Christmas 2015

This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.'
'Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge.
'Are there no prisons?' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses?'"

- A Christmas Carol, Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits

This Christmas, as always, my fervent wish is that we use our wealth and our might to lift people out of poverty, to share the blessings that God has given us with the billions in the world who, through no fault of their own, have been left behind. But my most fervent wish is that we take back control of our media from the hands of multinational corporations, and bring real journalism back to America. Otherwise, we will remain ignorant of the crushing poverty and pain that others suffer, and we'll continue to live IN THE DARK.

Merry Christmas.

Cantor: Occupy Movement is a "Mob"

Thursday at the "Values Voters Summit" in Washington, House Majority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) said he was becoming "increasingly concerned" about the "mobs" who were occupying Wall Street and other cities across the country.

The mainstream media narrative of the occupy movement is that it is leaderless (as though that's a bad thing) and without defined goals. Right-wing bloggers consider the movement to be populated by "socialists, communists, and delinquents."

I thought I'd go downtown (Chicago) on Friday and see how dangerous this "mob" of communists is. It turns out, I think, that Eric Cantor is right to be concerned -- but not for the reasons he insinuates.

Survey: Plurality of Americans Believe Capitalism at Odds with Christian Values

A new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Religious News Service indicates that most Americans see a moral dimension to our economy and the economic crisis which plagues our country.

Nearly 6 in 10 Americans (58%) see the Federal budget as a moral document that reflects our national priorities. A full 60% believe that this recession is something other than a "natural" downturn, and 30% blame greedy businesses making risky market speculations, while another 52% blame government failure to regulate business activity.

66% of Americans think it is fair to ask wealthier Americans and corporations to bear a greater tax burden than the poor and middle class and 62% believe that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small minority is a serious problem. 44% believe that Capitalism is fundamentally at odds with Christian values.

The findings seem to hold true across political and demographic lines, except for the Tea Party, a majority of whom seem to believe that capitalism (like America) was ordained by God. To them I offer the following:

Exodus 22:25-27 "If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest. If you ever take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, you are to return it to him before the sun sets, for that is his only covering; it is his cloak for his body. What else shall he sleep in? And it shall come about that when he cries out to Me, I will hear him, for I am gracious.”

Psalm 15:1-5 “O LORD, who may abide in Your tent? Who may dwell on Your holy hill? He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart. He does not slander with his tongue, Nor does evil to his neighbor, Nor takes up a reproach against his friend; In whose eyes a reprobate is despised, But who honors those who fear the LORD; He swears to his own hurt and does not change; He does not put out his money at interest, Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken.”

Deuteronomy 15:7-8 “If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.”

Deuteronomy 15:10-11 "You shall generously give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all your undertakings. For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, 'You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.'”

Deuteronomy 24:14 “You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your countrymen or one of your aliens who is in your land in your towns.”
Leviticus 25:35-38: “'Now in case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. Do not take usurious interest from him, but revere your God, that your countryman may live with you. You shall not give him your silver at interest, nor your food for gain. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.’”

Matthew 19:21-24 “Jesus said to [the wealthy young man], ‘If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’ But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’”

Mark 10:21-25 “Looking at [the wealthy young man], Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’ But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus, looking around, said to His disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!’ The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’”

The Cheddar Revolution

A Rally in Support of Wisconsin's Public Workers from Dr Fallon on Vimeo.

Chicago went all Cairo today on Wisconsin Governor Scott ("I've got a baseball bat in my office") Walker as thousands of residents of the Windy City showed up at the State of Illinois Building (The Thompson Center) to protest Walker's cheesy, sleazy attempt to take away collective bargaining rights from state workers (translation: to break unions).

I'm not really very good at such things and I claim no true expertise, but I have had a little experience looking at crowds and figuring out how big they are, and I can tell you this: this was a BIG crowd.

The video gives only a flavor of the rally; I was too far from the podium to either see or hear the speakers very well (although I was glad to see my Senator, Dick Durbin, showing solidarity with the crowd) so don't look for speeches. But I spoke to several people to ask them why they were there. None of them were paid by wealthy ideologues to attend. They wanted to be there. Take a look and a listen.

"Oh, Let Us Turn Our Thoughts Today to Martin Luther King..."

What a day.

It is the celebration of the 80th birthday of the greatest American of my lifetime. It is the celebration of his life, of his accomplishments, but especially of his dream...

Tomorrow his dream finds a degree of fulfillment. There is much still to be done in America, much change that is needed, far too many people for whom the word "hope" is still only a campaign slogan. But we have begun.

Happy Birthday, Dr. King. Congratulations, America.

A Proud, Proud Day for the United States of America

I started this blog four years ago today.

I started it out of frustration with the sordid relationship between our political system and our mass media. As the title of this blog ought to suggest, I thought that our systems of mass communication were leaving most Americans IN THE DARK.

While that situation has clearly not entirely been rectified, and I remain terribly concerned about the ignorance that emperils us (just yesterday before voting, I spoke with a woman who told me she voted for the guy "with the Vice President from Canada" -- I wish I were making this up), I am heartened by what I've seen this past few years. And last night, as I watched the election returns, and cheered with my wife as the polls on the west coast closed and Senator Barack Obama became President-elect Barack Obama, and we listened, teary-eyed, to his victory speech, I felt prouder to be an American than I have in many, many years.

When I started this blog, I believed that the United States of America was living in the darkest hour of my lifetime. US Intelligence agencies were being politicized. Hundreds of thousands were dying in Iraq (and still are). The Iraqi insurgency was just finding its legs. Domestic surveillance of private individuals was just beginning. And -- even before Abu Ghraib -- observers were criticizing US interrogation techniques as "torture."

And the mass media largely ignored or downplayed everything, or aided and abetted the Bush administration's conceptual construction of a "post-9/11 world." It was the perfect prescription for fascism.

I won't dwell long on what the election of Barack Obama means to me personally. As the son of Irish immigrants to the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, let me just say that I am happy for him. As a university professor in an urban setting in a large American city, I feel my students' joy and I celebrate with them, knowing that many of their parents can hardly believe this day has actually come. But as an American, I am extremely proud today, not just because we have turned our backs on centuries of hatred and elected an African-American President, but also because we have managed to see beyond the fear, resentment, greed and hatred that have characterized the last eight years, and rejected the policies they spawned. This is what I am truly proud of.

The dawn is breaking. I think I see the light. It's morning in America.

An E-Mail Exchange With Howie, My (Far) Right-Wing Friend in NY: Is There, or Is There Not, a "Bush Doctrine?"

Howie: Basically, the term "Bush Doctrine" was coined by Charles Krauthammer, and I sent you his article that "suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine."

Me: Howie, you're killing me with this. There are so many more important things I ought to be doing with my time than trying to persuade you that a pit-bull is not a pig and that a horse is not a house and that fantasy is not reality. It is, I believe, a powerful testimony of my unfailing love for you that I go to all this trouble. I only wish you had any respect for me -- and for yourself -- and took the world more seriously.

I did a Lexis-Nexis search (it is a subscription database of, among other things, US and world newspapers, newsmagazines, and radio and television news transcripts which I have access to through Roosevelt's library) of the phrase "Bush Doctrine" for all the time between June 2002 and August 15, 2008. In other words, it does NOT search anything AFTER the Palin interview. I got over 1000 results. Please read them carefully. Here's my disclaimer, though: I'm only copying the essential parts of each story, where the term "Bush Doctrine" is used specifically. And, since this is a subscription service, I can't give you any hyperlinks. I urge you to go to a library and get a copy of each if you want to read the whole article.

Here's the very first one, from the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald:

• Kill first, ask questions later

BYLINE: Robert Manne. Robert Manne is associate professor of politics at La Trobe University.
SECTION: NEWS AND FEATURES; Opinion; Pg. 13 LENGTH: 966 words
September 30, 2002
Monday Late Edition

The black holes in Bush's logic might suck us all in.TEN days ago, George Bush handed to the Congress a document of fundamental importance, outlining a new military doctrine for the United States.

The new doctrine argues that in the 10 years following the Soviet collapse, the US failed to grasp the nature of the threats posed by the post-Cold War world. With the terrible events of September 11, America awoke.

At first, the US characterised the new enemy it faced as "terrorism". Later, it refined the idea of the new enemy to "terrorism with a global range", a euphemism for the
kind of terrorism with the capacity to inflict harm on the civilian populations in America or the West.

Since the shock of September 11, the new enemy has expanded to include what have been called "rogue states". In the Bush doctrine, a rogue state is a regime which brutalises its own people, seeks to acquire weapons of mass destruction and expresses hatred for the US...We arrive here at the heart of the new Bush military doctrine. The US, it is claimed, presently faces the prospect of
attack either from one of the rogue states or from a terrorist group supplied by
them with weapons of mass destruction. Before this kind of threat, Cold War
ideas about deterrence and containment are obsolete. The only rational military strategy is the "pre-emptive strike".

Here's one from the Straits Times (Singapore) from October of 2002 (first two paragraphs):

• Dubya's dangerous and divisive doctrine

October 16, 2002 Wednesday
AMITAV ACHARYA

THE new American strategic doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, enunciated a year after Sept 11, provokes more discord internationally than it catalyses accord domestically.

Past presidential doctrines helped American leaders mobilise domestic support and organise international coalitions. The Bush Doctrine is the most divisive post-war pronouncement.

From the Washington Post, October 2003 (I'm copying the entire article, as it directly references the Bush Doctrine several times, and even quotes Richard Perle -- one of the neo-cons who created it through his work at PNAC -- directly referring to the Bush Doctrine as preemptive first strike):

• The 'Bush Doctrine' Experiences Shining Moments

December 21, 2003 Sunday Final Edition

BYLINE: Dana Milbank, Washington Post Staff Writer

SECTION: A Section; A26LENGTH: 1041 words

It has been a week of sweet vindication for those who promulgated what they call the Bush Doctrine.

Beginning with the capture of Saddam Hussein a week ago and ending Friday with an agreement by Libya's Moammar Gaddafi to surrender his unconventional weapons, one after another international problem has eased.

On Tuesday, the leaders of France and Germany set aside their long-standing opposition to the war in Iraq and agreed to forgive an unspecified amount of that country's debt. On Thursday, Iran signed an agreement allowing surprise inspections of its nuclear facilities after European governments applied intense pressure on the U.S. foe. On Friday, Libya agreed to disarm under the watch of international inspectors, just as administration officials were learning that Syria had seized $23.5
million believed to be for al Qaeda.

To foreign policy hard-liners inside and outside the administration, the gestures by Libya, Iran and Syria, and the softening by France and Germany, all have the same cause: a show of American might.

Those who developed the Bush Doctrine -- a policy of taking preemptive, unprovoked action against emerging threats -- predicted that an impressive U.S. victory in Iraq would intimidate allies and foes alike, making them yield to U.S. interests in other areas.

Though that notion floundered with the occupation in Iraq, the capture of Hussein may have served as the decisive blow needed to make others respect U.S. wishes, they say. "It's always been at the heart of the Bush Doctrine that a more robust policy would permit us to elicit greater cooperation from adversaries than we'd had in the past when we acquiesced," said Richard Perle, an influential adviser to the
administration. "With the capture of Saddam, the sense that momentum may be with us is very important."

Perle had provoked much criticism for saying a successful U.S. invasion of Iraq would signal to other foes that "you're next." But he said the actions by Libya and Iran prove that the threat alone was sufficient to produce action. "Gaddafi surely had to take more seriously that we would not allow him to get away with the programs he was embarked," he said.

Perle and the other "neo-conservative" hawks whose views dominate the Bush administration know better than to claim victory. Gaddafi or the Iranians may still cheat despite admitting inspectors. And other potential foes, notably North Korea and China, have shown little susceptibility to the threat implicit in the Bush Doctrine.

Still, Perle allowed, "it's nice to have a good week every once in a while."

Bush's domestic adversaries have had some trouble responding to the administration's diplomatic successes. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a presidential aspirant, portrayed the success with Libya as an exception to the Bush Doctrine. "Ironically, this significant advance represents a complete U-turn in the Bush administration's overall foreign policy," he said in a statement Saturday. "An administration that scorns multilateralism and boasts about a rigid doctrine of military preemption has almost in spite of itself demonstrated the enormous potential for improving our national security through diplomacy."

But Bush's supporters say it is precisely his willingness to go it alone and take preemptive action that has encouraged other countries to seek diplomatic solutions before the United States launches a military attack. The Libya and Iran concessions "show the peripheral benefit of preemption," said Kenneth Adelman, a Reagan administration arms control official who now serves on a Pentagon advisory panel. "Most of all it scares the bejesus out of rogue dictators." As for stubborn allies such as Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, "they pay more attention when there's a forceful U.S. policy," Adelman said.

It is unlikely, of course, that France or Germany would acknowledge that they are reacting to U.S. strength. Yet it is noteworthy that they were conciliatory on the issue of Iraqi debt forgiveness after Hussein was captured -- even though they were complaining bitterly just a week before about a Bush plan to exclude them from U.S.-funded Iraq reconstruction projects.

And it is inarguable that Germany and France have taken a more active role in winning Iranian compliance with weapons inspections since the United States invaded Iraq. The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain visited Iran in
October, overcoming Iran's longtime resistance to signing a monitoring agreement.
"The Europeans never would have taken these steps [in Iran] without Bush taking the steps he took in Iraq," said Gary Schmitt, who directs the hard-line Project for the New American Century. "The Europeans don't want us to do another Iraq there, so they're rushing in to get a deal. Bush gets an immense amount of credit for laying out what the agenda is and making others step up to the plate."

Bush still has some inconsistencies to work out with his doctrine. Earlier this month, he drew rebukes from conservatives for undermining democratic Taiwan to win favor with totalitarian China. And, as Bush's domestic opponents point out, he has been contradictory in his views of international organizations. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said the administration's support for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in Libya and Iran "is difficult to reconcile with the administration's previous ridicule of IAEA inspectors in Iraq."

But such complaints, at least for now, have been overshadowed by the results achieved with Iran and Libya. That was the clear message Bush delivered in his unusual appearance late Friday in the White House briefing room. Mentioning the fate of Hussein, Bush said, "These actions by the United States and our allies have sent an unmistakable message to regimes that seek or possess weapons of mass destruction."

If Bush was oblique, a senior aide who briefed reporters after the president's statement, was quicker to take credit. "The outcome today is a response [to] the policies that we have pursued," he said. The official said the secret discussions with Libya began in March -- when the invasion of Iraq started. "I can't imagine that Iraq went unnoticed by the Libyan leadership," the aide said.

And -- WOW!!! -- I actually found a reference to the phrase "Bush Doctrine" that links it directly to the White House and the Bush administration, and dates it as far back as October 2001.

• 'Bush Doctrine' sets up rules of engagement

USA TODAY
October 9, 2001, Tuesday, FIRST EDITION
BYLINE: Laurence McQuillanSECTION: NEWS; Pg. 8A LENGTH: 526 words DATELINE: WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON -- White House officials gave a name Monday to the rules of engagement driving the U.S. war on terrorism -- the "Bush Doctrine." The policy makes any nation or group that tolerates terrorists a potential target.

From the Toronto (Canada) Globe and Mail:

• Monroe, Truman and Bush?; U.S. leader aims to become only the third; chief to lay a foreign-policy cornerstone

The Globe and Mail (Canada)
October 20, 2001 Saturday
BYLINE: JOHN IBBITSON SECTION: INTERNATIONAL NEWS; The War on Terror: THE BATTLE OF IDEAS; Pg. A10 LENGTH: 751 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

There was the Monroe Doctrine. There was the Truman Doctrine. Now, there is the Bush Doctrine.

In his Sept. 20 speech to Congress, U.S. President George W. Bush declared that all nations must either join the United States in combatting terrorism, or be its enemy. He said the government would act against any individual, organization or state "of global reach" that supports terrorism.

In the weeks since, Mr. Bush has referred to "the doctrine I spelled out to the American people." Vice-President Dick Cheney invoked "the Bush Doctrine" in a rousing call to arms Thursday evening.

Coalition forces are attacking Afghanistan in the air and now on the ground in the name of the Bush Doctrine. A growing chorus of politicians demands that the United States attack Iraq in the name of the Bush Doctrine.

From the Boston Globe and the Australian Financial Review on the global political implications of the Bush Doctrine, from October and December of 2001, respectively:

• A DOUBLE STANDARD IN WAR ON TERRORISM?

The Boston Globe
October 24, 2001, Wednesday ,THIRD EDITION
BYLINE: By Scot Lehigh, Globe Staff SECTION: OP-ED; Pg. D7 LENGTH: 699 words

IF YOU WISH to converse with me, Voltaire said, define your terms.

In speaking to the world, President Bush needs to do just that, for his zero-tolerance antiterrorism doctrine is one that both friends and rivals clearly hope to appropriate for their own purposes.

Consider our newfound comrade Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. Noting that the Kremlin considers the Chechen separatists to be terrorists with ties to Osama bin Laden, he has declared that the United States and Russia share a common foe.

Or Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, who called Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Israel's Osama bin Laden. Why, with America drawing a line in the sand against terrorism, should Israel be pressured to negotiate with a man who has sponsored and encouraged terrorists, he asked?

A bit less vocal was India, which faces attacks by Islamic militants hoping to pry all of disputed Kashmir away. "If the US can strike Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks ... why can't we take similar action against terrorists harbored by Pakistan?" wondered Farooq Abdullah, Kashmir's chief minister. Orwellian China would just as clearly like the world to view Tibet through the lens of the Bush doctrine, while Malaysia has used it to justify a suppression of peaceful dissent. And that's just for starters.

• Bush Doctrine suddenly crystallises

The Australian Financial Review
December 10, 2001 Monday
BYLINE: Peter Hartcher SECTION: Pg. 1/11. LENGTH: 99 words

The US President, George W Bush, has won huge support for his stand against terrorism. Bush has established a doctrine that holds all countries that harbourterrorists as being accountable to the US. Bush has declared that for every country that support terrorists there will be a "day of reckoning". Governments around the world have received a warning from what has happened in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan having almost reached a conclusion, the US Government must decide in which country its forces will seek terrorists next. An attack on Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq appears imminent.

Howie (and all my other right wing friends out there), I know you. I don't expect any of this to change your (for lack of a better word) "mind." But you are wrong about this, you are being deceived by post-game spin, and nothing you say or do or believe can EVER change history. There is a Bush Doctrine, it was promulgated by the White House, it has been debated and discussed in terms of its implications for foreign policy and for global politics, and neither Sarah Palin nor you seems ever to have heard of it.

The GOP and right-wing spinmeisters might indeed be successful persuading those American people who choose ignorance over information, and who choose to be led around on a leash by the right-wing media that there are "several Bush Doctrines," but history has already recognized one.

And that's really all there is to it. A century from now people will be studying the Bush Doctrine, and what they'll be studying is this dangerous principle of the preemptive first strike.

There's nothing you can do to change that.

Barack Obama for President

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've come to a decision: For me, it's Obama, or no one.

I'm not kidding myself, deluding myself about the neglible impact this blog has: in about three and a half years, about 39,000 pages have been read by about 23,000 people, of whom 16,000 have returned at least once; several dozen people read the blog regularly, returning at an average of four per day. So what I'm about to say should not be read in the sense that I believe it will make any sort of difference. It's not about that. It's not about me. It is not about this blog. It is merely a statement of conviction.

Unless Hillary Clinton wins the not only the superdelegate count, but the delegate count, the greatest number of states, and the raw vote total, I will not vote for her in the upcoming election. I will not be a party (if you will) to the high-jacking of democracy. I've had it with political gamesmanship, horse races, strong-arm tactics, and cynicism. I think Bill Richardson has had it with all those things, too, and that's why he took an enormous chance (if Obama loses, does Richardson have much of a future in a Clinton-dominated Democratic Party?) and endorsed Barack Obama. I hope Al Gore, John Edwards, and more prominent Democrats do in the days to come.

If, at the end of this process, Hillary does legitimately win the Democratic nomination for Presdident of the United States of America, I will, of course, vote for her. Even though I thought Bill Clinton was only a good President and not a great one (and he was more a Republican than a Democratic President), I am not a mindless Clinton-hater. I voted for Hillary Clinton as my Senator when I lived in New York in 2000. And I felt proud and privileged to do so.

But if Hillary Clinton wins this nomination without the greatest number of votes, the greatest number of states, and the greatest number of delegates, but because of some residual power of the spineless DLC faction within the Democratic Party, because of deal-making and arm-breaking, because of the sort of back-room politics that tainted the Democratic image in the last century, you can count me out.

I will not vote for Hillary Clinton.

I've seen too much excitement in the Democratic Party in the last year -- too many new voters, too many younger voters, too many first-time voters, too many voters who were, not long ago, too jaded and cynical to even trust the system -- to have it destroyed by political maneuvering and shenanigans. To be sure, some of the excitement is the result of our first female candidate for President of the United States. But there is more than a little evidence (see, for example, here, here, and here) that her candidacy is getting help from Republicans who are mortally afraid of a Barack Obama candidacy.

But the numbers, as of now, are on Barack Obama's side. And that's where I am standing. If the numbers continue to favor Obama, but he is not nominated, I will not vote for McCain. I Will not vote for Hillary Clinton. I may vote for Ralph Nader.

Note: Please tell your Democratic Party leaders in your area that you don't want any nonsense. The nominee of the Democratic Party should be the person who wins the primary campaign -- the whole campaign. If you feel the way I do, that to give the nomination to anyone who doesn't win it outright is wrong, and that you won't vote for an illegitimate nominee, please tell them that.

The REAL Story of the Primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island

Okay. First things first. I am one-for-two regarding yesterday's primaries. I was wrong about this, although I still believe I am right about this.

But once again I think the "liberal" media are missing the big story of the day -- and, in fact, I think, of the year -- and that is the raw vote totals in these primaries (something I made note of right after the New Hampshire primary).

In Ohio yesterday, 1,203,924 Democrats voted for Hillary Clinton, and 976,368 for Barack Obama. The total Democratic vote was 2,180,292. On the GOP side, 632,575 Republicans voted for John McCain, 323,074 for Mike Huckabee, and 48,742 voted (for some reason) for Ron Paul. The total GOP vote was 1,004,391, less than half of the Democratic vote. Way less than half.

Now, this is significant because in 2000 (the last year there was a primary without an incumbent running for re-election) the Democratic vote total was 978,512. The Democratic candidates yesterday saw an increase in voters of over 110% from 2000. In 2000, the GOP vote total was 1,397,528. The Republican vote yesterday was down from 2000 by more than 390,000 votes. (Source for all 2000 data: The Federal Election Commission)

Even John McCain's vote total was down: in 2000, he garnered 516,790 votes, roughly 190,000 votes more than he received yesterday.

In Rhode Island yesterday, Clinton received 106,471 votes to Obama's 73,609, with another 1,012 uncommitted, totaling 181,092 Democratic votes. McCain got 17,342 votes, followed by Huckabee with 5,766, Paul with 1,761, and another 565 uncommitted, totaling 25,434 -- about one-seventh the Democratic vote.

In 2000, it was a lot closer. The GOP racked up more votes eight years ago -- 36,149, about 40% more than they received yesterday -- but the Democratic vote in 2000 totaled only 47,085. They increased their vote total yesterday by more than 300%.

And John McCain got about 4,000 fewer votes yesterday than he got in 2000.

In Texas last night, 1,452,776 Democrats voted for Clinton and 1,354,553 for Obama, totaling 2,807,329 Democratic votes, while 707,622 Republicans cast votes for McCain, 521,951 for Huckabee, 69,824 for Paul, and 17,611 went uncommitted, totaling 1,317,008 Republican votes, somewhat short of one-half the Democratic total.

In 2000, 786,890 voted for Democratic candidates, so last night's vote total represented an increase of more than 300% over eight years ago. In 2000, 1,126,757 Republicans voted, so they too saw an increase last night over eight years ago, but only of about 15%.

And finally in Vermont last night Obama won with 86,924 votes to Clinton's 56,456. Together, their vote total was 143,380. On the GOP side, 26,976 voted for McCain (less than a third of Obama's vote), 5,268 for Huckabee, and 2,490 for Paul, for a total of 34,734 (less than a quarter of the Democratic vote).

By the way, the twin headlines this morning from Vermont: "Obama wins with 59% of the vote" and "McCain wins with 72% of the vote." Gee. McCain did a lot better than Obama...

In 2000, by the way, the GOP kicked the Democrats' butts, receiving 81,355 votes (more than twice what they received yesterday) to the Democrats' 49,283.

The message is clear, and it becomes more clear with every primary vote: This election is the Democrats' to lose. The vast majority of the people want change. The Democratic party is energized and, frankly, the GOP is discouraged, disheartened, dis-spirited.

Now, the only question I have is this:

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT STORY BEING IGNORED BY THE "LIBERAL" MEDIA???

A Dirty Trick by the Ron Paul Campaign?

While looking at my blog traffic, I noticed that I got some hits from a website called "Know Before You Vote." It is a single page website with external links to news sites, blogs, and crap.

It purports to give an objective, side-by-side comparison of all the candidates, Republican and Democratic, running for President. It doesn't. And whether you are a Clinton supporter or a Romney supporter or an Obama supporter or a McCain supporter or an Edwards supporter or a (God forbid) Thompson supporter, you should really take a look at this and ask some questions, because there's a whole lotta mis-representin' goin' on...

For instance: In one category called, "Understands the effects of blowback," All the candidates are listed as "NO" except Paul and Obama, who are listed as "YES." As an explanation of what "blowback" is, there are two links, one to an article in an on-line magazine published by a Canadian college. The other is to an article on Military History Online, a privately-owned website. I have no problem in principle with either article. But in support of "Know Before You Vote's" accusation that John Edwards does not understand the effects of blowback is a posting from IN THE DARK from March 18 of 2007. In this posting I talked about how Edwards said that we need to fight global poverty as a means of fighting terrorism; in other words, that poverty is a (not the) root cause of terrorism. This position has been championed by Peter Munya, the US Conference of Catholilc Bishops, John Edwards, Hugo Chavez, Fernando Lugo, Desmond Tutu, Charles Dickens, Muhammed Yunus, myself, and even Pakistan dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf who have been saying that you can't win a war on terror if you don't fight a war on poverty. For the record, the late Holy Father Pope John Paul II believed this too.

The website has no identification whatsoever that ties it to either a campaign or a political action committee or a voter education organization like Project Vote Smart (a non-profit, non-partisan website that allows you to find voting records, issue positions, campaign finances, etc.). I have found that the website is registered to 1&1 Internet, Inc., at 701 Lee Road, Suite 300, in Chesterbrook, PA. I have called them and e-mailed them (click the link and you can too) to find out who the owner of this website is. So far I have not received a response.

I find it very curious and a bit disturbing. I would be interested in hearing from both Democrats and Republicans who think their candidates positions have been misrepresented on this website.

By the way: I'm sure it is pure coincidence, but Ron Paul gets all the positions listed on this website CORRECT...

The REAL New Hampshire Primary Story: A Democratic BLOWOUT!!!

282,334 votes went to Democrats, 233,380 to Republicans; a 49,000 vote plurality in a state that has traditionally been a conservative Republican stronghold.

In the 2000 New Hampshire primary, 236,802 Republican votes were cast as compared to only 147,798 Democratic votes.

Not only did the GOP lose votes overall from 2000 to 2008, the Democratic party gained 135,000 votes, nearly doubling the number of New Hampshirites who voted for a Democratic candidate eight years ago.

Look at it another way: In 2000, 384,600 citizens voted in the New Hampshire primary. In 2008, 515,714 voted. That's a gain of 131,114. And virtually all of them voted Democratic.

I'd say this is significant. Have you heard this reported in the "left-wing" media? Send this to all your friends, and let's all e-mail CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, the New York Times, Washington Post, etc., and ask why -- with all their "horse race" angles -- they've ignored this significant story.

Welcome to the New Medieval Era

The late Neil Postman, in his 1999 book, Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century, stood with us at the threshold of a new millennium and advised us what ideas and institutions that arose during the age of the Enlightenment we might want to consider taking with us into the 21st century. Not a decade later, we find ourselves approaching not a new Enlightenment, but a new medieval era.

Consider the following propositions:

• Democracy, based on the free and uninhibited flow of information, liberty of thought, and freedom of speech, is quietly being replaced by “Mediacracy,” a system whereby an elite group of people either control the media, or control enough wealth to make the media an instrument to achieve their goals. Like kings, princes, and their counselors, Presidents come and Presidents go, as do Senators, Congressional Representatives, and Governors; but the ruling Mediacracy of corporations and their stockholders remains. Without enough wealth to buy a stout bullhorn, anyone of the peasantry who clings to the notion of “freedom of speech” is just mouthing empty rhetoric.


• Information is the province of the elite, not the masses. In the middle ages, only the elite were educated to be leaders; only aristocrats and nobility were taught the classics of philosophy – Plato’s “Republic,” Aristotle’s “Poetics,” “Politics,” “Ethics,” and “de Anima,” the works of Augustine, Boethius, and Aquinas. The (narrow but constantly squeezed) “middle class” of bureaucrats and administrators were taught to read and write, but only in order to do their jobs – genuine critical thought was neither required not desired. The peasantry was entirely illiterate. What they don’t know, the elite mused, won’t hurt us.


• Warfare is rampant and irrational. Medieval wars were fought over expansion of “turf,” over control of resources, or over religious differences. There were no wars fought, like the American Revolution, like the US Civil War, like World War II, on the basis of transcendent ideas, like “liberty,” “justice,” “equality,” or “popular sovereignty.”


• One pledged one’s allegiance to no particular flag, constitution, or transcendent value, but to whoever kept you alive. In an age of constant fear and existential uncertainty, security was valued far beyond transcendent principles, because there were none. Torture and public executions were the norm (see medieval woodcut of waterboarding, above), and widely supported by the people. Who cares about the essential liberty of the human person when you fear for your life?


• Armies belonged not to nations, but to aristocracies. There were no constitutions that demanded civilian control that was ultimately answerable to THE PEOPLE. No soldiers held allegiance to a nation or idea; all instead swore fealty to their overlord. That is to say, they were essentially “independent contractors.”


• The nobility led lives of profligacy and hedonism, but made sure they were crowned and anointed by the Church. They thwarted true spirituality at every turn for the benefit of military and political advantage and, to be fair, the Church played along with the game in order to keep the protection of the sovereign.


• Science floundered. The world was flat.
  

We seem, in the last seven years, to have built a bridge to neither the 21st nor the 18th centuries, but to the twelfth.

Taking Some Time Off...

I look at my numbers every night and I see that there are still a thousand people reading IN THE DARK every month, even though I've not been keeping up with the blog much this summer.

It's been a very busy summer, what with the McLuhan Award, my step-son's wedding, and all, and now I'm back to teaching in the second summer session at Roosevelt University. I am also working on my second book, a book I've been working on since about 1999, tentatively called "The Metaphysics of Media." I hope to finish it this year, perhaps before Christmas. I realized that, in order to do so, I have to cut back on my blogging. Believe it or not, since I began this blog in November of 2004, I have posted the equivalent of a 1,500 page book (don't believe me? Go through the archives and look).

I'll still be posting from time to time, when the spirit of a story really moves me, and I suppose I'll have to blog regularly when I teach my RU course, "The Alternative Media."

But, please, dear reader, don't forget about me; I'll be back from time to time, and it is my full and complete intention to blog regularly once again when this second book is finished and accepted by a publisher (by the way, any publishers out there that would like to read a manuscript written by a writer whose first book won the Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology, please contact me).

To all,

Peace,

Peter

PS: my e-mail address is pfallon@roosevelt.edu. Drop me a line -- I'd love to hear from you.

Venezuela : Extradite Terrorist Posada to the OAS

An update on the "New Axis of Evil"^TM

Well, as you are probably aware, a Federal Court released terror mastermind Luis Posada Carilles on bail this month pending his trial on illegally entering the country. I'm sure you've been following the story closely in the mainstream media, right? Astounding.

President Bush in a speech to the United Nations some months after the US invasion of Iraq (9/23/03), reminded nations of their responsibilities in bringing terrorists to justice. To shirk those responsibilities in a post-9/11 world, he said, was tantamount to aiding and abetting terrorism.

All governments that support terror are complicit in a war against civilization.

Well, Venezuela says they are serious about those obligations, and since the US won't extradite Posada to either Venezuela or Cuba (ironically because the Bush adminitrsation says the 79 year old may be tortured), then extradite him to the Organization of Amercan States, all of whom have made committments to cooperate with the United States to fight terror.

Fulfillment of the commitments made by the states concerning anti-terrorist efforts, including trial or, as appropriate, extradition of the masterminds of terrorist acts, is an ethical duty and a golden rule in hemispheric cooperation.

Unfortunately, Bush can ignore this suggestion and there will be no public outcry, because the "liberal" media are doing their best to ignore this entire story. But whenever he holds up a picture of some other terror mastermind, the "left-wing" media will be all over it.

Do justice a favor: write a letter to the editor of your local paper and urge them to follow this story and to report on it regularly. Don't let America remain IN THE DARK.

Al Gore : Media Ecologist

This comes from former Vice President Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason, excerpted in this week's TIME magazine. I post these excerpts here for a number of reasons: 1] it is inherently newsworthy; 2] it makes use -- deliberately or not -- of principles of the field of Media Ecology (and I have reason to believe that this use was deliberate); 3] he makes many of the same points as I do here in this blog, noting that people of good will will "do the right thing" when they are in possession of good information; and 4] Gore demonstrates once again that he is, beyond question, one of the most intelligent people in the public sphere today. The man ought to be president!!!

He begins by lamenting the nature of politics in the post-modern United States (all emphases throughout these excerpts are mine):

..."Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?" The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary, seems to many Americans to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable....

American democracy is now in danger—not from any one set of ideas, but from unprecedented changes in the environment within which ideas either live and spread, or wither and die. I do not mean the physical environment; I mean what is called the public sphere, or the marketplace of ideas....

While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories (O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, Laci Peterson, Robert Blake, Paris Hilton, etc.), our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that the choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake. Yet, incredibly, all of the evidence and arguments necessary to have made the right decision were available at the time and in hindsight are glaringly obvious....

Gore comes perilously close to writing the book I've been writing for the last several years, and it is certainly on my reading list. I look forward to its publication, even if (or, perhaps, especially if) it replicates my own ideas. His book will certainly get a far wider reading than anything I might ever write could, and his message (and mine) is too important to be left IN THE DARK.

Our Founders' faith in the viability of representative democracy rested on their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry, their ingenious design for checks and balances, and their belief that the rule of reason is the natural sovereign of a free people. The Founders took great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of ideas so that knowledge could flow freely. Thus they not only protected freedom of assembly, they made a special point—in the First Amendment—of protecting the freedom of the printing press. And yet today, almost 45 years have passed since the majority of Americans received their news and information from the printed word. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers. Reading itself is in decline. The Republic of Letters has been invaded and occupied by the empire of television....

Gore makes it pretty clear that not only is he familiar with the works of Neil Postman, founder of the NYU's Media Ecology program, but he is also familiar with the principles regarding the operation of media and their consequences for the user:

In the world of television, the massive flows of information are largely in only one direction, which makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation. Individuals receive, but they cannot send. They hear, but they do not speak. The "well-informed citizenry" is in danger of becoming the "well-amused audience." Moreover, the high capital investment required for the ownership and operation of a television station and the centralized nature of broadcast, cable and satellite networks have led to the increasing concentration of ownership by an ever smaller number of larger corporations that now effectively control the majority of television programming in America.

In practice, what television's dominance has come to mean is that the inherent value of political propositions put forward by candidates is now largely irrelevant compared with the image-based ad campaigns they use to shape the perceptions of voters....

As a result, our democracy is in danger of being hollowed out. In order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum. We must create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future. We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth. Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the rule of reason....

Gore then invokes the name of one of the founding fathers -- certainly the best known of the founding fathers -- of the entire field of media studies:

To understand the final reason why the news marketplace of ideas dominated by television is so different from the one that emerged in the world dominated by the printing press, it is important to distinguish the quality of vividness experienced by television viewers from the "vividness" experienced by readers. Marshall McLuhan's description of television as a "cool" medium—as opposed to the "hot" medium of print—was hard for me to understand when I read it 40 years ago, because the source of "heat" in his metaphor is the mental work required in the alchemy of reading. But McLuhan was almost alone in recognizing that the passivity associated with watching television is at the expense of activity in parts of the brain associated with abstract thought, logic, and the reasoning process. Any new dominant communications medium leads to a new information ecology in society that inevitably changes the way ideas, feelings, wealth, power and influence are distributed and the way collective decisions are made....

Or, as McLuhan put it, "the medium is the message." And the consequences (the "message") of the social change brought about by television on a democratic polity have been dire:

Many young Americans now seem to feel that the jury is out on whether American democracy actually works or not. We have created a wealthy society with tens of millions of talented, resourceful individuals who play virtually no role whatsoever as citizens.

I would go a step further here and suggest that one of the consequences of the commoditization of information and the increasing commercialization of what is actually and ought to be seen as the uniquely human activity -- communication -- is that we have ceased to even see ourselves as citizens. We are now nothing more than consumers -- consumers not in a marketplace of ideas, but of impressions.

Bringing these people in—with their networks of influence, their knowledge, and their resources—is the key to creating the capacity for shared intelligence that we need to solve our problems....

Fortunately, the Internet has the potential to revitalize the role played by the people in our constitutional framework. It has extremely low entry barriers for individuals. It is the most interactive medium in history and the one with the greatest potential for connecting individuals to one another and to a universe of knowledge. It's a platform for pursuing the truth, and the decentralized creation and distribution of ideas, in the same way that markets are a decentralized mechanism for the creation and distribution of goods and services. It's a platform, in other words, for reason....

The democratization of knowledge by the print medium brought the Enlightenment. Now, broadband interconnection is supporting decentralized processes that reinvigorate democracy. We can see it happening before our eyes: As a society, we are getting smarter. Networked democracy is taking hold. You can feel it. We the people—as Lincoln put it, "even we here"—are collectively still the key to the survival of America's democracy.

Why isn't this man President?

The next time you hear someone taking a shot at Gore because he is "wooden," or "stiff," or "boring," the next time you hear them parroting claims that are just not true, but have been repeated so many times -- on television -- that lazy-minded people believe them, rest assured in the knowledge that you are dealing with one of those very same lazy-minded people -- TV people. And then learn about your world, and vote for candidates that will make it better.

Democracy pointless? Only if you believe it to be.

DRAFT GORE FOR 2008!!!