Sitting facing each other in an auditorium filled with nearly 1,000 cheering people at a CNBC-sponsored event at Columbia University in New York, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Microsoft founder Bill Gates fielded questions from Columbia Business School students on the recession, investing and what’s the next Microsoft.

And you know how late-imperial ruling classes get decrepit, and become unable to acknowledge, let alone redress, their objective problems? Here are your top two “free market” geniuses’ remarks on where they see us standing in history:

Buffett: “The financial panic is behind us…. I did not worry about the overall survival of our economy.”

Gates: “We proved that we can make mistakes. But the fundamentals of the system, a marketplace-driven system where we invest in education and a great infrastructure for the long-term, that’s continued…. Capitalism is great.”

See? This has been merely a “financial panic,” not a huge recession, not a normal and predictable result of the radical mal-distribution of wealth under corporate capitalism, not the onset of Great Depression III, not a harbinger of Peak Everything, not a wake-up call in a make-it-or-break-it century.

Yes, mistakes were made, even though nobody expects a capitalist ever to make one, do they?

Take it from Bill and Warren: The future looks bright for this great system of ever-expanding resource consumption and behavioral manipulation!

It wasn’t unusual that he mixed a few facts with opinion and outright lies in his three-hour daily show. Fact checking for the man who calls himself “America’s Truth Detector” is as rare as union organizers working for Walmart.

What is unusual is that Rush Limbaugh, whose web site shows a picture of him carrying a large gold-fringed American flag on a six-foot staff, spoke out against the Constitution of the United States.

Because logic and reason avoids his black-clad bouncy body, he may not have even known he was attacking the history of the United States and its Constitution. But on this Friday the 13th, the forces of evil spewed forth from his unfettered microphone mouth.

The United States had announced it was removing five persons accused of plotting the 9/11 terror from Guantanamo Bay and putting them into the federal judiciary system. Attorney General Eric Holder, at a press conference in Washington, D.C., had announced, “After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice. … I am confident in the ability of our courts to provide these defendants a fair trial just as they have for over 200 years [before] an impartial jury under long established rules and procedures.” He announced that the Department of Justice would “prosecute these cases vigorously,” and would seek the death penalty in each case. President Obama had said earlier that day he was “absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheik Mohammad [the alleged mastermind behind 9/11, and the other defendants] will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people insist on it, my administration will insist on it.”

Limbaugh called the decision a “disgusting travesty perpetuated here by Barack Obama.” That was just the beginning of his rant. Over the next few minutes, Limbaugh said the decision to bring terrorists to trial was solely “to satisfy the rabid, radical, far left that hates this country; that hates George W. Bush; that hates the U.S. military.”

Limbaugh opposed the use of lawyers; several times he branded them as leftist and Marxist, disregarding the reality that membership in the American Bar Association skews to the right. Although he came from a family of lawyers, he disregarded Constitutional guarantees that require even the most heinous of criminals to be assured their rights, including the right to be represented by an attorney. While erroneously claiming that terrorists have no rights, Limbaugh also objected to providing the defendants “fairness,” because in what he called the “new America,” fairness is something created by “a bunch of radical leftists.” He claimed that the defendants didn’t even deserve lawyers because, in the world of Rush Fairytale Logic, the lawyers would use the courts to attack the United States.

He attacked the federal judiciary, claiming, “There are a bunch of radical leftists on our federal bench,” all of whom apparently, if you believed the Mouth That Roared, are governed by such mundane and useless rules like—well—the Constitution of the United States. What Limbaugh didn’t say, possibly because the facts didn’t agree with his own distorted version of reality, is that there are more conservative judges than liberal judges in the federal judiciary. About one-third of all federal judges were appointed by George W. Bush, with a majority of all judges appointed by Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes. Limbaugh, in his deliberate distortion of facts also didn’t point out that 62 percent of all appeals court judges were appointed by Republican presidents, and that conservatives are the majority on 10 of the 13 appeals courts. He also failed to point out that six of the nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican presidents. The Republican-dominated federal courts have cut down several unconstitutional provisions of the PATRIOT Act; the Republican-dominated Supreme Court has twice rebuked the Bush–Cheney Administration for procedures that are blatantly unconstitutional. In one major decision, conservative Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, speaking for the majority, ruled, “Any process in which the Executive’s factual assertions go wholly unchallenged or are simply presumed correct without any opportunity for the alleged combatant to demonstrate otherwise falls constitutionally short … [T]he constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties … remain vibrant even in times of security concerns.”

Like most conservative radio hosts and their teabag party followers, Limbaugh several times had blasted the Department of Justice for even thinking about bringing the terrorists onto the mainland, claiming the men were so evil that they would endanger all Americans. Unsaid by the talking mouths and empty heads was that the Department of Justice successfully prosecuted numerous gangsters, serial killers, and terrorists, and then successfully imprisoned them without danger to civilians.

For emphasis about how he thought a trial for the 9/11 terrorists would be unfair, Limbaugh threw veiled anti-Semitic attacks upon a possible jury pool. “Before it’s all said and done you’re going to find some whack nut jobs on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that are going to be on this jury,” said Limbaugh. The Upper West Side is largely identified as a community that was settled by refugee Jews, and which still has a significant percent of Jews.

Several times, Limbaugh stated that since the defendants had already “confessed,” the need for a trial was not necessary, and would only embarrass the U.S., placating those “leftists,” and exposing the entirety of the American intelligence community. This, said Limbaugh, is the “hidden agenda” of the Obama Administration. “They want the United States on trial,” Limbaugh cried out. Disregarding the absurdity of his own remarks, Limbaugh never acknowledged that the “confessions” were made only after severe torture. Bringing criminals, who have been subject to torture, to trial, who have confessed, said Limbaugh “is yet another internal assault on the fabric, the traditions, the institutions that have made this country great,” he told his equally rabid listeners.

Having attacked the President, the Attorney General, lawyers, judges, the Department of Justice, and Jews, Limbaugh put Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) into his cross-hairs. Sestak, said Limbaugh, is “a dangerous left-wing radical ideologue.” What drew Limbaugh’s rage was that Sestak not only supported the prosecution of the 9/11 terrorists in federal court, but that on Fox News, he argued that “Most studies have shown that [torture] does not give you evidence as readily or as credible as other means.” Persons who are tortured, said Sestak, raising concerns about the legitimacy of the terrorists’ “confessions,” will often confess to anything in order to stop the torture.

What Limbaugh didn’t tell his audience was that Sestak was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, a retired vice-admiral who had led a carrier battle group, and was the first director of the Navy’s anti-terrorism unit after 9/11. Sestak’s views are the same as John McCain’s, also a Naval Academy graduate who had led an air squadron. Listeners could now choose between two war heroes, one of whom had suffered torture as a prisoner of war, and a college drop-out who, said his mother, flunked almost all of his classes in his only year in college, was declared 4-F in the draft, and now hails on 600 radio stations as the mouthpiece for the right-wing fringe.

“We are in the process of destroying American ideals; we are in the process of subordinating America’s greatness, America’s exceptionalism,” Rush Limbaugh wailed.

The reality is that flag-waving fact-impaired Rush Limbaugh has no idea what American ideals are, nor does he have respect for the legal history of the United States or the power of the Constitution.

That’s the startling finding of a new study — Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults –- that appears in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The 44,000 dead a year estimate is about two-and-a-half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine in 2002.

The Harvard-based researchers found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

“The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors and baseline health,” said lead author Dr. Andrew Wilper. “We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes and heart disease — but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications.”

“Historically, every other developed nation has achieved universal health care through some form of nonprofit national health insurance,” said study co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard and a primary care physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Our failure to do so means that all Americans pay higher health care costs, and 45,000 pay with their lives.”

“Even the most liberal version of the House bill would leave 17 million people uninsured,” Woolhandler said. “The whittled down version that Senator Max Baucus is proposing would leave 25 million uninsured. That translates into about 25,000 deaths annually from lack of health insurance. Absent the $400 billion in savings you could get from a single payer system, universal coverage is unaffordable. Politicians in Washington are protecting insurance industry profits while sacrificing American lives.”

The study, which analyzed data from national surveys carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), assessed death rates after taking education, income and many other factors including smoking, drinking and obesity into account.

It estimated that lack of health insurance causes 44,789 excess deaths annually.

Previous estimates from the Institute of Medicine and others had put that figure near 18,000.

The methods used in the Harvard were similar to those employed by the Institute of Medicine in 2002, which in turn were based on a pioneering 1993 study of health insurance and mortality.

Deaths associated with lack of health insurance now exceed those caused by many common killers such as kidney disease.

An increase in the number of uninsured and an eroding medical safety net for the disadvantaged likely explain the substantial increase in the number of deaths associated with lack of insurance.

The uninsured are more likely to go without needed care.

Another factor contributing to the widening gap in the risk of death between those who have insurance and those who don’t is the improved quality of care for those who can get it.

The research, carried out at the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, analyzed U.S. adults under age 65 who participated in the annual National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) between 1986 and 1994.

Respondents first answered detailed questions about their socioeconomic status and health and were then examined by physicians.

The CDC tracked study participants to see who died by 2000.

The study found a 40 percent increased risk of death among the uninsured. As expected, death rates were also higher for males (37 percent increase), current or former smokers (102 percent and 42 percent increases), people who said that their health was fair or poor (126 percent increase), and those that examining physicians said were in fair or poor health (222 percent increase).

“The Institute of Medicine, using older studies, estimated that one American dies every 30 minutes from lack of health insurance,” said study co-author Dr. David Himmelstein. “Even this grim figure is an underestimate – now one dies every 12 minutes.”

The authors broke down the 44,840 deaths by state.

California leads the nation with 5,302 deaths due to lack of health insurance per year.

Texas follows closely behind with 4,675 deaths due to lack of health insurance per year.

Texas also had the highest rate (in 2005) of uninsured citizens — 29.7 percent.

– calling Barack Obama a “racist (who) has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture; I don’t know what it is….This guy is, I believe, a racist;”

– calling Van Jones “an avowed, radical, revolutionary communist,” then saying “Jones is the tip of the iceberg” as part of his over-the-top campaign against anyone less extremist than himself;

– stating “The most used phrase in my administration if I were to be President would be ‘What the hell do you mean we’re out of missiles;’ ”

– saying “We need to be the first ones in the recruitment office lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head…. In 10 years, Muslims and Arabs will be looking through a razor wire fence at the West;”

– telling Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison to “prove to me that you are not working with our enemies;”

– advocating disposing of Guantanamo detainees by shooting them in the head;

– accusing Al Gore of creating a new “Hitler youth” by promoting environmental awareness, and called for kicking California out of the union;

– in 2003, telling listeners he was praying for a gruesome death for Democrat presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, and in 2005 saying he fantasized about strangling filmmaker Michael Moore;

– characterizing Obama’s new regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, as a crazed animal rights activist who believes that rats matter more than people; and

– in September 2005, expressing open “hate” toward Katrina victims, calling them “scumbags” for not waiting patiently for emergency aid at a time their lives were devastated, and the Bush administration was forcibly removing them to distant locations, then preventing them from returning so predatory developers could exploit their neighborhoods for profit.

In May 2008, a Media Matters Action Network report titled, “Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News” highlighted undocumented Latino immigrant hatemongering by Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, and Glenn Beck, each making outlandish claims, including:

• an alleged connection between undocumented Latinos and crime;
• how they exploit social services and don’t pay taxes;
• the “reconquista” myth about a supposed Mexican plot to take over the US Southwest; and
• an epidemic of Latino voter fraud.

According to Beck, “It’s time to wake up in this country. We are dealing with an illegal alien (read Latino) crime wave, and drug smuggling is just the beginning.” He opened a special 2008 “Border Crisis” program saying: “America’s border crisis. Rape, drugs, kidnapping, even murder. It is beginning to look a lot more like a border war…. Every single illegal immigrant is guilty of a crime, every single one…. Every undocumented worker (read Latino) is an illegal immigrant, a criminal and a drain on our dwindling resources.”

He added:

– “I’ve got a quick message for illegal aliens if you happen to be watching; you better start packing your bags; and to the politicians in Washington who are soft on illegal immigration, start packing up your office, because when the terrorists strike, which they will, and when we find out that they’re here illegally from some other country, we will be telling all of you to get the hell out;”

– earlier he said “I told you about the five-part plan that I believe may lead to the end of the West as we know it; I called it my ‘Perfect Storm;’ one of the elements….is illegal immigration; it is still a great way for terrorists to come here and mess with us; but even if that doesn’t happen….at the very least (they’re) attacking our culture, and our way of life; they are not melting into our melting pot; they’re here for the cash;” and

– “I also know our country is on fire, and the fuel is illegal immigration; they (threaten) our national security;” they come for “three reasons: one, they’re terrorists; two, they’re escaping the law; or three, they’re hungry (because) they can’t make a living in their own dirtbag country.”

This is what passes for American mainstream “journalism” that’s in no worse form than from Glenn Beck – on Fox News, the radio outlets that give him a platform, and the sponsors that make his kind of programming possible. More on them below.

Joe McCarthy’s Earlier Jihad Against the Left

In the 1950s, Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunts against alleged communists, those on the left, and Democrat administration and other “subversives” included Secretary of State Dean Acheson whom he called “a pompous diplomat in striped pants,” General George Marshall when he was Secretary of State for being “soft on communism” and being “a man steeped in falsehood,” and many others on his so-called “blacklist.”

In 1950, with no proof, he said he had a list of 205 known communists in the State Department, later reduced the number to 57, but said they were passing secret information to the Soviets. He claimed:

The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because the enemy has sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer — the finest homes, the finest college educations, and the finest jobs in Government (and the private sector) we can give.

He characterized enemies as “card-carrying communists.” Others as “loyalty risks” or being “soft on communism.” For political gain, he vilified patriotic Americans, created years of hysteria, targeted anti-American books in libraries and got them removed, then overstepped enough to be hung on his own petard with publications like the Louisville Courier-Journal reporting that:

“In this long, degrading travesty of the democratic process, McCarthy has shown himself to be evil and unmatched in malice.” On December 2, 1954 the Senate censured him and took away his power base. Later ill with cirrhosis of the liver from years of abusive alcoholism, he died a broken man on May 2, 1957.

Today, the term “McCarthyism” is synonymous with baseless malicious slander, unscrupulous fear-mongering, vilifying the innocent, accusing them of disloyalty, and calling them terrorists, Islamofascists, illegal immigrants, and unpatriotic for supporting progressive change and ideas to the left of right wing views.

McCarthysim Redux Through the Right Wing Media

Nightly on Fox News, Glenn Beck delivers some of the worst of it to his estimated 2.3 million faithful and millions more on The Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show aired by Premiere Radio Networks (a Clear Channel Communications subsidiary) throughout the country on over 300 stations, according to a Premiere Speakers Bureau promo about him stating that his program “is presently the third highest-rated national radio talk show among adults ages 25-54.”

It said that he debuted on CNN’s Headline News in May 2006 “with his self-styled topical talk show and quickly soared in popularity.” CNN at the time called it “an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring (Beck’s) often amusing perspective on the top stories from world events and politics to pop culture and everyday hassles.”

In early January 2007, he also joined ABC News’ Good Morning America as a regular contributor with its senior executive producer, Jim Murphy, saying:

“Glenn is a leading commentator with a distinct voice. At times, he is the perfect guest for many of the talk topics we cover on morning news programs.”

In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year from the National Association of Broadcasters. Previous winners included Rush Limbaugh and Fox News’ Sean Hannity. After his award, Premiere Radio Networks president, Charlie Rahilly, said:

“Glenn’s conversation with millions of Americans weekly on The Glenn Beck Program….makes him a familiar voice in our culture. We salute his work, creativity, and humor, and congratulate him on his genuine recognition by our industry.”

He regularly features guests like Karl Rove, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Rick Santorum, Rush Limbaugh, and an array of the most extremist Republican members of Congress, others from right wing think tanks, and former Bush administration officials.

His syndicator, Premiere Radio, is a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, the world’s largest radio broadcaster, concert promoter, and billboard advertising firm. It’s also a major player in US television and Spanish language broadcasting, and very much to the right of center in ideology. As one of America’s most powerful media companies, it’s played a leading role in destroying media diversity by airing the same content on many dozens of its stations simultaneously, suppressing everything not supportive of its views.

In 2002, Clear Channel attracted the attention of Senator Russ Feingold and several other members of Congress over its anti-competitive behavior and alleged shady business practices. In 2009, the company remains a powerful force, ranking ninth among the top 20 US media companies ahead of The New York Times Co., the Washington Post Co., Hearst Corp., and McGraw-Hill.

More on Beck’s Background

He’s written three New York Times-listed bestsellers, publishes the entertainment Fusion Magazine, and tours the country twice yearly in his own one-man show to promote himself as a national institution.

Instead of condemning his extremism, on December 4, 2006, the New York Times described him as a “tearful rising star” in calling him “brash (and) opinionated (with an) unfiltered approach (in) saying what others are feeling but are afraid to say.” Writers Brian Stelter and Bill Carter said he “has a gift for touching the passion nerve (by) tapping into fear about the future.”

They quoted Old Dominion University’s Jeffrey Jones saying Beck engages in “inciting rhetoric. People hear their values are under attack and they get worried. It becomes an opportunity for them to stand up and do something” without realizing how destructive Beck’s extremism is to their own well-being. Even Beck once said about himself: “I say on the air all the time, if you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot.”

His Premiere’s Speakers Bureau bio says he debuted in radio at age 13 in Seattle, and grew up in nearby Mount Vernon. After high school, he got jobs “as a Top 40 DJ” in Baltimore, Houston, and New Haven, CT.

It also explained that at age 30, he became consumed by alcoholism and drug addiction, then regained sobriety and “found a new direction.” He remarried, became a baptized Mormon, and decided to pursue talk radio after being offered his own show on Tampa, Florida station WFLA-AM. In his first year, it became number-one rated, and within 18 months, Premiere Radio Networks offered him national syndication.

In January 2002, the Glenn Beck Program debuted on 47 stations. Today, he’s on over 300 as well as XM satellite radio.

LDS Living Magazine (for Latter Day Saint Mormon families) provides more details about Beck’s background. It said he was fired from his first three radio jobs in Washington State. Six months later, he returned on WPGC in Washington, DC. Was again fired. Then he became program director and “morning guy” on a small Corpus Christi, TX station. After two years of “moving around from city to city, he ended up in Baltimore.” He also worked at WRKA in Louisville, KY and WKCI-FM in Hamden, CT.

Three days after converting to Mormonism, he was offered his first radio talk show in Tampa. It propelled him to national prominence and his current positions at Fox News, his syndicated radio program (first from Philadelphia in January 2002, now in New York), and as a hot topic on other programs, including MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann’s war of words with Beck.

He posted a September 6 request on The Daily Kos to “Send Me Everything You Can Find About Glenn Beck.” He added that he’ll “expand this to the television audience and have a dedicated email address to accept leads, tips, contacts, on Beck, his radio producer Burguiere, and the chief of his tv enables, Ailes (head of Fox News)….”

It may simply be a PR stunt to boost ratings and get added revenue for General Electric, MSNBC’s owner, that certainly can stop this if it wishes.

Sponsors Bailing Out on Beck

To date, over five dozen decided they’ll no longer be associated with his kind of antics, fearing, of course, it may harm their image and hurt sales and profits.

In 2005, Van Jones (now inactive) and James Rucker co-founded ColorOfChange.org “to strengthen Black America’s political voice” toward the goal of making “government more responsive to the concerns of Black Americans and to bring about positive political and social change for everyone.”

In the wake of Beck calling Obama a “racist” and attacking Van Jones, it sent a letter to his sponsors urging them to boycott “the kinds of views and tactics” he espouses and cease all advertising on his program.

FoxNewsBoycott.com joined in as part of its campaign “to help people realize that Fox News Channel and its personalities are a detriment to journalism and journalistic integrity.” It urges supporters “to boycott, not only Fox News Channel, but Fox News sponsors and companies that air Fox News in their places of business.”

To date, over 60 companies no longer advertise on Glenn Beck, including:

• AT & T
• Bank of America
• Bell & Howell
• Best Buy
• Campbell Soup
• Capital One
• Clorox
• Berkshire Hathaway’s GEICO Insurance
• General Mills
• HSBC
• Johnson & Johnson
• Kraft Foods
• Mercedes-Benz
• Procter & Gamble
• Sanofi-Aventis
• Sprint
• Travelers Insurance
• UPS
• Verizon Wireless, and
• Wal-Mart

Many others still advertise, but more keep pulling out, showing the effectiveness of the national campaign, backed by many tens of thousands of signatures from Color of Change and Fox News Boycott supporters.

The Internet’s power is real and proves when enough committed people back progressive issues, constructive change follows. If if works against Glenn Beck and Fox News, why not in a campaign to reclaim the kind of America people deserve and can have if they work hard enough for it.

If not now, when? If not us, who? If not soon, maybe never? If that’s not incentive enough, what is?

Despite assurances to the contrary in Washington and a major policy speech in London, one need not quibble with the obvious fact that the situation is deteriorating beyond repair in Afghanistan. Although international media is more concerned with what that means politically for United States President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, little attention is given to the browbeaten and war-weary people of that country.

One should know that public support for the war has greatly diminished, when conservative commentators like The Washington Post columnist George Will write: “US forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy. America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, air strikes and small, potent Special Forces units.”

Okay, so his narrative is still ultimately violent, but the fact remains that the war mood is changing. After all, Will’s September 1 article was entitled, “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.”

Dan Senor and Peter Wehner responded with a peculiar diatribe in the New York Times, accusing Will of allowing his party allegiance to influence his views on the war. The two authors, senior fellows at major US think tanks, offered a bloody rationale wrapped in deceptive wording. They argued that historically Democrats opposed Republican wars and Republicans have done the same, and that must change. It was implied that pretty much every major war in recent decades was a war that served US national security interests; therefore, “Republicans should resist the reflex that all opposition parties have, which is to oppose the stands of a president of the other party because he is a member of the other party.” In other words, yes to war, whether by Democrats or Republicans.

The intellectual wrangling, of course, is not happening in a vacuum; it almost never does. Indeed, there is much politicking going on; intense deliberation in Washington, political debates in London; defensive French statements, and more. It seems that the war in Afghanistan is reaching a decisive point, militarily in Afghanistan itself, and politically in major Western capitals.

But why the sudden hoopla over Afghanistan? For after all, the bloody war has been grinding on for eight long years.

The Taliban and various groups opposing the Kabul government and their Western benefactors are gaining ground, not just in the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. Daring Taliban attacks are now taking place in the north as well, long seen as peaceful, thus requiring little attention. On August 26, a roadside bomb hit the car of the chief of the provincial Justice Department in the northern Kunduz province, killing him, and sending shock waves through Kabul. The bloody message was meant to echo as a political one: no one is safe, nowhere is safe. Another attack was reported in the province of Laghman, in the east, where 22 people, mostly civilians were killed. Among the dead were four Afghan officials including the deputy chief of the National Directorate of Security, Abdullah Laghmani. The irony is too obvious to state.

In Washington, London and Paris politicians wish us to believe that they are not unnerved by all of this. They exaggerated the significance of the recent Afghani elections, attempting to once again underscore that the “crucial” elections placed Afghanistan on a crossroads. Crossroads? What does that even mean, in any practical terms? George Will, although selective in his logic, was honest enough to mention that President Hamid Karzai’s “vice-presidential running mate is a drug trafficker.” Even US officials admit that the government they’ve created following the war is corrupt, to say the least.

Richard Holbrooke, among other foreign envoys “responsible for Afghanistan”, told reporters in Paris on September 2 that US officials have no preference among the candidates, nor are they particularly interested in runoff elections, but they wished to see a government that appoints “more efficient, less corrupt ministers”. It behooves those “responsible for Afghanistan” to remember that inefficiency and corruption were the outcome of the very policies they have so eagerly adopted in the country. No sympathy for Karzai here, but it’s unfair to point the finger at a feeble leader whenever a Western strategy fumbles, as it has repeatedly.

Speaking of strategies, what is the plan ahead? French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner promised that foreign troops will stay put in Afghanistan unless the country’s security was ensured, reported Xinhua. In practical terms, this means never, for how could security ever visit that region as long as the strategy is hostage to two equally destructive narratives — the Senor/Wehner troop surges vs Will’s “offshore” strategy?

Hubris aside, Washington and London are facing some difficult political and military decisions ahead. Top officials in both capitals are using grim and somber language. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, responding to a call by the top US general in Afghanistan for a fresh approach to the conflict, is considering yet another troop increase as part of Obama’s new Afghan strategy.

The sense of urgency was invited by the detailed report of the newly appointed General Stanley McChrystal, who maintains that “success” was still possible, but a change of strategy is needed. The report resulted in intense deliberation in Washington, highlighted by grim press conferences involving the Pentagon’s heavyweights, including Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over what to do about “Obama’s war.”

Speaking at the Pentagon, Gates equivocated: “I don’t believe that the war is slipping through the administration’s fingers. I absolutely do not think it is time to get out of Afghanistan (but there remains) limited time for us to show that this approach is working.”

The details of the new Obama strategy are still not very clear, but the commitment to the war is still unquestionable, as expressed in a “major” September 4th speech by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. “When the security of our country is at stake we cannot walk away,” said Brown, according to the BBC.

As Brown was solemnly speaking about British security, NATO air strikes on a pair of fuel tankers killed up to 90 people, according to Afghan authorities.

Indeed, the situation in Afghanistan requires a fresh approach, although not the one George Will had in mind.

Ramparts was a unique magazine in the annals of US publishing. Flashy, irreverent and replete with quality muckraking and commentary, it represented the unaffiliated segment of the antiwar and antiracist movements of the period. Originally begun as a liberal Catholic monthly in the early 1960s, by 1966 it was well on its way to being the primary journal read by those movement’s adherents. A big reason for its popularity and journalistic success was its early editorial leadership of Edward Keating and Warren Hinckle and the dynamics between the two men. Never truly financial successful, Ramparts challenged the mainstream magazine culture of Time and Life while publishing articles quoted and referred to by establishment heavies like the New York Times.

Writer Peter Richardson, editorial director of PoliPoint Press, has recently published a history of the magazine. The only such history, A Bomb In Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America, does a worthy job of documenting the important moments in Ramparts history. He tells about its gradual shift from the liberal Catholic magazine envisioned by its founder to a radical journal championing the left wing of the antiwar movement and the Black liberation movement. Focused primarily on the years when Hinckle and Keating ran the magazine’s office, Richardson describes Hinckle’s fundraising adventures, his flamboyant and outrageous style, the editorial debates over certain stories and the effect some of those stories had on fundraising and their targets. He also discusses the reaction of the US government and its agencies to Ramparts stories like the 1967 piece on CIA funding of the National Student Association and other supposedly independent organizations. Richardson details the arrival of Eldridge Cleaver on the Ramparts staff, examines the magazine’s role in the antiwar movement and looks at its response to the growing feminist movement of the period.

Running behind Richardson’s narrative about the magazine’s editorial direction is another narrative about money. Rarely if ever showing a profit, Ramparts managed to publish for thirteen years. According to Richardson, much of this was due to Hinckle’s fundraising efforst. Also, according to Richardson, it was Hinckle who spent a good deal of the money. The magazine actually closed down for a couple months in the winter of 1968-1969. When it came back to life it was run by two new leftists who would eventually become ultra rightwingers: David Horowitz and Peter Collier. It was this incarnation of the magazine that I was most familiar with. Indeed, my subscription ran from 1970 until the magazine’s demise in 1975. Like the New Left itself, the Ramparts of this period reflected the ultra-radical sentiments of the period. It also attempted to address women’s issues in a genuinely non-sexist manner. Like the Hinckle-Keating creation, Ramparts under Horowitz and Collier continued to attract topnotch writers, despite its inability to pay well or at all.

If there is a fault with Richardson’s book, it would be his obsession with the relationship of the Black Panther Party to Ramparts. If anything, he over dramatizes the relationship while also overplaying it. One assumes that this is the result of his discussions with the aforementioned David Horowitz — neocon activist and Panther hater. This obsession tends to distract from the overall evenness of the book and lends more credibility to Horowitz than he deserves. Despite this detraction, A Bomb In Every Issue is an important addition to the history of the period known as the Sixties and a worthwhile read. It serves as a reminder of the powerful possibilities of the printed word and an inspiration to those of us who believe that journalism can be entertaining, intelligent and threaten the status quo.

There ain’t any healthcare debate going on, Bubba. What is going on are mob negotiations about insurance, and which mob gets the biggest chunk of the dough, be it our taxpayer dough or the geet that isn’t in ole Jim’s impoverished purse. The hoo-ha is about the insurance racket, not the delivery of healthcare to human beings. It’s simply another form of extorting the people regarding a fundamental need — health.

Unfortunately, the people have been mesmerized by our theater state’s purposefully distracting and dramatic media productions for so long they’ve been mutated toward helplessness. Consequently, they are incapable of asking themselves a simple question: If insurance corporation profits are one third of the cost of healthcare, and all insurance corporations do is deliver our money to healthcare providers for us (or actually, do everything in their power to keep the money for themselves), why do we need insurance companies at all? Answer: Because Wall Street gets a big piece of the action. And nobody messes with the Wall Street Mob (as the bailout extortion money proved). Better (and worse) presidents have tried. Some made a genuine effort to push it through Congress. Others expressed the desire publicly, but after getting privately muscled by the healthcare industry, decided to back off from the idea. For instance:

• Franklin Roosevelt wanted universal healthcare.
• Harry Truman wanted universal healthcare.
• Dwight Eisenhower wanted universal healthcare.
• Richard Nixon wanted universal healthcare.
• Lyndon Johnson wanted universal healthcare.
• Bill Clinton wanted — well we can’t definitely say because he made sure that if the issue blew up on him, which it did, Hillary would be left holding the turd. Is it any wonder that woman gets so snappy at the slightest provocation? First getting left to hold the bag on healthcare, then the spots on that blue dress.

So why did American liberals believe Obama would bring home the healthcare bacon? Because they live in an ideological cupcake land. It’s a big neighborhood, a very special place where “Your vote is important,” and “by electing the right candidate, you can change our beloved nation.” Most of America lives in that neighborhood, even though they’ve never personally met. It’s a place where the shrubbery and flowerbeds of such things as “values” and “hope” bloom. Hope that our desires coupled with the efforts of a good and decent president can affect “change.” Evidently these voters never heard the old adage, “Hope in one hand and piss in the other, and see which one fills up first.”

The slaughter of the innocents by the healthcare lobby has pretty much extinguished the political usefulness of the word hope. Nobody, especially Obama, uses it now.

The first on-stage scuffle of the Obama administration, government assured healthcare, quickly settled down into the accustomed scenario of very rich and powerful people in expensive suits “finding middle ground,” otherwise known as the status quo. Single payer healthcare soon became “a consumer government alternative to private insurance,” and is now “a system of health cooperatives. Next comes “slightly better health insurance (but not medical services) than before, from the same insurance companies but at twice the price; don’t worry though, we’re increasing your tax load so you can afford it.”

The televised screaming matches, having served their purpose, are over now. The presidency and the nation have settled back into the normalcy of the officially sanctioned state consciousness and its curious non-language, one modified and shaped daily by corporate and government symbiosis. Over generations we’ve come to internalize this imagistic language, which is quite theatrical when heated up for public consumption and dully bureaucratic when attention is to be avoided. But always it is void of content and any sort of truth. In the corporately managed theater state, it’s not whether a thing is true that matters, but how it sounds and looks and what you call it. Call end of life counseling a “death panel,” and you’ve just turned mercy and choice into one more Great Satan.

In the end though, healthcare American style comes down to the preferences of two elite castes, Congress and corporate powers, neither of which can exist without the other. Corporations need the government to sanction their methods of extracting wealth from the public. Congress needs corporations to finance its campaign chariot races. Right now members of Congress have an excellent chance of putting the arm on healthcare industry lobbyist for some real cash:

Senator Smedley Heathwood: “Oh, I dunno, I’m sort of liking Obama’s alternative.”

Godzilla Healthcare Inc.: “Here, take this suitcase full of gold bullion, call me if you run short. And remember, we’ve got that ‘Life is a pre-existing condition’ bill coming up in the Senate soon.”

Siamese twins, joined at the hip, they share the same goal, preservation of control — the government’s social control and the corporations’ economic control. And you cannot have one without the other.

Obama got elected on hope of reform, despite that one cannot reform a mafia, only pay increased extortion moneys. He’s fortunate that it was not a genuine demand for reform, just hope. We’re fortunate we did not demand reform because we’re not going to get it. Obama doesn’t have to reform the healthcare industry mob. All he has to do is look like he took a shot at it, and hope it’s convincing enough. What we’ve seen is probably his best shot, too. Why not? There is always the off chance it might work, in which case his “presidential legacy” would be assured. And if it doesn’t, well, the serious progressives who are screeching mad at him now will still have to vote for him as the incumbent in 2012. Or learn to love somebody like Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum (take your pick) or some as-yet-unknown the GOP drags out from under the hen house and ballyhoos as a “new face.” Luckily, Dick Cheney is out of the question, barring a coup by the far right wing of the schizophrenic GOP. But still, after Palin, one shudders at the prospects.

Whatever happens, we will not see Congress stand up against the extortion of its people by the healthcare industry. We will not see even the most ordinary kind of healthcare declared as a human right, as it is in so many other nations. We will see, however, greater access to the public treasury by the insurance corporations.

Every nation in the world is now party to at least one treaty that addresses health as a human right, including the conditions necessary for the delivery of health services. Healthcare is a right under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Hell, even Saddam Hussein provided healthcare.

That Americans cannot grasp this fundamental aspect of human rights (but then we cannot even get child nutrition, or limiting the number of times you can taser an old lady in an airport, out of the starting gate) and join the civilized world and assure its people of such things is testimony. Testimony that we live in a vacuum exclusive of the accepted standard of mercy and decency common to civilized democratic nations elsewhere. Testimony that even we the citizenry would rather maintain and spread lies than accept truths such as most people in countries with universal healthcare would not ever give it up in favor of the U.S. system.

Most of all though, it is testimony that we live under an induced mass hallucination where spectacle replaces fact, information and common sense. In place of actionable information, we are served up screaming red faces — angry mobs manufactured for TV protesting “government interference in the people’s healthcare choices.” One must wonder what inchoate anger is really being tapped by the organizers of these strange “citizen protests.” As usual, the straw boogeyman of socialism is once more invoked. “Oh my god! I’ll have to give up my $1,100 a month insurance bill, which only pays 80% of my insurance costs AFTER I pay the initial $5,000 of those costs! If that ain’t Joe Stalin all over again, I don’t know what is!” We get the false media drama of “death panels.”

And being captives of spectacle and hyperbole, we friggin love it. The idea of death panels plays to our childish attraction to the extreme and entertaining. Killing Grandma is far more entertaining to our imaginations than say, guaranteed access to chest screens and blood pressure medicine. Two generations into this national infantilization, it’s now the only national life we know — the ideological spectacle made real.

To steal a page from Guy Debord, society has become ideology. We live in an antidialectical false consciousness, imposed at every moment on everyday life as spectacle. We are held in thrall. Our faculty of ordinary encounter has been systematically broken down. In its place we now have our unique social hallucination. Never do we encounter anything directly, yet we get the illusion of encounter. This includes encounter with each other. Anyone who lives in meatspace with his or her fellow Americans could not deny 57 million of them health. In this society no one is any longer capable of recognizing anyone else. Instead, we see others as the screamers at the town hall meetings, or as communists who want to give free healthcare to illegals and establish death panels. Or as Christian fundamentalists, or as liberals or conservatives. Or as celebrities or as nobodies.

But most importantly, whenever we must reach any significant agreement as human beings, whether it be about something as globally insignificant as U.S. domestic policy (we are only 6% of the world population, and though it hasn’t soaked in yet to most Americans, we’re also broke and owe the Chinese loan shark a wad) or as significant as global warming, we immediately cede the field to ideology. We simply don’t know how to do anything else.

Ideology has utterly triumphed. It has separated us from ourselves and built itself a home inside our consciousness, from whence it operates now as our reality. There is no going back, only forward. Given that we are a nation of children who prefer to close our eyes and make a hopeful wish with Tinkerbelle, rather than give hope the piss test, then let us hope to high hell. We may as well go for broke. So let us hope that, in going forward, new and unforeseen developments in the national consciousness occur. Developments that offer an escape from this one so deeply colonized by the corpo-political machinery we created — and which in turn recreated us. One that will break us loose from enthrallment. Maybe collision with a giant asteroid. Or that Garth Brooks will be barred from making a fifth comeback tour. That’s one hope. A consciousness shattering event by American standards.

Another hope is for an absolute and total collapse of the system.

At this point, I’ll take what I can get.

In a recent interview, President Chirac recounted an experience that left him deeply troubled. Through a secret phone call, placed in early 2003, George Bush tried to explain how his plans for war were in direct correlation with biblical prophecy: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

All this, coming on the heels of new allegations that former Blackwater CEO, Erik Prince, purposefully operated his disgraced private mercenary machine as a modern-day crusade battalion against the evil forces of Islam—found dominant in the middle-eastern region. And just a few months after the release of tapes showing soldiers in Afghanistan being told to “hunt people for Jesus” and to “get them into the kingdom.”

Of course, this is hardly surprising for those who watched closely the unfolding and aftermath of the Iraq war. A great number of reasons to justify its moral imperative were put forth, but none took repugnance to a new low more than those provided by the former President, such as claims, on countless occasions, and to countless foreign leaders, that “God” was the driver of his war ship, that “God” had instructed him to “go and end the tyranny in Iraq,” that his 2003 war was, essentially, “the lord’s will.”

Many reports have also detailed private conversations Bush had with foreign Head of States about the “love” of God. And with GQ magazine’s exposé, published March this year, of the biblical quotes former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld regularly laced his top-secret memos with (“Open the Gates that the Righteous Nation May Enter,” “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him to deliver their soul from death”), the implications couldn’t be more startling.

Is it any wonder that those most eager to talk about their love for “God” are often the ones most likely to do the devil’s bidding?

Raised in a firm, Judeo-Christian home, I appreciate the roles spirituality and morality play in providing a young child with much needed structure against the many impurities this world contains; but “religion mis-overstood,” as the rap artist Nas once put it, is “poison.” And religious extremists, who’ve convinced themselves that the only true path to the afterlife is that which they’ve chosen to follow, are no less dangerous than the man who led the whole world into war based on conversations he imagined to be having with his “God.”

Conservative Christianity is chief culprit for a lot of the twisted pathologies our society partakes in today, but bigotry isn’t exclusive to the right only. Books by Sarah Posner (God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters), Bill Press (How the Republicans Stole Christmas: Why the Religious Right is Wrong about Faith & Politics and What We Can Do to Make it Right), and Frank Schaeffer (Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back) have outlined poignantly the right-wing’s co-optation of Christianity for commercial political causes, but not enough has been written on the fundamentalism of religion, and how easy it is for even the most well-meaning of liberals, leftists, or progressives to contribute to the chaotic conditions humanity remains subject to.

In 2009, no one is still left unsure whether religion, and its struggle for supremacy, has been the greatest dividing factor this world has entertained. The results—millions of lives lost (and counting)—is plenty proof. Innocent blood has been shed, and will continue to be shed, for as long as religion remains a deciding factor in the public spaces that govern our everyday concerns and careers.

My faith (small f) is private and I hope it remains that way. And though I believe I’m doing right by my maker, I’m not so arrogant as to proselytize it to everyone who comes my way. I don’t hold anyone to a lesser standard for refusing to commit to the same religion-based belief system I’ve adopted. I chose the prophetic route of theology, which puts at center the burdens of the disenfranchised above all other entities, but I’m not so quick to denounce atheists or agnostics as heathens whose special place in hell awaits them—if they don’t repent and turn from their wicked ways some time soon.

With the increase in church shootings, mosque bombings, and synagogue attacks, the need for inter-faith dialogue is more critical than it’s ever been. Pastors, Imams, Monks, Rabbis, Priests, Atheism Scholars, and all other religious/non-religious leaders must make a commitment, within the next decade, to broaden the discourse of faith, that it may include all those who find inequality distasteful enough to engage it in a way that frees the yoke of the oppressed and brings to justice the oppressors.

At the core of each credible faith is the belief that reciprocity should guide the believer’s actions, reminding him/her that no God is worthy of worship who lets injustice go unpunished or a good deed go unrewarded. For those who truly cherish life over death, peace over war, liberation over imperialism, that should be common ground we can all gather around.

The most universal of these strictures, especially among religious fundamentalist and right wing political adherents is against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LBGT) population. Gay marriage — no way. Gays rearing children — no way. Equal rights for those of a non heterosexual persuasion — special privileges, not equal rights. Anyhow, you get the picture. Homosexuals are somehow not quite human and therefore do not deserve to exercise their human rights. Meanwhile, when it comes to the liberal side of the US political spectrum one hears words in support of equal rights only to be all to often followed by a refusal to support those rights when it comes to actually passing legislation.

With the brashness of the Stonewall rioters and the insight developed through keen observation and years of activism, author Sherry Wolf explores the history and theory of sexual politics in the United States in her recently published Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics, and Theory of LBGT Liberation. Wolf begins her text with a discussion of the roots of sexual oppression. By discussing the construction of homosexuality, she addresses the complementary construction of heterosexuality and the resulting dichotomization of human sexual experience. Working from an understanding that it is capitalism that creates this dichotomy, Wolf examines the contradiction of early industrial capitalism that allowed for the autonomy of human sexual practices while demanding the stratification of those practices to make it possible for capitalism to work. Stating this theory quite succinctly — “capitalist society has transformed how people express themselves sexually yet simultaneously has aimed to restrict human sexuality as a means of social control” — Wolf begins an examination of how we arrived at the juncture we are currently at. By utilizing this contradiction, Wolf is able to turn a sharply critical eye on the successes and failures of the LBGT movement, while never forgetting that this fundamental contradiction is the genesis for a multitude of other contradictions around race and class that exist withing the LBGT and every other movement for social justice and true liberation.

An avowed socialist, Wolf does not only address the nature of sexual repression under the capitalist nations. She turns a critical eye towards those nations that called themselves socialist and breaks down the history and nature of those governments’ repression of sexuality, especially that of LBGT peoples. Noting that immediately after the Russian Revolution of October 1917 all restrictions on sexual expression were removed from the criminal code, Wolf continues her history by noting that it was the pressures of the counterrevolution and eventual leadership of Stalin that followed the heady years of the Russian Revolution that saw the rollback to traditional sexual practices being encouraged and enforced in the Soviet Union. Wolf attributes the repression of LBGT folks in Cuba and China to their essentially Stalinist nature, while noting that within the US communist movement, gays and lesbians were purged from the Communist Party, USA under similar circumstances. Despite the essentially Victorian attitudes towards sexuality in the CPUSA, the struggle against these attitudes continued inside the party and throughout the leftist movement in the US.

Because of the anti-gay sentiment prevalent in Left formations, many gays and lesbians looked elsewhere for a political understanding of their situation. Concurrently, the phenomenon of identity-based politics was gaining ground among many US activists. The essential apolitical nature of these politics was not apparent at first, yet the seed was sown. Movements supporting LBGT liberation ended up becoming focused on a single issue, and isolated from the greater political milieu. Like other left-originated movements, they found a home in academia and, instead of encouraging alliances across genders and race, they encouraged a politics of separatism and a hierarchy of victimhood. Wolf argues that although identity and queer politics did not (and can not) achieve sexual liberation, this trend in the politics of sexuality has done a lot to generate social acceptance by individuals of LBGT individuals in US society. However, they have not changed the fundamental basis of sexual oppression. Only organizing and mobilizing in the streets against sexual oppression can accomplish that.

One of the debates around homosexuality in the United States concerns whether or not biology determines one’s sexual preference. Wolf addresses this debate, pointing out its potential misuse by homophobes. If it is biologically determined, then can’t it be cured? At the same time, this argument has been used by advocates for equal rights for the LBGT population. Given the open-ended nature of this debate, Wolf presents arguments for and against, ultimately stating that it is virtually impossible to state how much of one’s sexuality is determined by biology and how much is related to other factors. She does insist, however, that it is under capitalism that the distinctions and classifications of sexuality have flourished and have been used by the ruling class to keep those they rule divided. Consequently, it is only by ending the capitalist economy that true sexual liberation can come.

Bringing the text into the heart of today’s struggle around marriage equality, Wolf addresses those critics that consider gay marriage to be a side issue. No matter what one thinks about the institution of marriage and its role in maintaining bourgeois society, she argues that it is essential leftists and progressives support the fight. In the same way that antiracists in the 1950s supported the struggle against laws forbidding interracial marriage no matter what they thought about marriage, we must support the rights of those who aren’t strictly heterosexual to marry.

Although this book looks primarily at the LBGT population, by doing so it explores the nature of all sexualities in US society, how they are influenced by that society and how their influence changes society. In addition, the growing belief that the struggle for LBGT civil rights is one of the most important struggles leftists in the 21st century should be organizing around becomes even more convincing under her tutelage. Sexuality and Socialism is the most intelligent and enlightened discussion on sexuality to come from the Left in a long time. No other work that comes to my mind explains the history of sexuality and sexual repression in the United States as comprehensively and compellingly.

The Imagined Latino Community

The media that focuses on the Latino communities in the United States has contributed to a pervasive misperception that exists about who Mexicans, Puerto Rican, Cubans, Salvadorians and other groups of Latin American descent are in the larger context of United States society. While the Anglo media has always perpetuated stereotypes about “latinos,” the “latino” media, in order to expand its markets beyond the ethnic niches of the various Latin-American origin groups, has also contributed to the idea that all Latin-American origin groups are alike. While there are many similarities among these groups there are also significant differences that are revealed in the discourse about the selection of a second generation Puerto Rican to be the first “latina” in the Supreme Court.

It is ironic that this process of racialization (erasure of the cultural and historical differences between ethnic groups) that has created a “Latino” pseudo-racial group is occurring at a time when a color-blind ideology is dominant in political, legal and pedagogical discourse in the United States. Although race is still the essential pivot around which American society is constructed and its hierarchies developed, the courts, politicians and the educational system are negating the role of race and racism in the inequalities that persist in our society. This ideology is so prevalent that it has become common sense and unexamined and is dominating our most important institutions. In the educational system, for example, Janet Schoefield, in study done in a school in 2001, revealed that white students did not know Martin Luther King was an African American. The courts have narrowed the use of race in redressing racial inequalities and politicians do not dare utter the word racism in the public sphere. Most recently, section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, while not overturned, was interpreted in a narrower, individualistic way opening the door to another possible examination by the Supreme Court in the future. Judge Sotomayor, will likely have, if approved, a crucial role in that future decision.

The recent election of President Barack Obama has led many to talk about a “post-racial” United States. Yet, the same inequalities exist, the same hate crimes exist and children of the various Latin American heritages continue attending substandard and underfinanced schools. Recently, evidence suggests we may be at the dawn of a new “post-racial” “Latino” politics emerging across the nation. Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa has increasingly distanced himself from appearing too ethnic, the California 32nd congressional district, until recently represented by progressive Hilda Solis — a majority “Latino” district — will no longer be represented by a politician of Latin American origin and in San Antonio Julian Castro became mayor following a similar strategy to broaden his appeal. In some sense, could it be that Peter Skerry, who wrote Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority might be right? Are “Latinos” just another temporarily racialized group on its way to becoming mainstreamed (which in the U.S. means white)?

However, the cacophony of strongly negative comments about Judge Sotomayor made by the Republican Party’s right wing, especially Tom Tancredo, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich reveals the power of race and racism in contemporary America. Judge Sotomayor’s mistake, in their view, is that she affirmed her social experience as a “Latina” woman and how it provides her a rich perspective to add to the various other world views that abound in mainstream legal discourse. In a culture where the “color-blind” ideology is dominant any enunciation of ethnicity or race is taboo. However, the reality is that Judge Sotomayor is not too far from mainstream legal thought.

Their stance also might place the party in a more difficult place as it tries to recruit among the emerging actors in the political arena. The Republican Party is increasingly becoming whiter and ideologically extreme. In terms of Latin-American voters, it only received 31 percent of the “latino” vote in 2008, down from 40 percent in 2004. Since, today, 22 percent of all American less than 18 years of age are “latinos” the future of the party seems tenuous at best.

Legal Background

President Obama, in announcing Judge Sotomayor’s nomination for a seat in the Supreme Court, mentioned a case that involved the baseball major leagues in 1995. Dave Zirin’s article in The Nation (“Sotomayor is a Sporting Judge,” May 29, 2009) argued that Judge Sotomayor “saved” the capitalist owners of the baseball franchises from themselves. She basically saved them from their own short sightedness and greed. In fact, her decision to squash the bosses’ lockout helped baseball grow from a business that produced $1.3 billion to one that produces $7.5 billion.

A recent analysis of her judicial decisions by the McClatchy news agency revealed that Judge Sotomayor has been in the Court of Appeals since January 2002. Since that time, in criminal cases she has decided 65 of 90 instances in favor of the government. In 450 cases she presided over, she was only revised in six cases; none of them were criminal cases.

What is not clear is her position on abortion. None of the cases she has been involved in have had anything to do with an interpretation of Roe v. Wade (1973) and in other cases tangentially related her decisions were diverse. Right wing conservatives like Rush Limbaugh are hoping that her Catholic background will determine her position on abortion. Five of the judges are Catholic and only Anthony Kennedy strayed away from an anti-abortion stance in 1992 when he supported the right of a woman to an abortion. It is ironic that those who critique Judge Sotomayor for being honest about her background and experience as a Puerto Rican woman now place their hope on that background for a particular interpretation of the law.

However, it is revealing that this dialogue, which pivots around this “latina” woman, is contradictorily being used to both reproduce the fiction of a “Latino community” and on the other hand to extol the culture of meritocracy that permeates American culture. “Latino” is a category that is still empty of content although it might truly become a social reality in the future as diverse Latin-American origin communities intermarry and begin to develop a hybrid “latino” culture and identity. But in the meantime, the real ethnic groupings are the Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican and other communities with their unique historical experiences and cultures. A recent survey (June 4) by Quinnipiac University indicated that 49 percent of whites and 66 percent of Jewish Americans support Judge Sotomayor for the court. Close to 85 percent of African Americans contrasted with 58 percent of “latino” showed support for Judge Sotomayor’s selection. Some have argued that a large number of conservative Cubans may have biased the survey.

In another survey by McClatchy news (May 28-June 8), which had a larger sample than the Quinnipiac University survey, “latino” support for Judge Sotomayor is 72 percent. If the media continues to emphasize her “immigrant” working class background it may continue to elicit the support of Latin-American communities. But ironically, the way this message has been communicated presents her story as a “rags to riches” epic without any social context that helps make sense of her achievement. It is important to acknowledge her efforts and at the same time nuance the individualistic message that is being used to explain her success. Her mother, Celina Sotomayor, an important figure in her life, led her to appreciate Puerto Rican culture, which nurtured a sense of place and significance in a society that was not always hospitable to differences. Also, it is important to acknowledge that she grew up in a New York where the struggles of the Puerto Rican and the Black community opened doors to Latin Americans to new opportunities. Organizations like the Young Lords, ASPIRA and others forced the powers that be to provide access to education, health care and housing. This fertile context of social struggles is the stage that catapulted the intelligence and determination of this Puerto Rican woman into the public sphere.

Her achievements, rightly so, belong to her and to those on whose shoulder many of us have been carried into the present.

This is one of them.

Providing all of my research were the “family values” Republicans.

This week, second term Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina disappeared for six days, leaving the state without a chief executive who could make decisions in an emergency. His Republican lieutenant governor didn’t know where he was, and had not been given any authority to make decisions in his absence. The state police said they had not been informed. His wife told the Associated Press she didn’t know where he was, wasn’t worried about him, and thought he was “writing something and wanted some space to get away from the kids” over the Father’s Day weekend. His senior aides said he was walking along the Appalachian Trail to “clear his head.”

But it wasn’t his head that he was clearing. When he returned, after first lying to a reporter for the Columbia State who caught up with him on his return to the Atlanta airport, he finally admitted he went to Argentina to meet with a long-time lover. His wife, who was not by his side when he held an early afternoon press conference, later said she and the governor had separated two weeks earlier. The State later produced e-mail love letters it had been keeping since December.

The rising young star of the Republican party who was seen as a presidential contender in 2012, the man who was head of the Republican Governors Association until the day after he acknowledged his extramarital affair, the man who had wanted to deprive his state of $700 million in federal stimulus funds as a political message to President Obama, the man who had established himself as a beacon for the sanctity of marriage and the values of the oh-so-pure Religious right, was not only an adulterer, but for at least the second time had left his state at risk since there were no contingency plans of how to reach him in an emergency.

Alas, Gov. Sanford isn’t the only “family values” philanderer. Slightly more than a week earlier, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) admitted he had a nine-month extramarital affair with one of his campaign staff. Ensign, who was contemplating a run for president in 2012, had been chair of the Republican Policy Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Like Gov. Sanford, Sen. Ensign only admitted to the affair after information had been leaked to the media.

This is the same John Ensign who, as a congressman, had curled his lips in revulsion at Bill Clinton’s affair, and demanded he either resign or be impeached. “He has no credibility,” Ensign told the Las Vegas Review–Journal in 1998. Six years later, now a senator, Ensign supported a federal ban on same sex marriages by declaring, “Marriage is the cornerstone on which our society was founded . . . . [M]arriage, and the sanctity of that institution, predates the American Constitution and the founding of our nation.” Ironically, Ensign is active in Promise Keepers, an evangelical group.

Also vigorously calling for President Clinton’s impeachment, while having had their own extramarital affairs and covering them up or lying about them, were:

* Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), chair of the House judiciary committee and the “house manager” for the impeachment, who lied about his own four-year affair with a married woman and then when a newspaper published details in 1998 called the affair in the 40s nothing more than a “youthful indiscretion.” He retired in 2007 after 17 terms in the House.

* Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), who was the first legislator in Congress to call for Clinton’s resignation and then became one of the leaders of the impeachment movement. Barr’s background, however, wasn’t family values pure. He never denied committing adultery with his second wife, and later, while married to his third wife, was photographed at what passed as a charity event licking whipped cream off the breasts of two women. Barr left office in 2003, after four terms.

* Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho), who was one of the first to call for Clinton’s resignation, told the Spokane Spokesman-Review that God had pardoned her sins for her six-year extra-marital affair. Chenoweth left office in January 2001 after keeping her promise not to serve more than three terms.

* Fourteen term Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind), chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, who not only had a long-time affair with a state employee but had fathered a son from that affair. His website once screamed, “Above all, Dan Burton believes the people have a right to principled leadership and that character does matter.”

* Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), who told Tim Russert on NBC-TV’s Meet the Press in 1999 that “The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy — a naughty boy. I’m going to speak out for the citizens of my state, who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.” However, Craig himself was a “bad boy.” In September 2007 he pleaded guilty, and then tried to withdraw his conviction on charges that he solicited a man in the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport. Several gay men later told the Idaho Statesman that Craig, who was married since 1983, had previously tried to solicit them or had sexual relations with them. Craig resigned in September 2007, and then reversed himself, staying in office through 2008. He did not run for re-election.

* Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), House speaker from 1995 to 1999, who may have had an affair while his first wife was in the hospital recovering from cancer. Gingrich later cheated on his second wife with the woman who became his third wife during the time he was pushing for Clinton’s resignation.

* Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), who was Gingrich’s designated successor until he admitted his own infidelities and eventually resigned from the House.

* Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who was elected to Livingston’s House seat and served three terms before being identified in a prostitution scandal in Louisiana. In 2004, he was elected to the Senate, three years before Hustler magazine linked him as a client of a prostitution service in Washington, D.C.

* Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa), who had a five year affair with a woman 35 years his junior. She later charged that Sherwood had assaulted her several times. He eventually settled for what AP reported was about $500,000. Among those who supported Sherwood during his primary re-election were Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), one of the leaders of the conservative coalition who in November 2005 said that “Compassionate Conservatism relies on healthy families,” and President George W. Bush who went to northeastern Pennsylvania to help raise funds for Sherwood. However, in the general election of November 2006, Sherwood was defeated for a fifth term.

Add to the list of morally bankrupt Republicans:

* Five term Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) who resigned in September 1995, three years before the Clinton impeachment, after the bipartisan Ethics Committee unanimously recommended his expulsion following charges of sexual abuse and assault by 10 women, most of them either former staffers or lobbyists.

* Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), a six-term congressman, and co-chair of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, who had sent sexually explicit e-mails and text messages to a 16 year-old male Congressional page. Foley resigned in September 2006, two months before the general election, long after the Republican leadership had failed to discipline him, and only after a blog (stopsexpredators.blogspot.com) and ABC-TV news exposed his hoped-for affairs may have included other staff dating back at least a decade.

* Rep. Robert E. Bauman (R-Md.), publicly homophobic founder of Young Americans for Freedom and the American Conservative Union, who admitted he had solicited sex with a 16 year old male. Bauman lost the general election in 1980 and later declared himself to be gay.

* Rep. Donald Lukens (R-Ohio), who was convicted in 1989 of a misdemeanor for having sex with a 16-year-old girl. The “affair” may have begun three years earlier. Lukens finally resigned in October 1990, after having lost the Republican primary several months earlier.

Republican leaders aren’t the only ones who commit adultery, nor are conservatives or members of the Religious Right, including preachers, solely the ones to have violated the seventh and tenth Commandments. But, it is the “family values” Republican leaders, who have led the party of right wing moral indignation; it is the Religious Right that has overtaken the party and wears the now-tarnished shield of righteousness to protect itself against anyone who doesn’t share their own views of the world, including moderate and liberal Republicans, and anyone belonging to another political party.

The hypocrisy and moral turpitude of the leaders is just one reason why only 21 percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans.

Over the past two months, right-wing extremists have assassinated an abortion doctor in Wichita, Kansas, murdered three policemen in Pittsburgh, and killed a security guard while attempting to shoot up the U.S. National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

While all of these incidents appear to have been carried out by so-called “lone wolves” — right-wing extremists steep in movement politics but acting on their own initiative — all three killers have ties to, or have been involved with, radical right-wing organizations.

Scott Roeder, the alleged killer of Dr. George Tiller, has been identified with the right-wing Freeman movement, and was apparently related to the Army of God, one of the 1990s most radical anti-abortion groups.

According to friends of Richard Poplawski, the man accused of ambushing and murdering three Pittsburgh policemen, the killer was worried that the Obama Administration was poised to ban guns, a charge that has been repeatedly made by right-wing columnists and conservative hosts of talk radio programs. “If a total collapse is what it takes to wake our brethren and guarantee future generations of white children walk this continent, if that is what it takes to restore our freedoms and recapture our land: Let it begin this very second and not a moment later,” Poplawski wrote on a white supremacist Web site under the name Braced for Fate, the Anti-Defamation League recently noted. James W. von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist who allegedly took a rifle into the museum and killed security guard Stephen T. Johns, an African American, was steeped in anti-Jewish, anti-Black and anti-immigrant hatred, was a Holocaust denier who had deep roots in the white nationalist movement.

The Wichita assassination and the Holocaust Museum attack occurred a month or so after the release of a report prepared by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which warned of the possibility of an uptick in violent activities by right-wing extremist groups.

The report pointed out that the election of America’s first African American president, the sharp economic downturn, rising unemployment, and unfounded rumors that the administration of Barack Obama would be pushing for stricter gun control regulations, could fuel a resurgence of “right-wing extremist groups,” bringing with it a spate of homegrown terrorist activities.

The DHS assessment, titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” — originally ordered up by the Bush Administration — pointed out that “Right-wing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.”

“The current economic and political climate has some similarities to the 1990s [during the Clinton administration] when right-wing extremism experienced a resurgence fueled largely by an economic recession, criticism about the outsourcing of jobs and the perceived threat to U.S. power and sovereignty by other foreign powers,” the assessment read.

“Proposed imposition of firearms restrictions and weapons bans likely would attract new members into the ranks of right-wing extremist groups . . . The high volume of purchases and stockpiling of weapons and ammunition by right-wing extremists in anticipation of restrictions and bans in some parts of the country continue to be a primary concern to law enforcement,” the report stated.

Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Sara Kuban said the assessment was one in an ongoing series published by DHS “to facilitate a greater understanding of radicalization in the United States.” An earlier report had focused on possible violence by left-wing activists.

“DHS has no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but right-wing extremists may be gaining new recruitments by playing on their fears about several emerging issues,” Kuban pointed out.

Release of the DHS assessment incurred the immediate wrath of a number of right-wing talk show hosts, commentators, and columnists. The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson pointed out that “some conservative commentators tried mightily to paint the memo as an underhanded attempt by the Obama administration to smear its honorable critics by equating ‘right wing’ with ‘terrorism.’”

A group spearheaded by some of America’s largest Religious Right groups — acting under the name No Political Profiling — released an ad that claimed the DHS report, “declared law-abiding citizens who express their First Amendment Rights as: ‘the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.’”

Jeffrey Mazzella of the Alexandria, Virginia-based Center for Individual Freedom was among the first who called for the firing of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Mat Staver, the founder of the Orlando, FL.-based Liberty Counsel, a conservative Christian legal operation, decided to “match fire with fire.” In a move both political and entrepreneurial, Staver invited supporters to get an official laminated, wallet-sized (”personalized with your name”) complimentary “Right-wing Extremist” card, “and Take a Stand against the New Administration’s Attack Machine.”

While originally pointing out that the card would be sent free (he now is apparently asking for a specific donation), Staver noted that “there are expenses associated with this national campaign, so any financial support you provide will be greatly appreciated and put to immediate use in advancing and protecting our precious liberties.”

In response to the criticism, the DHS pulled its report, promising to come up with a revised edition. Thus far, there has been no revised edition.

In a recent piece posted at PolitickerNY.com, Joe Conason pointed out that the Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that “authorities have discovered more than five dozen terror conspiracies by far-right groups, including militia outfits, neo-Nazi gangs and others claiming that their cause is above the law,” over the past fifteen or so years. “The Oklahoma City bombing was only the most notorious and tragic of those plots, which have cost lives, damaged property and infringed on our safety and freedom,” Conason noted. “The late Dr. Tiller, who was shot on an earlier occasion, was the eighth U.S. abortion provider murdered since 1977. At least 17 others have been targets for attempted murder.”

In its spring 2009 report, the SPLC, an Alabama-based watchdog group tracking hate groups for 30 years, found more than 900 hate groups — including the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, and Black separatists — currently operating in the U.S., an all-time high.

“Right across the board, extremist groups are thriving right now,” says Mark Potok, Director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. Potok, who attributed the rise in the number of hate groups to a number of reasons including the election of Obama and unresolved immigration issues, pointed out that “We’re looking at a kind of perfect storm of factors that really favor the continued growth of these groups.”

Responding to the murder of Dr. George Tiller, Attorney General Eric Holder sent federal marshals to protect doctors, nurses and abortion clinics from possible attack. But that may not be enough. And, in the aftermath of the attack at the Holocaust Museum, it remains to be seen how many people will be applying for Mat Staver’s “Right-Wing Extremist” card!

Meanwhile, as a guest on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC program recently pointed out, protesters in front of health clinics across the country have been emboldened by Dr. Tiller’s assassination, and have been cranking up the rhetoric and violent threats. And, the announcement on Tuesday, June 9, by the Tiller family that the Wichita clinic would be closed permanently, is an indication that homegrown terrorists have won another round.

Tiller was one of the few remaining doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions. His murder is the culmination of a decades-long campaign against both him and Women’s Health Care Services, the clinic he operated.

In June 1986, Tiller’s clinic was bombed — no arrests were ever made in that case. Last month, the clinic was vandalized, with wires to security cameras and outdoor lights cut. The building’s roof was cut through, and downspouts were plugged, leading to flooding that caused thousands of dollars in damage. Tiller had reportedly asked the FBI to investigate.

In 1993, anti-abortion fanatic Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon attempted to murder Tiller, shooting him in both arms. Shannon remains behind bars, convicted of attempted murder and charges stemming from at least six arson and acid-attacks at clinics in Oregon, California, Nevada and Idaho.

According to press reports, a suspect in the murder is in custody, though not charged–he is 51-year-old Scott Roeder of Merriam, Kan. Roeder was allegedly a member at one time of the anti-government militia group known as the “Freemen.” In 1996, he was reportedly found with bomb components in his car trunk.

In a comment left on an anti-abortion Web site two years ago, someone with the same name wrote: “Bleass (sic) everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp.”

Tiller is the fourth abortion provider to be gunned down by “pro-life” extremists since 1993.

That year, Dr. David Gunn was shot to death outside a Pensacola, Florida, clinic. The following year, Dr. John Bayard Britton and one of his volunteer escorts were shot and killed by former minister Paul Hill outside another abortion clinic in Pensacola. Hill had reportedly been “inspired” by Shannon’s attempted murder of Dr. Tiller the year before.

In 1998, anti-choice extremist James Kopp killed Dr. Barnett Slepian in his home in Amhest, N.Y.

As well, there have been dozens of clinic bombings, arsons and other attacks that have injured or frightened staff and volunteers across the country. This includes the 1998 bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., clinic in which nurse Emily Lyons was maimed, and off-duty police officer Robert Sanderson killed by bomber Eric Rudolph.

The immediate aftermath of Tiller’s death included predictable statements from anti-abortion groups claiming that this murder does not represent their movement.

The anti-abortion group Operation Rescue was among those that mercilessly harassed Tiller in life, only to feign surprise and concern at his death. “We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down,” the group said in a statement on its Web site. “Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice.”

Yet Operation Rescue’s director Troy Newman moved the headquarters of the group’s operations to Wichita in 2002 specifically to target Dr. Tiller. The group launched a “Year of Rebuke” campaign in 2004 that targeted what it termed Tiller’s “collaborators” — anyone with political, professional or social ties to the doctor.

The “Year of Rebuke” included plans for protests at the home of every employee at Tiller’s clinic. Typical of the campaign were hundreds of postcards showing mangled fetuses that were sent to the neighbors of clinic employees like Sara Phares. As author Kimberley Sevcik noted in a Rolling Stone article “One man’s God squad“:

[The card read], “Your neighbor Sara Phares participates in killing babies like these.” The postcard implored them to call Phares, whose phone number and address were provided, and voice their opposition to her work at the clinic. Another card soon followed. It referred to Phares as “Miss I Help to Kill Little Babies” and suggested, in an erratic typeface that recalled a kidnapper’s ransom note, that neighbors “beg her to quit, pretty please.”

One of Phares’s neighbors, a federal agent, called her at work to warn her. “Just be careful, ma’am,” he said. “You never know what kind of nuts these things will draw.”

Founder and former head of Operation Rescue Randall Terry didn’t even pretend to be sorry about the murder. “George Tiller was a mass-murderer,” Terry told the Associated Press. “We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God.”

Terry’s real concern was for the renewed scrutiny that the assassination might bring on the anti-choice movement. He told a reporter:

I am more concerned that the Obama administration will use Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions…Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.

While a far-right fanatic may have pulled the trigger, the truth is that the “respectable” right–and the state of Kansas — put a very large target on George Tiller’s back.

Fox News blowhard Bill O’Reilly repeatedly attacked Tiller on air, referring to him as a “so-called baby killer” and the clinic as a “death mill.” In segments he called “Tiller the Baby Killer,” O’Reilly hurled wild accusations:

In the state of Kansas, there is a doctor, George Tiller, who will execute babies for $5,000 if the mother is depressed. And there are rapists impregnating 10-year-olds who are being protected by abortion clinics. It doesn’t get worse than that.

Tiller was also forced to defend himself against trumped-up criminal charges brought by the state. This March, he was acquitted on 19 counts of performing illegal late-term abortions in 2003. Jurors took just 45 minutes to find Tiller not guilty of failing to secure an independent second opinion, which, under Kansas law, is needed to perform late-term abortions.

The court case against Tiller was brought by then-Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline–an abortion opponent, who later lost re-election and has since become a law professor at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.

Given this kind of harassment, it’s not surprising that the number of physicians willing to provide abortions — in particular late-term abortions — has dramatically declined in U.S. in the past several decades.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2005, 87 percent of all U.S. counties (with 35 percent of the U.S. female population) lacked an abortion provider. Just 20 percent of providers offered abortion services after 20 weeks — and only 8 percent of all abortion providers offer abortions at 24 weeks.

This, combined with recent statistics from a Gallup poll, show a troubling shift to the right in attitudes on abortion in the U.S. According to the poll, for the “first time, a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.” The poll found 51 percent describing themselves as “pro-life,” up seven points from a year ago.

As SocialistWorker.org columnist Sharon Smith noted:

Since [Bill] Clinton’s election in 1992, the anti-abortion crusade has remained defiant while the pro-choice movement has been in steady retreat. This is the only way to understand how a small but dedicated army of religious zealots has managed to successfully transform the political terrain in its favor — and why a figure as ridiculous as Randall Terry is now regarded as legitimate within the political mainstream.

Dr. Tiller’s violent death at the hands of an anti-abortion extremist should be a wake-up call to supporters of the right of women to control their own bodies.

Despite the rhetoric — adopted today even by mainstream abortion rights groups — that “no woman wants to have an abortion” and that abortion should be “safe, legal and, above all, rare,” the truth is that some women do desperately need and want to have abortions, and they shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for it.

That was something Dr. George Tiller understood — and ultimately gave his life for. As a statement from Tiller’s family following his murder emphasized:

Our loss is also a loss for the City of Wichita and women across America. George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality heath care, despite frequent threats and violence. We ask that he be remembered as a good husband, father and grandfather, and a dedicated servant on behalf of the rights of women everywhere.

In the immediate aftermath of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, words came flowing forth from every conceivable direction. The media reported, longtime anti-abortion activists “condemned,” but few apologized for years of hate speech directed at Tiller.

In the hours following the murder of Dr, George Tiller, and the subsequent condemnations from Religious Right leaders, I remembered Jerry Falwell’s notorious post-9/11 remarks, blaming feminists and the ACLU, among others — and the uncomfortable flip-flopping that followed. It was clear that his comments represented what he was thinking. Yet it was also clear, as he tried to backtrack and apologize, that he realized he had monumentally goofed.

I was reminded of those wretched Falwell maneuverings on Monday evening while watching Frank Schaeffer — the son of the late Francis Schaeffer, one of the founding fathers and most revered figures on the Christian Right – point out during his appearance on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show that the condemnations of Tiller’s murder issued by leaders of the Christian Right seemed forced and empty.

The statements from anti-abortion leaders basically covered the same ground: they condemned the murder, expressed compassion for Tiller’s family, and hoped that the perpetrator would soon be captured and brought to justice.

“He reaped what he sowed”

It was left to Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, to pick up Falwell’s rhetorical baton. At a news conference at the National Press Club on Monday, June 1, Terry plainly stated that Tiller “was a mass murderer and, horrifically, he reaped what he sowed.”

Terry said that Tiller would be remembered as “one of the villains of history.” “I grieve for Dr. Tiller because he left this life, perhaps without proper preparation to face God,” Terry said. “The thought of him leaving this life with blood on his hands for having killed so many thousands of children and not having been prepared to meet his maker is a dreadful, terrifying thought.”

Terry appeared to be verbalizing what other, more “respected” Christian Right leaders couldn’t. Since Terry has been outside the mainstream for years, he had the license to say whatever he wanted; the more extremist his rhetoric, the more national media he would receive. For Dobson, Perkins, et al, they had the political realities to reckon with.

Sharing the blame

For Frank Schaeffer, the author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Live to Take it All (or Almost All) of it Back, and who had for years been privy to the backroom conversations of Christian Right operatives, the condemnations were a sham. Schaeffer dramatically opened an op-ed piece in the June 2 Baltimore Sun by writing: “My late father and I share part of the blame for the murder of Dr. George Tiller . . . ”

He pointed out how his father had “compared America and its legalized abortion to Hitler’s Germany and said that whatever tactics would have been morally justified in removing Hitler would be justified in trying to stop abortion.” And Frank Schaeffer also noted, quoting from his own book:

“Angry speech has become the norm in American religion from both the right and the left. Words are spoken which, when taken seriously, lead directly to violence by the unhinged and/or the truly committed.”

While Schaeffer stated that abortion “should be legal,” he also believes “that it should be re-regulated according to fetal development.” Nevertheless, he recognizes that “the same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as ‘murderers.’ And today, once again, the ‘pro-life’ leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words.

”The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I’d like to say that I, and the people I worked with in the pro-life movement, all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.”

Common Ground?

Sometime during the day after Tiller’s murder, I received another condemnation in my in-box. This one was from Faith In Public Life, an organization working hard to establish “common ground” amongst conservative and liberal religious leaders. (Thus far, I have been agnostic about “common ground” efforts.) The headline read “Religious Leaders Seeking Common Ground on Abortion: Condemn George Tiller’s Murder, Say Act Offends Us All”:

In reaction to the tragic murder of Dr. George Tiller, religious leaders and groups who hold different views on the legality of abortion, but a shared commitment to working towards common ground solutions to reduce abortions by addressing its root causes issued the following statement this morning:

“We were shocked and saddened to hear that Dr. George Tiller was murdered at his church yesterday morning. Such violence is an affront to the teachings of all faith traditions and an attack on civil society. Houses of worship have served as sanctuaries providing a safe harbor even in times of widespread violence for millennia — that this act took place in Dr. Tiller’s church where he was serving as an usher on Sunday morning only underscores its abhorrence. We condemn it, and we pray for Dr. Tiller’s family, church and community.

“As people of faith working to create civility and common ground on abortion, this reprehensible attack reminds us of our moral obligation to respect the humanity of those on both sides of this issue. Wherever we stand, this act offends us all.”

The statement was signed by a host of religious leaders.

In this e-mail, Faith in Public Life asked if I had any questions. This was my (immediate, angry and not all that articulate) response:

In my mind, the statement does not go far enough. Why haven’t these highly respected religious leaders that are condemning the murder of Dr. George Tiller at the same time, also condemn the hate talk that is spewed daily against abortion providers by a number of so-called Christian groups?

What good is merely a condemnation of the murder if it doesn’t try to get to one of the reasons that ordinary people commit such acts — the hate speech (calling doctors baby killers or even calling the president a baby killer) that drives people to it. Keep in mind that even James Dobson and Tony Perkins have condemned the murder. What good is a condemnation of Tiller’s murder if the hate speech that often inspires — perhaps even drives — one to commit such murders is not also condemned?

Your thoughts?

No response yet.

Infidels, non-believers, berserkers, in short, followers of Islam had gained control of the Holy Land and our armies were proving helpless against them. Though most of us had only heard of the fabled Holy Land , we were continuously exhorted that it was worth dying for. The people there had the wrong beliefs. It’s like they weren’t even people at all.

Across the land a cry rang out and the simple people, the children, the innocent and guileless rose up to take the matter into their own hands. Surely their purity of spirit and true faith in the Lord, our very Christian god, would overcome the heathen whereas our weaponry had not. The sheer power of our unwavering belief in the rightness of our Christian god would surely be enough to overcome any lesser beings’ superstitious hocus-pocus over their tawdry talismans.

So we massed, in our anger and our righteousness, first to Genoa , then eventually around to Marseilles, where in 1212, two kindly merchants at tremendous personal sacrifice agreed to help us in our final leap of our noble crusade, and so, like lemmings we boarded their ships . . .

Never to be seen again. Sold as slaves the thirty thousand European peasants and youth who took part in the fabled “Children’s Crusade” disappeared from history into a fate generally imagined to be “worse than death.” And those two “kindly” merchants of Marseilles, the Halliburtons and Raytheons of their day, were in cahoots with the bogeymen Muslims all along and sold the questing Christians for a clear eyed profit. In some versions of their legend, the merchants are later captured and hanged for a plot to kidnap a king, but that would be in a world where the wicked get punished and the kind are redeemed.

A place decidedly not the Obama America of 2009, where banks are rewarded for impoverishing the rest of us and religious war in the Holy Land is still framed to demonize the Muslim. Though Muslim religious extremists are blamed for inciting violence in the name of their vision of god, America steadfastly and incrementally has retrofitted our military to march onward as Christian soldiers. Because, after all, our Christian religious intolerance is so much more sanctimonious and thus justified than any other religion’s zealotry.

Now with the stage duly set by last week’s news item of Muslim guys plotting to launch RPGs at a synagogue, this week a Muslim convert guy is accused of shooting up recruiting station in Little Rock . And in the same time and news cycle, ironies of ironies, in the latest of what is appearing to be an inexhaustible series of right-wing gun users intent on lighting up America like it was their personal amusement park, an abortion doctor has been shot and killed in his own church in Kansas, by yet another right-winger following orders from his minister du jour, in this case Bill O’Reilly.

As the day to day gun violence of American life begins to approach Bruckheimer-esque levels, I think it is safe to say, or rather unsafe to say, that the shooting war for the post-Obama America has now openly begun. And, as the summer thrill season heats up, it seems our box office isn’t the only aspect of the public arena enthralled by angels and demons.

Of course the advantage the rest of Europe had in 1212 over America today is that the Christian fanatics and opportunists who comprised the thirty thousand or so that took part in the crusade walked out of their society, not among it. The Holy Land was a lot farther away from their day to day life than the religious war that is on the edge breaking out right here at home, in racially and religiously mixed America .

Also, modern day America is a whole lot bigger than Europe of the early 1200s and even though Christianity is in decline here, and thus feeling embattled, there are still millions more American Christian zealots ready to kill for their love of man, with most of them living near most of you.

Good luck, America , welcome to Marseilles 1212. Simply follow the kindly merchants who will lead you on your way. Perhaps your faith will set you free . . .

Deep thinker Ann Coulter went on TV to call Sotomayor a racist. Revered statesman Newt Gingrich texted that same sentiment to various folk. Media seemed less interested in his (typically mean and shallow) message than the fact that the old bozo had figured out how to text. Resident network intellectual Pat Buchanan declared Sotomayor – Princeton summa cum laude and Yale law review – “not that smart.”

University of Utah dropout Karl Rove opined that there are lots of “stupid” Ivy League graduates. Most people presume his long association with the Yale and Harvard alum George W. Bush taught him that. Michael Goldfarb and other National Review types offered their carefully reasoned opposition. Goldfarb objected to the way the Supreme Court nominee pronounces her own name, saying that “It Sticks In My Craw.”

Failed Republican presidential nominee Mike Huckabee called Sotomayor a nominee of the “far left.” Of course he also referred to her as “Maria,” throwing his own judgment into question. And how about Democratic Senator Ben Nelson, who did not rule out a filibuster of the nomination, even before he learned who the nominee was?

The problem is not simply that media offer conduits to amplify the uninformed opinions of mindless political hacks, attention junkies so thoroughly unqualified to discuss Sotomayor’s legal history and philosophy that they must resort to racist, sexist name-calling. There is seldom any effort to engage the blatant inaccuracy and stupidity of these unwelcome, all-too-familiar “critics.”

Coulter asked why liberals did not show the same empathy for the black Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas as they seem to demonstrate for the Latina Sonia Sotomayor. No talking head pointed out that Sotomayor has decades of judicial experience while Thomas had none. His was a cynical nomination by George H.W. Bush, as a less-than-mediocre right-wing replacement for the great jurist, Thurgood Marshall, simply because he was black. Thomas also stood accused of sexual harassment, a charge he never refuted. Instead he blamed the victim and shifted the debate to be about what he called a “high-tech lynching,” then wormed his way into lifetime office, past red-faced wishy-washy liberals including Kennedy and Biden.

Part of the problem is that most media-ready conservative spokespersons possess no substantive knowledge or moral credibility. They are merely dependable attack dogs, foaming at the mouth. Coulter routinely calls people fags and racists; Gingrich is a political thug who resigned in disgrace and profaned his marriages; Rove made a dishonorable career as an unprincipled scumbag. We should demand accountability from the networks and print media who enable these vermin to spew their poison.

Rupert Murdoch deserves particular opprobrium. He provides Rove’s venomous bile outlets in the Wall Street Journal and on Fox News, where Rove joins Hannity, O’Reilly, Beck and other numbskulls, whose vitriol and histrionics substitute for reasoned discourse. Murdoch’s media empire has done more to distort, degrade and dumb down the American democratic process than Tom DeLay, Lee Harvey Oswald and Rush Limbaugh put together. Any sense of civic responsibility mass media ever displayed toward the national political conversation has long since been superseded by a meretricious urge to peddle outrage for profit, no matter how tasteless or untrue.

The diminution of the Republican Party – which staked all on its radical right wing – and the impoverishment of political discourse in our country have fed each other’s decline. The spectacle of politicians sacrificing political ideals for personal ambition is neither new nor surprising. But Rove and Cheney have taken that to new levels, trashing not only all Republican ideals, but Constitutional principles and human decency as well, routinely debasing language and governance with lies and character assassination to maintain their power. They now have the chutzpah to use the complaisant whorish media to condemn the petty sins of the Obama administration. They should answer for their transgressions in a court of law, not on Fox News Sunday.

TV has long been trapped in an oppositional format. Conflict makes for drama. Actual intelligent discussion is too boring. If somebody is not shot or defamed every thirty seconds the audience may turn the channel. It’s amazing that millions of human beings still tune into this trash. But Murdoch and his ilk are not merely polluters. They are perverts, deforming issues and reputations for money. Already a billionaire, Murdoch, 78, clearly cares nothing about the cultural and political damage he wreaks, or the devastation he will leave behind. His straw dogs, on and off his payroll – all trashy bark and no substance – will continue to provide the lowest common denominator for political discussion in our country until we have the will to turn them off.

For now, if you’ve been following the battle over same-sex marriage and you don’t know who the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez or Rubén Díaz are, you likely soon will.

Rodriguez, President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), and Diaz, a New York state Senator from the Bronx a Pentecostal pastor in that borough, are two key players leading anti-same-sex marriage forces in New York State.

On Sunday, May 17, while much of the “culture war” crowd was focused on events at Notre Dame University — where President Barack Obama was heartily welcomed by UND graduates and their families — things were hopping in New York City. Thousands of anti-same-sex marriage activists marched in opposition to Governor David Patterson’s gay marriage bill. The Christian Post reported that the mostly Latino crowd, which gathered at the Governor’s Manhattan office, “stretched from 35th to 40th Street on 3rd Avenue in New York City.”

At the same time hundreds of marriage-equality advocates gathered at a rally near Rockefeller Center. Speakers at the pro–marriage equality rally included New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, City Council speaker Christine Quinn, state assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, and actors Cynthia Nixon, David Hyde Pierce, Cheyenne Jackson, and Gavin Creel.

Last week, the New York State Assembly passed the marriage equality bill by an 89 to 52 vote. According to Box Turtle Bulletin, “The Assembly voted for a marriage bill in 2007, as well. But in that vote the count was 85 to 61. And while this year’s vote only has four more ‘yes’ votes, the margin of victory increased from 24 to 37.” How the bill will fare in the State senate is anybody’s guess.

Among the leaders of the protest was Rubén Díaz who had earlier charged Patterson with disrespecting religious groups by introducing gay marriage legislation on April 16, a few days before the weeks of Passover and Easter began. As if it would have been okay on May Day!

Charisma News Online reported that at this time, Diaz has expressed near certainty that the bill will not pass in the Senate, as it “lacks the 32 votes needed to pass the measure, even though there are 32 Democratic senators.”

“I have the commitment form six Democrats that they will not vote for it,” Díaz said. “So they’re going to have to go to the Republicans if they want to pass it in the Senate. But this is a Democratic agenda, and I doubt that the Republicans would jump on board to make the Democrats look good.” According to Charisma News Online, “Even if the gay marriage bill is reintroduced every year, Díaz promises to block it. ‘I’m a preacher. I’m not only a state senator. I would not vote for that.’”

Joining Diaz at the demonstration was a coalition that included Radio Vision Cristiana International, the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization, the CONLICO network of bishops and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC).

“Radio Vision has been motivated to respond to . . . Paterson and every other elected official, to let them know that we are not sleeping and that we will not stay idle with our hands crossed while they pressure and promote marriage between persons of the same sex,” said the Rev. Milton Donato, president of Radio Vision Cristiana.

Amongst this group of pastors and politicians, Samuel Rodriquez has the highest public profile and biggest national platform. In late April, Rodriguez’s NHCLC (NHCLC) and the Hispanic National Association of Evangelicals, sponsored the third Annual Hispanic/African American Evangelical Summit in the Baltimore Metropolitan area. “With approximately 1,700 in attendance, this event establishes the gathering as the premier Black/Brown faith event in our nation. The African American Hispanic Summit served the Christian community as it provided a venue for multi-layered, cross cultural interactions,” declared Dr. Angel Nunez, NHCLC Senior Vice President and National Director of the Hispanic/Black Evangelical Alliance.

“Hispanics and African Americans stand as the Peter and John of the 21st Century American Church. We stand before the Gate called Beautiful. Our communities once again lie crippled, paralyzed and without hope. We, the Black and the Brown may not have all the silver or the gold but what we have we give; In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth we tell our families, communities and nation, get up and walk,” stated Rodriguez.

In early May, in a post at the “On Faith” website sponsored by Newsweek and The Washington Post Rodriguez criticized President Obama for “demonstrate[ing] his brand of political correctness by acknowledging a day of prayer and simultaneously rejecting the idea that the White House should somehow commemorate the day in an official event.”

As Frederick Clarkson recently pointed out at Talk2Action, Rodriguez was a signatory to a document titled “Come Let Us Reason Together: A Fresh Look at Shared Cultural Values Between Evangelicals and Progressives (CLURT)”, a document aimed at establishing “common ground” between evangelicals and progressive religious.

At the anti-same-sex marriage three-hour extravaganza, Diaz told the crowd: “They accuse us of homophobia. They accuse us of being radicals . . . They accuse us of many things because they want to close the mouth of the church.”

According to Gay City News, “Diaz credited Radio Vision Cristiana, a New Jersey-based AM radio station that broadcasts religious programming, with turning out the [huge] crowd” which, organizers claimed, included representatives from 3,000 churches from the tri-state area.

“They sounded the trumpet and here we are,” Diaz said. “The sleeping giant has awakened and nothing can make him go back to sleep.”

Rabbi Yehuda Levin of Brooklyn, a longtime anti-gay activist, played the fear card to its fullest possible extent: “If this legislation passes, God forbid, you and I will be considered by the state law as bigots, as discriminating. They will take away from our religious schools the tax deductions. They will not give us any government for our schools. They will make our marriage counselors counsel homosexual couples. Our accountants will have to do taxes for married homosexual couples. Our children will be brought in school “Heath has Two Mommies” . . . The full force of the state government will come down on us like a ton of bricks. We will be outcasts.”

And, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Washington, D.C.-based lobby group, was also on hand. “The politicians are unleashing chaos on our children, on our families, and on our nation by redefining marriage . . . One thing stands in the way of this chaos — you,” Perkins told the crowd.

But that is fast changing. Mr. Arad was prominent in preparing Mr Netanyahu’s tough positions as he headed for Washington this week to meet Barack Obama, the US president, who is seeking to advance a Middle East peace plan.

Mr. Arad, recently appointed the head of Israel’s revamped National Security Council, will oversee an organization that Mr. Netanyahu regards as the linchpin of the new government’s security and foreign policy.

One military analyst, Amir Oren, has noted that, given Mr. Netanyahu’s unstable coalition, Mr. Arad “is likely to emerge as a strong adviser to a weak government.”

Mr. Arad has been outspoken both in rejecting Palestinian statehood and in promoting the military option against Iran, positions believed to be shared by the Israeli prime minister and that will be at the root of a possible confrontation in the coming months with the Obama administration.

Mr. Arad is also one of only a handful of senior figures on Mr. Netanyahu’s Iran Task Force, charged with devising a strategy for dealing with Tehran and its supposed ambitions to attain nuclear weapons.

That will make some in Israel uneasy. The hawkish views that have made Mr. Arad indispensable to Mr. Netanyahu have also earned him several high-profile opponents.

Arik Carmon, founder of the Israel Democracy Institute, has described Mr. Arad’s proposal to arrange “territorial exchanges” to strip some of Israel’s Palestinian minority of their citizenship as “racist”.

Alon Liel, a former director-general of Israel’s foreign ministry, has called Mr. Arad’s efforts to derail recent talks with Syria by demanding the continuing occupation of the Golan “ridiculous and nasty.”

In 2007, before his rise to public prominence, Mr Arad also fuelled worried speculation about Israel’s plans for a military strike on Tehran, after he described it as “easier than you think.” A wide range of non-military Iranian targets were legitimate, he added.

But despite Mr. Arad’s espousal of opinions that in many respects accord with those of Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu Party and Mr. Netanyahu’s foreign minister, few doubt the prime minister’s fierce loyalty to him.

In a sign of that commitment, Mr. Netanyahu pushed through Mr. Arad’s appointment as national security adviser, a post in which he will need to be in almost continual consultation with the US, at the risk of provoking a diplomatic crisis with the Obama White House.

He had been barred from entering the US by the Bush administration after implication in a spying scandal. A Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, jailed in 2006 for passing secrets about Iran to the Israel lobby group AIPAC, was reported to have met Mr. Arad frequently.

When the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, arrived in Jerusalem in April for meetings with Mr. Netanyahu, then prime minister-designate, her staff quietly suggested he remove an official — a hint that Mr. Arad’s presence was not welcome. Mr. Netanyahu instead sent out Sallai Meridor, the ambassador to the US, who resigned soon afterwards.

The Obama administration has since restored Mr. Arad’s visa and agreed to his political rehabilitation, not least so that he will be able regularly to meet his US opposite number, Gen James Jones.

Mr. Arad spent more than 20 years in Mossad, much of it working in the intelligence section, before being appointed as Mr. Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser in his first government in the late 1990s.

He was also closely associated with a leading neoconservative think-tank in New York, the Hudson Institute, in the 1970s.

But paradoxically, his influence on Israeli thinking — both among policymakers and the public — may have actually increased during his years in political opposition, after the fall of the first Netanyahu government in 1999.

It was then that he established an influential think-tank, the Institute for Policy and Strategy, at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Centre.

The institute stages an annual conference, dedicated to the “balance of Israel’s national security,” that has become the most important event in the Israeli calendar for politicians, generals and diplomats, as well as attracting high-profile US guests.

Since the first meeting in 2000, the conferences have defined the major security issues supposedly facing Israel, closely mirroring Mr. Arad’s own key obsessions.

Chief among these have been fears about the demographic threat to Israel’s Jewishness from Palestinian birth rates both in the occupied territories and among Israel’s own Palestinian citizens, and the danger posed to Israeli hegemony in the region from Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear bomb.

In an indication of his implacable opposition to a Palestinian state, Mr. Arad recently told an interviewer: “We want to relieve ourselves of the burden of Palestinian populations, not the territories.”

He has suggested that the Palestinians be required to become economically self-reliant, in the hope that their leaders will be forced to promote family planning methods to reduce the population. His motto is that the Palestinians need “one man, one job” before they need “one man, one vote.”

He has also promoted a complex territorial exchange involving Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt that would see many Palestinians relocated to the Sinai so that Israel could take control of chunks of the West Bank.

But his greatest vehemence is reserved for Iran — an antipathy apparently shared by the Israeli prime minister. In the past he has called for “maximum deterrence”, including threats to strike “anything and everything of value” in Iran, including its “holiest sites.”

As Mr. Netanyahu’s plane touched down in Washington on Sunday, Mr. Arad briefed reporters that Tehran posed an “existential” threat to Israel and that “all options are indeed on the table.”

Also at the May 4th engagement, the North Tarrant Republicans allowed 30-year Tarrant County Medical Examiner (and Muslim-American) Nizam Peerwani to rebut O’Brien’s claims, but O’Brien had exited the premises before Peerwani spoke.

O’Brien’s one-sided dialogue on this issue unfortunately typifies the prevailing tendencies of American conservatism and Republican politics over the last eight years or so. There’s the world according to them, wherein they are patriotic, morally superior and righteous, their positions unassailable; and then there’s world according to the rest of us, but our political, philosophical and social divergences are simply wrong, un-American, godless, evil, etc. This is why so many of Bush’s press conferences and town hall meetings were strictly populated with conservative disciples who gushed with weepy-eyed pride no matter what Bush said. His handlers wanted a controlled, homogeneous crowd where objections could not disrupt his talking points.

In the event that contentious views were aired, the Bush Administration made the progenitors of such impieties pay. If you were a general who disagreed with the Bush Administration’s Iraq war strategy, you were forced to retire. If you were the chief contracting officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and you charged that major Pentagon officials exercised questionable favoritism towards Haliburton in regards to military contracts, you got demoted (See Bunny Greenhouse.). If you were a CIA agent whose spouse refuted the Bush Administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs, you got outed (See Valerie Plame.). If you were a U.S. Attorney investigating Republican “super-lobbyists” like Jack Abramoff, you got dismissed (See Frederick A, Black.).

Clearly, the “my way or the highway” approach that Republicans passed off as a higher principle during their recent tenure evidenced an unsettling strain of Fascism, a la Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, et al. The problem is, too many folks in the Red tent still don’t see it for what it was. And this is where O’Brien could really help.

As a member of an American congress for “truth,” O’Brien could encourage her conservative cohorts to actively seek exactly that. If America is on the verge of being “overthrown,” it’s not happening at the hands of Muslim-Americans. It’s happening at the hands of the misguided conservatives and Republicans.

Muslim-Americans didn’t manipulate the conservative-leaning U. S. Supreme Court to abridge our electoral process. The Republicans did. And behind closed doors they’ll tell you the ends justified the means.

Muslim-Americans didn’t suspend habeas corpus, banish due process or trample over our 4th, 5th and 6th Ammendment rights. The Bush White House did, and it didn’t bother them one whit. As Bush himself put it, the U.S. Constitution is “just a goddamned piece of paper.”

Muslim-Americans didn’t push us into repeatedly violating our own laws against torture, much less Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Condi Rice did. And they’re still trying to justify it.

Muslim-Americans didn’t pat Big Oil or the Big 3 automakers on the back and say keep on cranking out those gas-guzzlers because the Carlisle Group goes on forever and the party never ends. Conservatives and Republicans did. And their unrepentant mantra is still “Drill, Baby, Drill!”

Muslim-Americans didn’t try to violate our separation between church and state, deny global warming, illegally wiretap our conversations, ban the teaching of evolution, vilify poor people, demonize gays, marginalize dissenting voices or deregulate our economy until it dove to lows we haven’t seen since the Great Depression. Republicans and conservatives accomplished these feats all the while dressed in their Sunday-go-to-meetin’ best.

If O’Brien is really an advocate of “truth,” I’d like her to think real hard and honestly answer the following question: If Muslim-Americans really wanted to overthrow or undermine the United States of America, is there any way they could possibly be as prolific in this task as conservatives, Republicans and Bush Administration were?

In the early hours of May 1st, Sabino Augusto Montanaro, the Interior Minister in Paraguay during the repressive Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship (1954-1989), returned to his country after 20 years in Honduras. Doctors say 86-year-old Montanaro is suffering from senility and Parkinson’s disease. Montanaro’s lawyer Luis Troche said his client returned to the country not to apologize for his crimes or face justice, but because, “according to Paraguayan law, he is too old to go to jail.”

Montanaro served as a minister under Stroessner from 1966 to the end of the dictatorship, and played a key role in the regime’s repression, directing the abduction, torture and murder of political opponents of Stroessner. Now, upon his return to Paraguay, he faces various criminal charges, and thousands of angry citizens, many of whom greeted his return to the country with protests, and calls for the ex-minister’s imprisonment.

Martin Almada, a human rights lawyer and former political prisoner, discovered documents which prove that Montanaro played a key role in Operation Condor, a unified, cross-border network of repression coordinated by military dictatorships in the region throughout the 1970 and ‘80s.

In 2006, Stroessner died at age 93 in Brasilia without facing justice for the repression that took place under his watch, including the disappearance of some 400 people and the torture of 18,000, according to a Truth and Justice Commission.

Paraguayan Bishop Mario Melanio Medina told the ABC Color newspaper that Montanaro was Stroessner’s “right hand man” and “number one [in command] after Stroessner.”

Rubber Bullets and Memory

Around noon at the May 1st rally, some 1,000 protesters began marching toward the private hospital where Montaro was a patient. While pounding drums and yelling political chants, the marchers paraded down the middle of many streets that were empty due to the holiday. The chants and drumming increased in volume when the marchers passed the red headquarters of the Colorado Party, Stroessner’s party, which lost its 60-year long grip on the country with the 2008 election of Fernando Lugo.

The march reached a climax upon arriving at the hospital. Dozens of riot cops surrounded the building, protecting the ex-minister by creating a wall with their thick metal shields, while hundreds of victims, and family members of victims of Montanaro’s repression, rallied in the streets outside, demanding justice.

When the majority of the marchers arrived at the hospital, one group charged the front door, trying to break through the police line and get to Montanaro. The police responded with brutal force that left one man bloody and stunned.

As the numbers of protesters outside the hospital increased, news spread that a judge ordered Montanaro’s transfer from the private hospital to a police hospital. Protesters responded by gathering around the side of the hospital where ambulances leave and arrive. Police formed another wall in this section of the hospital to protect Montanaro’s ambulance and allow for his safe transferal.

When the gates opened, and the ambulance transporting Montanaro began to leave, police pushed protesters back, crashing night sticks and shields on the bodies of the marchers, who responded by throwing stones at the police and ambulance. Protesters managed to get to the ambulance, breaking its windows with rocks as the police repression increased and the ambulance sped off. Police dispersed the crowd with a barrage of rubber bullets that injured a number of protesters.

Later, a vigil including hundreds of people gathered in front of the police hospital. “We, the relatives of the victims, are going to mount a special vigilance so this criminal has no space nor privilege in which to hide, or to argue that he’s insane to escape justice,” said Rolando Goiburu, the son of Dr. Agustin Goiburu who was disappeared under Stroessner, according to EFE.

Earlier in the day President Lugo arrived to echo the protesters sentiments. He spoke of Montanaro’s return: “I promise that there will be justice, the same mistakes that previous governments made will not be repeated, and there won’t be any privileges for anyone.” He told protesters outside the hospital that this is a “good opportunity to recuperate historical memory.”

Judith Rolón, a daughter of Martín Rolón who was disappeared during the Stroessner dictatorship, said Montanaro “will not have peace until he says where the disappeared are.”