lies romney told me

in one of my classes, the students consider the leadership of kings, specifically king david from the bible and some of his failings.  in it all, there is a question about moral failings of leaders, and the unwillingness to admit fault.  in the context, students frequently make connection to bill clinton, and his lying about the lewinski scandal.  fair point.  some will throw out nixon & watergate.  okay.  a rare few will throw out jfk and the alleged affairs he had.  i'm sure they could go on further, mainly because our leaders continue to demonstrate the ability to screw up.

this brings us to this week and some of the political situation our world is in.  let's look @ facts:

• a strange film promo pops up online, and it's some sort of film that defames islam.  at the time, no one really knows who made this low budget film.
• people in the islamic world react with displeasure to the promo, speaking out against it
• the u.s. embassy in cairo tweeted that it was displeased with the film, that the u.s. was against mocking anyone's religion, and so on.  their tweets, although not the official u.s. government response, were almost identical to the statements released by the bush administration when muslims were upset by a cartoon in a dutch paper.  yep, very similar statement, but not the official u.s. response.  as it should be noted, this statement was made on twitter, before any protests in cairo or libya.  the embassy later deleted these tweets.
• protests began in several countries.
• the  u.s. embassy in libya was attacked.  many credible sources say that this was a preplanned attack.  the snafu over the movie trailer was used as cover for the attack.  it had nothing to do with film, or the tweets, or really the muslim protests over insults to their religion.  the attacks resulted in the deaths of several u.s. citizens at the embassy, including an ambassador.

that's the timeline.  it's clear, it's verifiable.  but, willard romney and his campaign are going to ignore that.  romney's campaign claimed that the obama administration was apologizing for the film, apologizing after the attack, and that obama's foreign policy was weak.  willard romney is willfully ignoring the fact that it wasn't any official statement by the administration.  nope, the official words from the president's office completely condemned the attacks, the loss of life.  when this has been pointed out to willard romney, he refuses to accept it.  he maintains his stance.  he stubbornly refuses, almost childishly, digging in his heels about what he sees as obama's foreign policy, which he clearly is wrong about.  he says that the president shouldn't apologize ever for america.  well, he didn't here.  but, i disagree with that statement anyway.  if our country does something wrong, we should admit it.  in fact, i have no problem with the fact that our president has apologized for the actions of the u.s. gov't in central america during the 40's and 50's.  now, we haven't admitted or apologized for everything we did, but last year we did admit that we did medical experiments on people.  it was unethical, although not illegal.  so, we apologized for our participation.  but, in the situations of this week, no apologies were issued, or needed.

all willard romney needs to do is admit that they were wrong.  they were misinformed about the timeline of events, and that under their initial understanding of the situation, it looked different.  upon being given the correct order of events, the full situation, they have a better understanding, and respond appropriately.  nope, not going to do it.  days later, with tons of time, with a political isht-storm swirling about, willard romney continues to stand his ground.  he is defiant in his interviews about it.

frankly, i'm mystified.  willard as seen as strong, full of resolve in the situation.  he's sticking to his guns.  well, he's also wrong.  who would celebrate his stick-to-itedness when you're completely wrong about a situation?  i guess it's one of those things that you never want to let facts get in the way of a good argument.

2011 white house correspondents' dinner

i remember a few years back when colbert killed it at the white house correspondents' dinner, and this year seth meyers got the call. enjoy.



"john hamm is exactly how every republican thinks they look."

and the president's response

buck farack bumper sticker

so, i've seen this truck twice in the last few weeks. the first time it was getting on the freeway near my neighborhood. the second time it was on shaw, where fresno & clovis meet up.



i know bumper sticker politics are overly simplistic, and it goes both ways, but these just really seem to bother me. the buck farack one just seems so disrespectful. again, i know it goes both ways and that there were disrespectful ones about bush. probably even eff bush ones.

are we able to rise above the lowest common denominator out there? i mean, i'm sure (i'm assuming) the guy driving this truck felt that everyone should respect the commander in chief when it was the last guy, and yet there is no respect being given for the new commander in chief. btw, i took this photo a day before inauguration. and when i'd seen the truck before it was a couple of weeks. i imagine that the stickers may have even been on before the election or shortly after it. i doubt there was even a thought to respect the new president. to give him a chance.

facist horizon?

"Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled."

wow.

"I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US."

okay, let's look and consider. this author suggests there are 10 steps towards facism
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
well, okay. done.
2. Create a gulag
yep. we have gitmo. and then we found out about the real hidden cia prisons in poland and whatnot.
3. Develop a thug caste
the author here points to the mercenaries, err "contractors" we use in iraq as well as "groups of angry young Republican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers, menaced poll workers counting the votes in Florida in 2000." i'm not as convinced that these two groups equate w/the blackshirts in facist italy or the brownshirts in germany. but, i do think that we are employing mercenaries of companies like blackwater. and, i strongly oppose the idea that they should be immune from prosecution should they do illegal & immoral things (which bush has proposed).
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
well, the gov't says they're only listening to you if you're talking to terrorists. so, we know they're listening. but we don't really know how much.
5. Harass citizens' groups
yep. peace fresno gained some national attention when it was discovered that they had been infiltrated by the local police.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
i remember reading stories about "arabs" being detained after 9/11. the author points to the "no fly" lists, something i don't immediately associate w/detaining. but, i do think you're often being arbitrarily denied or at least harassed.
7. Target key individuals
there's been pressure here. the author also links the recent lawyer firings to this. i'm not so sure that it's the same.
8. Control the press
well, this is happening @ least in parts. one example is the pentagon denying the right to show photos of coffins returning from iraq. there's a journalist in sf in jail for refusing to turn over video of an antiwar demonstration.
9. Dissent equals treason
how cow. i've heard this tons of time. i've had it said to me (although not using them thar fancy words.) i've had students tell me this and they can't see any possible way why it wouldn't be true. the author points out another aspect that continues to frighten me, "when Congress wrongly, foolishly, passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 - the president has the power to call any US citizen an "enemy combatant". He has the power to define what "enemy combatant" means. The president can also delegate to anyone he chooses in the executive branch the right to define "enemy combatant" any way he or she wants and then seize Americans accordingly."
10. Suspend the rule of law
"the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any 'other condition'." this is a change in policy, and some say it even violates the constitution.

so, by just looking @ this article, the author, in my opinion, had pretty good footing for 8 of the 10. and the shaky 2 aren't that far off. the author continues by saying,
"Of course, the United States is not vulnerable to the violent, total closing-down of the system that followed Mussolini's march on Rome or Hitler's roundup of political prisoners. Our democratic habits are too resilient, and our military and judiciary too independent, for any kind of scenario like that.

Rather, as other critics are noting, our experiment in democracy could be closed down by a process of erosion."

see, i'm not all that convinced that it couldn't also happen the first way. it's definitely happening the latter way already, but i don't think that means the former won't as well.