the klaxon warning us of impending doom.

   According to commentator Dennis Prager, Ellison's decision to hold that Koran "will embolden Islamic extremists and make new ones, and they'll see it as the first sign and realization of a greater goal, which is making Islam the religion of America."

   In a December 5th op-ed piece, Prager lamented that "neither I nor tens of millions of other Americans will watch in silence as the Bible is replaced with another religious text for the first time since George Washington brought a Bible to his swearing-in."

Wrong.  According to the Library of Congress, Presidents Franklin Pierce, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and Lyndon Johnson were inaugurated without benefit of a Holy Bible.  And Justice Arthur Goldberg was installed while holding on to a copy of the Hebrew Bible. When reminded of this latter fact on a recent television show, Prager responded "Justice Goldberg used the Old Testament, which is part of the American Bible."

   The American Bible?  What in the name of Moses is the American Bible?  Wasn't it written a few years before Lexington and Concord?

   Rabid radio talk-show host Michael Savage asked "What's next?  A witch gets elected, and she says she's only going to be sworn in with her hand on a pentagram?"

For this bit of lunacy, Keith Olbermann awarded Savage his "Worst Person in the World" award.

   Not to be outdone by Prager or Savage, Sean Hannity asked if "those of you defending this congressman's decision and his right to choose his favorite book, you know, would you have allowed him to choose, you know, Hitler's Mein Kampf, which is the Nazi Bible?  In other words, where does this stop?  Is there any limitations whatsoever?  Does anybody get any choice they want?"

Yes Sean, they do.  This is America. It's our diversity that makes us unique.  Remember that old expression e pluribus unim?  It means "out of many comes one.

   But don't worry Sean.  Never fear Dennis or Michael; no one elected to Congress is likely going to be placing their hand on a copy of Mein Kampf, a pentagram, Dianetics, or even Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. 

  How do I know this?  I don't.  Not for a solid fact.  But what I do know is that the American public has far more sense than the three of you, and can more often than not see through Nazis, witches, warlocks and things that go bump in the night.

  Meanwhile, I'm still fascinated.  Do they actually let guys like you drive?  And if so, why?