Beating the Bushes:

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?

How Low Can You Go?

     It is my sad duty to report that anyone who questions  the American military's continuing role in Iraq, or seriously doubts the Bush Administration's contention that fighting in Iraq somehow makes us safer from acts of international terror at home, is "morally and intellectually confused," and no better than the folks who "ridiculed or ignored" the rise Nazism in the 1930s.  "How's that?" you ask.  "We're morally confused?  We're like the Nazi appeasers of the 1930s?"  Yes indeed. With one fetid verbal blast, Secretary of State Donald H. Rumsfeld has likened a vast segment of the American public to "Nazi appeasers" of yesteryear.  To my way of thinking, Secretary Rumsfeld has a faulty understanding of history at best, or at worst, has taken total  leave of his senses.  His contention -- and that of his boss and much of the national Republican leadership -- is as dangerous and as gross an assault on the intelligence of the American people as any conceived since the days of the late, unlamented Senator Joe McCarthy.   

   [By the way, included in the crowd that, far from ignoring the rise Nazism, actually helped foster its rise, was George W.'s grandfather, Prescott Bush.  As a partner in the Wall Street firm Brown Brothers, Harriman, Prescott Bush [father of George H.P., and grandfather of George W. and Jeb] was linked to the rise of Nazism through German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, an early supporter of Adolf Hitler.  Prescott Bush served as a director of the Union Banking Company, which was originally established to manage Thyssen's American holdings.  From the mid-1920s to the latter 1930s, Prescott Bush and his cronies were responsible for selling more than $50 million worth of German bonds to the American investing public.  So much for Rumsfeld's and G.W. Bush's understanding of history.  It makes one wonder about the value of a Princeton or a Yale education!]
   
   It is nothing short of astounding that  Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney & Company have chosen this precise moment in time to ratchet up their defense of our failed venture in Iraq.   Instead of using the brains, time and talent at their disposal to figure out how to stage an orderly, expedient removal of our forces from Iraq, they are spending their time dreaming up a new rhetorical campaign to justify old mistruths and vilify those who have seen through them.   Rumsfeld is deserving of our condemnation and  needs to be put out to pasture.  Will this happen?  You bet: the day after either the Cubs or the Royals win the World Series.  Senate Republicans won't even allow the topic to be discussed on the Hill, much less seriously considered. . . 
 
    I can't believe for one millisecond that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove and the rest of the gang actually believe what they're telling the  American public -- that our war in Iraq is meant to keep America safe, that we had to take out Saddam because of all the WMDs he had stockpiled, or that  "as Iraqi military forces stand up, American forces will stand down."  As Grandma Anne used to say, "they're full of canal water." 
     Truth to tell, the Bushies have been caught with their pants down enough times to merit arrest on charges of indecent exposure.  Remember the president's gleeful "Mission Accomplished!" photo-op on board the U.S.S. Lincoln way back in May of 2003?  Remember the White House's iron-clad promise that the war and eventual rebuilding of Iraq would cost no more than $3 billion, or that the lion's share of the funding would come from our allies and Iraqi oil sales?  How about  the  "incontrovertible link" betwixt Osama and Saddam?   And while we're at it, did you notice that just the other day -- a mere two months before the next midterm election -- that the president finally remembers the name Osama bin Laden?
 
   Poll after poll shows that the Bush Administration's "War on Terror" has lost the support of the American people.  Even members of his own party are beginning to question whether Rumsfeld and the Pentagon have any long-range policy -- save that of continuing to enrich their friends at Halliburton and Bechtel.  Believe it or not, American forces have now been in Iraq longer than our Army, Navy, Marines and Air Corps were in Europe during World War II.   The defeat of Hitler took less time than the punishing of Hussein and bin Laden. 
 
   Make no mistake about it: we are going to be hearing more and more of the old rhetoric dressed up in newer and punchier verbiage between now and the first  Tuesday in November.  Critical issues ranging from Immigration Reform and our staggering National Debt to Global Warming and the criminally high cost of medical care and prescription drugs are going to be virtually ignored.  What we shall hear ad nauseum is how the Republicans -- and only the Republicans -- can save America from the scourge they now  have labeled "Islamofascism."  We will undoubtedly hear that a vote for the Democrats [now called "Defeatocrats"] is a vote for Osama and terror.  To play politics with the safety and wellbeing of a nation isn't just maddening; it is absolutely immoral.

   The day before 9/11, Secretary Rumsfeld gave a speech to Pentagon employees in which he proclaimed, "The topic today is an adversary that poses  a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America."  During this speech, the secretary went on to explain that this adversary "crushes new ideas" with "brutal consistency" and "disrupts the  defense of the United States."  It is a foe, he proclaimed, "more subtle and implacable" than the former Soviet Union, he continued, stronger and larger and "closer to home" than "the last decrepit dictators in the world." 
 
   And who was this ominous enemy to whom the Secretary was referring?  Saddam Hussein?  Osama bin Laden?  Kim Jong II?  Not even close.  The implacable foe was none other than . . . the Pentagon!  And Mr. Rumsfeld and his boss accuse those who question the war in Iraq of being "intellectually confused!"  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
   
   As the midterm elections loom on the horizon, there are many, many questions to ask of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the Republican leadership.  None, perhaps, are more trenchant than "how low can you go?"  "Just how far are you willing to go in order to hold on to a Republican House and Senate?"  "Does the truth ever enter into your deliberations?" 
 
    Indeed, how low can you go?

 

The Queen of Mean

   We begin with a story -- a true story.  On the first day of graduate school, the dean of our department -- a world-renowned scholar -- gathered all the incoming students together for greetings and orientation.  It was the first time that we -- the graduate newbies -- were getting the chance to meet the young men and women with whom we would be learning, sweating, hoping and growing over the next half-decade.  We had fought like cats and dogs to get into this exclusive program, and now, it was time for the dean to scrape away the patina of our personal pride and give us an idea of the staggering amount of work we could expect to come our way.  As I recall, he did better than that; frankly, he scared the living daylights out of us all.

   "I want you all to know," he said at one point, "that each of you has been admitted to  this program for a particular reason.  It goes without saying that your academic achievements have played a major role."  We all smiled; what a rush being complimented by such a scholastic giant!

   "But academics weren't the sole reason for your being honored with admission," he continued.  "Each of you brings to this program a set of skills, abilities and personality traits that will make it possible for you to learn not only from the faculty, but from one another."   

   "You see," the dean went on, "one of the keys to the contemplative life is the ability learn something from everyone we meet -- both the positive and the negative."  We started looking around at one another, wondering where all this was leading.  Smiling the devilish smile that we would eventually come to know very well, he concluded "at least one of you has been admitted in order to act as an exemplar of what not to be.  Eventually, you will figure out who those students are.  And I am here to tell you that the lesson of what not to be is just as important, just as valuable as anything you will ever learn in this graduate program."  And with these words, he invited us to join him for tea . . .   

   I was reminded of the dean's sage advice the other day while listening to Ann Coulter -- the "Queen of Mean" -- hawking her latest book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism.  Ms. Coulter, former columnist and pundit for MSNBC and The National Review, is well known for her acidic, beyond-the-pale frontal attacks on Democrats, liberals, gays, environmentalists, gun-control advocates and virtually every aspect of post "Ozzie and Harriett" society.  The author of such bestselling works as How to Talk to a Liberal [If You Must], Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, Coulter is the poster-child and chief cheerleader for the far-right punditocracy. 

    To give her her due, Ann Coulter is a very bright woman.  She knows precisely where and how to attack the progressive political jugular.  She has an innate sense for where the liberal belt line is, and is generally able to hit right beneath it.  Among her more outrageous comments are:

• "God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the planets, the animals, the trees. God said 'Earth is yours.  Take it.  Rape it.  It's yours.'" [Hannity & Colmes, 6/20/01]
• "The only Democrats who go to church regularly are the ones who plan to run for president someday and are preparing in advance to fake a belief in God." [Column, 1/8/04]
• "The portrayal of Senator Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism." [Treason, p. 10]
• "I often refer to Christians and Christianity because I am a Christian and I have a fairly good idea of what they believe, but the term is used to include anyone who subscribes to the Bible of the God of Abraham, including Jews and others . . ." [Godless: The Church of Liberalism, p. 3]

   Most recently, Coulter has been on a rampage against four 9/11 widows who have had the audacity to criticize President George W. Bush. Coulter blithely refers to them as the "Jersey girls," and claims that they are using their "victimhood" to express their radical liberal opinions. "Do I have to kill my mother so that I can be a victim too?" Coulter recently asked.  Moreover, she has accused the four of being nothing more than Democratic plants -- this despite the fact that at least two of the four are Republicans who voted for George W. Bush in 2004. Even more egregiously, Coulter stepped way over the line and suggested that had they lived, the four men would likely have divorced their wives!  Now I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that someone should look into the possibility of a legal case here . . .

   Can Coulter really, truly believe everything she writes and says?  Well, if we are to take her at her word, the answer is a resounding YES!!  Ann has gone on record time and again proclaiming that her every pronouncement meets with her personal approval -- tantamount to God's Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.  It seems to me that we have no recourse but to take Ann Coulter at her word and believe that she believes what she says.

   And for all she says, all she writes, all the bilge she spews forth, I can only say: "Thank you, dear Ann.  Thank you for teaching us several invaluable lessons in what not to be or think."

   To wit:

• Thank you for teaching us that it is wrong to hope and pray for the utter extirpation of those who disagree with us.  No one has a corner on the market of truth.  If everyone believed or espoused precisely the same thing, then the very fabric of Democracy would be irreparably damaged.  Thank you for causing us to remember that "I may not agree with you, but I'll fight to the death your right to hold your opinion" is as much an American tradition as hot dogs, apple pie and the Fourth of July.
• Thank you, dear Ann, for reminding us that if beauty is to be real, it must more than skin deep.  There are those who find you physically alluring [I am not one -- my tastes run toward brunettes with more meat on their bones].  However, whatever beauty the eye may behold in seeing you on television is more than offset by the atrocities that come out of your mouth.  You may look like a siren, but you sound like a harridan.
• And thanks especially, dear Ann, for teaching us a very valuable lesson about religion.  You cause us to understand that anyone who claims to know the mind, the will or the intent of God is nothing more than a false prophet.  By your words and actions, you have also given ample proof that there is nothing more sacrilegious than questioning or deriding another person's faith.  I do not find anything remotely compelling in your theology, teleology or eschatology.  But I would be loathe to proclaim that my beliefs are the will of God and that yours spring from the devil. 

   So, dear Ann Coulter, thank you for proving that our dean was correct: one can learn something valuable from virtually anyone.  You, dear Ann, have that knack for reminding us that being the "Queen of Mean" is not a royal title; it is, as Grandpa would have said, a shanda . . .

Let Them Drink Beer

   Down here in Ft. Lauderdale, the deepest part of the Deep South, we have a mayor named Jim Naugle.  A few days ago the mayor, who is in his final term, outraged much of the local citizenry by rhetorically asking "I'm supposed to subsidize some schlock sitting on the sofa drinking a beer, who won't work more than 40 hours a week?"  Naugle's ludicrous comment was in response to a proposed affordable housing law, which has him and his developer buddies [the same buddies who love to fill his campaign coffers] seeing . . . well, red. 

   According to terms of the proposed law, downtown developers would set aside a small percentage -- $1.5 million on a 100-condo complex for example -- for the good of the community.  The city law would have residential developers help pay for affordable housing, either by providing it within their housing complexes, or paying fees to a trust fund to subsidize housing for middle-class families.  "Aaarh!" shouted an aggrieved Mayor Naugle.  Then taking a page out of "The World According to Joe McCarthy," proclaimed that "The concept of this ordinance is from each according to his ability to each according to need . . . which is the Communist Manifesto."  Weeping and wailing, Naugle proclaimed that the proposed ordinance was nothing short of a "luxury housing tax."

   Predictably, responses to Naugle's intemperate comments have filled the letters to the editor page of the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel.  One irate citizen wrote that "Mayor Jim Naugle has captured the crown of political incorrectness for his arrogant, pompous, snobbish, callous, thoughtless -- hey, there just aren't enough adjectives to describe his statements." Callous and thoughtless indeed.  Moreover, Naugle should go to a Yiddish/English dictionary and look up the word schlock.  The word, which comes from shlak, meaning "apoplexy," "stroke," "evil," "wretch," or "nuisance," currently carries the meaning "something, such as merchandise or literature, which is of inferior quality."  When used properly, schlock cannot refer to a person.  Perhaps the word the mayor is looking for is schlub.  Ah well, what can one expect from such a mitlmawsikyt -- such a mediocrity?

   To be fair, Naugle's outrageous comments about indolent beer-swilling couch potatoes did draw praise --  from no less an authority than Rush Limbaugh.  And who better than Limbaugh -- he who earns $20 million a year and lives in a Palm Beach mansion roughly the size of Idaho -- would understand people who cannot afford to purchase a two-bedroom home despite working two or more jobs?

   Naugle's comments bring to mind a quip by the conservative columnist George Will: "Politicians fascinate because they constitute a paradox; they are an elite that accomplishes mediocrity for the public good."  Well, I don't know if Mayor Naugle can be considered part of the "elite" -- though he is a millionaire many times over; I do know that he is definitely, as referenced above, a "mediocrity." 

   Beyond this, it strikes me that Naugle is nothing less than a first-class poster child for the Bush-inspired "grab-yours-while-you-can" times in which we live.  In other words, Naugle is anything but sui generis.  He is but an infinitesimal cog in an oligarchic machine that empowers corporate CEOs to receive $100 million-plus pay packages and then cuts taxes on their pelf.    He is a vivid reminder of a Congress that meekly acquiesces to hundreds of billions of dollars for our war in Iraq and then turns around and cuts every imaginable benefit for the very military personnel who are fighting that battle.  Naugle is stereotypic of those politicians who appropriate millions to build bridges where there are no rivers, and pennies for schools that have no books.

   Some years back during a presidential election cycle, a reporter asked one of the candidates what the current cost of a quart of milk was.  The candidate didn't have the slightest idea.  Heck, the candidate probably hadn't entered a grocery store since the day he was elected -- if ever.  In far too many cases, we are willingly electing men and women to national office whose grasp of everyday life with its commonplace challenges is breathtakingly exiguous. We currently have an executive branch that is composed of interlocking directorates; men and women who went to the same schools, belong to the same clubs, and inhabit the same vaporous empyrean.  Their message to America seems to be "We've got ours . . . the hell with you." Even those -- like Vice President Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- who were originally people of extremely modest means, have willfully forgotten what it's like to be a middle-class working stiff. 

   It reminds me of a friend of my parents from years ago.  Ilsa, a girl from the Lower East Side, married a world-class artist.  With her entry into the so-called "Jet Set," Ilsa conveniently forgot her roots.  To look at or listen to her, one would have imagined that her forebears had come over on the Mayflower, rather than in steerage.  I remember a dinner party at my parents' home where Ilsa was going on and on about something.  "I cahn't," she said, I simply cahn't . . ." Ilsa said, using her phonier-than-a-three-dollar-bill Hollywood British accent.  Then, catching herself, she continued "so I just said the hell with it!" sounding for just a second like the girl from Second Avenue she truly was.  Her moment of honest self-deprecation brought quite a laugh from those assembled around the table -- perhaps none more than Ilsa herself. It's just too bad that more people can't remember from whence they came and occasionally -- just occasionally, puncture the balloon of their own elitism.

   So, to the Jim Naugle's of the world I say this: shame on you.  Shame on you for willfully forgetting that those who work 40-plus hours a week just in order to put food on the table are the backbone of America.  Shame on you for treating the middle class as if it were nothing more than a bunch of illiterate peons.  Shame on you for walling yourselves off from the challenge --and the promise of the American experience: e pluribus unim  -- "Out of many, come one."

   And while we're at it, shame on you Jim Naugle, for living in Broward County all these years and still not knowing the difference between schlock and schlub. 

   Why don't you ponder that while sitting on your couch sipping a cold one?         

A Different Planet

   Ever get the feeling that some people don't live on the same planet as the rest of us?  Consider movie stars who buy their newborn sons and daughters $30,000 slippers; preachers who preach fire and brimstone sermons that would be acceptable to 17th century Puritans; politicians who act as if the only Americans who matter are those with 6- and 7-figure incomes.  I for one find it terribly hard to believe that the Cruises, Dobsons and Bushes of this world actually live in this world. For by their statements, actions and demeanor, they seem to be telling us that they are better -- indeed, far above -- the rest of us mere mortals who put in our forty-plus hours of toil, eat our three daily squares and then nod off sometime during Leno, Letterman or M*A*S*H. How else to explain the willful blindness of the few toward the lives and realities of the many? 

  Take President George W. Bush and his diminishing legion of admirers as a prime example.  How in the world could anyone living in real time, on a real planet, fail to see that people are finally, finally beginning to see through his elitist, holier-than-thou act?  How indeed can he do it -- not see, that is?  Well, for starters, how about by surrounding himself with -- and being surrounded by -- only those who agree with his politics, programs and proposals. How about by only speaking before -- and dining with -- those who see him as the crown of creation, God's gift to the "haves and have-mores." In reality, W lives at the center of a circle of impregnability where the only source of light shines from within, not from without.

    Within the past 24 hours, it has been revealed in USA Today that the National Security Agency [NSA], which is part of this government made up of "we, the people," has spent the past five years creating the world's -- indeed history's -- largest database.  This database, USA Today disclosed, contains information on every telephone call made by every American probably going back to the time when Alexander Graham Bell first shouted "Mr. Watson!  Come quick, I need you!!" Moreover, this collection -- which has likely already logged in several billion calls and conversations, is being done with the acquiescence of A.T.& T., Verizon, and BellSouth, all of whom have apparently signed contracts and for all we know are being paid.    And all of this, we are told by those inhabitants of distant planets, is being done in the name of "National Security" as part of our ongoing War Against Terror."  Really!  If this is so, then that means that the best way to safeguard the freedoms that the terrorists so badly want to destroy, is by curtailing them in the name of security and freedom.  Even the great George Orwell would never have attempted to top this.  It brings to mind a statement generally attributed to old Ben Franklin: "The man who is willing to give up a part of his freedom for the sake of security will wind up discovering that he has lost both." 

   Informed of the civilian-telephone-data-gathering project, Senate and House Democrats have voiced understandable anger, pique and outrage.  Democrat Patrick Leahy, Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee angrily demanded to know if the Bush Administration really considers that the average American is in contact with Al Qaeda terrorists.  New York Representative Maurice Hinchey, who months ago wrote to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility [OPR] seeking a fullscale investigation of the NSA's so-called "warrentless" wiretaps, has now been informed that the OPR investigators have been denied access to any and all information on the data-gathering project because they lack the required security clearances!  In other words, those being investigated for suspected illegalities, are calling the shots and not permitting themselves to be investigated, all in the name of "National Security."  Can you say "Constitutional crisis?"

   Not to show off a better-than-average education, but this smarmy situation does bring a bit of classic wisdom to mind.  To wit: Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? which very loosely translated means "Never assign a fox to watch out over a henhouse."

   Is it possible that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest really don't understand how dangerous, how dictatorial, illegal and downright Orwellian this whole NSA gambit is?  Do they believe, when they put their heads on their pillows at night that all this is ultimately going to make America a safer place?  If that is truly the case -- if they really and truly believe that what they are doing is in America's best interests, then we are in even worse trouble than we ever imagined.  Why?  Because it proves that our leaders must be visitors from a strange planet.  No one with an ounce of intelligence, integrity or historic perspective could blithely condone universal eavesdropping on more than 200 million Americans.  And by the way, as mentioned above, this program has been going on at the NSA for nearly five years.  And who do you think was in charge of it until very recently?  Why General Michael Hayden, the president's current nominee to  head the CIA, that's who! Egad, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes or sitting in his seat when his confirmation hearings begin.

      More than 35 years ago, I was working in a California governor's race in which our side was being outspent something like 5-to-1 by our opponent, a fellow named Ronald Reagan.  Our candidate, through the campaign manager, instructed us that he wanted to see his name and face plastered over every square inch of the Golden State.  None of us had the heart to tell him that we really didn't have the money, the time or the manpower to accomplish such a mission.  However, not wishing to let "the old man" down, we came up with an alternate strategy.  What did we do?  Well, we put our guy's poster on just about every lamppost and telephone pole between his house and the building that housed our campaign headquarters.  In that way, when he drove in in the morning and returned home at night, he was seeing literally thousands of posters.  To his mind, we had done what he commanded; as far as he was concerned there were posters of him all over the place!

   To a great extent, that is the type of world -- or planet -- in or on which George W. Bush lives.  He sees what he wants to see, hears what he wants to hear, and stands foursquarely in the center of his circle of invulnerability.  It is up to us -- the people of "we the people" --  to return our government and our nation to those who actually inhabit planet earth; to those whose vision is shaped by reality and historic perspective, rather than by the fictive tales told by captains of industry who seem to feel that freedom is bad for business. 

   America was created to be a nation of laws, governed by law-abiding executives, sharp-eyed legislators and dedicated jurists.  From what we read in Thursday's U.S.A. Today, America seems to have been taken over by inhabitants of a different planet.  It's time to return our nation -- and our collective destiny -- to the inhabitants of planet Earth. 

   That's one small step for man . . . and woman.

It's Getting To Be Howard Beale Time

   I hope you all remember who Howard Beale was.  To refresh our memories, he was the insane newscaster played by the great Peter Finch in the 1976 Sidney Lumet film "Network."  If you will recall, when Beale's bosses, the executives of the fictional UBS television network decided their star anchorman was getting a bit long in the tooth, they handed him his pink slip.  Well, old Howard took to the air ranting and raving, threatening to commit suicide on camera, and, in a classically memorable, maniacal peroration, proclaimed: "I want you to get up now.  I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window.  Open, and stick your head out, and yell, I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!" 

The upshot of Beale's on-camera meltdown was that he became an American icon, got his own daily half-hour program, and proceeded to "tell it like it is" until ultimately, his utter honesty did him in.  "Network," of course, is pure satire which, as Molly Ivins reminds us is "the weapon of the powerless against the powerful."  Well, I'm feeling a might powerless these days, and really want to do something about it.

   "And so," you may well ask, "what's making you feel powerless this fine day?  What's different about today than yesterday or the day before?"  Let me tell you.  While hovering over my word processor, busily sketching out an article on Global Warming -- the issue to end all issues -- I got a text message to call my cellular phone company ASAP.  I knew exactly what they wanted.  You see, I've been fighting with them for more than six weeks now.  Back and forth we go, them claiming that I am in arrears on my February payment, and me trying as nicely as possible to explain that according to my records [backed up by the good folks at my local bank], they received the payment weeks and weeks ago.  Moreover, in a three-way conversation between me, my banking agent and one of the cellular company's drone-like representatives, we seemed to have nipped the snafu in the bud.  That is, until today.

   After listening to the recorded ten-minute list of options ["Press twenty-four to detonate nuclear device . . ."], and the disclaimer that "for purposes of efficiency, this call may be monitored" I finally reached a human being.  Well, I think he was human.  First he verified my cell phone number, which obviously had shown up on his I.D. caller.  Then I told him my name, immediately after which he asked me to give him my name. How's that you ask?   Why would he ask me for my name just a nano-second after I had given it to him?  Probably because that was step #2 on his list of things to do.  Remember, this is a person who likely makes little more than the minimum wage, probably hates what he does, and blindly follows orders. Next, he informed me that "for purposes of identification" I would have to supply him with the last four digits on my Social Security number. 

   "No thanks," I told the hapless drone.  "I'm not going to give you any part of my Social Security number. I don't give out that information to anyone but the I.R.S., and then only under duress."

   "Then I cannot speak with you about your account," he answered mechanically .

   "By law, you cannot require my Social Security number as a means of identification." I waited for a response . . . a word, a cough, a sneeze . . . anything to let me know he was still on the line. 

  "Are  you still there?" I asked.  Hearing what I took to be an affirmative grunt, I continued:  "And besides, if you have my cell phone number, you undoubtedly already have my home address, marital status, the names of my pets, my Social Security number and, for all I know, my blood type as well." I told him all this with as much politesse as I could muster under the circumstances.

   "Then I cannot speak with you about your account," he repeated.

   "Look," I remonstrated, "I'll tell you why you called me, and that will prove that I am who I claim to be."  I then gave him a quick twenty-twenty on the situation with the bill snafu, the three-way conversation we had had a few weeks back, and the cellular representative's conclusion that yes indeed, the problem must be on their part.

   "If you will check the computer file under my cell number, I'm positive that you will find a record of this conversation," I said, with not quite so much politesse. 

   "One moment," he said, and put me on hold.  I was on hold for precisely 13 minutes and 42 seconds, before I heard breathing on the other end of the line.  Eureka!  I thought.  We're making progress!!

   "So what did you find out?" I asked, a slight note of victory in my voice.

   "I'm sorry, I cannot discuss this matter with you unless you give me the last four digits of your Social Security number."

   At this point, I figured I had but two options: to put a hex on him, his ancestors and the company that employed him, or to merely say "thanks for nothing fella," and quietly ring off.  Although I'm sure Howard Beale wouldn't agree, I chose option number two.  Believe me, option one would have made me feel quite a bit better, but one does try to be a gentleman . . .

   I am sure that most everyone has been through contretemps like this, and no doubt feels just as angry, just as powerless.  It's not just a cell phone lackey mindlessly reading from a prepared script.  It's not just being asked for the umpteen thousandth time to give someone my Social Security number [which I do not give out.]  And its not just being made to feel like an ultra-microscopic germ in the vast corporate body politic.  No, its an overarching, overwhelming feeling that we -- the great collective "we" -- have all become bit players in someone else's tragicomedy. Nothing seems to work anymore.  Our leaders only listen to those who have bottomless pockets.  Teachers can't teach and students don't learn.  Our foods are saturated with fat, sugar and petrochemicals.  Our balance of payments is totally out of whack.  The federal minimum wage hasn't been raised since Ben Franklin was in grade school.  The entire globe has become just another venue for Wal-Mart.  The people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast continue living in dire want while the folks in Washington continue sitting on their duffs. And on and on and on . . .

   Poll after poll shows that we, the great American majority, are dissatisfied, disgruntled and suspicious.  And yet, do you know what they're debating about this very week in the United States Senate?  Whether to enact one Constitutional amendment that would make it a federal crime to burn the flag, and another that would make it illegal for any state, county or municipality to permit two people of the same sex to marry.  Excuse me?  This is what matters?  Who in their right mind would ever believe that Congress would even consider Constitutional amendments that seek to limit individual freedoms?  And at a time like this?  Does the expression "Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic" come to mind?

   I for one think it's Howard Beale time; time for all of us to get out of our chairs, go to the window, and shout out that "WE'RE MAD AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!!"

   In this case, however, I am sure that Howard would want us to do a heck of a lot more than merely screaming out into the night.  He would want us to roll up our sleeves, pick an area of concern, and then find like-minded people who also want to enact positive change.  We cannot wait for some visionary to come along and give us a national challenge, for that challenge may never come.  We cannot sit back and wonder just who we're waiting for to lead us out of the morass. 

   As a very bright fellow back in the Berkeley days use to say, "WE'RE THE PEOPLE WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!"