Power and politics

If the legislation President Bush demanded passes as it is now worded, the Bill of Rights will be invalidated.

The legislation defines an enemy combatant as anyone "engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." How many times has this administration argued that dissent helps the terrorists? How often has the administration said, "you're either with us or against us?"

To suggest that this legislation is anything but a usurpation of the Constitution is absurd. How much more damage will this administration do?

Every time this administration attempts to expand its power the terrorists gain a victory. And one suspects that the real reason for pushing this through without reasoned debate is politically motivated. The Republicans risk losing control of one or both houses of Congress and need a way to attack the Democrats. Saying Democrats are weak on terrorism and using "no" votes on this legislation as proof, will be the rallying cry for Republicans in the coming weeks.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., was a lone Republican voice opposing the President and is now being assailed all over talk radio. If it weren't for the Colorado hostage incident yesterday, he'd be all over the TV too.

The Republicans want us to be scared so they can keep power.

Don't insult the President.

The 7-Eleven convenient store chain announced today that it was dropping Citgo as its fuel provider because Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called President George W. Bush "the devil."

Americans, it seems, are outraged that a foreign leader would use insulting rhetoric about the president. There are calls for boycotts of all things Venezuelan. There are even some who are calling for Noam Chomsky's head because Chavez told folks to read "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance." Fox News referred to Chomsky as an "American leftist writer." The news outlet was particularly shrill in its criticism of Chavez and the United Nations.

I've never fully understood the right's desire to kill the U.N., but they point to last week's speeches by Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as reasons to end the international institution.

They have the right to their opinions and their boycotts. But the irony here is that after the 2001 attacks in New York and DC, no one on the right called for a boycott of Saudi oil.

The message, I guess, is that it's OK to kill Americans just don't insult the president. That we won't stand for.

When do we get the swastikas?

Now that we have a president who openly admits to secret US prisons and torture, a president who believes in kidnapping and a blanket threat posed by an entire group of people, I wonder what possibly could be next on his agenda.

I am often tempted to write screeds here, shouting about the Nazification (hey the other side can make up words, why can't I?) of America. It's difficult to believe so passionately in the possibility of this country all the while watching as it is destroyed from within. When will sanity return?

Democrats are impotent, the news media is ignorant and the populace isn't interested. There is no public outcry about the erosion of the Constitution. There is no real public debate about the use of torture on "enemy combatants." Where is the "Greatest Generation," the ones who won World War II? Where are the ones who said "Never Again?"

The great irony of our time is that the right uses imagery and mimicry of that time to bamboozle the people. Don't like what the left is saying; accuse them of using Nazi propaganda techniques. [www.politicalgateway.com/main/columns/read.html?col=89]
Don't like the growing anti-war sentiment, accuse them of appeasing Hitler. [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-legion30aug30,0,7356486.story?coll=la-home-headlines]
Don't like journalists poking around, accuse them of ties to terrorists and arrest them, shooting him first if need be. [http://sirhumphreys.blogspot.com/2005/10/ap-and-reuters-photographer-bilal.html and at http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/15/news/cbs.php]

When it becomes hard to discern the truth from the lies people stop listening. Soon we will have national identification cards. When do we get the swastikas?

Why isn't everyone bothered?

When President Bush took his case to Congress and the nation that extraordinary measures were needed in both the investigation and prosecution of terror suspects the lack of outrage was deafening.

He spoke of restricting access to evidence, holding trials without the defendant present, permitting coerced testimony and third party assertions. He asked that Congress give a free pass to interrogators so they know they won't face criminal prosecution for their work.

Is this really the kind of debate the government of the United States should be having?

When Bush ran in 2000 he said he was going to "restore dignity and honor to the White House." Now he is suggesting that honor and integrity should be removed from the Code of Military Justice.

In the closing trial scene of Rob Reiner's film "A Few Good Men," Jack Nicholson's character said, "You f***in' people. You have no idea how to defend a nation. All you did was weaken a country today. That's all you did. You put people's lives in danger. Sweet dreams." He justified the killing of a Marine in his charge by saying that although tragic, the Marine's death probably saved lives. Is that the way we want to live? Is that the course that we think is best? Killing people saves lives?

But few Americans object, few of us do anything more than complain. We hear the administration shouting "Danger, danger" like the robot in "Lost in Space" and we accept it.

I understand that some people trust the government, some people believe that the war in Iraq is a pivotal part of the war on terror. I know there are people who think that anything is OK if it keeps us safe. Torture is a terrorist tactic. The threat of pain or death is what they hope to inspire.

Are we for or against terrorism? Or does nothing bother us at all?

They don't mind being wrong....

There is a myth that all of corporate America will do anything to make a profit including resort to the tactics like those associated with the recent Hewlitt Packard mess, that corporations are greedy and evil. We know that most corporations are responsible citizens who would do nothing to hurt people.

We also know of crazy lawsuits with huge settlements that make things tough for business. That's why fast food restaurants need to warn that the coffee is hot. That's why ice skating rinks need to warn us that ice is slippery. That's why doctors can't afford malpractice insurance.

But really we don't know anything.

Click on the title of this entry to check out the Drum Major Policy Web site Tort Deform to learn more. It's a surprising read.

The fact is that insurance companies are behind the much of the call for tort reform not because they're losing so much money in lawsuits, but because they can maximize profits by limiting liabilities and increasing premiums.

Look no further than the Gulf Coast. The feds will compensate homeowners and renters who carried insurance only. If a family didn't have insurance on their house, they get nothing. Meanwhile the insurance companies are paying a pittance of what their policy holders paid for in premiums.

Corporate America doesn't mind being wrong, they just don't want to pay for it.

The terrorists have won

Remember when Republicans demanded that Democrats not use Sept. 11 politically, that the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans be respected? Remember when the world was outraged over the attacks and united in its goal to stop terrorism? Remember when President Bush declared that he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive?"

Of course it's hard not to remember these things because on the fifth anniversary of that day, the GOP is beating the drum again, hoping Americans will be afraid enough to support them in November.

The fifth anniversary is being used to drum up a fervor over the president's demands for more executive power. The images of the burning towers are once again appearing on TV screens and passions are stirred to hide the fact that bin Laden was never captured, the Taliban are re-emerging and the Middle East is in complete turmoil because of this administration. But the president needs more power to arrest, detain, try and convict enemy combatants without the protections of due process.

Sunday morning NBC aired an interview with the vice-president saying that there was no connection between 9/11 and Iraq. It was a momentous admission. Sunday evening in a retrospective about the effects of 9/11 NBC showed several groups affected by that day. They interviewed a family that lost a parent in NYC. They interviewed some children who attended the school the president was visiting at the time of the attacks. They interviewed a family of an Army sergeant deployed in Iraq for the third time since 9/11. The same network conflated the response to 9/11 with the war in Iraq after airing the interview with Mr. Cheney. So much for the free press.

In the days following 9/11, I appeared on a panel show on the Cleveland NBC affiliate. I listened as a rabbi; priest and imam called for peace and prayer, asked for respect and dialogue not fear and anger. I stood up that night and quoted Benjamin Franklin about sacrificing liberty for safety. I received a round of applause. I was approached in the parking lot by some guy who felt so strongly about what I said that he drove downtown in the middle of the night to thank me. On every other program demands for safety were shouted repeatedly. The argument went if you're not a terrorist you've got nothing to worry about with surrendering some liberties.

Five years later we are no longer as free as on Sept. 10, 2001. We are routinely harassed at airports, genuinely unaware of government policy, learning of secret prisons and torture policies, embroiled in Iraq for nefarious reasons and nebulous goals. We are not safer but we are certainly less free.

We've fundamentally changed our way of life. We look at all brown skinned people with askance. We listen to politicians preaching Christianity and are told to suspect all Muslims in a country that prohibits the establishment of religion. We are told that those who object are either unpatriotic or appeasers. We are now being told that these non-state terrorists are akin to the Nazis or the fascists. We are living in a country were fear trumps reason and irrational rhetoric shouts down debate.

One thing is certain. The terrorists have won.

No confidence in Dems new strategy

U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., sent me an e-mail this morning asking me to "demand a vote of no confidence in Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld." OK, so it was a mass e-mail from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

I'm sure Emanuel doesn't have me in his personal e-mail address list. But maybe he should because once again the Democrats are floundering in their attempts to become effective.

"It is clear now that abiding by Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary is simply untenable, and that another two years of his tenure will bring even greater regrets and disaster than the last six. That is why House Democrats are demanding a vote of No-Confidence in Rumsfeld to signify that we need a new direction in Iraq," the Congressman from Chicago writes.

Emanuel points out his disgust with Rumsfeld "thinking about the midterm elections" and declaring "that any who supported a new direction in Iraq -- including a large majority of the American people apparently -- were suffering from "moral or intellectual confusion" equivalent to Nazi appeasers."

Ignoring the irony of this administration's similarity to the Nazi regime and its use of Goebbels-like propaganda techniques, attacking Rumsfeld has already been proven to be a losing strategy and really doesn't get to the heart of the concerns of most Americans.

Running on the "we're-an-alternative-because-we're-not-them" plank isn't going to electrify your base or attract swing voters no matter what party uses it. The Republicans tried it for years before coming up with the "Contract with America" a hollow platform that at least offered something Americans could see as an alternative.

The Democrats continue to flounder because they can't find a unifying position over the mess in Iraq. Hawkish and pragmatic Dems want to stay the course at least for a little while. The more lefty Dems want immediate or time certain withdrawal. Neither position offers much of a rallying cry. "Hey we know they screwed the pooch with Iraq, so we're going to have to stay there" vs. "They screwed the pooch with Iraq, so we gotta get out of there" isn't much as a position.

What the Democrats need to do is return to their own base, to remind Americans of a time when working for a living meant security, when being an American meant religion was a private matter and sexuality wasn't a political football. To remind Americans when there was dignity in being concerned for your neighbor’s well being, when self-sacrifice was the way of the nation. To remind Americans that peace and justice do not involve secret prisons and airport searches, when safety wasn't an excuse for negating the Constitution.

When was the last time any Democrat spoke like that? When was the last time Democratic vision was based on heartfelt beliefs not opinion polls? There are far more things that make all of us alike than there are that make us different, yet the Democrats continue to divide us into categories and classes.

That's the e-mail I'd welcome from Emanuel, that's the position that will ensure the Democratic return to majority.

Ritter, Ritter, Ritter!

David Corn, Washington editor of "The Nation," and Michael Isikoff, investigative correspondent for "Newsweek," were guests on the Diane Rehm show discussing their book "Hubris." They spoke of the faulty intelligence that the White House used to justify its invasion of Iraq. Both are good journalists and write well. Rehm was quite good at interviewing them, challenging their assertions.

I remembered the details as they reviewed them, the Niger yellow cake, the stories from Iraqi "dissidents" predicting a popular uprising, the predictions of a quick war, the smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud, Colin Powell presenting the case to the UN.

I also remember Scott Ritter a former Marine intelligence officer turned UN weapons inspector. Isikoff and Corn didn't mention Ritter this morning. I hope they included him in their book.

I saw Ritter on the O'Reilly Factor wherein the bellicose host derided Ritter and questioned his patriotism. Ritter persevered through the interview insisting that there were no WMD and certainly no nuclear program.

Later that night I saw him on Nightline where a less confrontational host asked Ritter why, if what he said was true, didn't Saddam Hussein just tell the UN there weren't any weapons instead of playing the game. Ritter said that Hussein needed to maintain the threat of the existence of WMD to keep his enemies away and his people in line.

Here we are years later, thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, the region is destabilized and Iran has emerged as the major power in the region. It seems that Ritter was right all along and yet no one wants to remember his Cassandra warnings.

Ritter was instead dismissed as a crackpot and called a traitor by CNN. An MSNBC newscaster suggested Ritter turn in his passport and move to Iraq. The vitriol was impressive, a foretaste of this administration's tactics in the 2004 election. Heck, the president all but called the Supreme Court traitors for ruling against his kangaroo tribunals during a speech announcing that 14 real terror suspects were being shipped to Gitmo.

Ritter, a Republican who said that he voted for Bush in 2000, has been vocal in his criticism of the Bush policies in the Middle East since the war in Iraq began. He has allegedly said that a war with Iran is inevitable, that UN Ambassador John Bolton's speech announcing a unilateral move against Iran has already been written.

Let's hope this time he's a crackpot.

Ethical issues and employment

There are stereotypes and then there are stereotypes. It's a well-established perception that journalists are cutthroat, backstabbing and amoral. They will do anything to get a story, exploit, deceive, lie, steal and threaten.

Even the film "All the President's Men" — considered the best representation of journalists — portrayed Woodward and Bernstein as willing to do whatever it takes to get the story, including bullying sources.

Recently I wrote a story about a man who is the appointed president of the local conservation district. An attorney, he also represents a developer who wants to build 20 single-family homes on a 9 acre parcel that abuts the conservation district property. Moreover, the proposed development is uphill and upstream from two rare fens on conservation district property. An official from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources told me that the project will likely have a negative impact on the conservation district property and will likely drive off two endangered bird species. A DePaul University ethicist told me that the attorney was acting unethically and had a clear conflict of interest. And if that's just not enough, the attorney is also the local head of the majority political party in the county. He was appointed by county board members of his own party to head the conservation district.

The story ran last week. A couple of days later, the general manager and the publisher approached me and said that they didn't think the story mattered and that it shouldn't have been printed in "our newspaper."

This isn't the first time I was either told to back off a story or give a public official a pass.

The $107 million contract for new schools paid for by bond revenues was awarded to a construction firm without bid because "they were already repairing the schools" and this new construction will just be added onto the original contract. Three days before the story was to run the general manager had lunch with the superintendent. The GM came back from that meeting and told me to let the story go and there wasn't a reason "to upset anyone" with publicizing the contract extension.

In June, while reporting on the city manager's annual performance evaluation, I was told that I was being too aggressive, we didn't need to FOIA anything at this paper.

I'm in a pinch though, I'm getting married in the spring and I need to work. I've tried to get other jobs, but no one will even interview me let alone give me a shot.

If I want to stay in my chosen field, I have to compromise what I see as basic ethical standards. Of course compromising those ethics means I shouldn't be in this profession.

Should a journalist quit journalism to support the ethics of journalism? Or should a journalist dismiss ethics in order to continue practicing the profession? What would Redford or Hoffman do?