An Article by: 

Ben Tanosborn

For this chronologically-challenged socio-political commentator, multitasking is severely restricted to a couple of things: one active, writing; and one passive, undemonstratively viewing sports on television.  Bi-tasking would probably be a more appropriate name.

So today, on this New Year’s afternoon, I am trying to write my first column of the year while watching the Rose Bowl on TV; reminiscing about New Year’s ‘63 when I was seating at that stadium wearing student body-white in what came to be known as the greatest Rose Bowl game ever – Ron VanderKelen, the legendary quarterback for Wisconsin, almost stealing the glory from Pete Beathard and the USC Trojans in those final 12 minutes. 

While the teams from Southern Cal and Illinois take to the field, I can’t help but think of the first political primary contest which is to take place in two days: the Iowa Caucus for 2008.  It’s been three decades since this middle-America state stole the thunder from New Hampshire’s primary by giving the spotlight to presidential aspirants while also keeping the limelight onto itself.  A state probably best known for giving the nation the time-tested standard in educational testing for basic skills, ITBS, has been now trying to add to that prestige, but this time in the dubious realm of American politics.

Unfortunately for Iowa, the reality of American politics might not even be worth minimal spinning efforts, for the US may be the only nation on the face of the planet purporting political diversity while sporting only one and one-half political parties: Republicans and quasi-Republicans wearing ID tags as Democrats; both attached to Corporate America by the same bi-forked umbilical chord that provides continual nourishment (money).

A caucus, presumed to be a North American Indian word of Algonquin origin, was a sort of official get-together for Native American chiefs who ruled before the White Man came and implanted his own rule.  Now, duopoly string players – career political bosses – use caucusing to make policy decisions and also select loyal party candidates to run for office… as it will happen this January 3^rd in Iowa.

It is difficult to make any sense as to the number of ways in which Republicans (11) and Democrats (4) select their delegates for the presidential conventions, but something is strange and different about Iowa.  For a state not even scratching 1 percent of the nation’s population, both political parties assign it a very “undemocratic” high share of political influence, based on the state’s percentage of delegates: 1.68 for the Republican Party and 1.41 for the Democratic group, which also tells us in an unmistakable way that Republicans consider Iowans at least 15 percent “more relevant” than do Democrats.  Democracy American style… from the very heartland!

Do we really care which candidate wins in Iowa in each of the two parties?  Aren’t all major candidates from both parties really painted in the many different shades of red (force, power, aggression and shame) as exemplified by the stated beliefs of Romney, Clinton, Giuliani, Huckabee, Obama, and McCain?  Edwards, more of a populist, may be the only major acceptable candidate outside of the red zone, and more into the purple domain (healing ability, dignity and compassion).  Needless-to-say, people like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, both proponents of peace and foreign policy change, are considered not to have the “right stuff” to run the nation, much less lead the empire.  Why would Americans want to give renewed hope to Palestinians or other people in the Middle East and South Asia!  After all, that’s Israel’s decision, not America’s!

As the game in Pasadena is coming to a close, I feel that those Trojans from USC are extremely gifted at playing our game of football (American football), and perhaps should have been made a contender for the BCS championship; besides, the team appears to be well-coached beyond the game itself, and familiar with the term “cruel and unusual punishment;” and probably made aware before game time that the statement is not only listed in our Constitution (Eighth Amendment), but also adopted by the UN (1948) in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article Five).  It was intended for individuals, but it seems valid to apply it to teams, peoples and nations; after all, everyone deserves to be treated with a modicum of dignity.

Pete Carroll’s team did not have to worry about holding back, for it was a very good Illini team they beat 49-17, and the final score is definitely not an indication of USC inflicting cruel and unusual punishment by running up the score. 

Entering 2008, I’ve come to the realization, for the umpteenth time, that both football and politics are played differently in our nation from the way they are being played in the rest of the world; and that the United States has neither mankind’s consent nor a divine mandate to establish, and then enforce, the rules of those games; and that trying to spread democracy forcefully, and gratuitously, in our own “American style” is certain to be considered by other nations and peoples as inflicting on them cruel and unusual punishment.

www.tanosborn.com     

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An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn

America, more than anything else, more than the proverbial land of opportunity, is very definitely something else. This nation of ours appears to be, first and foremost, a land of contradictions where, while the polls indicate most people feel the nation is being led in the wrong direction, we seem inclined to follow the same pied piper foreign policy.

Like it or not, in the US you cease to be an American (or rather, a “good American”) in the mind of your family, friends and neighbors the moment you deny the sacred dogma of inerrancy in US foreign policy. It may seem irrational to some people – either the statement on its face or what it’s implied by it – but deep inside that is the attitudinal belief of a vast majority of Americans I know and, I would venture to guess, most Americans anyone might know. And yet, that “patriotic majority,” so similar to me to the “moral majority” of time past, prefer not to think of themselves in any way, shape or form as nativists, jingoists, or otherwise exclusionary… convinced they are just down-to-earth regular folks: Main Street America.

Shortly after 9/11, political America – Democrats and Republicans – decided that it was about time to set aside their minute differences in foreign policy and act as a true united front. After all, they could always maintain some semblance of independence in the domestic arena, keeping a presumed differentiation alive and well… as if the gross mislabeling of the conservative and liberal captions defined how either party stood.

To our national detriment, including America’s standing in the world, such unnecessary and unwarranted united front was adopted by our political duopoly without as much as the blink of an eye; its ideas quickly permeating, and finding acceptance, through much of the citizenry of Main Street America. That citizen’s consent to relinquish rights and freedoms, giving blind permission, authorization, license and sanction allowing Bush’s White House to do as it pleased – all too often in open acts of criminality – has made it starkly clear that even if we claim to live under democratic rule, a so-called rule of law, our republic operates under a much different rule: the rule of consentership. And we, the citizenry, are simply the consenters! Such role reversal has made Americans the doting citizens of their uncle, Sam, an embarrassingly felonious uncle at that.

Let’s stop being hypocrites! Let’s stop blaming Bush for our own cowardice and lack of civic guts. Empowering a selected – not elected – government; granting clearance for the neocons to act; giving Bush the green light to invade Iraq; tolerating the usurping of our rights and freedoms; and going along with blatant economic malfeasance that is sure to bankrupt this nation, is unmistakably defining the highest level of consentership: what some of us would call the ultimate political pass.

Could it be that we are consenting because that is exactly what we want? That deep inside we know that someone needs to do the dirty work on our behalf, and that there needs to be a price paid? Are we really accomplices as much as we are consenters? Isn’t this a form of a dictatorship by that antidemocratic triumvirate that rules our lives: predatory capitalism, wasteful consumerism, and religious fundamentalism?

It’s beginning to look as if in early 2008, consentership will continue to dominate our Tweedledum-Tweedledee politics with Republicans and Democrats achieving renewed solidarity in foreign affairs, be it the forever-occupation (or negotiated presence) of Iraq, a non-stop continuing demonization of Iran and other “terror-villains,” or the constant denunciation of any nation that challenges our imperial hegemony and right to collect tribute in any way we see fit. Bush will soon be on his way out, but rest assured that his replacement will be a clone; or, as it is now starting to look, “a Bush in drag.” Perhaps we continue to be led astray with the promise of a lesser evil approach in domestic governance, but it will not be a lesser evil in the areas that are essential to bring trusting understanding among peoples of the world; it will not be a recipe to achieve peace on this earth, just as the organic compounds were to achieve life.

Of late, we have been looking at what is happening in Greater Russia, and are totally befuddled by the confrontational attitude of Mr. Putin. A man that not so long ago our own Duce, after looking into his eyes, tabbed as his straightforward, trustworthy friend Vladimir. My God, can someone explain how our prophetic, infallible Bush was able to get a sense of Putin’s soul and just a few years later have him turn against us?

But we shouldn’t fret over Putin’s reaction to our accustomed imperialist behavior, nor should we be surprised at his popularity in Greater Russia. Just like here in the US, there is also an apparent consensus in the neo-czarist land of Vladimir Putin, with an overwhelming majority matching their consentership against our very own. If we can be bipartisan in adopting – preserving might be a more appropriate word – an imperial foreign policy, it’s understandable that the Russians’ newly found economic success and national pride have turned their political behavior into one of consentership. The US should not expect anything better after our “screw-you” behavior during their cold turkey exit from communism, and now our insolence of trying to park missiles at their borders.

Consentership may not be dangerously consequential for small groups or nations that have no influence beyond their memberships or borders. For an imperial superpower it can turn out to be the most extreme among political extremes, perhaps the worst form of dictatorship. After all, we are consenting to the rule of a very few… and those few have been granted the power to push the nuclear button at will, to turn daylight into permanent night.

And we have the gall to criticize some nations because we tag them as dictatorships!

© 2007 Ben Tanosborn

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As much as I’ve always enjoyed Ogden Nash, the poet, I must confess that many of his writings have impacted me as if coming from the wisdom of a philosopher rather than the wit of an accomplished light verse mechanic. And, among his many vignettes, there is one that seems to have stayed inscribed on my head, as if sentry in eternal vigilance.

“There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball,” says Nash, “and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.” As hard as I search for another type of accommodation where happiness can reside, conscience needs to be part of it, either by its presence or by its absence; conscience and the state of well-being appear irremediably intertwined. Of course, such conclusion in my part stems from defining conscience as the awareness of a moral-ethical aspect to
one’s conduct together with a forceful desire to prefer right over wrong.

And therein lies the problem; we all claim ownership of a conscience… but what we are obviously lacking is a common conscience. How else can you explain a nation of over 300 million people, one would guess happy for the most part – if consumption is at the very least a low level indicator of that happiness– allowing their leaders to commit high crimes against humanity day after day of their lives? Directly, via orders carried out by the military in Iraq, Afghanistan and lesser known locations; or indirectly, via outright threats to groups and nations,
or via bully resolutions most often inflicted as sanctions; economic punishment, as a rule, on undeserving peoples or nations, such as Cuba, or Iran, just because we judge the political behavior of their leaders out of step with ours.

Two happenings this past week give us a telltale of what political America is all about, at least with reference to its foreign relations component. On Wednesday, our
Lecturer-In-Chief decided that it was high time – after four years – that he tell those loyal Cuban-Americans that populate Florida plus a splattering elsewhere, and who for the most part are die-hard Republicans, that Castro and his revolution remain anathema to this
US. Then, on Saturday, the dove in America’s conscience had been scheduled to spread its wings for peace, at least in some major population centers. Sadly, what a telltale on both counts!

Hollow in moral authority, here is George W. Bush  lecturing the world about a sovereign nation just a
hundred miles away, in a preface to a wake for Fidel, submitting to the people in Cuba, as well as the rest of the world, the need for a regime change; and, in a shameful act, urging peacekeepers of the nation – police and military – to turn their backs to those in charge. Something reminiscent of America’s ever presence in
other nations’ internal affairs, not out of idealistic friendship for people of those nations, but solely to serve the interests of powerful groups in this United States – wasn’t that what we told Chile’s police and military to help bring down Allende and install Pinochet?

If America wishes for other nations’ governments to evolve and perhaps resemble our own – which is beginning to look more and more like a joke or even a death wish – why is it that our government’s efforts always seem to be directed in a counterproductive way? Why must America resort to military threat, or economic sanctions that kill and impoverish people, but do
absolutely nothing to enlist minimal change or even low level accommodation? Our decades-long sanctions against Cuba, not Castro, have made us only enemies of 11 million Cubans, even if one-quarter million hard-core anti-castristas exiles command some attention because of their votes in Florida. The latter, something that might soon change, as Cuban-American voters, chiefly
Republicans, have become a minority (45%) among Hispanic voters in Florida, where they represented 80 percent just a decade ago.

And non-Cuban Hispanic voters tend to vote with equal fervor… but for Democratic candidates.  US-instigated UN sanctions in the 90’s against Iraq, not Saddam Hussein, only did succeed in the hush-hush infanticide of at least one-half million Iraqi children, doing absolutely nothing else. And the sanctions imposed against the Palestinians post-Hamas victory in the 2006 elections… by the US,
Israel and the me-too Europeans only brought pain and suffering, while also being instrumental in a fratricidal conflict and territorial fragmentation; and a resumption of a exclusionary peace process that is invalid and destined to fail. Now it’s sanctions against Iran,  America’s enemy-du-jour!

Of course, the peace marches on Saturday did not amount to much. They never do. It’s the same decent people with conscience, few others bothered to join.
Just because in these last four years Bush’s popularity ratings have plummeted from 80 to 30 percent, that doesn’t mean that 50 percent of the people have developed a common conscience towards peace and goodwill; only that they don’t care for the Current
Occupant of the White House, as Garrison Keillor would say.

Decency doesn’t seem to be contagious. Have you ever asked yourself how many of your “happy” neighbors have a clear conscience… and how many just don’t have a conscience at all? I bet Ogden Nash knew about the conscience-status of his neighbors.

Ben Tanosborn

www.tanosborn.com

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The need for direct democracy in America has never been more apparent than it is right now. We - the populace - are left impotent as the politicians whom we elected to office as representatives neglect to embody in their advocacies the will and interests that we - the American Public - possess, whose demands for a withdrawal from Iraq; whose oppositions to the advancing diminution of civil liberties; whose sentiments concerning illegal immigration; are all falling upon the unreceptive ears of the Congress and the White House.

It has become clear following the Democratic procurement of power in the two Congressional bodies that the people of America do not have a voice in the affairs of their government. Despite the lofty declarations of intent enunciated by the Democratic leadership during the campaigns leading to the expulsion of Republicans from Congress, the Democrats have delivered nothing.

For example, the marginal increase in the minimum wage successfully installed by the Democrats is absolutely meaningless, since most States have already passed legislation rasing their own minimum wages to levels that exceed the hike enacted by the Democrats in the House and in the Senate. Furthermore, the additional sum specified in the legislation fails to amount to anything approximating a living wage. Therefore, what is the point? since those unfortunate enough to be working for minimum wage will continue to need assistance from government services, and - despite the hours and frenetic intensities at which they toil at their occupations - they will fail to accumulate the resources necessary to reinvest in themselves - through education or entrepreneurial ventures - so that they might ascend to a higher stratum within the American socio-economic stratifications.

Another instance of Democratic ineptitude involved the abundance of time that was wasted in the legislator-deal-making charade of representative democracy, which only resulted in a stunning failure to pass immigration reform. This demonstration of astoundingly acute incompetences on the parts of the Democratic and Republican leadership in the Senate will always have a place in the recesses of my memory due to the gaspingly condescending and equally idiotic speech given by Harry Reid, where he quoted Dr. Sues at length in an ill conceived rhetorical ploy to make his enormously convoluted, internally contradicting, and substantively hollow piece of legislation appear to be a pending bill that even a child could recognize as meritorious legislation in need of passing by Congress.

Reid’s lengthy quotation from a children’s book even outdid his previous remarks in support of legalizing illegal immigration, where he alluded to the need of casinos in his own State of Nevada not to lose their workforce of Latino maids. Although I certainly have sympathy for the Latino migrants who are exploited by the Las Vegas gambling industry, I cannot imagine a sector in the United States economy for which I could possibly possess less concern.

It is a wonder how this self-righteous idiot - the Senate Majority Leader - not only obtained his seat in the Senate, but came to control the Democratic caucus in this esteemed deliberative body.

To push on beyond Reid, we can cite the Democratic concessions to the White House with respect to the funding of the Iraq War. In defiance of the campaign promises that propelled the Democrats into power in the Congress, the Democrats in the House and Senate have given the Bush Administration exactly what it has insisted upon in form of the supplemental funding bills needed to persist in the financing of this black hole that has formed in what was previously the sovereign state of Iraq.

And finally, to top things off, the Democrats have passed a bill that was advertised as the modernization of FISA, which, in actuality, had nothing to do with revamping FISA in order for it to adequately address new technologies; rather, the legislation merely dismantled and discarded with significant aspects of the oversight that was previously performed by FISA. In short, going over and beyond even what was requested by the Imperial Presidency, the Democrats gave powers to the Executive Branch to monitor the activities of citizens without any oversight or check by the Judicial Branch of Government.

It has become clear that the Democratic Party presents no alternative venue of political representation for those of us who had, heretofore, perceived the Republican Party as the real threat to American civil liberties and economic prosperity. I think, at this point, we should feel compelled to accept what has become ostensible: America is not a democracy in any sense of the word. Remember, the Soviet Empire had elections, as well. However, similarly to the condition of American politics, the mere casting of a vote in an election had little or no consequence because, ultimately, government and its administration of public policies would be entirely the same no matter who came to be elected in the various branches of polity.

Russell Cole

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An Article by:
Ben Tanosborn

Originally published on:
www.tanosborn.com/columns.html

Nothing evidences our monolithic approach to international politics better than our response to a little foreign criticism coming from any quarter. Such criticism may come from nations that we usually identify with, and which have always been considered allies; or from nations that resent our meddling in their internal affairs and confront our behavior. It doesn’t matter. We trash them all: messengers as well as messages. How dare anyone challenge us!

We have seen French fries become - ‘freedom fries’ - courtesy of one very ‘patriotic’, and very crooked, politician, Rep. Robert Ney of Ohio; and democratically-elected leaders of nations, who dare challenge our imperialistic ways, become thugs, last such naming coming from Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, a ’supposedly’ liberal leader in the Democratic Party, as she referred to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Ours is an equal opportunity thrashing from either side of our political coin, which unfortunately is the only currency we’ve got!

Why are our politicians, of either party, so quick on the draw to insult just about anyone? Anyone outside our borders, that is! Because it’s safe, and it garners votes, which for them is the end game. If everything else fails, there is always that ‘rally around the flag’ that will save the day. American exceptionalism, the high-grade pot we all appear to be smoking, will always come to the rescue of the scoundrel politicians that infest our ailing nation. Honesty and truth be damned!

Heck, we give them all a democratic treatment regardless where they are from. Banana republics, or nations with low-yield nuclear weapons and deficient delivery systems; we hold no bias towards one or the other. All we ask of these leaders is be responsive to our whims and, unequivocally, follow our directions. Why make things difficult for themselves, and their nations? See how placid things turned out for Pervez Musharraf, and Pakistan, after he followed - counsel he couldn’t refuse - from Richard Armitage? Musharraf will soon be collecting royalties from his memoirs, “In the Line of Fire,” and Pakistan doesn’t need to worry about finding its way out of the Stone Age. Look at the bright side of capitulation: you get to keep your life, and the roof over your head. This Pakistani head of state prevented a lot of pain and suffering for the people of Pakistan.

As repugnant as this behavior in American foreign policy might seem to some, it’s a fact of life that it’s carried with the consent of the American citizenry; indirectly, or by default, but with little indication of concern by the governed. For all the touting of our democracy, where the political centerpiece rests on - checks and balances - between the three branches of government, we find nothing wrong with having the Supreme Court select our president, or have Congress de-facto tender its powers to the President. Autocracy by default, it would seem, rather than democracy; thus, our foreign policy.

But, getting back to the subject of thugs and how quick we are to classify as ruffians, hoodlums and gangsters anyone unwilling to bow to us, let’s get real. Thugs, just like many other derogatory terms, including terrorists, are more indicative of our emotional state than the rational classification of those people by the what and why of their actions. It’s the “N” word in international affairs, often wrong and never appropriate.

However, there are thugs and there are Thugs; yes, thugs with a capital T. The latter were assassins operating in time past in northern India who paid homage to Kali, goddess of death and destruction - depicted as black, red-eyed, blood-stained and wearing a necklace of skulls - and offered their victims to her. The first group is the result of our insulting emotions - the second group, the creators of hell on earth. No longer operating in India, Thugs have found their way, their re-birth, among those who hold the reins of world power. It’s these Newborn Thugs that the world needs to worry about; and most of them, unfortunately, carry US passports: Armitage, Bolton, Cheney, Rumsfeld - the list of Thugs goes on and on. Most, however, would rather be called ‘men of war’ since they couldn’t be taken seriously as, ‘defenders of democracy and freedom.’ Men and women of war, true Thugs!

It is sad that we show our displeasure of those who confront us by calling them thugs, while we seem to show our respect and appreciation for our own Thugs.

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