Waiting on Trump

Richard North Patteson recently wrote in the Huff Post: "For Americans, the singular presidency of Donald Trump impels a measured consideration of what fascism truly is ― and how it grows. For fascism does not supplant democracy overnight. Rather it advances step-by-step, nourished by denial and disbelief until it overruns the safeguards protecting decency and freedom." This is where I think we are now. After watching the debacle of a sexual predator being confirmed to the SC where lies prevail over the truth and realizing a brilliantly researched and written NYT story chronicling the lies of the TTO that is essentially dead in the water, my fear is that the next stages of discovery (Mueller and possible sex charges) that we are desperately waiting and hoping for will have little or no impact. Fascist tribalism prevails for many reasons too complicated to discuss here but also because, unlike what Grassley and McConnell claimed on Kavanaugh, it is the GOP moving the goal posts of decency. Gone are the days when sexual peccadillos or lying to Congress would end your professional career. His base doesn't care. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership remains impotent, doing little and offering almost nothing. The numbers are horrific. We have a supreme court that is controlled by a minority of voters. Kavanaugh has a 31 percent approval rating yet he will be confirmed. We are outgunned. We are losing the battles and if we are not careful, we will lose the war. Andrew Gillum had a 9 point lead in Florida and then invited HRC, Bloomberg and DWS to campaign for him. His lead is down to 2. I am not picking on HRC or reliving the 2016 campaign. I am simply pointing out that the things that worked years ago work no longer. We need the next generation of leaders to step up and the old guard to step away. We need to vote. We need to be MORE strategic. We need to be proactive rather than reactive. And we need to punish, so the GOP understands there are consequences to their chicanery. Finally, we need to get a handle on something that is becoming more obvious. As someone shared on my twitter feed, "Democrats have got to realize that Trump will not be scandalized into defeat. Attempts to make that happen will only bolster his narratives. He will lose by virtue of the fact that his policies hurt the struggling—provided Democrats offer more than incrementalism as a replacement."

The Kavanaugh Farce

Senators aren’t tasked with measuring her accusation or Kavanaugh’s denial by “beyond a reasonable doubt” applied in criminal proceedings, or with rendering a verdict of guilty or not. Rather, the purpose of SC confirmation hearings is to allow senators to provide “advice and consent” on the nominee for the nation’s highest court. Whether or not there’s conclusive proof of the assault, every senator is entitled to vote yes or no. Senators also weigh their constituents’ views on the nominee, the testimony and other factors. Even if senators aren’t sure what, if anything, happened between Ford and Kavanaugh, if they think the accusation is possible, probable, or even plausible, and decide that it’s too great a risk to put a maybe-sexual-assaulter on the high court, they’re entitled to vote no. If they believe that Kavanaugh lied under oath in answers to written or oral questions related to any part of the confirmation process, they’re entitled to vote no. So no absolute proof required. We are talking about his behavior, not someone else's. I think it clear that preventing a full and proper investigation and by specifically NOT allowing the FBI to interview Kavanaugh, the GOP gamed the system. I know this. If I was innocent like Kavanaugh claims, I’d be screaming from the hilltops for an investigation. He won’t. They won’t. Because he is guilty.

The curious case of the quisling Elia Kazan

History is full of people who chose to show moral courage in the face of adversity. Unfortunately it is more full of those who show cowardice. While it is true that Elia Kazan was a gifted director in the theatre and in the cinema, there is no doubt in my mind that he was one fairly despicable human being. I love Martin Scorsese and I appreciate his scholarship and will not argue about his assessment of Kazan's career as a director. But I can not and will not ignore the man. Kazan apologists puzzle me because they tend to cherry pick their information. They lack perspective and seems blind to the truth, making me wonder the Sarah Palins of the world are winning. Kazan was a guy who testified against others to protect his own skin. We have names for that and they are not kind. And yet you seem to hold him up as some hero. Where sir is your moral compass? For me, there is no question that those who chose to betray others on the witness stands of the Senate and House UnAmerican activity committees are the moral equivalent of the French collaborators, the Norwegian quislings or the Dutch conspirators who turned Anne Frank's family into the Nazis. No different at all. Many people--my father among them--were confronted by these watershed tests of character and human decency. Some like my Dad behaved honorably. Others like Kazan, Budd Schulberg failed miserably. I know it has become common practice of late for pop culture revisionist historians like Sam Tanenhaus to play the contrarian card, to make rapid fire declarations that are profoundly incorrect (e.g. "Conservatism is Dead", anyone?) or simply cherry pick history to further their own personal and political agenda, (e.g. the Rosenbergs and McCarthy). But this revisionism, this attempt at resurrecting Kazan and his legacy by changing history--is both sad and deplorable. I understand that Kazan and his friends had the PR machine working full-time. He was looking for the Oscar and to repair his image. It is sort of pathetic for me that writers fall for this. Do they really think that Kazan chose to be a friendly witness because he was labeled a "foreman"? Yeah, name calling is really traumatic. Defenders read this delusional excuse in his autobiography. And they believed it? Hell even Wikipedia seems to have more of a clue: "in 1952 Kazan had handed over to the House Un-American Activities Committee the names of eight members of the Communist Party who had worked at the Group Theater where he had started as an actor. Naming names cost Kazan, himself a member of the party between 1934 and 1936 before resigning in protest, many friends in Hollywood and among US intellectuals. His reason for doing so after previously refusing to testify is still debated." Kazan refused to testify at his first appearance before the HUAC but the second time he was called, Kazan capitulated, claiming it was because of his hatred of communism. So he names actors from his Group Theatre. What does that have to do with actors from the 1930s? I suspect in his own mind he thought he was mitigating the harm that he knew was about to be bestowed upon these people. The FBI undoubtedly presented him with a difficult choice: "rat on your friends and we'll let you have a career or don't and suffer the consequences." I know this because the FBI played rough because of the pressure they put upon my own father and mother. And the FBI offered lots of enticements to rat out his peers. But my father--a flawed human being for sure--showed moral courage and instead offered only half the peace sign. Those who named names did so in a variety of ways. Jerome Robbins named some friends who name him back. Others pointed the finger at old friends and acquaintances without a thought. Careers and lives were destroyed. Some like Lee J. Cobb and Sterling Hayden apologized for their transgressions. My father who suffered through 11 years of struggle was a forgiving man. I am less so. Gerald Peary writing in the Boston Phoenix described Kazan's testimony as "odious pages and pages of careerist butt kissing and flag waving, Kazan going through the plots of each of his movies, explaining laboriously why they were very anti-Communist and (coming from an immigrant lad from Greece) very, very pro-American. And he named names to HUAC. Lots and lots of them. Kazan betrayed his ex-friends which guaranteed his continued employment in Hollywood. While they struggled, he, the informer, continued to work. And Kazan's defenders seem to think that is ok. Where is their moral compass? A writer in the LA Times recently wrote that "On The Waterfront" written by fellow collaborator Budd Schulberg has often been read "with no small degree of contortion" as an apologia for Kazan's testimony. The snarkiness of that comment is only exceeded by its absurdity. Brando's character testifies to congressional investigators and is the hero. Was he really suggesting that Kazan and Schulberg were not trying to make their own testimony as heroic as Terry Malloy's to justify their treachery? You call that a contortion? Those conclusions are the only contortions here. I have no problem with reviews of Kazan's movies on dvd or elsewhere. But if reviewers are going to weigh in on the politics, get it right and spare us the revised, adulterated and untruthful history. The truth is what matters. Per Daniel Moynihan, Kazan defenders are entitled to their opinions, just not your own set of facts.

Marco Rubio Chastizes Jay Zee...

Sen. Marco Rubio says entertainers Beyonce and Jay-Z missed a chance while in Cuba to see firsthand the effects of political oppression. The Republican lawmaker from Florida calls their recent trip "hypocritical" and he takes issue with the U.S. government's approval of the visit as a cultural mission. Rubio represents all that is wrong with US policy towards Cuba. Our policies are based on lies and cold war propaganda that is fuel by the rightwing Cubam emigrees living in South Florida. And this criticism comes from the Tea Party wannabe who distorts his own family's story when it comes to Cuba for his own political gain. The WAPO carried this in 2011:

During his rise to political prominence, Sen. Marco Rubio frequently repeated a compelling version of his family’s history that had special resonance in South Florida. He was the “son of exiles,” he told audiences, Cuban Americans forced off their beloved island after “a thug,” Fidel Castro, took power. But a review of documents — including naturalization papers and other official records — reveals that the Florida Republican’s account embellishes the facts. The documents show that Rubio’s parents came to the United States and were admitted for permanent residence more than 2.5 years before Castro’s forces overthrew the Cuban government and took power on New Year’s Day 1959.

The supposed flight of Rubio’s parents has been at the core of the young senator’s political identity, both before and after his stunning tea-party-propelled victory in last year’s Senate election. Rubio — now considered a prospective 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate and a possible future presidential contender — mentions his parents in the second sentence of the official biography on his Senate Web site. It says that Mario and Oriales Rubio “came to America following Fidel Castro’s takeover.” And the 40-year-old senator with the boyish smile and prom-king good looks has drawn on the power of that claim to entrance audiences captivated by the rhetorical skills of one of the more dynamic stump speakers in modern American politics.

And btw, what about that Batista guy that Castro et al overthrew? He was a dictator who took power twice by coup, who suspended the Constitution, who revoked civil liberties, who was a puppet for the sugar producers, casino owners and corporations doing business in Cuba and who led one of the most oppressive and corrupt regimes replete with public executions and torture. Excuse me if I bother to point out that your family and thousands of others now living in Miami and South Florida SUPPORTED that regime. Facts are inconvenient things. It is time to tell the more full story of what happened in Cuba and not just the PR that Cuban zealots spoon feed an ill-informed media and public.

Looking at Mitt Romney before Iowa

The Republican presidential race is heating up and it looks like the inevitable will indeed happen: that the anti-Mitt forces have run out of candidates and the GOP will anoint Romney to be their man. Romney argues he is the most electable. He may be but only because the other candidates--for the most part--are just absolute morons or too tainted by their own despicable pasts.

The Democrats have been gearing up to face Romney from the get go and Mitt will have some problems (not completely insurmountable):

• "Man of the people" candidates don't own five homes, offer to bet people $10K and refuse to release their taxes. And when the pressure hits to release those forms, it will work against him if he does or doesn't.

•The Democrats have an arsenal of ads ready to run against Mitt: his own. They have every ad he ever ran while running for Senate and Governor and will juxtapose them with his positions today. Whatever one thinks about his politics, the subtext is pretty clear: Mitt will say anything to get elected.

• His religion is still an unknown. I find it curious that there seems more discussion about his religion now than there was when his father ran. The media more serious look at the Mormon Church and its positions on some issues, specifically its political activities in California as well as its very late to the party moves on racial and gender discrimination. I also think evangelicals will have a hard time holding their nose and voting for him when they don't trust him politically either.

• Any Republican candidate--not just Romney--will have to answer some serious economic questions. Obama might "own" this economy but it was the GOP and Bush that got us here. The GOP candidate will have to answer what he/she would have done different from what Bush did and what he/she will do to get us out of it. I doubt even this ineffective and lame MSM (Fox News notwithstanding) will give him or any GOP nominee a pass on this.

Responding to Kazan Apologists

Sam Adams of the Los Angeles Times published yet another Elia Kazan apology on Nov. 7. 2010. Here's my response:

History is full of people who chose to show moral courage in the face of adversity. Unfortunately it is more full of those who show cowardice.

While it is true that Elia Kazan was a gifted director in the theatre and in the cinema, there is no doubt in my mind that he was one fairly despicable human being.

I love Martin Scorsese and I appreciate his scholarship and will not argue about his assessment of Kazan's career as a director. But I can not and will not ignore the man. Your piece puzzles me because it is so opinionated yet so flawed. It lacks perspective and seems blind to the truth, making me wonder the Sarah Palins of the world are winning.

Kazan was a guy who testified against others to protect his own skin. We have names for that and they are not kind. And yet you seem to hold him up as some hero. Where sir is your moral compass?

For me, there is no question that those who chose to betray others on the witness stands of the Senate and House UnAmerican activity committees are the moral equivalent of the French collaborators, the Norwegian quislings or the Dutch conspirators who turned Anne Frank's family into the Nazis. No different at all. Many people--my father among them--were confronted by these watershed tests of character and human decency. Some like my Dad behaved honorably. Others like Kazan, Budd Schulberg failed miserably.

I know it has become common practice of late for pop culture revisionist historians like Sam Tanenhaus to play the contrarian card, to make rapid fire declarations that are profoundly incorrect (e.g. "Conservatisim is Dead", anyone?) or simply cherry pick history to further their own personal and political agenda, (e.g. the Rosenbergs and McCarthy). But this revisionism, this attempt at resurrecting Kazan and his legacy by changing history--is both sad and deplorable.

I understand that Kazan and his friends had the PR machine working full-time. He was looking for the Oscar and to repair his image. It is sort of pathetic for me that writers like you fall for this.

Do you really think that Kazan chose to be a friendly witness because he was labeled a "foreman"? Yeah, name calling is really traumatic. You read this delusional excuse in his autobiography. And you believed it?

Hell even Wikipedia seems to have more of a clue: "in 1952 Kazan had handed over to the House Un-American Activities Committee the names of eight members of the Communist Party who had worked at the Group Theater where he had started as an actor. Naming names cost Kazan, himself a member of the party between 1934 and 1936 before resigning in protest, many friends in Hollywood and among US intellectuals. His reason for doing so after previously refusing to testify is still debated."

Kazan refused to testify at his first appearance before the HUAC but the second time he was called, Kazan capitulated, claiming it was because of his hatred of communism. So he names actors from his Group Theatre. What does that have to do with actors from the 1930s? I suspect in his own mind he thought he was mitigating the harm that he knew was about to be bestowed upon these people.

The FBI undoubtedly presented him with a difficult choice: "rat on your friends and we'll let you have a career or don't and suffer the consequences." I know this because the FBI played rough because of the pressure they put upon my own father and mother. And the FBI offered lots of enticements to rat out his peers. But my father--a flawed human being for sure--showed moral courage and instead offered only half the peace sign.

Those who named names did so in a variety of ways. Jerome Robbins named some friends who name him back. Others pointed the finger at old friends and acquaintances without a thought. Careers and lives were destroyed. Some like Lee J. Cobb and Sterling Hayden apologized for their transgressions. My father who suffered through 11 years of struggle was a forgiving man. I am less so.

Gerald Peary writing in the Boston Phoenix described Kazan's testimony as "odious pages and pages of careerist butt kissing and flag waving, Kazan going through the plots of each of his movies, explaining laboriously why they were very anti-Communist and (coming from an immigrant lad from Greece) very, very pro-American. And he named names to HUAC. Lots and lots of them. Kazan betrayed his ex-friends which guaranteed his continued employment in Hollywood. While they struggled, he, the informer, continued to work.

And you seem to think that is ok. Where is your moral compass?

You write that "On The Waterfront" written by fellow collaborator Budd Schulberg has often been read "with no small degree of contortion" as an apologia for Kazan's testimony. The snarkiness of that comment is only exceeded by its absurdity. Brando's character testifies to congressional investigators and is the hero. Are you really suggesting that Kazan and Schulberg were not trying to make their own testimony as heroic as Terry Malloy's to justify their treachery? You call that a contortion?

Your conclusions are the only contortions here.

I have no problem with reviews of Kazan's movies on dvd or elsewhere. But if you are going to weigh in on the politics, get it right and spare us the revised, adulterated and untruthful history.

The truth is what matters. Per Daniel Moynihan, you are entitled to your opinion, just not your own set of facts.

Obama Will Triumph -- So Will America

I don't normally cut and past. But he simply said it better than I could.

Michael


By Frank Schaeffer

Before he'd served even one year President Obama lost the support
of the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of
the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of life and
ideological backgrounds -- including this white, straight, 57-year-
old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer
and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader)
this unlikely Obama supporter -- are sticking with our President.
Why?-- because he is succeeding.

We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of
him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us.

Obama's steady supporters will be proved right. Obama's critics
will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged
at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst.

The Context of the Obama Presidency

Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe , the Second
World War and the Depression has any president faced more
adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more
bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial
integration has any president faced a more consistently short-
sighted and willfully ignorant opposition - from both the right
and left.

As the President's poll numbers have fallen so has his support from
some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah not long ago;
all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling all
over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the
2008 election.

The left's lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling "prophecy"--
snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and
then pretend you didn't have anything to do with it!

Here is what Obama faced when he took office-- none of which was
his fault:

# An ideologically divided country to the point that America was
really two countries

# Two wars; one that was mishandled from the start, the other that
was unnecessary and immoral

# The worst economic crisis since the depression

# America 's standing in the world at the lowest point in history

# A country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture
of prisoners of war

# A health care system in free fall

# An educational system in free fall

# A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions
(about which the Bush administration and the Republicans had done
nothing)

# An impasse between culture warriors from the right and left

# A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally
irresponsible Bush administration.

And those were only some of the problems sitting on the
President's desk!

"Help" from the Right?

What did the Republicans and the religious right, libertarians and
half-baked conspiracy theorists -- that is what the Republicans
were reduced to by the time Obama took office -- do to "help" our
new president (and our country) succeed? They claimed that he
wasn't a real American, didn't have an American birth certificate,
wasn't born here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating "racist",
was secretly a communist, was actually the Anti-Christ, (!) and was
a reincarnation of Hitler and wanted "death panels" to kill the
elderly!

They not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the not-so-
subtle use of vile signs held at their rallies and even a bumper
sticker quoting Psalm 109:8. They organized "tea parties" to sound
off against imagined insults and all government in general and
gathered to howl at the moon. They were led by insurance industry
lobbyists and deranged (but well financed) "commentators" from
Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh.

The utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the
utterly discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a president who
was trying to actually do something about the poor, the
environment, to diminish the number of abortions through
compassionate programs to help women and to care for the sick! And
in Congress the Republican leadership only knew one word: "No!"

In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy
American far right,combined with the educated but obtuse
neoconservative war mongers, religious right shills for big
business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving
crazies, child-molesting acquiescent "bishops", frontier loons and
evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite
them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from succeeding at
all costs!

"Help" from the Left?

What did the left do to help their newly elected president? Some of
them excoriated the President because they disagreed with the bad
choices he was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan
that he'd inherited from the worst president in modern history!

Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that the President's
economic policies had "failed" before the President even instituted
them! Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been
fully won within virtually minutes of the President taking office,
they'd been "betrayed"! (Never mind that Obama's vocal support to
the gay community is stronger than any other president's has been.
Never mind that he signed a new hate crimes law!)

Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping with beatific
emotion on election night turned into an angry mob saying how
"disappointed" they were that they'd not all immediately been
translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House!
Where was the "change"? Contrary to their expectations they were
still mere mortals!

And the legion of young new supporters was too busy texting to pay
attention for longer than a nanosecond. "Governing"?! What the hell
does that word, uh, like mean?"

The President's critics left and right all had one thing in common:
impatience laced with little-to-no sense of history (let alone
reality) thrown in for good measure. Then of course there were the
white, snide know-it-all commentators/talking heads who just
couldn't imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren't as smart as
they thought they were and certainly not as smart as their
president. He hadn't consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong!

The Obama critics' ideological ideas defined their idea of reality
rather than reality defining their ideas-say, about what is
possible in one year in office after the hand that the President
had been dealt by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot nation
that voted Bush into office. twice!

Meanwhile back in the reality-based community - in just 12 short
months -- President Obama:

#Continued to draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices
regarding the war in Afghanistan
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Restored America 's image around the globe
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Banned torture of American prisoners
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Stopped the free fall of the American economy
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort
to halt global warming
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Stood up for educational reform
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Won a Nobel peace prize
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial
system of checks and balances
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Did what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost
impossible process of health care reform that 7 presidents had
failed to even begin
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good
humor and patience
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Stopped the free fall of job losses
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed and
dangerous far right opposition that included the sort of disgusting
people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and
carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the "blood of
tyrants" needing to "water the tree of liberty".
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Showed that he could not only make the tough military choices but
explain and defend them brilliantly
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

Other than those "disappointing" accomplishments -- IN ONE YEAR --
President Obama "failed"! Other than that he didn't "live up to
expectations"!

Who actually has failed...

...are the Americans that can't see the beginning of a miracle of
national rebirth right under their jaded noses. Who failed are the
smart ass ideologues of the left and right who began rooting for
this President to fail so that they could be proved right in their
dire and morbid predictions. Who failed are the movers and shakers
behind our obscenely dumb news cycles that have turned "news" into
just more stupid entertainment for an entertainment-besotted
infantile country.

Here's the good news: President Obama is succeeding without the
help of his lefty "supporters" or hate-filled Republican detractors!

The Future Looks Good

After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will), after his
wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on
all fronts -- with a canny and calculating eye to the possible
succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries
are burgeoning, (they will be), after the doomsayers are all proved
not just wrong but silly: let the record show that not all
Americans were panicked into thinking the sky was falling.

Just because we didn't get everything we wanted in the first short
and fraught year Obama was in office not all of us gave up. Some of
us stayed the course. And we will be proved right.