The End of the Page

The Backlash: Beneath the Doom and Gloom Lies Money

Boo! Scared you, didn’t I? Now send me money and I’ll tell you how I can protect you from people like me.

Rating: 9 out of 10

There are many things that connect us all, no matter where we live, what color we are and which God we believe in. One of the deepest and most integral of those connections is fear. We all have it, whether it’s worrying about the spread of Communism, the shortage of scientific breakthroughs toward a cure for cancer, or maybe just late night jitters about the foul-smelling thing hiding underneath the bed. Most of it can be boiled down to a simple phrase, “fear of the other“. While some fears can be debated and argued as being justified, the underlying problem with fear is that once someone or something knows what your fear is, it can be used against you as a weapon. People throughout history have made their livelihoods based on that fact alone and it is on proud display here in the present day inside the formation of the Tea Party movement and the outlandish opposition to Barack Obama.

The Backlash by Will Bunch is a well thought out and deeply researched journey into the heart of the fear that sprung forth like snakes-in-a-can upon the inauguration of our new President. While many progressives and liberals clamor from the sideline, poking fun at the Tea Party and their growing membership, Bunch takes the honorable mission of tracing the movement to some of its more humble beginnings and the people actually at the ground level. What he discovers is real people with real fears who are being co-opted by big business and private interests in order to stop the change promised by the new administration.

One of the first things most people were introduced to when they saw the Tea Party crash onto the political scene was their fascination and fervor for protest signs and costumes. While this might have increased their news coverage, it also quickly devalued their message. From the subtle to the incredibly overt, racist slogans and imagery littered the reports of the fledgling movement giving an overall impression that everyone involved had the same color-coded mission, to purify the White House, and by extension, the country as a whole. On one side of the cable news spectrum (MSNBC, CNN, BBC, etc…) the Tea Party was characterized as rednecks that time had obviously left behind, while the other side (championed by Fox News) raised them onto the pedestal of patriots and grassroots revolution hailed as “real America”. The problem here is that neither description is true, but labels are sticky and even removed they can leave a nasty residue behind.

Another factor behind the proliferation of the “real America” illusion was those pundits and political commentators who saw the Tea Party as the lightning-in-a-bottle moment they were waiting for. Once they grabbed onto the coattails of fear inside the Tea Party, people such as radio/TV/internet phenom Glenn Beck wove those coattails around and around into each other until the fear escalated into paranoia, which in the ratings world is a wonderful thing. Beck had actually boiled it down to a simple equation, the bumper-sticker solution to all the fear in the country:

On his November 23, 2009 show, Beck went back again to the theme of a looming economic meltdown and recommended to his listeners what could just as well be a mantra of the right-wing movement in this new decade: “The 3 G system” of “God, Gold and Guns.”

Beck skyrocketed in popularity and influence, like many of the voices from the outer right-wing fringe, preying on the fears of people feeling like their country was forgetting about them. He wheeled out his chalkboard day after day, giving his viewers something familiar from their childhood, a symbol of learning which they all believed would never lie to them. Beck littered the surface of the chalkboard with various historical people and moments, drawing incredibly slippery and weak connections between them to prove any conspiracy theory he imagined that morning. Worse than that were those occasions where he blatantly misrepresented the views of historical figures to grant his own ideas more credence. Bunch illustrates that nicely in this section:

“Beck – and probably many of his listeners – would be turned off by many of the views of the real Thomas Paine. For one thing, while Beck has tried to argue that America’s true roots lie in Christianity, the real Thomas Paine was a Deist who loathed organized religion, writing in “The Age of Reason” that all churches “appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

You can be sure that particular quote from Paine never graced the esteemed surface of Beck’s chalkboard.

This is the thrust of Bunch’s message, that much of the Tea Party is being towed along by puppeteers and plagiarizers, purposely mis-informing them to wean the money from their wallets and the devotion from their hearts. The fervent devotees of the Tea Party should not be written off as a joke, especially since some of them actually won seats in our government during the last election. They should be listened to, but filtered through a lens of mis-appropriated fear. If we do not try and understand where they are actually coming from, people like Beck and his cohorts will continue to wield them like a bludgeon against the wall of this country until its inevitable collapse.

The End of the Page recommendation: The Backlash by Will Bunch is a staggeringly human look into the real fear behind the so-called grassroots revolution of the Tea Party and how it has been co-opted, controlled and ultimately, how it will be condemned.

2010 Midterms: Feeding Frenzy Overtakes Reason

For every dangerous animal out there, a bigger one exists.

It’s nearing that time of year again when all the news networks, and partisan sounding boards, break out their horn choirs and play that familiar ‘Decision’ music. It’s meant to inspire, it’s meant to encourage, and it’s meant to fill our hearts with the desire to take part in the core meaning of our democracy. Instead, what it reflects now is the onslaught of fear-mongering and fact distortion in the most heinous of manners. One side is struggling to buck historical trend and not lose too many seats, while the other is struggling to hold on to any semblance of its previous character, having sacrificed themselves at the altar of public reactionaries. Both sides smell blood in the water, but they ignore that too much blood makes the water impossible to drink and it cannot nourish the nation.

Issues are now distorted instead of debated and the public is suffering at the hands and wills of those we are brought up to trust, our elected leaders. One step down from them is the ‘pure’ news outlets, who are finding themselves a lonely species in the world, ousted by a new hybrid, the news/partisan echo chamber. Crawling out of the political ooze, this fledgling evolution of money, power and influence is now wielding its might like a toddler with a baseball bat, unaware of the dangerous power to damage and destroy.

Every story now is another opportunity for the extremists on both sides to gin up more rage and anger, but most boil down to absolutely nothing when dragged into the bright light of the day. These political assassins are becoming masters of the newly coined, ‘non-troversy’, and these hack job stories are currently dominating the country’s dialogue, which is now on the verge of descending into nothing more than hastily scribbled placards and photoshopped racist images of their enemies.

At the top of the non-troversy totem pole right now is the “Ground Zero Mosque” debate. While I can completely understand that it is a sensitive issue and there is still much grief and sorrow floating in the air in Manhattan and around the country, here are a few key facts that are very rarely mentioned in the so-called ‘news reports’:

- The proposed mosque is not just a mosque, it is a cultural center that includes a mosque, as well as a pool and a community center for people of all religions.

- The location, while close, is not actually at Ground Zero. It is two blocks away, completely blocked by many other buildings from the now hallowed ground. So far only the Associated Press has directed all their employees to discontinue any usage of the term “Ground Zero Mosque” because it is intentionally misleading.

- If this cultural center is such a horrific idea and flies in the face of our freedoms and what we suffered nine years ago, what about the other mosque two more blocks beyond? When was the last time you heard in a news report just how many mosques there are already in that small area, not to mention New York as a whole? Hundreds.

- Some have tried to label the proposed cultural center as a ‘terrorist headquarters’ in the heart of New York, but do they recognize that there is a mosque right now located inside the Pentagon? Why not rally and protest that one? Seems like an incredibly dangerous location, don’t you think?

- While the opponents of the cultural center are claiming they can follow the money back to radical Islamic terrorists, they are trying to conveniently avoid showing how the money actually leads back to the second largest shareholder in Fox News and other religious leaders previous hailed on their very network as “moderate Muslims” and as shining examples of the peaceful and proper worship of Islam.

Those are only a few of the facts that might shift the debate were they to be boldly and loudly preached through the airwaves. Almost all the major news networks are to blame for taking the pill and getting on the ride for the sake of generating viewership over reporting on the facts. The direct and immediate danger of this is we are watching our country, which was once so wonderfully hailed as a place of religious freedoms and individual liberties, devolve into a religious monarchy, where only one religion rules the masses and the preacher’s pulpit will become the new oval office. We are already seeing the effects of the disease being spread. As I mentioned before, the location of the proposed cultural center in New York can easily draw up some raw emotion, but what about Murfreesboro, TN or Sheboygan, WI? Are those also too close to Ground Zero? We are creating an invisible line in the sand that is pushing any worship of Islam, or anything outside the Judeo/Christian norm, out into the oceans on either side of the country.

Yet there may be a flickering light at the end of this tunnel. The opponents of ‘the other’ are beginning to overplay their hand. They are losing supporters in the very base they are trying to rally. The violence is beginning to lash out in unavoidable ways, causing even the most staunch supporters to lower their hands. From the cab driver who was recently stabbed after being asked “are you a Muslim?” to the Ground Zero worker who was harassed at a protest rally just because he looked Muslim. Even Ron Paul, the un-official leader of the libertarian conservatives, has come out against this baseless fear-mongering:

It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty.

We have reached the breakwater and it is time to turn this ship home. So next time you think about screaming about protecting your country from the dangers of Islam or blurring the lines in our Constitution referring to the “separation of church and state” and “freedom of religion”, it might be time to sit down, take a deep breath and look around at where that path will lead you.

Oh, maybe turn off Fox News as well.

What are your thoughts? What stories do you feel are meaningful or being blow out of proportion for political gain?

The Assault on Reason: Attacks from the Head and Gut

Since I’m not President, I finally have time to finish writing my book.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Flipping through these pages can be tragic when you read the level of intelligence behind the words and begin to wonder what the world would be like today if Al Gore had served George W. Bush’s two terms in office. Would there be milk chocolate fairies delivering candy and fountain-style root beer floats to children throughout the heartland of America? No, absolutely not. Yet I would wage a healthy amount of money that the U.S.A. would not have been in the geopolitical crapper as it was when George W. Bush finally walked out of those hallowed doors with one of the lowest approval ratings in history. His one-time opponent, Al Gore, tries to explain and extol on the reasons things went so badly off the rails.

The Assault on Reason is written by former Vice President Al Gore and details chapter after chapter the numerous areas where the Bush years, and some of those before, have displayed an incredible and frightening trend replacing science and reason with faith and narrow-mindedness. The government we once knew, the one begun all those years back, has been systematically dismantled, pulling the power from the people as a whole and concentrating it into an increasingly small number of hands. Those chosen few have since done everything in their power to eliminate reason and intellectual debate in favor of religious rhetoric and cowboy posturing in face of any and all opposing evidence. In essence, readers feel the true power of the American people slip further and further away with each turn of the page.

Before even opening the book, it must be noted the context in which these words live. Al Gore lost the Presidential election back in 2000 in one of the most contentious, and in some minds demonstrably corrupted, rulings in history. This man was a single breath away from the oval office and seven years later he writes a book about how terrible a job his former opponent is doing. So it is impossible to view this book without a small sense of bias on the part of the author. Yet, although the book does sometimes fall too far into “political slam-book” territory and reaches a slight whiny tone, Gore checks himself and within a few pages brings it back to a place where he backs up each and every criticism with solid, reasonable and irrefutable facts. In those passages when he cites source after source and charts out the trends which we should be so afraid of, that is when Gore is at his most effective.

The real power of the book is not as a weapon against the Bush-era style of politics and power grabbing, but the entire political system hierarchy and its continued growth away from the general public. Gore points out numerous occasions, pre-Bush, that also helped lead to the dangerous place we are today with so much control centralized into the office of President and not spread out amongst the three co-equal branches of the government as intended by those who set it up all those years ago. Yet, Gore even expands on this to the rest of the planet as well when talking about nuclear proliferation, detailing other nations and how they followed the missteps of the American powerhouse. In one of his most eloquent moments in the book, Gore writes:

“As a world community, we must prove that we are wise enough to control what we have been smart enough to create.”

In my mind, that is the central thesis to his entire argument. His textual intent is to warn us of the danger of nuclear arms being in the hands of people who block out reason in favor of belief, religious or otherwise, but sub-textually I believe the statement also shines lights on the creation of our government. Power should never be wielded only by one man alone; that is the antithesis of our democratic style of government. The balance between the three branches has been slowly ebbing away and the person sitting in the oval office has been the silent beneficiary of it all. Both sides have played their parts in the dismantling of that balance, but the Republicans took more giant steps on that march towards  an iron-fist government between 2001-2008 than ever before in history.

What we can learn from this book is how to regain that balance, if you can filter out Gore’s “I wouldn’t have done it that way” tone in various portions. Science, reason and factual proof are slowly making their way back into governing politics, but there is a long way to go and more people who live by that credo need to find their way into the hallowed halls of the capital buildings. I’m not suggesting no one of any faith should be in government, just that they no longer turn a blind eye to anything that doesn’t follow in lockstep with that belief. Important choices should only be made after the most rigorous of debate and unfortunately, as you will see in these pages, our last President was not a huge fan of differing points of view. Even though this was written while Bush was still in office, many of the policies and laws enacted during that time are still in effect and Obama has yet to find the spare time to return some of that balance the government so desperately needs. Let’s help remind him.

The End of the Page Recommendation: A well written and well researched book on the state of our government and the dangerous path it is on. Although not exactly a page turner and it gets randomly embroiled in mudslinging and overly scientific terminology, the final result is still impactful and important.

A Glimpse Behind the Fog of Hope and Hate

I promise to do whatever my political party says, in right and in wrong, till death do us part

I can hear it now rumbling in the back closet, rocking back and forth with one broken foot, that same one I’ve been meaning to fix for two hundred years:

The Political Spin Machine

…and it’s going full steam.

With the election of Republican wunderkid, Scott Brown, the troops on the right are doing everything they can to convince Democrats across the nation that every progressive and liberal policy currently being proposed now has as much chance of succeeding as Conan O’Brien ever doing a show on NBC again. Yet, let’s take a good close look at what really happened yesterday and see if we can’t find a way to help each party find its way back to some type of ethical center.

By electing Scott Brown, Massachusetts brought the Democratic majority in the Senate down by exactly one. They dropped from 60 to 59 and while many will bemoan the loss of the filibuster proof majority, what they neglect to mention is the filibuster proof majority never really existed because of those Democrats in the Senate referred to as “Blue Dogs”, or more conservative-leaning voters. The squelching of the filibuster happened only once, which was to finally push the Health Care bill out of the Senate, and the reparations the liberal Democrats had to make in order to secure those Blue Dog votes over the filibuster helped to shape a bill that virtually no one is pleased with. So the idea that Scott Brown’s inclusion in the Senate will suddenly destroy the happy-go-lucky hand-holding going on in the left leaning side of the chamber just shows how little the right side actually pays attention to what is going on.

This is nothing more than a scare tactic to frighten the left and encourage the right, but I honestly believe the right has more to fear from Scott Brown than the left. Republicans think his election is a repudiation of Democratic policies and of Obama himself, but in fairness I believe he was chosen more out of frustration of continued record unemployment ratings and a growing disappointment from independents who let themselves believe the Obama hype machine during his campaign. I’m not knocking Obama, I voted for him as well, but people seemed to forget he is just one guy inside a government machine built by money, power and massive special interests. He has made many changes already, in demonstrably record time, but people on Main Street won’t feel the effects of those until much later. The change some people was hoping for was much more than he could ever achieve in such a short amount of time. Remember, his one-year anniversary as President was yesterday!

Scott Brown also comes in claiming he is ushering in a “new type of Republican”, which in other terms means “time for the old guys to move on out.” Let’s see how well that plays out in the polls come mid-term time. Anyone coming in preaching change to the “old way of politics” is a danger to anyone currently sitting, Republican or Democrat.

Now, while watching Mr. Brown gloat over his seemingly amazing win, I can’t say I’m incredibly impressed with him or how he handles himself (check this little moment of pimping out his daughters at his acceptance speech), but I wasn’t all that enchanted by his opponent, Martha Coakley, either. This is where people need to help usher in a real and tangible sense of change. We need to start looking beyond the party name and look at the actual person. As unattainable as it might sound, filled with pretty rhetoric and uplifting oratory, I agree with Obama when he stumps for the goal of bi-partisanship, but I want to take it one step farther. “Bi-partisanship” alludes to the idea of two parties getting along, but what about “tri-partisanship”? Actually, we do have one Independent senator (wave to the nice Internet folks, Mr. Barney Frank of VT). What about “quad-partisanship”? The Tea-Partier’s are about to host their own conference, so who will deny they have a chance to get their own candidate on a ticket and not be forced to list them as Republican? I’m a good distance off from supporting anything currently coming out of the tea-party caucus, but I fully encourage their right to not affiliate with either dominating party. My belief is if we breakdown the powerhouse parties the American populace would be forced to learn more about who they are voting for instead of just checking whether their was an “R” or a “D” next to their name.

An informed populace is an absolute necessity of any great democracy and it’s time that we as members of that populace bore some responsibility for that.

Health Care Debate Without the Actual Debate

Now turn your head and cough up $75. It’s for your deductible.

Anything worth doing is worth fighting for, but no one ever said the fight was going to be fair. Nothing in the current political climate proves that case better than the repulsive, divisive and downright irresponsible tactics being employed day after day by those against the proposed health care reform package put forward by President Obama.

Before I get any further, let me be frank and fully admit my own shortcomings. I have not read the full bill being supported by Obama. After doing a number of searches online for a copy of the bill all I could find were cut-down versions or ones rewritten as “plain-English” translations by people with their own agendas. Without getting the exact words from the bill itself I don’t feel any of the “laymen” versions are fully trustworthy (especially since most of those demonize the plan anyway without pointing back to the original language as examples). Yet with all the coverage being given to this debate from all around the political spectrum, I feel fine in pointing out some rather glaring hypocrisies being badly hidden by the raucous and rambunctious opponents of health care reform.

There are a wide number of issues to discuss, but I’m going to focus on one of the most talked about and absolutely least intrinsically important lightning rods inside the fight, the so-called “death panels”. Sounds scary, right? Does it bring images of judge’s benches built way too high specifically to make you seem insignificant in the eyes of the law and the people who run it? Then do you picture yourself being wheeled in front of said bench only to hear from robed faceless politicians that you are too sick to make continued care efficient for the economy, so the lever is pulled and you are essentially dropped out of existence? That is what the fear-mongering conglomerates on the right would like you to dream about at night, specifically so you will wake up on the day of your local town hall meeting and race out with your pitchfork held high and the light of your torch lighting the way.

Trouble is, there are no “death panels”. Nope. None at all. The tiny piece of legislation inside the 1,000 page bill which is being referenced for this demonic fantasy actually says that under the new government sponsored plan they would reimburse you for an appointment with your own doctor if you chose to have a counseling session about end of life decisions and setting up a living will. That is all. No death panel, no politician having any say what-so-ever about “pulling the plug on Grandma” as Sen. Grassley keeps touting. It is simply a small payment covered by your insurance policy for an appointment to let you talk to your very own doctor about how you would like to face that most difficult of decisions. The impact to the health care industry and its costs comes from the fact that thousands and thousands of people are kept on life support systems for many, many years with no hope of recovery and costing their families and the economy millions and millions of dollars. Studies have shown that an increasing number of seniors would choose not to have their life end with them lying in a hospital with wires and tubes protruding from every part of their fragile bodies. More and more are choosing to die at home, with their families, surrounded by loved ones and with a higher sense of dignity.

Before anyone decides to challenge the validity of the sentiment, my mother died just under four years ago from brain cancer. The moment she was diagnosed and it was made quite clear by the doctors that her condition was fatal and incurable, she immediately got paperwork going for a living will. She had no intention of wasting away hooked to a machine and due to her diligence and forward thinking she was able to spend her remaining weeks at home surrounded by a constant rotation of friends, family and loved ones. The living will also takes the onus and pressure off of the families. End of life decisions are terrible and painful to make and without the expressed sentiment of the actual patient, families have been completely torn apart. Let’s not forget just a few years back with the tragic case of Terri Schiavo. She was completely brain dead and her husband felt he knew Terri’s feelings about being alive solely based on life support, so he wanted to have her machines turned off so she could die naturally. Terri actually had a “do not resuscitate” order in place, but the medical staff at her hospital convinced her husband early in her treatment to have it rescinded. Years later, after no improvement at all, he tried to have the order re-enacted. Her family was dead set against that decision and felt prayer and God’s will would bring her back from her vegetative state. It turned into one of the most contentious court battles over the “right to die” in history.

The main reason why this case is of supreme importance to the current health care debate is the very people who are screaming and rallying over the purported offense of having the government step in and interfere in the intimate family-only decision of when and how a loved one should die, those people were on the forefront of the government effort to stop Terri’s husband and keep her alive. In that case they said it was their moral and ethical right to step in as the government of all people and help ensure the safety of one of their own. The President of the United States at the time, George W. Bush, actually came back from a vacation early just so he could sign a piece of legislation urging the Supreme Court to rule on the side of denying Terri’s previous wishes.

So you see, when stepping in supports what the right wing wants, the family and their heart-rending decisions have no place in front of the government desire. Yet when stepping in does not support their desire – which in the overall case it doesn’t because it will lessen the money flowing into the pockets of the health insurance agencies – now the government should keep their damn hands off our grandmothers. The hypocrisy is brighter and more apparent than a first grader’s coloring book.

The idea of educating and supporting the furthering of “advance care directives” or living wills, which now makes so many on the right sick to their stomachs since it is really a plot by Obama to kill old people (true statement from health care reform opponents), was once touted and rallied for by those exact same people. In 2003, tucked nicely inside the prescription drug reform package, was a very familiar sounding piece of legislation which actually pooled a percentage of funds to educating more people on living wills and even offering early consultation services as part of the drug plan package. That prescription drug package was sent up, voted on and widely passed by the current Republican majority of 2003 and celebrated by then President Bush as a major success for the health of our wise and venerated citizens.

For those concerned about the changes being talked about, please read between the lines and find out where the scary nightmares are actually coming from when they are being screamed and bellowed at these surprisingly camera-ready impromptu protests. These are all made up of random concerned citizens. A percentage of them, not all, but certainly some, are bought and sold mobs funded by the right wing special interests whose pockets are lined with millions from the health insurance industry and drug manufacturers. The people with the most money to lose are the ones feeding the hysteria, because this is the nightmares they see when they sleep. Dark dreams of years without $11 million dollar bonus and a gloomy “For Sale” sign posted on the lawn of one of many summer homes in the Hamptons.

This is a fight to help the common citizen. Don’t be blindfolded with the dollar bills of the rich.

Follow this link to find out the truth about what’s really in the reform bill: HealthReform.gov

Also, if you would like to help or support the foundation set up in memory of Terri Schiavo, click here.