GORE BACKS OBAMA: "THIS ELECTION AFFECTS THE FUTURE OF OUR PLANET"
IN THIS ISSUE: Boy Scout Heroes, Midwest Floods, Gore Backs Obama and Father's Day with Emperor Qin's Terracotta Army...
And if you missed our riveting interview this morning with U.S. Attorney David Iglesias who was fired by Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department (on orders from Karl Rove?) in the 'Attorney-Gate scandal' please go to Basham and Cornell Show and click on Audio Archives.
After seeing the above video, I've changed my mind. I'm voting Republican.
This the most important election of our time. Nobel Laureate, award-winning environmentalist, peacemaker and international statesman Al Gore gives an outstanding speech on the failures of the Bush Administration and shows us what could have been, and what will be. We will change the world with our new President. If McSame wins, it will be a McShame.
Could Justice finally catch up with criminal corruption and treason?
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued a subpoena Monday morning to the Attorney General Michael Mukasey demanding he turn over the FBI’s interview transcripts of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney who were questioned in 2004 about the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.
BOY SCOUT HEROES
A week of tragedy and heroism. Four young Boy Scouts lost their lives this week in a freak tornado that wrecked their camp. God Bless these poor families who are grieving. And Rest in Peace, Tim Russert. My heart goes out to Russert's widow, Maureen Orth and son Luke.
NBC News and news services
updated 3:09 p.m. PT, Thurs., June. 12, 2008
BLENCOE, Iowa - Boy Scouts who survived a twister that killed four of their friends described the fear followed by the quick action to help the injured that followed the tragedy Wednesday night.
The National Weather Service said it was an EF3 on the 1-to-5 Enhanced Fujita scale of tornado intensity, with an estimated wind speed of 145 mph. Meteorologists said the twister cut a path about 14 miles long.
When the howling winds finally died down, the Boy Scouts — true to their motto, "Be Prepared" — sprang into action.
Putting their first-aid training to use, they applied tourniquets and gauze to the injured. Some began digging victims from the rubble of a collapsed fireplace. And others broke into an equipment shed, seized chainsaws and other tools, and began clearing fallen trees from a road.
Scouts were at leadership training
Dozens of the boys, ages 13 to 18, were hailed for their bravery and resourcefulness Thursday.
"There were some real heroes at this Scout camp," Culver said, adding that he believes the Scouts saved lives while they waited for paramedics to cut through the trees and reach the camp a mile into the woods.
The 93 boys, all elite Scouts attending a weeklong leadership training session, had taken part in a mock emergency drill with 25 staff members just a day before the twister hit.
"They knew what to do, they knew where to go, and they prepared well," said Lloyd Roitstein, an executive with the Mid-America Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
Killed were Aaron Eilerts, 14, of Eagle Grove, Iowa; and Josh Fennen, 13, Sam Thomsen, 13, and Ben Petrzilka, 14, all of Omaha, Neb. Roitstein said the four were in one of three buildings where Scouts sought shelter.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff toured the camp and said it appeared that the Boy Scouts "didn't have a chance" and that the tornado came through the camp "like a bowling ball."
From Wisconsin to Missouri, officials in the flood-ravaged Midwest were frantically sandbagging, watching weakened dams and rescuing residents from water that in some places rose knee-high, while storms threatened more damage in the Upper Plains.
FLOODS IN THE MIDWEST
Officials in Wisconsin were monitoring dams and high water in Indiana burst a levee, flooding a vast stretch of farmland. In Minnesota and North Dakota, strong winds closed a highway and even sent a cow into the air, a witness said.
Tornadoes touched down in eastern Nebraska and southwestern Minnesota, but there were no immediate reports of major damage.
Along the Mississippi River in Missouri and Illinois, the National Weather Service was predicting the worst flooding in 15 years. Outlying areas could be inundated, but most of the towns are protected by levees and many low-lying property owners were bought out after massive flooding in 1993, officials said.
______________________
On Father's Day we went to see the most amazing exhibition of Emperor Qin's Terracotta Army at the Bowers Museum. The life-size terracotta figures, dating from 210 BC, were discovered in 1974 by several local farmers near Xi'an, Shaanxi province, China near the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. Here's a photo of me on Sunday - with a "walking statue."
“China’s First Emperor, the boy king who united the country in 221 B.C. and began construction of the first Great Wall, was not only obsessed with building but also a fanatic about death. After experimenting with potions to prolong his life, the megalomaniac king resigned himself to death on his own terms. He would build a standing army of 7,000 soldiers to enforce his rule over the afterlife.”
Sound like anyone you know? Well, actually, these and other imperial traits sound like a bunch of people we know. - The OC Weekly, Ted B. Kissell
Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor*
UNESCO World Heritage Site
And if you missed our riveting interview this morning with U.S. Attorney David Iglesias who was fired by Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department (on orders from Karl Rove?) in the 'Attorney-Gate scandal' please go to Basham and Cornell Show and click on Audio Archives.
After seeing the above video, I've changed my mind. I'm voting Republican.
This the most important election of our time. Nobel Laureate, award-winning environmentalist, peacemaker and international statesman Al Gore gives an outstanding speech on the failures of the Bush Administration and shows us what could have been, and what will be. We will change the world with our new President. If McSame wins, it will be a McShame.
"I intend to do whatever I can to make sure Obama is elected." - Al Gore (HuffPo)
Could Justice finally catch up with criminal corruption and treason?
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued a subpoena Monday morning to the Attorney General Michael Mukasey demanding he turn over the FBI’s interview transcripts of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney who were questioned in 2004 about the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.And don't forget, on June 12, Cheney lied and his own party busted him! In a speech before the Chamber of Commerce yesterday, Vice President Dick Cheney – the former CEO of the oil services company Halliburton — called for a substantial increase in domestic drilling for oil and other natural resources. "Oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida," the vice president said. "We're not doing it, the Chinese are, in cooperation with the Cuban government. Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply."
Armed with maps and reports, Sen. Mel Martinez – a Florida Republican who served in Bush’s cabinet – took to the Senate floor to dispute Cheney’s claim: Despite what is cited as fact here in the Senate and in other places, China is not drilling off the coast of Cuba. … Reports to the contrary are simply false. … So any talk of using some fabricated China/Cuba connection as an argument to change U.S. policy, in my view, has no merit.
BOY SCOUT HEROESA week of tragedy and heroism. Four young Boy Scouts lost their lives this week in a freak tornado that wrecked their camp. God Bless these poor families who are grieving. And Rest in Peace, Tim Russert. My heart goes out to Russert's widow, Maureen Orth and son Luke.
The Scouts lived up to their motto. “We were prepared.”
“All four of the young men who were killed are Scouts.“ These young men, these Scouts, were the most outstanding leaders in their communities. We’ve very proud of those young men. They responded as quickly as they could. Think lives were saved. They were the real heroes of this story.”
“We knew that shock could happen. We knew to put tourniquets on wounds that were bleeding too much. We knew we needed to apply pressure and gauze... We knew about this. We knew how to do it.”
NBC News and news services
updated 3:09 p.m. PT, Thurs., June. 12, 2008
BLENCOE, Iowa - Boy Scouts who survived a twister that killed four of their friends described the fear followed by the quick action to help the injured that followed the tragedy Wednesday night.
The National Weather Service said it was an EF3 on the 1-to-5 Enhanced Fujita scale of tornado intensity, with an estimated wind speed of 145 mph. Meteorologists said the twister cut a path about 14 miles long.
When the howling winds finally died down, the Boy Scouts — true to their motto, "Be Prepared" — sprang into action.
Putting their first-aid training to use, they applied tourniquets and gauze to the injured. Some began digging victims from the rubble of a collapsed fireplace. And others broke into an equipment shed, seized chainsaws and other tools, and began clearing fallen trees from a road.
Scouts were at leadership training
Dozens of the boys, ages 13 to 18, were hailed for their bravery and resourcefulness Thursday.
"There were some real heroes at this Scout camp," Culver said, adding that he believes the Scouts saved lives while they waited for paramedics to cut through the trees and reach the camp a mile into the woods.
The 93 boys, all elite Scouts attending a weeklong leadership training session, had taken part in a mock emergency drill with 25 staff members just a day before the twister hit.
"They knew what to do, they knew where to go, and they prepared well," said Lloyd Roitstein, an executive with the Mid-America Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
Killed were Aaron Eilerts, 14, of Eagle Grove, Iowa; and Josh Fennen, 13, Sam Thomsen, 13, and Ben Petrzilka, 14, all of Omaha, Neb. Roitstein said the four were in one of three buildings where Scouts sought shelter.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff toured the camp and said it appeared that the Boy Scouts "didn't have a chance" and that the tornado came through the camp "like a bowling ball."
From Wisconsin to Missouri, officials in the flood-ravaged Midwest were frantically sandbagging, watching weakened dams and rescuing residents from water that in some places rose knee-high, while storms threatened more damage in the Upper Plains.
FLOODS IN THE MIDWEST
Officials in Wisconsin were monitoring dams and high water in Indiana burst a levee, flooding a vast stretch of farmland. In Minnesota and North Dakota, strong winds closed a highway and even sent a cow into the air, a witness said.
Tornadoes touched down in eastern Nebraska and southwestern Minnesota, but there were no immediate reports of major damage.
Along the Mississippi River in Missouri and Illinois, the National Weather Service was predicting the worst flooding in 15 years. Outlying areas could be inundated, but most of the towns are protected by levees and many low-lying property owners were bought out after massive flooding in 1993, officials said.
______________________
On Father's Day we went to see the most amazing exhibition of Emperor Qin's Terracotta Army at the Bowers Museum. The life-size terracotta figures, dating from 210 BC, were discovered in 1974 by several local farmers near Xi'an, Shaanxi province, China near the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. Here's a photo of me on Sunday - with a "walking statue."
“China’s First Emperor, the boy king who united the country in 221 B.C. and began construction of the first Great Wall, was not only obsessed with building but also a fanatic about death. After experimenting with potions to prolong his life, the megalomaniac king resigned himself to death on his own terms. He would build a standing army of 7,000 soldiers to enforce his rule over the afterlife.”
Sound like anyone you know? Well, actually, these and other imperial traits sound like a bunch of people we know. - The OC Weekly, Ted B. Kissell
Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor*
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Labels: Boy Scout Heroes, Emperor Qin's Terracotta Army, Gore Backs Obama, Midwest Floods
posted by Lydia Cornell at
4:56 PM
145 Comments:
Thanks for posting this. Some weird things are happening with the weather and the earth. Its scary.
By
LYDIA'S BIGGEST FAN, at 12:41 PM
I like when you say that we should keep our thoughts on joy and love. Maybe that will change our reality, instead of worrying all the time and being fearful.
By
LYDIA'S BIGGEST FAN, at 12:43 PM
Yes, that is what I mean by "God" - the consciousness of love. If we keep our thoughts on the good, the beautiful and the true — we will experience these things in proportion to our thoughts.
By
Lydia Cornell, at 12:50 PM
and your thoughts directly affect your physical reality. We can also get through really hard times with grace and a minimum of suffering when we are thinking the right way - seeing the smallest thing to be grateful for.
By
Lydia Cornell, at 12:52 PM
I just discovered your website on google and thought it should be checked out. So happy you are still active and being creative. I wish you much peace and happiness.
By
Chelsea, at 3:27 PM
Chelsea - thank you!
xo
Lydia
By
Lydia Cornell, at 7:19 PM
Lydia--
The most egregious mistake mankind has made, is creating God in their own image, instead of the other way around.
God is not some big, bearded, robed fellow, sitting on a physical throne somewhere. God is Spirit. The Koine Greek word was, 'pneuma', meaning literally, 'breath'. He dwells in all of mankind. He is like the wind; you can feel it, and see the effects of it, but know not where it comes from, or where it goes.
God is not proprietary to any single group, race, or religion. Mankind belongs to God. ALL mankind --- Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, et al. And yes, even atheists. Anyone who disagrees with that is limiting an omniscient and omnipotent force.
When Jesus preached, "Love thy neighbor as thyself", the Koine word used, was 'plesion', meaning, 'fellow-man'. It is much wider and inclusive than the English word, 'neighbor'.
I have been taking a brow-beating over this kind of stuff. You may find this interesting
By
Brother Tim, at 12:02 AM
Father's Day Special: What Legacy Are You Passing On To Your Children?
By Terry Real
Each year at this time, we celebrate fathers, and in doing so we can't help contemplating our relationships with our own fathers as well as the kind of dads we have become.
In a family, the roles we pass from generation to generation can be like a fire in the woods, taking down everything in its path until one person has the courage to stand and face the fire.
That fire is the legacy of esteem for oneself and for others that is learned from the family dynamic. I always say that the best gift you can give your children is a healthier you. Even the most apparently well-adjusted and gracious families host elements of ill health and disconnection behind their closed doors.
When psychologists talk about learning to live relationally, we refer to picking up a new way of living. That includes doing the work not just to benefit yourself, but for your marriage, your children and your children's children. That means examining the legacy you bring into your relationships, to heighten the positive elements and redefine the negative ones.
We've all heard the saying, "Do as I say, not as I do," and we all know it's baloney. The reality is that children do as you do; they learn what they live.
Examining your legacy is a transformative experience aimed not at changing you and your spouse as individuals, but literally changing the course of your entire family. You have the chance to identify the essential messages you received as a child about how to be a grown up, the unspoken cues on how to live. Each of those messages has positive and negative aspects.
WHAT'S YOUR LEGACY?
For example, if you grew up in a family that valued being stoic and uncomplaining, the positive aspect is that you probably became a person who can be counted on, someone who is strong and stalwart. On the other hand, you probably also learned to despise vulnerability in your self and in others.
The positive of that legacy is that you are tough and you can suffer thru a lot of adversity. The negative consequence is that you have contempt for any sign of human weakness; you're perfectionistic, unforgiving and perhaps even kind of cruel to yourself and others. Some one who has this legacy might think that they are toughening up their kids, but they can be unsympathetic when they do a less than perfect job. They might not mean to do those things, but they would just come out. This type of behavior can lead to depression - in the parent who is never satisfied and in the child who can never satisfy the parent.
Another example is what we call the "Boundary-less Family". The positive aspects of this dynamic are that the family is very expressive and demonstrative about their love for each other. On the flip side, such families usually yell and scream a lot, often to the point of being abusive. Such persons pass on to their children a sense of entitlement that yelling and screaming is just a means of expressing yourself and that shameless behavior is acceptable. These families usually have a mixture of "ragers" and passive-aggressives who duck for cover and retaliate in more subversive ways.
WHAT'S NEXT?
After examining the core legacy passed down to you from your family of origin, the next step is to take a good hard look at yourself. Determine how you are passing the positive and negative messages you received from your family down to your children.
While you can reap rewards from doing this work individually, it works unbelievably well if you work on this as a couple or as a co-parenting partnership. There is a real turning point that happens when the the light bulb goes off and things that your and your partner have been trying to get thru to each other for 20-30 years finally gets thru. This exercise enables you both to finally "get" what each other has been doing that is off-base and over which you have both been tearing your hair out. This is that thing that you've been fighting about for years while neither of you have been able to listening. In the mean time, your kids have been in the middle of your competing legacies, and even worse, they've been watching and learning from it.
In a Legacy Workshop, you have experience the miraculous moment of watching your partner get it. And you also have the sobering experience of getting it yourself.
HOW TO FORGIVE AND FORGET
After all of this deep self-examination, there is a big reward. You get a chance to thank your parents for the positive legacy they have given you, and you get to confront them about the costs of the negative aspects you learned. Don't worry, this is a virtual exercise. (If you choose to do this in person, we have a couch ready to help you get over that trauma!)
There are many ways to undertake this exercise. It can be in the form of a letter, be done in front of a mirror or you can even speak to your imaginary parent sitting in an empty chair in front of you. The idea is to give voice your discoveries and acknowledge the positive and negative aspects of the legacy. For example, "Dad, you taught me to... As a result, I've become a strong, independent, driven person, and I'm able to excel at my career and provide a great life for my family. On the other hand, the negative messages you gave me have cost me the following: I learned that vulnerability is to be despised, and you taught me that anything less than perfection is not to be tolerated. As a result, I'm always striving, everything is not enough and I never feel happy.
Another example from the boundary-less family could be, "Dad you gave me the gift of being able to share my love and affection with my family. My kids know that I love them no matter what. On the other hand, the negative side is that like you, I don't hold back when I'm angry. I fly into a rage. I've made it O.K. for us to yell and scream at each other, and I hate that sometimes I make my kids and my wife cry. Even if I'm not raging, I can act like a jerk and push people away when I don't get my way.
Once you have taken this step, it's time to give the negative legacy back to your parent(s). You give voice to your forgiveness, accept the generosity of the positive things you received from them and forgive them (and give back) the negative legacy.
This is a very cathartic experience for everyone who does it, and if it is in the context of a group workshop, the reverberation is palpable, especially in the third and final step which helps you to forge ahead in good health.
HOW TO FORGE ONWARD
It is one thing to come to a deep realization. Once that is achieved, the key is to figure out what you're going to do with it. We don't feel like the legacy work is complete until the parents as individuals and as a couple make a pledge to change. This requires giving voice to specifically how you are going to behave differently. Again, this can be done virtually by speaking to pictures of your children. We think it is especially important for your spouse or co-parenting partner stand beside you in support as you make this pledge.
The pledge might sound something like this: Son, these are the things I've been doing to pass on the negative legacy I learned from my parents on to you. Here is one concrete change I'm going to make in my behavior. From now on, I will welcome you when you come to me in vulnerability. If you don't play a perfect game, I'll be happy for the great job you did, and if you want, we'll work on improving your swing or pitch for the next game together.
A pledge from the boundary-less parent might sound like this: Son, from now on I'm going to watch my temper, and I'm not going to act as if yelling and screaming and carrying-on is acceptable under any circumstance. Instead I'm going to give myself a time-out, and I'm going to let you know how I feel in a way that treats you and the family with respect.
Don't get me wrong. Keeping these pledges is not easy. While we do believe you can teach an old dog new tricks, it takes a whole lot of practice and support to do that. That's why the very last step of the legacy work is to agree to do one thing to sustain their pledge. For some that might mean getting into regular therapy. For others it might mean joining a parenting group.
The point is to become aware of the legacy you inherited, identify how it is affecting your life at home and at work, and to take steps to rectify the negative and enhance the positive.
In our experience, 60% to 70% of people who take these pledges go home and behave in radically different ways. After a year they report back that not only did they experience an immediate result, but the entire family dynamic had positively shifted and they had achieved permanent results.
So this week, while you're celebrating dad, think about the legacy you inherited, how you want to live now and the legacy you want to pass on. It's never too early to be a better, healthier person.
By
Larry, at 5:47 AM
My Father's Gift of Tecumseh
By Gina Telaroli
I was a pretty lucky kid. I grew up with a father who had an interest in Native American history. And despite the inherent contradiction that my father also influenced me to be an avid Cleveland Indians fan, I've always been thankful that he brought an awareness of Native American history into my life. We would go on cross country trips out west and when I was about 14 we drove on down to Southern Ohio to see what remains my favorite theater experience to this day, "Tecumseh!". The play was based on one of my father's favorite books, Allan W. Eckert's "A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh."
"Tecumseh!" is about the tragic Shawnee chief of the same name and is told in what I remember to be a breathtaking outdoor amphitheater with real horses and gunpowder. It was awe-inspiring, even for a fourteen year old who thought she was too cool to go on vacation with her family. And while I'm sure my critical thoughts on the piece are influenced by my age and ignorance of all things theater at that time, I think I can safely say that the story was amazing, the tragedy of which has always stayed with me.
Tecumseh, for those unfamiliar, had a great plan to unite all of the different tribes against the incoming white men, and in the early 1800's he set out to do this. He was close to success when his brother, known as "the prophet" (he was a false one of course) got jealous and more or less ruined any chance of a unified front. And thus, here you and I are today. Of course it's more complicated, but I've always wondered what would have happened had Tecumseh been successful.
Native American history, especially stories like that of Tecumseh, are not something we spend much time on in this country. Outside of quick history lessons in grade school and the like, it seems there is a general wish to forget what our being here means. And worse, beyond our lack of study of the past, almost no effort is paid to the current circumstances of Native Americans in this country.
That lack of attention is why my recent viewing of films like Beth and George Gage's American Outrage and Randy Vasquez's Something's Moving got me pretty excited. Dialogue on the issues they deal with is so necessary and the prospect of that dialogue is in turn quite inspiring.
American Outrage focuses on the Dann sisters and their fight to keep their Western Shoshone lands. In 1863, the Shoshone signed a treaty with the US allowing them to pass on their lands. That treaty, The Treaty of Ruby Valley, was a treaty of good faith and in no way signified that the Shoshone were giving up their lands. However, in 1974, Mary and Carrie Dann, elderly Shoshone grandmothers, found themselves accused of trespassing on their own land. The lengths that the government went to to remove the Dann sisters and their livestock from their property is astounding.
As it turns out, the Dann's land was on top of a gold mine, making their removal very profitable for some of the world's largest gold companies. The film points also points out the great irony that as the US was taking Shoshone lands for their gold, they were also distributing the new Sacajawea coin. Sacajawea, the woman who led Lewis and Clark safely across the West, was also a Shoehone.
Vasquez's Something's Moving on the other hand, a shorter version of a feature he hopes to make, deals with something less tangible and more rooted in the past, Catholic Indian boarding schools. The schools, as Vasquez himself found out, have caused years of psychological trauma for Native Americans:
"I'd been open to learning more about contemporary Native issues and I read a book by Ward Churchill regarding boarding school history and the lingering effects in Indian country today. I remember reading it on a plane and being shocked.
That was early 2003 and I've been educating and broadening myself on the subject ever since, talking to former students all over the country. My research led me to post traumatic stress disorder as it related to boarding school survivors and through a Harvard psychologist I was introduced to Walter Littlemoon in Wounded Knee. He agreed to work on a documentary about his experience at boarding school and it all started from there."
His film now focuses on many different regions but what remains at the heart of it is the need to speak, the need to bring certain things to light, which seems to be happening given the reactions that Vasquez has seen:
"The reaction to the fundraising trailer has generally been, by non-natives, 'I never knew about this' complete with slack jaw. A lot of Native people just nod and say 'yeah, the boarding schools...whoa.' Much of the younger generation though don't know about them either."
And while both the situation of Littlemoon and the Dann Sisters are no doubt depressing, what's exciting and inspiring is that both projects exist and that both are being seen. Something's Moving is a part of the Media That Matters Film Festival, an online collection of films that travel the country and promote taking action, and American Outrage is featured in the upcoming New York chapter of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival.
And while I wish every little girl (and boy) could go and see" Tecumseh!" and witness firsthand a story that has never left me, I'm also fully aware that Ohio will never be a hot spot vacation destination. Which in turn makes the work of the Gages and Vasquez that much more important. I'm glad that as technology continues to develop and allows us to delve deeper into unheard stories, we are beginning to consider what happened all those years ago and how it continues to affect Native American populations today. Giving a voice to those who had theirs taken away, along with so much more, is a step in the right direction.
It's interesting to see, as I get older, how things like "Tecumseh!" have shaped who I am, and in many ways I have my father to thank for the good that I know came from that theatrical experience. Though, luckily for me his fascination with all things Tecumseh came after my birth, as he once told me that given the chance he would have made my middle name Tecumapese, in the spirit of Tecumseh's sister.
Gina Tecumapese Telaroli, now thats a mouthful.
By
Larry, at 5:50 AM
Danny Thomas to Daughter Marlo: 'Run Your Own Race, Baby'
By Marlo Thomas
Looking back, I think the most amazing thing about my father as a parent was how he included his children in his work. Most men of that era left their home and kids and went off to their jobs. Not my father. He would often take us to work at the studio with him. He let us sit in when the writers gathered for meetings in our home. He shared his passion for his work with us, and we knew he genuinely enjoyed our company.
I can still remember sitting on the floor, watching story conferences, as he and his comedy writers shaped his nightclub act or knocked around ideas for an episode for his series. Sometimes I’d laugh out loud at a joke and he’d say, “You like that?” He’d get such a kick out of my getting the joke.
My father was truly interested in his children. He wasn’t at all a “kids-are-supposed-to-be-seen-and-not-heard” kind of guy. Unusual for a powerful man.
Growing up around all of this made my entry into the business so much easier. By the time I started working, it wasn’t a foreign land to me. I knew the lingo; I had learned how to shape a good story. And I understood the most important thing about comedy: As my father would say, “The audience will go down any yellow brick road with you, as long as you don’t lie to them. Don’t veer off that road of truth to get a laugh. Have respect for the audience, and they’ll stay with you.”
There’s a story I’ve told before about my relationship with my father that dramatizes how he influenced me and helped to shape my life:
When I was a little girl, around seven or eight, my father made a movie with Margaret O’Brien. It was summertime and he often took me to the set with him. I would cue him on his lines as we drove to MGM, with the car windows open and the heady mix of Old Spice and a Cuban cigar swirling about us. On the set I would play jacks with Margaret between takes, and when the bell rang I would join the crew in their silence as the cameras rolled and the boom mic moved into position to record the dialogue I knew by heart.
I was in awe of my father and sinfully envious of Margaret O’Brien. I wore pigtails. I wanted freckles. I wanted to be Margaret O’Brien. Ten years later, at age seventeen, I got my chance.
I played the lead in Gigi in a summer stock production at the Laguna Playhouse south of Los Angeles. The excitement of finally being a real actress was painfully short lived. All the interviews and all the reviews focused on my father. Would I be as good as Danny Thomas? Was I as gifted, as funny … would I be as popular? I was devastated.
I loved my Dad, my problem was Danny Thomas. So I went to him and said, "Daddy, please don’t be hurt when I tell you this. I want to change my name. I love you but I don’t want to be a Thomas anymore."
I tried not to cry during the long silence that followed. Then he said, "I raised you to be a thoroughbred. When thoroughbreds run they wear blinders to keep their eyes focused straight ahead with no distractions, no other horses. They hear the crowd but they don’t listen. They just run their own race. That’s what you have to do. Don’t listen to anyone comparing you to me or to anyone else. You just run your own race."
The next night as the crowd filed into the theater, the stage manager knocked on my dressing room door and handed me a white box with a red ribbon. I opened it up and inside was a pair of old horse blinders with a little note that read, "Run your own race, Baby."
Run your own race. He could have said it a dozen other ways. “Be independent.” “Don’t be influenced by others.” But it wouldn’t have been the same. The words he chose touched my heart and have remained with me all through my life. Whenever I’m at a crossroads, I ask myself, “Am I running my race or somebody else’s?” What a gift he gave me. I give it to you: Run your own race and … Happy Father’s Day.
By
Larry, at 5:54 AM
Happy Father's Day to all of my fellow-Dad's out there!
MCH
By
MCH, at 5:58 AM
Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments.
And HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all the dads out there.
I miss my dad. God Bless you and love you.
By
Lydia Cornell, at 6:04 AM
Lydia
Robert Rouse just did an excellent video you and everyone here has to see and get seen. so I am directing you there
By
an average patriot, at 6:15 AM
McCain doesn't pick up on Michelle Obama joke
So a man finally got a question into McCain and he had a very different sort of question.
The questioner noted that he had been educated at Princeton and Harvard and made more than $300,000 a year.
"How can I be proud of my country?" he asked.
Get it — he was mocking Michelle Obama and her statement earlier this year that her husband had for the first time in her life made her proud of her country.
Well, McCain either missed the joke or decided to ignore it and answer the question literally. I think it was the former because the individual asking the question had a thick accent that sounded to be either Indian or Pakistani, perhaps suggesting to McCain a recent immigrant grappling with America's image abroad.
"I’ll admit to you that it’s tough, it’s tough in some respects," McCain said, seeming to lend credence to Michelle Obama's observation.
McCain said America needed to be "more humble, more inclusive."
War Lover McCain isn't proud of the America he seeks to keep at war.
By
Larry, at 11:14 AM
Questions from the media prompted Republican John McCain to cancel a fundraiser at the home of a Texas oilman who once joked that women should give in while being raped.
The Texan, Republican Clayton "Claytie" Williams, made the joke during his failed 1990 campaign for governor against Democrat Ann Richards. Williams compared rape to the weather, saying, "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." He also compared Richards to the cattle on his ranch, saying he would "head her and hoof her and drag her through the dirt."
Williams' comments made national news at the time and remain easy to find on the Internet. Even so, McCain's campaign said it hadn't known about the remarks.
"These were obviously incredibly offensive remarks that the campaign was unaware of at the time it was scheduled," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said. "It's positive that he did apologize at the time, but the comments are nonetheless offensive."
The campaign said it would not return money Williams had raised for McCain. Williams told his hometown newspaper, the Midland Reporter-Telegram, that he had raised more than $300,000 for McCain.
The Washington Post said the campaign, when it initially was contacted by the Post and ABC News, questioned why the story was newsworthy; later in the day, the campaign canceled the fundraiser, which had been scheduled for Monday.
Those Republicans just seem to show their true innerselves.
By
Larry, at 11:20 AM
More On Tim Russert
By Chris Cillizza
The death of NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert continues to dominate the worlds of politics and journalism.
The Fix is on the way to Las Vegas for a few days (and, as a result, posting will be light) but thought we'd share a few of the best pieces penned about Tim's life and legacy by some of our colleagues.
* David Broder, who appeared on "Meet the Press" more than any other guest in history, wrote of Russert: "Family came first, but he took the time for friendships, and he nourished them. That is why his death yesterday leaves such a large void in this community."
* Dan Balz, who puts big moments in politics and journalism into a larger context better than almost anyone in the country, penned a tribute to Russert's doggedness on and off the campaign trail.
*David Remnick, a former Washington Post reporter and now the editor of the New Yorker, offered his own thoughts in a piece for the magazine: "Russert was defined as much by what he was not as by what he was," wrote Remnick. "He was not lazy or lax, he was not an ideologue or a cynic. Beyond his family, Russert's passion was politics, and he cared enough about the game to try to keep it, and its players, honest."
* NBC News political director Chuck Todd, a Fix friend, offered his own heartfelt thoughts on Russert.
By
Larry, at 11:26 AM
From the latest Harris Poll:
President Bush’s latest ratings are 24 percent positive and fully 75 percent negative. Previously, his worst numbers were 26 percent positive and 72 percent negative in April of this year.
Vice President Cheney’s ratings are even worse, 18 percent positive and 74 percent negative, compared to his previous low of 21 percent positive, 74 percent negative last July.
Secretary of State Rice’s ratings are much better than those of the President and Vice President, but also have fallen to their lowest point ever, 39 percent positive and 54 percent negative, compared to 42 percent positive and 51 percent negative last October.
Only 14 percent of the public think the things in the country are going in the right direction and fully 80 percent think they are on the wrong track. These compare to the previous worst numbers in President George W. Bush’s term, 75 percent thought things were on the wrong track in April. The highest number of people who said the country was on the wrong track was 81 percent in June of 1992 during the term of the first President Bush.
The Devils Trio are Hated By All.
By
Larry, at 12:31 PM
Those Boy Scouts were real heroes and it makes me proud that I was in scouting for so long - such a very long time ago (whew!). I really missed Tim Russert this morning. Part of my Sunday morning routine has been removed forever.
Also, Lydia and Larry, thanks for dropping by and commenting on my latest video. Your words and support are much appreciated.
By
Robert Rouse, at 12:58 PM
The flooding is worse in the midwest and Sunday wasn't the same without Tim Russert but still you leave a positive tone in your approach Ms Cornell
By
Trevor, at 1:53 PM
This has to be a sad fathers day for thousands of troops and their families who have to have doubts they will ever be reunited
By
Trevor, at 1:56 PM
Hope you were able to spend the day with your family Lydia and that it was as special for you as you made it for them.
By
Chelsea, at 5:51 PM
Edwards Has Not Ruled Out V.P. Run
ABC News' Mary Bruce reports: 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards this morning left open the possibility of a second run for the position. "I'd take anything he [Obama] asked me to think about seriously," Edwards explained in a "This Week" interview with George Stephanopoulos.
The former 2008 presidential candidate was quick to clarify, however, that he is not actively pursuing the job. "But obviously this is something I've done and it's not a job that I'm seeking."
As the veepstakes continue to heat up, Edwards said Obama should be left to make an independent decision. "Senator Obama ... has earned the right to make this decision for himself. I think he has enormous choices available to him, really great choices available to him. And I think he'll go through this process in a thoughtful, orderly way, and he'll decide who he wants to be his running mate. And that's exactly how it should be done."
Here is some good news!
By
Larry, at 7:52 PM
With Tim Russert’s Death, NBC News Must Replace a Man of Many Roles
By BILL CARTER and JACQUES STEINBERG
The sudden death of Tim Russert has left the management of NBC News, for the moment at least, at a loss to contemplate how to replace him.
Mr. Russert was not only the moderator of “Meet the Press,” television’s most successful political talk show, he was also the chief of NBC’s Washington bureau, responsible for the hiring of staff members and directing its operations. More significantly, he was NBC’s public face on politics, appearing regularly on the network’s full range of programs, including the “Today” show, NBC’s “Nightly News,” and on its cable news channel MSNBC.
“It’s going to take four or five people to replace Tim,” said Bob Schieffer, Mr. Russert’s competitor for two decades on CBS’s Sunday program, “Face the Nation,” in a telephone interview from a barge in the Burgundy region of France, where he was vacationing.
“They’ve got to find a moderator for ‘Meet the Press.’ They’ve got to find a manager for that bureau. They’ve got to find someone who understands as much about politics as Tim does and there aren’t many people who do. They’ve got to find someone who is willing to get up in the morning and go on the ‘Today’ show and do the ‘Nightly News’ and then stay up late to go on MSNBC.”
Jeff Zucker, the president of NBC Universal, the parent company of NBC News, said the network was well aware of the issues it faced going into a pivotal presidential election.
“Nobody should even think about replacing Tim Russert,” he said in a telephone interview on Sunday. “What someone will need to do is find the next way to do ‘Meet the Press’ and provide political analysis. Anybody who thinks they can replace Tim Russert is kidding themselves.”
Any open speculation about whom NBC might turn to was muted out of deference to Mr. Russert and his family. One manifestation of NBC’s reluctance to engage in any planning for its future was the network’s decision not to name a host for next week’s edition of “Meet the Press.” The former NBC anchor, Tom Brokaw, filled in on Sunday, hosting a show devoted to a celebration of Mr. Russert’s career.
But the list of potential names to assume the moderator role on “Meet the Press” is already well known. From inside NBC, the potential candidates include the evening news anchor, Brian Williams, who would be doing double duty (as Mr. Schieffer did for a time at CBS), correspondents David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell and MSNBC hosts like Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough and Keith Olbermann. Several of those names are already lightning rods for critics, however.
NBC could smooth the transition by offering the post on a temporary basis to Mr. Brokaw, who stepped down as the network’s anchor in 2004. Because of past associations both with NBC and Mr. Zucker, Katie Couric will also very likely be mentioned as a possibility, with her tenure as the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” widely expected to end sometime in the next year.
In planning election coverage without Mr. Russert, NBC has him to thank. He was widely regarded as a good judge of talent and a good mentor at the network, and the list of successors includes many people, including Ms. Couric and Gwen Ifill of PBS, whom he recruited or encouraged.
On Sunday, the network was also preparing for funeral services and memorials. A public wake for Mr. Russert will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday at St. Albans School in Washington, with a private funeral mass and burial on scheduled for Wednesday morning. A private memorial service, to be televised live on MSNBC, will be held Wednesday afternoon at the Kennedy Center.
Mr. Russert had led “Meet the Press,” the oldest continuous program on television, since 1991. Under Mr. Russert, “Meet the Press” had become a source of prestige for NBC as the premier place for newsmakers and political candidates to make their case to the nation. It also provided financial value for the network, generating tens of millions in profit every year.
Mr. Zucker said, “Tim gave us an enormous advantage that was not quantifiable.” That advantage had been re-emphasized during the intense interest in the current political year — and his absence is sure to alter the network’s plans leading up to the November presidential election.
Just last week, NBC News began for the first time to describe its plans for covering the Republican and Democratic conventions: at least three hours of live prime-time coverage during each convention on NBC, and 20 hours a day on MSNBC. In both instances, Mr. Russert was set to be a constant presence, as an analyst alongside Brian Williams on NBC, and as an analyst and sometime host on MSNBC during its many hours of coverage.
For Mr. Russert, that sort of around-the-clock service on multiple platforms was hardly unusual. On June 3, the night of the final Democratic nominating contests in Montana and South Dakota, Mr. Russert was up late on MSNBC, offering commentary on the speeches of Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. The next morning, he got up early to appear on “Today,” then crossed the street for an appearance on “Morning Joe,” the morning political talk show on MSNBC.
Mr. Russert’s willingness and even eagerness to supply NBC News with every ounce of political expertise he could summon was something of a legend at the network.
Mr. Zucker recalled a conversation with Mr. Russert from the days after the presidential election in 1992. At the time, Mr. Zucker was the executive producer of “Today,” and Mr. Russert was already augmenting his jobs on “Meet the Press” and running the Washington bureau by making frequent guest appearances on “Today.” How frequent? Mr. Zucker recalled calling Mr. Russert at one point to say, “You’re not going to believe this, we’re going to put you on for the 40th day in a row.”
Mr. Zucker asked Mr. Russert if he wanted a break. “Jeff,” Mr. Zucker recalled Mr. Russert replying, “you’ve got to give the people what they want.”
By
Larry, at 4:38 AM
John McCain: War Hero or North Vietnam's Go-To Collaborator?
By DOUGLAS VALENTINE
If you have no idea what war is about, thank your gods. It is not what you see in Mel Gibson movies, nor is it hidden within the Big Lie Big Brother tells you about Pat Tillman’s heroic “Army of One” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When my father was in New Guinea with the 32nd Division in 1942, his fellow American soldiers would point their long Springfield rifles skywards and shoot at American pilots flying overhead.
“Glory Boys,” the long-suffering ground troops called them.
The pilots had comfortable quarters beside the airstrip in Port Moresby. When orders for a mission came down, they’d climb in their planes, rattle down the runway, and soar over the Owen Stanley Mountains with the clouds in spotless uniforms, breathing fresh clean air. The Glory Boys weren’t trapped in the broiling jungle, in the mud and pouring rain, their skin rotting away, chewed by ghastly insects, bitten by poisonous snakes, stricken with cerebral malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, and a host of unknown diseases delivered by unknown parasites.
If the Fly Boys perished, it was in a blaze of glory, not from a landmine, or a misdirected American mortar, or a Japanese bayonet in the brain.
One day my father and his last remaining friend, Charlie Ferguson, were walking through the jungle up to the front line. One the way they passed a group of bare-chested Aussies in khaki shorts sitting round a grindstone sharpening their knives. Every once in a while one of the Aussies would hoist his rife and casually put a bullet into a Japanese sniper who had tied himself into the top of a nearby tree. Not in any place that would outright kill him, but some place painful enough to make the point.
A little further toward the front line, my father and Charlie came upon Master Sergeant Harry Blackman, an adult man in his forties, regular army, a grizzled combat veteran. A few days earlier in a fight with the Japanese, a young lieutenant, a “90-Day Wonder,” had curled up in a fetal position when he should have been directing mortar fire. As a result, US mortar rounds landed on several US soldiers. Blackman, in front of everyone, took the lieutenant behind a tree and blew his brains out.
As my father and Charlie waked through the jungle they saw Harry Blackman perched on the lower limb of a huge tropical tree, babbling incoherently among the butterflies and flowering vines, driven stark raving mad by sorrow and jungle war with the Japanese.
Several days later my father was sent on a patrol into Japanese held territory. He was the last man in a formation moving single file through the jungle. Plagued by malaria and exhaustion, he kept falling behind. Around noon, a group of Japanese soldiers sitting high up in trees dropped concussion grenades on the patrol. As he lay on the ground, unable to move, my father watched the Japanese slide down the trees. Starting with the point man on patrol, they pulled down the pants and castrated each man, before clubbing him to death with their rifle butts or running a bayonet into his gut.
War. If you’re a Glory Boy like John Sidney McCain III, you really have no idea what it is. You drop bombs on cities, on civilians, maybe on enemy forces, maybe on your own troops. Glory Boys like John McCain rarely get a taste of the horror they inflict on others. Their suffering rarely extends beyond the high anxiety that they might get shot down and that some bombarded mob on the ground might take its revenge.
Magically, my father was spared that day when his patrol was slaughtered. Against regulations, he had stolen a cross-swords patch and sewn it on his shirt sleeve. At the age of 16, he thought it looked cool. On the morning of the patrol, when the new “90-Day Wonder” told him to take it off, my father said “Sure.” He and the lieutenant stared at each other for a while and then the lieutenant moved away. Insubordination was the least of anyone’s worries. No one expected to survive the patrol, anyway.
When the Japanese who had ambushed the patrol got to my father, they stood poised to mutilate and kill him. Then they saw the cross-swords patch. They apparently felt that dear old dad was an important person with inside information about American forces. Instead of killing him, they took him prisoner. When they realized he was just a stupid kid, the Japanese sent him to a POW camp in the Philippines.
Being a POW is what my father and John McCain have in common; although their experience as POWs was as different as their class and their character.
Class indeed has privileges, and while the government refused to provide my combat-veteran father with medical benefits for his malaria, McCain, who spent ten hours of his life in mortal danger, was decorated with the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart.
And thus the “war hero” myth was born.
McNasty
In the fall of 1967, Navy pilot John McCain was routinely bombing Hanoi from an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. On October 26, he was trying to level a power plant in a heavily populated area when a surface-to-air missile knocked a wing off his jet. Banged-up John McCain and what was left of plane splashed into Truc Bach Lake.
A compassionate Vietnamese civilian left his air raid shelter and swam out to McCain. McCain’s arm and leg were fractured and he was tangled up in his parachute underwater. He was drowning. The Vietnamese man saved McCain’s sorry ass, and yet McCain has nothing but hatred for “the gooks” who allegedly tortured him. As he told reporters on his campaign bus (The Straight Talk Express) in 2000, “I will hate them as long as I live.” (1)
Americans have to hate people, and dehumanize them as “gooks” or “rag-heads” in order to drop bombs on them. Stirring up such hatred is the forte of the US government, as witnessed by its Israeli-driven PR campaign against Arabs and Moslems. That’s why Bush and his media minions tied “brutal dictator” Saddam Hussein to 9/11 – so Americans would hate Iraqis enough to kill and abuse them in a thousand ways, everyday, for five years. Or, according to McCain, for 100 years if necessary.
The flip side to the equation is that people generally hate those who drop bombs on them. When the Germans dropped bombs on London, the Allies called it Terror Bombing. The French resistance especially hated the Germans, especially after the Gestapo set up shop in occupied France in 1940.
Likewise, Iraqi and Afghani resistance fighters hate the Americans (who more and more resemble the Germans of 1940) for occupying their countries. They especially hate our Gestapo – the CIA – and its torturers. But that’s War for you, and John McCain is lucky the locals didn’t eat him alive – like Uzbek nationalists trapped in a horrid prison camp in Afghanistan nibbled on CIA officer John “Mike” Spann shortly after Spann summarily executed a prisoner. Spann was killed in the ensuing riot, shortly before the CIA and its Afghan collaborators massacred the remaining Uzbek prisoners on 28 November 2001.
The Vietnamese had good reason to hate McCain. On his previous 22 missions, he had dropped God knows how many bombs killing God knows how many innocent civilians. “I am a war criminal,” he confessed on “60 Minutes” in 1997. “I bombed innocent women and children.” (2)
If he is sincere when he says that, why isn’t he being tried for war crimes by the U.S .Government?
In any event, the man who rescued McCain tried to ward off an angry mob, which stomped on McCain for a while until the local cops turned him over to the military. McCain was in pain, but suffering no mortal wounds. He was, however, in enough pain to break down and start collaborating with the Vietnamese after three days in a hospital receiving treatment from qualified doctors – something no other POW ever enjoyed.
War is one thing, collaborating with the enemy is another; it is a legitimate campaign issue that strikes at the heart of McCain’s character…or lack thereof.
There are certainly degrees of collaboration. As a famous novelist once asked, “If you’re a barber and you cut a German’s hair, does that make you a collaborator?”
Being an informant for the Gestapo, or its stepson the CIA in Iraq, and informing on the resistance and sending them to their death, is different than being a barber. In occupied countries like Iraq, or France in World War Two, collaboration to that extent is an automatic death sentence.
The question is: “What kind of collaborator was John McCain, the admitted war criminal who will hate his alleged torturers for the rest of his life?”
Put another way, how psychologically twisted is McCain? And what actually happened to him in his POW camp that twisted him? Was it abuse, as he claims, or was it the fact that he collaborated and has to cover up?
Covering-up can take a lot of energy. The truth is lurking in his subconscious, waiting to explode. A number of US officials, including Andrew Card, have commented on McCain’s inexplicable angry outbursts.
In a July 5 2006 NewsMax.com article, former Senator Bob Smith (R-NH), was quoted as having said about McCain: “I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues.... He would disagree about something and then explode.” Smith called it “irrational behavior. We've all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I've never seen anyone act like that."
So, you say, McCain has a short fuse behind the plastered TV smile. So he calls his colleagues assholes and shit-heads. In high school they called him “McNasty.” That’s just how he is. Always was, always will be.
Well, maybe. And maybe it’s not a quality we want in a president. And maybe that repressed anger actually has its roots in a Vietnamese POW camp, where John McCain betrayed his forefathers and his country.
The Admiral’s Bad Boy
In the forced-labor camp where my father was tortured by the Japanese, the POWs killed anyone who collaborated. Indeed, the ranking POW in my father’s camp, an English Major, made a deal with the Japanese guaranteeing that no one would attempt to escape. When four prisoners escaped, the Major reported it. The Japanese sent out a search party, which found the POWs and brought them back to camp, where they were beheaded on Christmas morning 1943.
The POWs held a war council that night. They drew straws, and the three who got short were given a mission. A few hours later, under cover of darkness, they crept to the major’s hut. My father had gotten one of the short straws and kept watch while the other two POWs strangled the Major in his sleep.
That’s how it happens in real life.
McCain, in his carefully prepared statements, claims he was tortured while in solitary confinement, and that is why he signed a confession saying, “I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors.” (3)
However, on March 25, 1999, two of his fellow POWs, Ted Guy and Gordon "Swede" Larson told the Phoenix New Times that, while they could not guarantee that McCain was not physically harmed, they doubted it.
As Larson said, "My only contention with the McCain deal is that while he was at The Plantation, to the best of my knowledge and Ted's knowledge, he was not physically abused in any way. No one was in that camp. It was the camp that people were released from."
Guy and Larson’s claims are given credence by McCain’s vehement opposition to releasing the government’s debriefings of Vietnam War POWs. McCain gave Michael Isikoff a peek at his debriefs, and Isikoff declared there was “nothing incriminating” in them, apart from the redactions. (4)
McCain had a unique POW experience. Initially, he was taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp, where he was interrogated. By McCain’s own account, after three or four days, he cracked. He promised his Vietnamese captors, "I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital."
His Vietnamese capturers soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line of American military elites. McCain’s father, John Jr., and grandfather, John Sr., were both full Admirals. A destroyer, the USS John S. McCain, is named after both of them.
While his son was held captive in Hanoi, John McCain Jr., from 1968 to 1972, was the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Pacific Command; Admiral McCain was in charge of all US forces in the Pacific including those fighting in Vietnam.
One can only wonder when the concierge at the Hanoi Hilton started taking calls from Admiral McCain. Rather quickly, one surmises, for the Vietnamese soon took John Boy McCain to a hospital reserved for Vietnamese officers. Unlike his fellow POWs, he received care from a Soviet doctor.
“This poor stooge has propaganda value,” the Vietnamese realized. The Admiral’s bad boy was used to special treatment and his captors knew that. They were working him.
For his part, McCain acknowledges that the Vietnamese rushed him to a hospital, but denies he was given any "special medical treatment."
However….two weeks into his stay at the Vietnamese hospital, the Hanoi press began quoting him. It was not “name rank and serial number, or kill me,” as specified by the military code of conduct. McCain divulged specific military information: he gave the name of the aircraft carrier on which he was based, the number of US pilots that had been lost, the number of aircraft in his flight formation, as well as information about the location of rescue ships. (5)
So McCain leveraged some details to get some medical attention. That’s not anything too contemptible. And who among us civilians is to judge someone in the position?
On the other hand, according to one source, McCain’s collaboration may have had very real consequences. Retired Army Colonel Earl Hopper, a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, contends that the information that McCain divulged classified information North Vietnam used to hone their air defense system.
Hopper’s son, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Earl Pearson Hopper was, like McCain, shot down over North Vietnam. Hopper the younger, however, was declared “Missing in Action.” Stemming from the loss of his son, the elder Hopper co-founded the National League of Families, an organization devoted to the return of Vietnam War POWs.
According to the elder Hopper, McCain told his North Vietnamese captors, “highly classified information, the most important of which was the package routes, which were routes used to bomb North Vietnam. He gave in detail the altitude they were flying, the direction, if they made a turn… he gave them what primary targets the United States was interested in.” Hopper contends that the information McCain provided allowed the North Vietnamese to adjust their air-defenses. As result, Hopper claims, the US lost sixty percent more aircraft and in 1968, “called off the bombing of North Vietnam, because of the information McCain had given to them.” 6
The Psywar Stooge
McCain was held for five and half years. Collaborating during the first two weeks might have been pragmatic, but he soon became North Vietnam’s go-to collaborator for the next three years. Given the quality of the military information he allegedly shared, his situation isn’t as innocuous as the pragmatic French barber who cuts the hair of the German occupier. McCain was repaying his captors for their kindness and mercy.
This is the lesson of McCain’s experience as a POW: a true politician, a hollow man, his only allegiance is to power. The Vietnamese, like McCain’s campaign contributors today, protected and promoted him and in return, he danced to their tune.
Not content with divulging military information, McCain provided his voice in radio broadcasts used by the North Vietnamese to demoralize American soldiers.
Vietnamese radio propagandists made good use out of McCain. On June 4, 1969, a U.S. wire service headlined a story entitled "PW Songbird Is Pilot Son of Admiral.” (7)
The story reported that McCain collaborated in psywar offensives aimed at American servicemen. "The broadcast was beamed to American servicemen in South Vietnam as a part of a propaganda series attempting to counter charges by U.S. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird that American prisoners are being mistreated in North Vietnam."
On one occasion, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the top Vietnamese commander and a nationalist celebrity of the time, personally interviewed McCain. His compliance during this command performance was a moment of affirmation for the Vietnamese. His Vietnamese handlers thereafter used him regularly as prop at meetings with foreign delegations.
In the custody of enemy psywar specialists, McCain became what he is today: a professional psywar stooge.
It is impossible to prove exactly what happened to McCain short of traveling to Vietnam and tracking down his captors, and picking up thee trail where it begins. According to The Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain, McCain says he only collaborated when he brutally tortured by his Vietnamese captors and a wicked Cuban he referred to as Fidel. (8)
He says his confession led him to a suicide attempt.
“In the anguished days right after my confession,” McCain said in his autobiography Faith of My Fathers, “I had dreaded just such a discovery by my father.”
But as McCain discovered, dear old dad did know.
“I only recently learned that the tape I dreamed I heard playing over the loudspeaker in my cell had been real; it had been broadcast outside the prison and had come to the attention of my father,” McCain said. “If I had known at the time my father had heard about my confession, I would have been distressed beyond imagination, and might not have recovered from the experience as quickly as I did.”
But wait! McCain did not commit suicide. In fact, he’s alive, running for President on the “war hero” ticket, and promoting more war everywhere. The new McCain feels no distress at having been a collaborator or a war criminal – if he ever did.
According to Fernando Barral, a Cuban psychologist who questioned McCain in January 1970, “McCain was "boastful" during their interview and "without remorse" for any civilian deaths that occurred "when he bombed Hanoi." McCain has a similar recollection, writing in his [autobiography] that he responded, "No, I do not" when Barral asked if he felt remorse.” (9)
McCain told [Barral] that he had not been subjected to “physical or moral violence,” and “lamented in the interview that ‘if I hadn't been shot down, I would have become an admiral at a younger age than my father.’”
“Barral said McCain boasted that he was the best pilot in the Navy and that he wanted to be an astronaut.” The Cuban psychologist concluded that McCain was [a] ‘psychopath.’” (10)
"He felt superior to the Vietnamese up there in his plane, with all his training," Barral recalled.
Psychopath McCain emerges, now, as a contemptible elitist, stewing in the crucible of his class conscience, the ultimate right wing psywar stooge.
McJekyll and McHyde
There are no public records from other POWs to confirm McCain's self-aggrandizing claims, but his detractors, like fellow POWs Ted Guy and Gordon "Swede" Larson, and Colonel Hopper, have yet to be discredited or silenced by McCain’s PR team.
Hopper, Guy and Larson are part of a larger movement concerned with the fate of the 2,000 American veterans still missing in Vietnam. They’ve been pressing McCain to own up to his POW experience, drop the “war hero” posturing, and do more to provide a full accounting of the POWs and MIAs who were not as fortunate, privileged, or willing to collaborate as the would-be president.
McCain’s supporters are trying to quiet detractors by ignoring them. "Nobody believes these idiots. They're a bunch of jerks. Forget them," said Mark Salter, McCain's chief mythologist. Salter is credited by casting McCain as a modern Teddy Roosevelt, “the war hero turned domestic reformer.” (11)
By in large the Salter strategy has worked. The American media accepts McCain’s “war hero” myth as gospel and, in so doing, bolsters the “straight talk” image so essential to his success in politics. In a recent TV interview with John Kerry, victim of the Swift Boat Heroes for Truth Movement in the last election, another “fortunate son,” Chris Wallace, actually took umbrage when Kerry criticized McCain. Son of media admiral Mike Wallace, Chris made Kerry admit that McCain was a hero.
When it comes to psywar, the Vietnamese have nothing on the good old USA.
McCain learned his lesson well from the Vietnamese propagandists who used him for their psywar projects. But it’s not the collaboration that makes John McCain unfit for office; it’s the fact that he has managed to rewrite his collaboration into political capital. “He’s a war hero, respect him, or die.”
As a pedigree, the McCain family’s stature rests on the status and prestige of its achievements in the military: rank, medals, and most importantly to John McCain’s presidential campaign, the image of warrior masculinity: the straight talking maverick of the Republican Party, the 21st century rendering of Teddy Roosevelt.
Not exactly. In his current presidential campaign, he’s cozying up to the hate-mongering Christian right he once criticized. He’s reversed positions on so many issues that his Democratic rivals have assembled his contrasting statements into “The Great McCain Versus McCain Debates. (12)
Underlying the Jekyll-Hyde reversals is McCain’s hidden past of collaboration. Somewhere in the unplumbed human part of John Sidney McCain III, he knows his POW experience contradicts the war hero image he projects. This essential dishonesty, this lie of the soul, is a sign of a larger lack of character - like the major in my father’s POW camp, but without the come-uppance.
McCain is not some principled leader, not a maverick cowboy fighting the powerful. He’s a sycophant. He believes in nothing but power and will do anything to attain it. He explodes in anger when challenged because, when a criticism hits to close to home, it goes to straight his deep-seeded shame.
McCain’s handlers have turned his unspeakable reality into a myth worthy of Teddy Roosevelt. No wonder the Glory Boy has stuck around Washington so long.
The Real John McCain: The Collaborator
By
Larry, at 4:46 AM
Worse Than Fascists: Christian Political Group 'The Family' Openly Reveres Hitler
By Lindsay Beyerstein,
Did you know that the National Prayer Breakfast is sponsored by a shadowy cabal of elite Christian fundamentalists? Jeff Sharlet's new book, "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power," offers a rare glimpse of this remarkable network, which is known variously as the Family, the Fellowship and the International Foundation.
The Family was founded 70 years ago by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant evangelist based in Seattle. In 1935, Vereide said, God appeared to him in a vision and revealed where Christianity had gone wrong: preoccupation with the poor, the weak and the suffering.
The down-and-out were in no position to bring about the Kingdom of God, Vereide realized. Some Christians believe that the rapture is imminent, but not the Family. They're convinced that Jesus won't return until we get our collective house in order. If they were to wait for the down-and-out to remake the world in God's image, we could be here forever.
Besides, in Seattle in the 1930s, union agitators were making a play for the down-and-out. Christianity promised rewards in the hereafter, but workers in the Pacific Northwest were starting to wonder why they had to wait so long. Instead of competing for market share with the Industrial Workers of the World, Vereide sought a different niche.
His new plan was to target men who were already powerful and turn them to God -- and wouldn't you know it, God hated unions, too.
Through personal relationships and small group encounters, Vereide united captains of industry and politicians as a Biblical bulwark against the increasing power of organized labor.
In the late 1940s, the Family helped roll back key pro-labor provisions of the New Deal. Later, the Family did its part for the Cold War by cultivating anti-communist strongmen around the world, including repressive leaders like Suharto of Indonesia and Jonas Savimbi of Angola.
The roster of current and former Family members includes senators, congressmen, Fortune 500 CEOs, generals and at least one Supreme Court justice. The Family does not publish membership lists, and its members are sworn to secrecy, so a full accounting is impossible.
Sen. Hillary Clinton has been involved with the Family since 1993 when, as first lady, she joined a White House prayer circle for political wives. Clinton has also sought spiritual counseling from the current head of the Family, Doug Coe. Sharlet argues that Clinton's longtime association with the Family has helped her forge working relationships with powerful religious conservatives such as Family member and anti-abortion crusader Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas.
The Family nurtures the next generation of prayer warriors in suburban dormitories. Sharlet spent nearly a month living at Ivanwald, a dormitory in Virginia where sons of the Family are sent to immerse themselves in Jesus and clean the toilets of congressmen and senators.
The Family also runs a house on C Street in Washington, D.C. The C Street Center has housed a number of federal legislators, including Sen. John Ensign of Nevada. Residents allege that the center is just a cheap place to live, but as an Ivanwald brother, Sharlet saw firsthand that the center is a religious community. As far as the IRS is concerned, the C Street Center is a church.
Members will tell you that the Family is just a group of friends. As Sharlet discovered, 600 boxes of documents at the Billy Graham Center Archives tell a different story.
AlterNet writer Lindsay Beyerstein recently sat down with Jeff Sharlet at a Brooklyn coffee shop to discuss the Family.
Lindsay Beyerstein What is the Family?
Jeff Sharlet: It's an international network of evangelical activists in government, military and business. The Family is dedicated to this idea that Christianity has gotten it all wrong for two thousand years by focusing on the poor, the suffering and the weak.
The Family says that instead, what Christians should do is minister to the up-and-out -- as opposed to the down-and-out -- to those that are already powerful. Because if they can win those people for Christ, they win the whole deal. That's what this network is dedicated to. It includes nonprofit organizations, it includes think tanks, it includes various ministries.
Lindsay Beyerstein: Where did they get the idea that they should be ministering to the up-and-out? There doesn't seem to be a lot basis in Christianity for that view.
Jeff Sharlet: Two places. The founder of the Family, Abraham Vereide, would describe it as his "new revelation" that came to him in the middle of the night, very literally: in a vision from God in 1935 in response to the Great Depression and, more particularly, to a series of very successful labor strikes that he saw as challenging God's sovereignty. So, God comes and gives him this new revelation to say, "This is what I really meant …"
Early on, Vereide and the Family weren't actually talking about scripture, but as time went on they began invoking more and more a particular verse of Paul's Letter to the Romans, which is popular among fundamentalists, Romans:13: "The Powers that Be are Ordained of God." And it goes on to say that if you resist those powers, you're in a lot of trouble. Interpreted literally, this is the key text in authoritarian Christianity. So, that's where they're getting it.
Lindsay Beyerstein: In "The Family," a lot of subjects explicitly state their admiration for Hitler and other authoritarian political figures. How much of that is admiring their style, and how much is admiring their substance?
Jeff Sharlet: I'd argue that there isn't a hell of a lot of difference. I spent a lot of time living with these guys, and I remember at one point asking them, "What's the deal with all this Hitler talk?" And they'd say, "Oh, it's not the ends, it's the means." But to most of us, the means seem pretty bad, too. The means are authoritarianism.
It's pretty close to the substance because it grows out of this very broad movement in the 1930s of elites concluding that democracy has run its course, that democracy was a temporary phase in world history. And so, these people were experimenting with all sorts of different alternatives. And remember, before World War II it was considered a perfectly legitimate and acceptable position to endorse fascism.
Lindsay Beyerstein: When I read the book, I found myself thinking about Umberto Eco's essay, "Eternal Fascism," which provides a kind of checklist of the essential characteristics of fascism. How many of those criteria does the Family meet?
Jeff Sharlet:The book I find helpful as a succinct guide to fascism is a book by historian Robert Paxton. He'll boil it down into five principles or ten principles. The Family's always hovering around 80 percent, but never all the way.
And that's an important distinction to make. I think many progressives want to reduce everything bad to fascism. There's more than one kind of bad under the sun. One of the arguments in this book is that these guys aren't fascists; they're ultimately something worse. They're not fascists because they don't explicitly revere violence. Lots of violence occurs through various dimensions, but in fascism, violence is thought to have redemptive power.
Lindsay Beyerstein: So, they don't literally believe in physical conflict when they describe themselves as warriors for Christ?
Jeff Sharlet: Oh, no. (They think) that's fine, but they don't love violence the way that fascism did. Their leader, Doug Coe, says that the Bible is filled with mass murderers. And it is. The difference is that European fascism was based on this idea that you can only become truly human through violence. The Family will say, oh no, we're pursuing peace. Hitler wasn't pursuing peace. The goal was this constant redemptive violence.
The other thing is they differ in the strictness of their nationalism. The Family is an American ideology, and it has a lot of American ideology involved, but still it was founded by a Norwegian immigrant. It's more pluralist than European fascism that was about cleansing the blood. The Family is an imperial ideology, which is why I think it's ultimately worse than fascism. Since the Second World War, fascism hasn't been a very powerful ideology, but imperialism has.
Lindsay Beyerstein: What kind of empire do they envision?
Jeff Sharlet: They envision the empire that we have. Doug Coe says, "We work with power where we can and build new power where we can't." Usually they can work within power. Rob Shank, another Christian right activist in Washington, says, "The Family is into living with what is."
In the immediate postwar era, they were talking about Christian D-Day and Washington as the world's Christian capital. And World War Three, they were very excited about that, all full-steam ahead. But they sort of subsided and were subsumed into the American Cold War project, which ended up becoming an imperial project.
Lindsay Beyerstein: What did the Family have to do with a B-movie called "The Blob"?
Jeff Sharlet: The best illustration of the Family's involvement in the Cold War was something that I stumbled on by accident: The 1958 film "The Blob." It began at the 1957 National Prayer Breakfast. "The Blob" was a famous horror movie that was a metaphor for Communism. This is their imagination of how Communism spread. At the time, the American imagination couldn't grasp ideology, so it had to be an actual goo that globs more and more people and grows and becomes expansive. As I recall, they have to blow up the town at the end. The logic of "The Blob" is that we must destroy the village in order to save it. That's the logic of Vietnam.
The project actually began at the National Prayer Breakfast. This filmmaker who had been making fundamentalist films, Irvin "Shorty" Yeaworth, was on the lookout for someone to make this film. (The writer) Kate Phillips was a B-movie sci-fi actress. Not a Christian Right person; (she was) there as a guest of a friend of hers. She's there at the breakfast and they become friends. They end up making this movie.
"The Blob" was paralleled with this other movie. This other movie that comes out of the Prayer Breakfast is "Militant Liberty." John Groger, on Family payroll and on the Pentagon payroll, he was obsessed with making these kooky films that were almost too weird for the Pentagon, like "Operation Abolition," because it was so trippy and so bent on blaming the spread of Communism on Japanese youth culture.
Lindsay Beyerstein: On Japanese youth culture?
Jeff Sharlet: Don't forget, there was a pretty powerful Japanese communist movement after the Second World War. Japan would have been a communist country had it not been for us buying their political system wholesale.
So, that's "The Blob." The whole approach represents their understanding of Communism and the way America responded. Tim Weiner, in "Legacy of Ashes," has a devastating critique. The real issue is incompetence -- they never understood who they were fighting. You might say, "Hey, I'm down with anti-communism" -- but they were always bent on fighting with these crazy schemes and networks. That's not the way to combat Stalinism, which is an evil ideology.
It's just as true now, when I look at what the Family does today in the Central Asian Republic. The 1999 Silk Road Strategy Act, sponsored by Sam Brownback, and Rep. Joe Pitts renewed it in 2006. Combat militant Islam in Central Asia by pouring American aid into dictatorial regimes. This same kind of top-down aid.
Thugs have always understood that they could use the Family. … When you see Suharto getting down on his knees and praying to Jesus with members of the Family -- he's Muslim, technically, but he's not even really that; he's a dictator.
Lindsay Beyerstein: Sort of like Daniel Plainview in the movie "There Will Be Blood"? (Plainview is the cynical oil man who makes a big show of converting to Christianity at a revival meeting to consolidate his power in town.)
Jeff Sharlet: Daniel Plainview had more integrity. That's a nice comparison, I hadn't thought of that. Some of these central Asian dictators are not drinking the Kool-Aid.
(At some level, the Family understands.) One member says that he'd rather let in a few wolves then keep out one sheep. I just want to know: When is the sheep getting here? Because all they've got are wolves.
The more interesting analysis is to view it not as cynicism but as a logical outcome of a theology that reveres power. This is not their system not working; it's their system working.
Lindsay Beyerstein: Does this attitude have to do with the Family's unusual theology? In the book you say that they teach a kind of ultrasubjectivism, stripping away all history, doctrine, institutions and all rituals until "religion" is just what pops into your head.
Jeff Sharlet: This is very important. It's a seductive idea for many on the left as well. These attitudes go back to 1930s. It was part of the feeling that democracy had run its course.
Whenever you strip away history, you are stripping away accountability. The irony is that sometimes people on the left make the same kind of noises, like, "We're not going to get all caught up in institutions and religions" -- leaving aside the history of that rhetoric in anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism.
Whenever you strip away history, you are stripping away things you wish you hadn't done, and accountability for that. When people say that "we're not going to get all caught up in the law and the rules," they mean anti-Semitism. They may not know they mean that that's the history of it.
Lindsay Beyerstein: They think it's bad even to know about history?
Jeff Sharlet: They just don't care. One of the ironies of this book is that now they're in my debt. I know more about the history of their movement than they do. (That's why they were so casual about what ended up in the Family's records at the Billy Graham archives.) It didn't even occur to them that anyone would find anything wrong there, including various government documents that shouldn't have been there.
Lindsay Beyerstein: There's a story in the book that says a lot about how the Family operates, the one about the South African secrecy memo …
Jeff Sharlet: My favorite document in the entire archives. This was, I think, sometime in the '80s, the Family was very involved in South Africa supporting a right-wing black movement lead by Mangosuthu Buthelezi. They were part of a group of white South Africans cultivating him. A Family operative wrote a letter to a colleague saying, "You've got to be very careful, those outside we don't understand. That's why we do things through networks and friendships and travel around. Never put anything too specific on paper." The guy wrote back: "I understand, I've made copies of this for all my co-workers." I don't know whether he was passive aggressive, or just dumb as a brick.
Lindsay Beyerstein: In the book you say that the Family treats powerful women like Hillary Clinton as if they belonged to a kind of "third gender" that's female but not subordinate like ordinary women …
Jeff Sharlet: When I was at Ivanwald, I'd see these young women as servants. They came from wealthy families. They were women who have a lot of privileges in life. You'd have expected to have gone on to great things because they started with a big push [LB Note: But the Family had them scrubbing floors and serving coffee.] Then a woman political leader would come around and it would be a whole different story.
There are wives like Grace Nelson, wife of conservative Democrat Bill Nelson. Bill was an astronaut -- still has a spacesuit. He still wears it for occasions.
Lindsay Beyerstein: The suit still fits?
Jeff Sharlet: He's quite trim, I'll give him that. But Grace is obviously the political mover and shaker in that couple. She served on board of the Fellowship Foundation. Still, she's just the wife, secondary. Same with Joanne Kemp. Jack Kemp is a pretty aggressive leader, but it was Joanne who brought Christian ideas to Washington to start the Schaeffer Foundation nonprofit for the study of these ideas.
Two ways third gender works in the Family: There are these very strong wives who oftentimes are very strong-willed people. I'm just reading Katherine Joyce's book on Quiverfull … And the other are women like Hillary Clinton, who's just a man as far as they're concerned.
Lindsay Beyerstein: What's Hillary's involvement with the Family? What is she getting out of it?
Jeff Sharlet: As I was researching the book, I knew Hillary had this strange connection. I didn't think much of it until I was reporting on Sen. Sam Brownback. Everyone knew I was a reporter from "Rolling Stone," probably more liberal than they were. So, a way that a lot of Family people would reach out to be friendly was to tell me that Hillary Clinton was OK with them. They'd tell me that HRC was going for regular spiritual counseling with Doug Coe.
Lindsay Beyerstein: Is she still getting counseling from him?
Jeff Sharlet: This was in 2005, and she refused to say anything about this. When NBC questioned her about this, her only answer was that (she's) not a member and (she) has never given Doug Coe money -- which was a strangely parsed kind of answer.
Lindsay Beyerstein: The Family has some strange ideas about what it means to be chosen by God. Tell me about the incident in the book when Doug Coe's son, David Coe, dropped by Ivanwald to give the brothers instruction on chosenness.
Jeff Sharlet: David Coe used to be the heir apparent in the Family. He's still involved in ministry to congressmen, and at the time he was also meeting with Hillary. He'd come around to talk to the young guys at Ivanwald to talk about his vision of Biblical leadership. One day he says to brother Beau: "Suppose I heard you'd raped three little girls, what would I think of you?" Beau, being a human being, says, "That I'm pretty bad?" But David Coe says: "No, no, I wouldn't. Because you're chosen … like King David."
Lindsay Beyerstein: Does the Family have a different perspective on sexual morality than mainstream fundamentalism?
Jeff Sharlet: In one sense, their sexual morality is a very restrictive, traditional, fundamentalist morality. Yet one of their major influences was Frank Buchman of Moral Re-Armament in the 1930s. He was all but "out" as gay. But he was also one of the early architects of anti-gay invective on the Christian right. He even wrote a pamphlet on how to spot gay men: their green shoes and their affection for suede.
Lindsay Beyerstein: Explicit sexual confession in small groups is a big deal in the Family, right?
Jeff Sharlet: Yes. I started paying attention when I visited Westmont College, a major recruiting base for the Family. Some of the professors are very concerned about the focus on small group sex confessions: Parents are spending $80,000 to send their kids to college, and they go off to become a driver for Doug Coe. Then they tell their parents that they sat in a circle and talked about masturbation. Of course, they don't do that sort of thing at the weekly prayer meeting in the Senate.
Sam Brownback told me, there are two functions of sexual confession: You confess, and they help you. You say, "My girlfriend and I almost held hands the other day." And they say "Don't do it, brother!" It's also a way of creating a bond in the group: If I have had gay thoughts and I tell the group, then they have something on me. And if you say you've cheated on your wife, they have something on you.
Lindsay Beyerstein: Kind of a mutually assured destruction?
Jeff Sharlet: Yeah.
Lindsay Beyerstein: An interesting paradox comes through in the book. The Family is both revolutionary and elitist. They see themselves as warriors fighting to remake the world, but really they are the establishment.
Jeff Sharlet: All that revolutionary rhetoric serves a very status quo version of the world. The real threat of the right is not what they're going to do, but what they've done. You have to consider what happens in America, which is part of the empire, versus what happens in the rest of the world. Here, they think things should stay as they are. Like rolling back FDR's New Deal. FDR came along and said, "Let's change things." The Family said no.
Lindsay Beyerstein: So, you have to consider what happens in America, which is part of the empire, versus what happens in the rest of the world.
Jeff Sharlet: All that revolutionary rhetoric serves a very status quo version of the world. The real threat of the right is not what they're going to do, but what they've done. You have to consider what happens in America, which is part of the empire, versus what happens in the rest of the world. Here, they think things should stay as they are. Like rolling back FDR's New Deal. FDR came along and said, "Let's change things." The Family said no.
Abroad, Suharto was supporting very violent revolution that reasserted hierarchical control. People had gotten out from under colonial yoke; if they go democratic, they might choose socialism or whatever. But Suharto came along and reasserted the hierarchy.
Lindsay Beyerstein: So, the Family loves the revolutionary rhetoric, but they're really about keeping things the way they are?
Jeff Sharlet: It's about the co-optation of cool by Madison Avenue. Counterculture is cool, and it's the bestselling tool ever. Capitalism has always had this understanding that we could use this counterculture rhetoric (as an alternative to communist rhetoric). In the 1950s, Eisenhower recognized that the rhetoric of communism was much more appealing to the average person than rhetoric of capitalism. "Everyone's going to share" is more appealing than "If you're lucky, you'll make a living, and if you're not lucky, it's your own damned fault and you'll suffer."
So, the government in a big way turns toward the Religious Right to market capitalism. It flopped. So, they tried spreading people's capitalism by focusing on the love part.
The right understood that in a way that the left doesn't. A left that organizes itself solely in a reactionary way is missing something. You can't just say: "Look, another corrupt Bush official!" No. What's needed is a much more joyful politics.
Just how many of the leading politicians are a part of this "sick family."
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Larry, at 5:08 AM
its a real tragedy what happened to those boy scouts and what happened to Tim Russert............Russert was one of the better guys in the Media.
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Mike, at 9:31 AM
Lets look forward to a more hopeful time.........and on that note i have to ask what would be your first 10 moves if you were Obama after becoming President..........here's mine in no particular order
1) Fire Michael Mukasey the Attorney General
2) Fire Kevin Martin the stooge thats head of the FCC and NEVER met a mergher he didnt like
3) Fire Chris Cox the stooge thats head of the SEC and NEVER met a merger he didnt like
4) Fire Ben Bernanke the stooge thats head of the Federal reserve and is like a deer in the headlights and is using inflation to help the wealthy bankers at the expense of the working class.
5) Get rid of Petraeus and replace him with a honest guy that puts US interests ahead of his career and being a yes man and stooge for the Bush thugs.
6) Get rid of the head of CENTCOM and replace him with a honest guy that puts US interests ahead of his career and being a yes man and stooge for the Bush thugs.
7) Fire the head of the CIA and replace him with someone who values and respects the US Constitution, personal freedoms and privacy.
8) Fire the head of Homeland Security and replace him with someone who values and respects the US Constitution, personal freedoms and privacy.
9) Fire the head of the FBI and replace him with someone who values and respects the US Constitution, personal freedoms and privacy.
10) Appoint a cabinet level position to help the working class and insure they have afforable healthcare, good paying job opportunities, afforable educational opportunities and are protercted from corrupt predatory lenders.
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Mike, at 9:45 AM
I'll go one step further amend the Constitution to put limits on Presidential pardons........so the repugs cant run this country like a treasonous criminal empire when the steal the elections to become president.
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Mike, at 10:09 AM
Mike - so glad to see you! And you have some great thoughts, thank you.
I totally agree on your 10 things Obama should do first. I also love the way Obama is focusing on the Constitution and the mandate that all Americans should be able to feel safe and secure, meaning HEALTH INSURANCE must be a mandate for a secure, safe, happy, peaceful society.
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Lydia Cornell, at 2:14 PM
Did you all hear Gore is coming out for Obama tonight at 8? Plus Things are happening too damn fast! I just heard Bush wants Bin Laden caught before his time is up! I say often that we know where he is and Bush is waiting just for this and he will deflate the Dems plus does that mean Bush is one way or the other going into Pakistan? This is really ramping up quick between Pakistan, Afghanistan, us and everything else. UNfriggen real!
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