Kerry swipes Romney again today over Iran foreign policy…

I have little interest in inserting myself, as a former nominee of my party, into this presidential campaign season. But as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has a vital role in issues of national security, I feel compelled to respond to the ways that, in pursuit of the Republican nomination, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has put himself front and center in debates that have serious consequences.

And on “CBS This Morning” today, Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president,  said that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner for nomination, was “‘behaving like a irresponsible candidate’ in criticizing the president’s Iran policy.”

Senator Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee talked with Charlie Rose “about a Washington Post column in which he rebuts a Romney op-ed published earlier in the week.”

Although Kerry wrote that Mr. Obama was already doing what Romney proposed to do to Iran, he wouldn’t say the two men’s views were similar.

“I see a profound difference,” said Kerry. “The difference is President Obama is acting like a president, a commander in chief and like a, a statesperson, and Mitt Romney is behaving like a irresponsible candidate, frankly, because everything that he laid out in his op-ed President Obama is already doing.”

Kerry dismissed Mitt Romney’s attacks on the Obama administration’s Iran foreign policy as “election-year politics.” 

“What he’s doing is setting up straw men, basically trying to just argue a case, say, ‘I’m strong, you’re weak,’ without any evidence supporting it whatsoever, Charlie,” said Kerry. “I mean, everything that Mitt Romney laid out that he said he might do President Obama has done or is in the middle of expanding.”

Two days ago Kerry rebutted Romney’s OP/ED on Iran on the Senate floor. Kerry’s OP/ED in the WaPo and appearance on “CBS This Morning,” mark Kerry’s second swing at Romney on Iran foreign policy.

Jessica Winter debates in TIME Ideas: Are Women People?

Winter says, “in the past couple of months, certain powerful figures in media and politics have cracked open that certitude,” that “women are fully autonomous human citizens—who vote, even.”

I can fully understand the questions Winter is posing given the recent increase in the War On Women, by members of the Republican Party and Clergy.

In her article, Winters recapps “recent instances of powerful men from the fields of law, politics and literature tackling the question that has captured America’s imagination: Are Women People?”

It’s a must read on this International Women’s Day.

The Super Bowl was February 5 this year. Did you pay attention to the responses some people had watching it on T.V.?  “Kick ‘im in the head.” “Squash ‘im into the ground.” Followed by lots of four-letter words, yelling at the players, and throwing things across the room.  And did you listen closely to some of the talk in the stands? “Kill ‘em!”  “Take ‘em out!” “Crush ‘em!”

This kind of behavior at sporting events, especially football games, is common. Violence spreads like a disease to the fans, and even viewers who aren’t fans. The talk is violent. The feelings are violent. And sometimes the behavior is even violent.

This violence during a sporting event is normalized in our society. Just like violence is normalized in other occurrences in our society. For example, in the campaign for the presidential election. In a recent debate, candidates were asked about “life and death violence.” Of the three candidates who responded…

One answered:  “Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear-cut idea about America’s enemies: Kill them.”

Another responded:  “Of course you take out our enemies, wherever they are. These people declared war on us. They’ve killed Americans. We go anywhere they are, and we kill them.”

These are candidates for the presidency of the United States of America and they sound just like players or fans in a violent sporting event. 

We saw this during the first Iraq War, in 1990. Images of the violence that occurred during the war were televised nationwide. The natural human reaction to that would have been horror. Yet the media reporters were reporting it just as though it was a football game! And then those watching… the citizens acted just like fans, and ardent and violent fans at that.

If we want to know why the campaigns are so very negative? We have only to look at these comments. Too many candidates consider the election process a war. Too many candidates consider each other the enemy. And too many candidates are out to take out their enemy . . . figuratively speaking, that is. Although some people, tragically, get so caught up in the “war for the presidency,” or other political wars, that they actually take it on themselves to literally kill the political leader they consider their enemy.  (Abraham Lincoln. William McKinley. John Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy.)

This exists in our sports events. In our election process. And in everyday bullying. When we feel powerless, we make someone else the enemy and go after them. Try to destroy them.  Verbally. Emotionally. Mentally. And tragically, sometimes even physically.  (Gabby Gifford.)

Although he has his own issues, one of the contenders took a step toward wisdom, replying…

“Here we have a nation that we are becoming constantly trying to kill people who we consider our enemies… So I would say that maybe we ought to consider a golden rule in — in foreign policy. Don’t do to other nations… what we don’t want to have them do to us.”

We need to look at how our society has become as it is… how it has become so violent on so many levels. Home, school, place of worship, business, community, sporting events, and all over our world. Violence is more present than we allow ourselves to know. And it is more normalized than we allow ourselves to acknowledge. It starts when we are very young — younger than you may imagine — and it grows in us as we grow, becoming more dangerous the more our bodies and minds grow. 

We consider too many people our enemies, without even realizing it. And we are at war with too many people and things — other humans, animals, and our earth itself. And if we are so at war with others, it means we are also at war within ourselves. Instead of being a time for continued warring, this time in our country and our world could be a time for deep healing… healing of both the wars within us and the wars outside and all around us.

© Judith Barr, 2012.

Once, many years ago, in a land far away between two oceans, with fruited plains, amber waves of grain, and potholes on its highways, there lived a young man named Sam.

Now, Sam was a bright young man who wanted to work and save money so he could go to school and become an electrician. But the only job open in his small community was at the gas station. So, for two years, Sam pumped gas, washed windshields, checked dipsticks and tire pressure, smiled and chatted with all the customers, gave them free drinking glasses when they ordered a fill-up, and was soon known as the best service station attendant in town.

But then the Grand Caliphs of Oil said that Megamania Oil Empire, of which they all had partial ownership, caused them to raise the price of gas.

“We’re paying 39 cents a gallon now,” they cried, “how can you justify tripling our costs?” they demanded.

“That’s business,” said the Chief Grand Caliph flippantly. But, to calm the customer fury, he had a plan. “We will allow you the privilege of pumping your own gas, washing your own windows, checking your car’s dipsticks and tire pressure, and chatting amiably with yourselves,” said the Caliph. “If you do that, we will hold the price to only a buck or two a gallon.”

And the people were happy. All except Sam, of course, who was unemployed.

But, times were good, and Sam went to the local supermarket, which was advertising for a minimum wage checkout clerk. For three years, he worked hard, scanning all groceries and chatting amiably with the customers. And then one day his manager called him into the office.

“Sam,” said the boss, “we’re very pleased with your work. You’re fired.” From corporate headquarters had come a decision by the chain’s chief bean counter that there weren’t enough beans for their executives to go to Europe to search for more beans.

“But,” asked Sam, “Who will scan the groceries?”

“The customers will,” said the boss. “We’ll even have a no-hassle machine that will take their money and maybe even give change.”

“But won’t they object to buying the groceries, scanning them, bagging them, and shoving their money into a faceless machine?”

“Not if we tell them that by doing all the work, the cost will be less,” said the manager.

“But it won’t,” said Sam.

The manager thought a moment, and then brightly pointed out, “We’ll just say that the cost of groceries won’t go up significantly if labor costs were less. Besides, we even programmed Canmella the Circuit-enhanced Clerk to tell customers to have a nice day.”

Now, others may have sworn, cried, or punched out their supervisor, but this is a G-rated fairy tale, and it wouldn’t be right to leave Sam to flounder among the food. By cutting back on luxuries, like food and clothes, Sam saved a few dollars from his unemployment checks, and finally had enough to go to a community college to learn to become an electrician. After graduating at the top of his class, an emaciated and homeless Sam got a job at Acme Industries.

For nine years, he was a great electrician, often making suggestions that led to his company becoming one of the largest electrical supplies manufacturers in the country. And then one day one of the company’s 18 assistant vice-presidents called Sam into a small dingy office, which the company used for such a day. “You’re the best worker we have,” the AVP joyfully told Sam, “but all that repetitive stress has cut your efficiency and increased our medical costs. In the interest of maximizing profits, we have to replace you.”

“But who can do my job?” asked Sam.

“Not who,” said the manager, “but what. We’re bringing in robots. They’re faster and don’t need breaks, vacations, or sick days. Better yet, they don’t have union contracts.”

“So you are firing me,” said Sam.

“Not at all. We had to let a few dozen other workers go so there would be room for the robots, and we won’t be hiring any new workers, but because of your hard work, we’re reassigning you to oil the robots. At least until we design robots that can oil the other robots.”

For three years, Sam oiled, polished, and cleaned up after the robots. Sometimes, he even had to rewire them. And then the deputy assistant senior director of Human Resources called him into her office.

“No one can oil and polish as well as you can,” she said, but the robots are getting very expensive and we still have several hundred workers who are taking lobster and truffles from the mouths of our corporate executives, “so we’re sending all of our work to somewhere in Asia. Or maybe it’s Mexico. Whatever. The workers there will gladly design and assemble our products for less than a tenth what we have to pay our citizens.”

“You mean I’m fired?!” said a rather incredulous Sam.

“Not fired. That’s so pre-NAFTA. You’ve been downsized.”

“Downsized?!”

“If you want, we can also say you’ve been outsourced. How about right-sized. That’s a nicer word. Would you prefer to be right-sized?”

By now, Sam was no longer meek. He no longer was willing to accept whatever he was told. “The work will be shoddier,” said Sam. “There will be problems.”

“Of course there will be,” said the lady from HR. “That’s why we hired three Pakistani goat herders to solve customer complaints.”

“Our citizens won’t stand for this,” said a defiant Sam.

“As long as the product is cheaper, our people will gladly go to large non-union stores and buy whatever it is that we tell them to buy.”

And she was right.

[Walter Brasch is an award-winning journalist and former university professor. His latest book is the social issues mystery novel, Before the First Snow, available at amazon and other book dealers.]

by WALTER BRASCH

One of the fun things sports writers do is try to predict the winners and scores of upcoming games, from high school through the pros. For special “look-at-us-we’re important” bonus points, they create lists of “Top” teams and rank them, both pre-season and weekly.

Sports writers have some kind of genetic mutation that leads them to believe they know more about sports than the average schlump who spends almost $200 a year for a newspaper subscription and as much as $500 a year for all-access all-games everywhere cable coverage. However, the reality is that even the best prognosticators—sports writers love big words when they can pronounce them—have a record about as accurate as the horoscope on the comics page.

Nevertheless, the guesses and rankings by sportswriters are usually innocuous. Readers and viewers usually forget in a couple of days who says what, and go about their own lives trying to make a mediocre paycheck stretch until the end of the month.

Joining the “guess how bright I am” journalists are some reporters who cover national political races. Instead of researching and explaining candidate positions on numerous issues, and giving readers and viewers a greater understanding of how those positions could impact their own lives, these pompous scribblers have made politics another sports contest.

The national news media, secure in their perches in New York and Washington, D.C., several months ago began chirping about who will win the Iowa caucus. For the final few days, they parachuted into Iowa to let their readers and viewers think they were toughened field reporters with as difficult a job as combat correspondents in Iraq or Afghanistan. Like hungry puppies, they stayed close to the candidates, hoping for a morsel or two, digested it, passed it out of their system as wisdom, and haughtily predicted the winner would be Mitt Romney—no, wait—it’s Michele Bachman—no, we’re calling for a surprising victory by Herman Cain—stop-the-presses, Cain petered out—Newt Gingrich is definitely going to take Iowa—Rick Perry is our prediction— we predict Ron Paul might be ahead—the race is going to be tough, but based upon our superior knowledge because we’re the national news media and we’re infallible, and from projections we picked out of our butts we believe—.

The one candidate they discounted for almost all but the last week of the Iowa primary race was Rick Santorum. Not a chance, they declared. Weak campaign. Lack of funds. No charismatic razzle-dazzle. No vital signs. Dead as a 2-by-4 about to be sawed and covered by wallboard.

Santorum, of course, came within eight votes of taking the Iowa caucus. The news media then spent the next day telling us all about that campaign, much in the same way that a bubbly TV weather girl, who a week earlier predicted bright sunny skies for a week, tells us we had snow the past three days.

The national news media jetted out of Iowa faster than a gigolo leaving a plain rich girl for a plain richer one, and descended upon New Hampshire. In the granite state, they have been repeating their performance from Iowa. They have predicted who the “real” winners and losers are. They have tried to convince us they can actually talk to us common folk, so they are grabbing whoever they find to answer in less than ten seconds, “Who do you think will win?” After the New Hampshire primary concludes, Tuesday, the media will happily discard their snow coats for windbreakers and descend into South Carolina, where they will continue to treat a presidential race as little more than a sporting contest.

There’s a difference, however. Generally, whoever wins or loses a game doesn’t have much impact upon the rest of us, so we smile at the sportswriters’ attempts to predict outcomes and pretend they can analyze the impact of a reserve left tackle’s hangnail. Those who are elected to our city councils, state legislatures, Congress, and the Presidency do have an impact upon us. And we deserve a lot better than the arrogance of the news clan reporting the contests as if they were sporting events.

[Walter Brasch was a sportswriter and sports editor before becoming an award-winning public affairs/investigative reporter and columnist, who has covered several presidential campaigns. He was once a reporter for an Iowa newspaper. His current book is the critically-acclaimed social issues mystery-thriller, Before the First Snow.]

by WALTER BRASCH

There is nothing the media love more than a good celebrity sex scandal.

Since the story of Scarlett Johansson’s purloined nude pictures had run its course, and the media squeezed every drop of ink it could from the Kim Kardashian/Kris Humphries engagement/wedding/marriage/divorce, they had to find something else to feed the beast with the insatiable appetite.

Something else was Penn State. Neatly packaged for the media was the trifecta of what passes as journalism—sex, scandal, and celebrity. And so the media circus rolled into State College, salivating at their good fortune.

The “sex” part of the story was that Jerry Sandusky, former defensive coordinator of the Nittany Lions, was accused of 21 felony counts of sexual abuse of boys. A 23-page Grand Jury report, released Nov. 4 following a drawn-out three-year investigation, detailed some of the specifics. However, this story, no matter what the media say it is, is not about sex. It is about child molestation, child abuse, and endangering the welfare of a child. Big difference.

The “scandal” is that it appeared that high-ranking Penn State officials, although they restricted Sandusky’s access to campus, didn’t contact police or child protection services, possibly believing they were protecting the university’s image.

The “celebrity” part is Joe Paterno, who listened to a graduate assistant who says he saw an act of sodomy by Sandusky, and then, disgusted by what Sandusky may have done, reported it the athletics director and senior vice-president for administration. Paterno met his legal responsibility, and isn’t under any criminal investigation. Questions to Paterno in court would probably result in the defense objecting to hearsay testimony since Paterno never witnessed the act.  

Almost every Pennsylvania TV station and dozens of networks sent camera crews into State College. As the number of TV crews increased, the quality of reporting sank, as almost every on-air reporter seemed to feel a need to ask even dumber questions and make dumber statements than every other reporter. These are the TV stations that send camera crews to out-of-town football games, Spring training in Florida, and bowl games, yet have downsized their news staff, plead economic poverty, and failed to adequately cover critical news stories. In Pennsylvania, it has meant little original reporting about conflict-of-interest and ethics scandals in the state legislature. Sports, apparently, is “sexy”; the public’s money and legislature integrity aren’t.

These are the same members of the media who for many of Paterno’s 46 years as head coach had filed stories that he should step down after any two losses in a row, or during a losing season, or even a season that didn’t have enough wins. The media had also layered comments that Paterno was everything but senile, that he was too old to be coaching. But, Paterno, known in the media as “JoePa,” kept winning, and kept demanding academic and athletic excellence in addition to moral integrity from his players. The university’s library, not any of its athletic buildings, is named for him. America’s best-known coach was building not a place for future NFL stars, but a place where college students could supplement their education to become productive members of society. His graduation rate is among the highest in Division I athletics.

However, based upon the amount of newsprint and air time given to this story, you would swear that Paterno was guilty, arrested, and probably already convicted. The media almost forgot about Sandusky as they began piling on to Paterno. Six column headlines and five minute network stories dominated the news agenda. Like sharks, they smelled blood and circled their prey, a towering figure about to be toppled. With little evidence, these sanctimonious scavengers called for one of the most ethical and inspirational coaches and professors to resign, claiming he didn’t do enough, that he should have personally called the police rather than follow established protocol.

.Many of the media horde, who had never written any story about Penn State’s excellent academic and research programs, soon began pumping out ludicrous statements that Penn State’s reputation would be tarnished for years. Despite their self-righteous denials, the screeching of “Joe Must Go” in one-inch bold black headlines undoubtedly influenced the university’s board of trustees, which was constantly proving that incompetence isn’t just a media trait. Their attitude seemed to be not whether what Paterno did was a terminable offense, but that to terminate him would somehow save the university’s tarnished reputation—and maybe preserve the value of their own luxury seats at Beaver Stadium.

On Wednesday, Nov. 9, three days before the Penn State/Nebraska game, which was to be the last home game of the season, the Trustees, with a push from Gov. Tom Corbett, fired Paterno, thus justifying all the ink and air time spent by the media that seemed distracted from the real story—Sandusky, not Paterno, was arrested.

That night, thousands of students staged a demonstration of support for Paterno. The media called it a riot and almost universally condemned the students for exercising a First Amendment right of peaceful assembly and freedom of speech. What little damage done—the highest estimate was about $20,000—was by a relatively small number of participants.

On game day, the media camped in front of Paterno’s house. ESPN coverage of the game, which drew about twice as many viewers as expected, was constantly punctuated by the “scandal,” and what Paterno did and didn’t do. Tragedy had suddenly become a sport.

Contributing to the media’s shameful performance were mountains of crocodile tears, dripping with moral indignation. Had the media spent even a tenth of the time before the Penn State scandal to publish and air stories about child welfare problems, and what could be done to protect the most vulnerable of society, their myriad comments would have been credible.

In contrast to the masses, several reporters did credible reporting, including the hometown Centre Daily Times. But the best reporting might be that of Sara Ganim, who had begun her investigation first at the Centre Daily Times before moving to the Harrisburg Patriot-News. Three years after graduating from Penn State, she broke the story in March that the Grand Jury was investigating Sandusky and others. Her story at the time didn’t get much traction. But, for several months she meticulously gathered facts and wrote news, not opinion and speculation, which dominated the work of many of her colleagues, many of whom showed they were incapable of even reaching the journalistic standards of reporting at the National Enquirer.

Perhaps Joe Paterno should have done more; perhaps he should have called the police or at least followed-up with his earlier concern. But, we don’t know yet the facts.

One concern remains. Today, these Monday Morning Quarterbacks of the media and a pack of largely anonymous self-righteous fans all say that unlike Paterno they would have done “the right thing.” How many, if faced by the same set of circumstances, would have done “the right thing” a month ago?

 [Assisting on this story was Rosemary Brasch. Dr. Brasch had begun his journalism career as a sports writer and sports editor before moving into public affairs/investigative journalism. He is an award-winning syndicated columnist and retired journalism professor. His latest of 17 books is Before the First Snow, a story of the counter-culture.]

by WALTER BRASCH 

“O.K., class, we have a few minutes at the end of today’s lecture about how the godless Communists created evolution to try to destroy the decent loyal patriotic capitalist society of America. Any questions? Yes, Billy Bob.”

“Mr. Jim Bob, I heard about this thing called a person. What is that?”

“Good question. With all the distortions by the lyin’ liberal left-wing, it can get confusing. But, it’s really simple. A person is an egg that has just been fertilized by a sperm. We call this young person a Zygote.”

“Does it have to be a goat? Can it be anything else?”

“Well, Susie Bob, if you nurture it, that fertilized egg can grow up to be anything it wants to be, because this is the United States of America. And no one has the right to tell us white folks what to do.”

“Are there advantages of being a single-celled person?”

“Definitely. Their parents don’t have to wait until they emerge from the birth canal to claim them as an IRS deduction. Also, with more persons in Mississippi, we can get more single-cell congresspersons to represent us.”

“Then why did our parents vote against the constitutional amendment?”

“It was a close defeat. While those abortion activists voted against the measure, most of the opposition was because us conservatives were worried that the way the proposed amendment was written would allow them liberal types to go to Washington and overturn our states’ rights.”

“You mean Congress can do that?”

“No, Junie Bob, the Supreme Court can do that. It was a craps roll. You see, there are four decent Americans on the Supreme Court. And there are four who are women, or Jews, or both. And they were likely to say something stupid, like the state isn’t allowed to use religious dogma to justify new laws. That would mean there would be a 4–4 tie. We couldn’t trust the other judge to do what’s right, because he changes what side he’s on all the time. Even our illustrious governor said he had doubts about how broad that amendment was, and what the courts would do.”

“But he voted for it anyway.”

“He’s a politician, Kenny Bob. That’s what they do. Next question.”

“My mommy says that abortion and wearing condoms is murder, and to protect persons she plans to run down baby-killer doctors when she sees them on the streets.”

“Your mommy is looking out for the best interests of the fertilized egg. In that case, the courts will rule that what your mother does is justified homicide. Just like them lynchings your pappies and grandpappies might have done for fun on some hot weekend. It sent a message that we don’t tolerate uppity colored people doing dumb things like voting or demanding constitutional rights. Those were meant only for the white people.”

“Is slavery still legal?

“No, Bertie Bob, Mississippi outlawed it in 1995 when we ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.”

“Why did it take so long?”

“Well, Martha Bob, you have to understand that decent conservatives just don’t go rushing into making important decisions. It takes time to figure out all the issues and their implications. Thirteen decades seemed about the right time.”

“I’m still confused Mr. Jim Bob. My pappy says that we got to keep the gummint out of our lives, like not allowing revenooers on our property. Don’t all of them laws intrude on our rights?”

“Sometimes, you have to intrude for the good of society. That’s why we have laws about who you can and can’t marry?”

“You mean, me and—?”

“Yes, Jenny Bob, I was planning to talk to you about you and your brother. Marriage has to be between a man and a woman who aren’t siblings.”

“So, it’s OK for me and Calvin Bob to marry?

“Since you’re first cousins that’s OK, just as long as marriage is between a man and a woman, as God intended.”

“Is that why we don’t like the coloreds and the Asians to marry us? I heard that half the state doesn’t want intermarriages and the rest are the colored people.”

“What people don’t understand, Beauford Bob, is that we made those laws to help the colored people. Before the War Between the States—Praise Jeff Davis and Jesus, Hallelujah!—we allowed white slave owners to have sex with anyone they wanted, as long as they were women. But, then we realized that wasn’t fair to the African people, because it diluted their purity. So, to protect the darkies, we didn’t have any choice but to forbid whites from marrying anyone with even one-eighth dark blood.”

“I heard about this thing called sodomy, which them homosexual and lesbian ladies practice. That’s just yucky.”

“Indeed it is. That’s why sodomy is a felony, and homosexuals can get 10 years in prison, where they can practice deviant. After that, they have to register as sex offenders. That’s another reason why the government is allowed into our bedrooms, so they can protect respectable voyeurs from having to participate in such immoral activity. Time for just one more question. Yes, Horatio Bob.”

“Mr. Jim Bob, how did you become so wise?”

“I’m a graduate of the Mississippi school system.”

 [Walter Brasch’s latest book is the critically-acclaimed mystery/thriller, Before the First Snow, set in rural Pennsylvania. The book is available through www.greeleyandstone.com, amazon.com, and other bookstores.]

If Americans were educated in Classical Logic and Fallacies, they would automatically laugh at any assertion that one = all or that some = many (or most). (Still, ask American Muslims how prevalent that thinking is in actual practice.)

They like to be in America..

That is the entire extent of my commentary on the astonishingly vile Occupy Wall Street coverage that’s being foisted off on a seemingly-hypnotized mass lost somewhere in Middle America and Fox News. Apply the logical observation above and there’s nothing left to comment on.

No: this is commentary ON a disturbing portion OF that commentary that NEEDS addressing.

It’s all of a piece, of course, as the Red Blogs clump together in cyber-gangs far more deadly and less terpsichorean than the Sharks and Jets: “When you’re a Jet, you’re a jet all the way …”* And the rest blithely free-lance through the oddly constrained consensus of Our National Dialogue.

[* West Side Story: The Jet Song (Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim)
(Sung by Riff and others)

(Riff) When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette to your last dyin' day!
When you're a Jet, when the spit hits the fan
You've got brothers around, you're a family man!
You're never alone, you're never disconnected, you're home with your own
When company's expected, you're well-protected!
Then you are set with a capital J
Which you'll never forget till they cart you away
When you're a Jet you stay a Jet ...

For the past several daze [sic] Herman Cain’s endless peregrinations, perorations and rationalizations have dominated the national dialogue. Barely a notice of “Seven Billion Human Beings” on Memeorandum. And yet, in ten years, who will give a damn about the scandal du jour and the feeding frenzy of the sharks?

(Sometimes I am not convinced that we homo sapiens are a serious Species or that if the Human Race were a great child, born, grown, aged, we would currently occupy those years known as  ”junior high school.” Maybe it’s all that Neandertal blood still coursing through our arteries. )

And, tempting though it might be to deconstruct the resurrected assertion (from 1990) “This is a high-tech lynching!” here is a more important story that seems to have gotten lost in the great Tempest of the Teapot, via The Poynter Institute: [emphasis added]

James O’Keefe takes aim at Clay Shirky, Jay Rosen

by Steve Myers
Published Oct. 27, 2011 12:57 pm
Updated Oct. 28, 2011 8:50 am

Project Veritas
In the second installment of his “To Catch a Journalist” series, James O’Keefe has produced a surreptitiously recorded, heavily edited video starring NYU professors Clay Shirky and Jay Rosen. In the video Shirky likens NPR’s program sponsorships to advertising and discusses news coverage of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Occupy Wall Street and Michele Bachmann.O’Keefe claims the video shows Shirky and Rosen discussing “the New York Times’ strategy to support Occupy Wall Street, Obama’s 2008 election and their place within the ‘chardonnay swilling’ so-called media elite.” O’Keefe calls Shirky a New York Times consultant, but Eileen Murphy, vice president of corporate communications for The New York Times, says that’s not true.

[...]

If you’re familiar with O’Keefe’s work and Shirky’s expansive talks, you know you can’t rely on a collage of 30-second clips to get the true meaning of Shirky’s comments. (O’Keefe says in the video that the full transcript is on his site, but if it’s there I can’t find it; I asked him on Twitter where it is.) … Rosen tweeted that he’d respond to the video later Thursday…*

[* Read the entire piece; it's short.]

And Professor Rosen DID, in fact respond. Which we’ll get to in a moment.

Who is attacking? Andrew Breitbart, who promotes and backs James O’Keefe. (Snapping fingers in unison …)

When you’re a Jet …

What is being attacked? That’s a little tougher. SOME of it is an attempt to attack the New York Times. But underlying and o’erspreading it all is an attempt to attack the edumakashun of journalism. To undermine the credibility of “media elites” by phonying up a “scandal,” like that little stunt with the NPR exec back when the GOP Kongress was screaming for their heads.

That was after they screamed for the heads of Planned Parenthood (or maybe before, I can’t keep track) but DEFINITELY before they started screaming about Solyndra and the need to reaffirm the vital motto of the United States of America, adopted in 1956, as an “anti-commie” measure, “In God We Trust.” Thus supplanting our original motto (which could use some reaffirmation and re-cognition) E Pluribus Unum, or “Out of Many, One,” which came out of the Classical scholarship of the Sacred Founding Fathers.

Which brings us to Rush Limbaugh (November 1, 2011)†:

“Can you tell me where do you go to apply for a job with a Classical Studies degree?”  “Well, anybody who’s interested in studying classically, I would think would be interested in my services because I’m going to be an expert.”  At that point somebody at the university ought to say, “Babe, you are wasting your time in a nothing major.  We are stealing your money.  You’re gonna be qualified for jack excrement when you get outta here.”  But they don’t.  Now, this is part of the trick, this is the ruse, and it’s actually clever.  Snerdley’s in there laughing uncontrollably.  I know I’m a naturally funny guy, but follow me on this.

So here you have Miss Brain-dead freshly out of college with her Classical Studies degree who thinks that she wants to go classically study and that people also want to study classics studiously and classically, and she’s going to be very hirable, very marketable and so forth.  Gets out in the real world and finds her only chance is Occupy Wall Street and to write a note for a TV camera about how worthless her degree is.  Well, that’s what she does here.  Her job prospects, zero.  Yeah, they are, and they have been since you declared that major, and somebody shoulda told you that from the moment you declared the major in Classical Studies.

Tell me, any of you at random listening all across the fruited plain, what the hell is Classical Studies?  What classics are studied?  Or, is it learning how to study in a classical way?  Or is it learning how to study in a classy as opposed to unclassy way?  And what about unClassical Studies?  Why does nobody care about the unclassics?  What are the classics?  And how are the classics studied?  Oh, cause you’re gonna become an expert in Dickens?  You’re assuming it’s literature.  See, you’re assuming we’re talking classical literature here.  What if it’s classical women’s studies?  What if it’s classical feminism?  Who the hell knows what it is?  One thing I do know is that she, the brain-dead student, doesn’t know what it is, after she’s got a major in it.  Because all she knows to do with it is go down to Occupy Wall Street and complain and write a note for the cameras.

As I say, this is deviously clever.  Socialists, liberals work under cover for decades taking over higher education, and then they dilute it and they make higher education anything but higher. …

That last sentence quite nicely lets slip the thesis statement.

Somehow, edumakashun is liberal, and if you get a degree, get it in something technical. I’m oversimplifying, of course, but, given the habitat, there is nothing discordant in that.

It is a profoundly anti-intellectual strain, the first naked statement of the “dumb it down” strain of “Conservatism” (which is, if you think about it, exceedingly radical, in wanting lots of social change as soon as possible) in demonizing “Liberalism” (which is, conversely, extremely “conservative” in continually protecting the status quo ante of the  current social order).

It is not at all dissimilar to the attack that O’Keefe/Breitbart are making on Professor Rosen, the NYU School of Journalism, and, if the “hail Mary” works, the New York Times.

It is also profoundly disturbing.  As noted in “The Cruelest Month,” [12 FEB 2007]:

How did we get to be PROUD of being dumbasses? And how did we elevate that dumbass class into the “role model” arena? I realize that there’s always been a battle going on between the intellectuals and the masses. But I promise you, that high school pre-Ritalin-pisser weren’t no intellectual when he corrected “American Pie’s” dumbass enunciation of February.

There is no virtue in being ignorant; still less in being willfully ignorant.

From “Breitbart’s Schadenfreudian Slip”

“Smart” and “dumb” are different matters: each of us have their gifts. But ignorance is a different matter. Ignorance is the facility though which scientists can be sneered at about climate change data, because … they’re EXPERTS! They’re EGGHEADS! What do SMART people know, anyhow? Hah!

(etc. etc.)

If you’d have told me thirty years ago that anyone except the usual crackpots from Orange County, California would hold such a thing up as a virtue, I’d never have believed you. If you’d have told me that a significant proportion of the population, if not the majority, believe in the creation myth of Genesis to the exclusion of a century of evolutionary science, I’d have directed you to the nearest psychiatric hospital.

The one salient characteristic of American political discourse that is conspicuous by its absence is the one we ought to most pride ourselves in: rational analysis.

The sleep of reason breeds monsters - Goya

When Rush sloughs off Herman Cain’s troubles as “no worse than Teddy Kennedy, Bill Clinton or John Edwards,” the absurd proposition is accepted without so much as a gulp.

Excuse me? You were the one who never let up on said scandals, characterized them in the blackest (metaphorical) terms and proclaimed that said scandals proved the accused manifestly unfit to govern. So, if it’s wrong for them, it’s not wrong for Herman Cain? (I’m speaking in generalities, since that was the nature of the proposition.)

This is the classic “heads I win, tails you lose” gambling proposition, and it is a testament to the dumbing down of America that so many SERIOUSLY accept this childish fallacy as a “refutation” in formulation after formulation. “Well JOHNNY did it, too!” never has, in the history of mammaries, been accepted by any mother anywhere as a valid excuse for breaking the cookie jar, even though, universally, every child that has been discovered from that deed has attempted to use it.

Gee, Officer Krupke!

Perhaps they were practicing for later life, like kittens, practicing for a life of predation.

Limbaugh’s attack on Classical studies veers into the ridiculous:

But this woman — or this person — who wrote the note complaining about zero job opportunity, does not appear to be representative of somebody who’s seven months away from a degree in Classical Studies. Classical Studies. Try this. Did a lot of research during the break. Karl Marx was a classical studies scholar. Karl Marx, philosopher, political thinker, studied Latin and Greek — as did Churchill, I found out.

Marx received a Ph.D. for a dissertation on ancient Greek philosophy entitled The Difference between the Democratean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature. Now, you’ll note nobody hired Marx, so what he had to do was figure out a way to destroy humanity on his own — and he was able to do it, but nobody hired him. His classical background is reflected in his philosophies. Indeed the term “proletariat,” he coined from the Latin word referring to the lowest class of citizen. So Karl Marx was a classical scholar, ancient philosophy and literature. Here’s what the University of Pennsylvania says about their department: “Welcome to the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

“For over two centuries Penn has offered a variety of undergraduate and graduate programs representing all aspects of the broad field of Classical Studies, from languages and literature to history, archaeology and cultural studies. The Department encourages interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to teaching and research and maintains productive ties with a variety of programs, including Religious Studies, English, Comparative Literature, Medieval Studies, Philosophy, Linguistics, Italian Studies, [Pasta], History of Art, and the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.” Now, I don’t know about you, does not make me want to sign up for a major in this.

Wow. Just Wow. Or, in the dying words of Steve Jobs: Oh Wow. Oh Wow. Oh Wow.

The entire Western Canon is, according to El Rushbo, worthless.

He has distilled the anti-intellectual yawp down to its crystalline, molecular form: Veni vidi video: I came, I saw, I watched it on TV.

That certainly explains why “In God We Trust” had to be substituted for “Out of Many, One” — which, when you think about it, sounds like socialism. Like that “Commonwealth,” notion as in “The Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” or “The Commonwealth of Kentucky” (whose junior Senator has not the slightest clue as to what that means).

We do not teach  formal logic to high school students (Piaget suggested that we become formal operational, i.e. able to handle formal and abstract logic, about age 11 or 12). Which, in a technological society is insane, idiotic and imbecilic. We expect students to pick it up by osmosis, with sophomore geometry, where you are supposed to prove propositions — a notion in the Classical Canon that goes back to the Pythagorean School of ancient Greece. We do not teach the philosophy of science to science majors.

Socrates (l.) and Aristotle (detail) from
“The School of Athens” by Raphael, circa olden times 

But, since the time of Plato’s Academy and the Aristotelian School of Athens (Aristotle was Alexander the Great’s tutor, recall) we have had a common canon in classical education — which is the system that produced the Founding Fathers, please note. If you’re going to “conserve” anything, Conservatives, conserve the classical traditions of rhetoric and debate, of logic and civility, and the later additions of parliamentary procedure.

What we have in the O’Keefe example is barbarism slyly exploiting the civility of civilization for barbaric ends. What we have in Limbaugh is the straight up yawp OF the barbarian, the Goth, the Visigoth, the Vandal: smash it! Books bad! Burn them! The books that Jefferson and Adams, Washington and Madison, Hamilton, Bartlett, Franklin and all the rest treasured and based their understanding of politics and the world on?

Smash! Hulk smash!

(I remember buying this issue)

Jay Rosen concludes this reading of the Decline of the West:

“Lucas” had taped us, surreptitiously. Then he asked to meet with me. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was part of the sting. He said he wanted to become a political journalist: did I have any advice? I gave him several career paths he could follow. He asked me if being a politics major and a journalism minor would be a handicap. I said no. Then he let me in on something.

He said he had a tape of a Tea Party gathering in which some ugly and extreme (the implication was racist) things were said. He said it was gruesome stuff. He wanted to know how he could get it to the media. To the New York Times. I said the New York Times wouldn’t be interested in something like that, and that he might try to contact Max Blumenthal of the Nation. He asked if I had any other advice for him. I said find a niche and start a blog. I gave him the examples of Ezra Klein, Dave Weigel and Nate Silver to show him that it was possible. I was trying to inspire him! “Lucas” thanked me and left. He had a strange smile on his face. #

I now realize he was scamming me and almost certainly taping me. The intended story line, worked out in advance, was lefty journalism professor jumps at the chance to assist with the discrediting of the Tea Party by passing along sensational footage to his buddies at the Times. ”Lucas” was there to get me to say the words that, when diced and spliced, would sound like that. But it didn’t work. I told him the Times wouldn’t be interested. So no portion of that tape appears in O’Keefe’s video….

Click here to view the embedded video.

See the video on YouTube

Read his entire piece. And consider what an ultimately senseless long-term policy dumbing down the public becomes.

And how angry. Consider what they did to Elizabeth Warren today in Massachusetts. You can’t ask for rationality when no one actually knows how to be RATIONAL. Illogic has led to more mobs than logic ever did.

When you’re a Jet you stay a Jet …

By continually pushing these reductionist and destructive forms of political theater, we follow the example of the renowned frontiersman William J. Fetterman.

Consider the outrageous absurdity of the “flat tax” argument:

Simpler is better.

Simpler tax code is better tax code.

Therefore simple flat tax is better.

Let me argue by analogy. OK.?

Simpler criminal code is better criminal code.

All Misdemeanors = 5 years in prison.

All Felonies = Death penalty.

Simpler: yes! Fairer?

I am reminded of Captain Brevet-Lieutenant Colonel William J. Fetterman, for whom a street I lived on was named, a Wyoming historical figure, I eventually found, to my horror, who was not a hero, but an idiot instead:

After the [Civil] war, he chose to remain in the Regular Army and was assigned as a captain in the Second Battalion of the 18th Infantry Regiment. In November 1866, the regiment was stationed at Fort Phil Kearny, tasked with protecting immigrants traveling to the gold fields of Montana Territory along the Bozeman Trail. Fetterman allegedly boasted that with 80 soldiers, he could “ride through the Sioux Nation.”

On December 21, 1866, a large band of Cheyenne and Sioux - which included Crazy Horse - under the leadership of Red Cloud attacked a wood train near the fort. Despite his unfamiliarity with frontier conditions and the methods of Indian fighting, Fetterman took command of a composite reaction force consisting of the former battalion quartermaster, Captain Frederick Brown, 2nd Lt. George Grummond, 49 enlisted troops of the 18th Infantry, 27 men of the 2nd Cavalry, and 2 civilian scouts, ironically totaling 80 men. Ignoring his orders not to venture beyond Lodge Trail Ridge (out of sight and support distance from the fort), Fetterman pursued a small band of Sioux and was lured into an ambush. He found himself facing approximately 2,000 Indians. Within 20 minutes, Fetterman and his command had been wiped out.

The Fetterman Massacre, as the encounter became known, was second in notoriety only to Custer‘s disastrous defeat in 1876. … Fetterman’s grave is in the National Cemetery at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument*.

[* irony not noted by Wikipedia]

Pretending to know about something he didn’t know anything about. Not listening to those who do. (Fetterman was warned repeatedly that he was being lured into a trap by more seasoned Fort Phil Kearny veterans.) Ignoring orders that were based on a very practical Real World issue.

There’s a better, shorter version of
the Fetterman fight tale HERE. 

That’s the primrose path that willful ignorance and arrogance leads one down.

I wonder if old Bill Fetterman was a Shark or a Jet?

Courage.

UPDATE A case in point has appeared from the internetosphere of tubes:

Rick Perry Speech Quotes Fake Occupy Wall Street Protester [VIDEO]
By Maggie Astor | November 2, 2011 12:37 PM EDT
International Business Times 

It’s been a tough few days for Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas. A giddy speech he made in New Hampshire on Friday led commentators to question his sobriety, and now, the blogosphere is abuzz with the news that he used a fake quote to mock Occupy Wall Street protesters.

“I don’t know if it can be proved up or not. The young man’s name was Jeremy and he was 38 years old,” Perry told voters in Concord, N.H. “He said, ‘We got here at 9 o’clock, and those people’ — this was in Toronto; I think Bay Street is their comparable [Wall Street] — he said, ‘Those bankers that we came to insult, they’d already been at work for two hours when we got here at 9 o’clock, and when we get ready to leave, you know, they’re still in there working. I guess greed just makes you work hard.’”

That is more or less what “Jeremy” said in a Globe and Mail article written by Mark Schatzker …

Except that what was quoted went viral in the conservative blogosphere, even though, as Schatzker noted this afternoon on NPR, a two second Google Search would have revealed it to be a humor column, a Saturday satirical piece written for TORONTO, Canada.

This did not stop the rightiesphere from going berserk, and then, later, somewhat sheepishly retracting their prior “Jeremy” based rants, with some reservations:

Some of those bloggers posted updates once they realized they’d been had. But they made sure to emphasize, as “Power Line” blogger John Hinderaker did, that “the point remains valid” — even after the evidence given for it was gone.  (ibid.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

The video on YouTube

============

† Longish footnote: I had turned on Rush that morning to see what the reaction to the whole Herman Cain thing was, and fortuitously stumbled on a cornucopia of controversy. Because it’s tough to get .mp3 copies, I streamed the show via Anchorage, Alaska, Denver, Colorado, and Medford, Oregon, who all run a later (taped) version of the three-hour daily show.

What was astonishing to me (other than what I can only characterize as a Reverse-Reverend-Wright, a new rhetorical wrestling move that Rush — by all rights — deserves the credit for. Were this figure skating, we’d just call it a Reverse Spinning Quadruple Limbaugh, and everyone would agree that it was the right and proper  thing to call the move) , what astonished me was that Rush was STILL defending his “magic Negro” comments of a few years back.

He brought nothing new to the old controversy, and I realized that I had already shown exactly how he had written the controversial song “Barack the Magic Negro” with the actual .mp3s in question back in the imaginatively-entitled ”Rush Limbaugh wrote ‘Magic Negro’ Parody” [29 DEC 2008]. And refuted, rationally, the fundamental arguments that Limbaugh made in his weird crypt-racist manner to prove that everybody else is a crypto-racist and neener-neener poo-pooh.

============

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

Discernment is the quality of being able to grasp what is obsure; the power to see what is not evident to the average mind; the act of exhibiting keen insight and good judgment; the keenness and accuracy of mental vision; the capacity of tracing out minute distinctions.

Certainly this is one of the most important qualities of a president. Hillary has it. Barack does not.  It comes from experience. The errors of youth often proceed from the want of discernment. People say that Barack Obama will surround himself with good advisors and so his lack of experience will not matter.  But his lack of discernment will matter.

Good advisors have their own schtick. Good advisors are steeped in their own specialty. Their knowledge is deep and narrow; they specialize. They advise on a particular concept or area of specialty. The president’s knowledge must be deep and wide.

The president must be able to take the advice of the specialist and put it into the context of the whole.

The wider the vision of the president, the more able she is to put that advice into it’s proper context. The wider the context, the deeper the perception. The wider the context, the greater the ability to discern the appropriate decision in a given situation. 

There is an old Russian myth about a young girl named Vasalisa who must learn all the aspects of intuition in order to save herself from the old witch Baba Yaga. In the story, Vasalisa matures by conquering more and more difficult hardships. She gradually rises to the challenges that affect her growth and ultimately her power in the world. The last task given to her by Baba Yaga is to separate poppy seed from dirt . . . the task of discernment . . . the minute task of separating one thing from another. She also discerns what questions are appropriate to ask of Baba Yaga and which ones are better left unasked, thus developing a keen sense of human nature and a heightened capacity for knowing. She learns to adapt to constantly changing circumstances. All this experience she gains from her time with Baba Yaga.

Does Vasalisa sound like someone we know? Someone called Hillary Clinton? Someone who has stood the test of time? Who has discernment that comes from experience? Who has the “grit” to endure? To stand up for the middle class? For our future? For our children? 

Myths are meant to teach us about life. They give us the archetypes to help us understand our experience. To help us make decisions that will serve us. Many of us have lost our connection to these myths, but they are a form of understanding that we can feel and that helps to shape our understanding.

People often find it hard to describe the qualities that Hillary has—that Barack has not yet attained. She is the candidate that has taken the archetypal journey. She has captured the golden fleece. She has undertaken the tasks of Baba Yaga. She has learned discernment. She has stood the tests of time. She is the best candidate for the democratic nomination. She is the candidate to beat John McCain (a candidate with a compelling personal story). She will be the best president.  You can read the story of Vasalisa here.

They are not usually about Issues. In this primary process, they are about Who Is the Best Candidate?

Who can Win?

Ever since the first televised debate between Kennedy & Nixon, voters have often judged candidates on inconsequential issues… Nixon lost the 1960 debate, and election, because of such trivia as how much did he sweat?…How much makeup did he have on?

As the story goes, voters who listened to the debate on radio were overwhelmingly convinced that Nixon had won on the issues, but Kennedy was the clear victor among those who actually watched the debate.

Kennedy won because he looked cool and composed on stage next to the Vice President. He looked like he knew what he was doing. He looked like he belonged there.

In today’s New York Times, Don Hewitt, the director and producer of the Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960, said ABC’s structuring of the questions was an acknowledgment that a debate entails “a big dose of show biz” and “trying to keep an audience.”

“When you’re in television,” Mr. Hewitt said, “that’s your job.”

This is what counts in debates: How does he look? Will he fight for us? How will he take the pressure? Can he be stumped? Will he make a gaffe?

When old time political bosses were picking candidates the central question they thought the voters would ask was:

IS HE ONE OF US?…….

And it is both complicated and simple and….sometimes based on the trivial. Is he too elitist? Does she really care about us? Will he take care of us?

Voters believe they can tell this by how candidates look and act under pressure. It all counts. What kind of bowler is Obama? How well can Hill throw back a shot?

Debates are an obvious testing grounds. Voters are picking the most powerful person in the world. They want answers about personal associations, beliefs, character, and statements at private fundraisers. Personal baggage tells a lot.

Remember the only Democrats who have been elected president since John Kennedy have been southern moderates.

Bill Clinton, for all his foibles, did pass the Is He One Of Us Test

Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry did not.

The Republicans managed to stick an elitist perception on their candidacies and the Democrats didn’t stand a chance.

Come November the Republicans are going to cram this elitist perception of the Democratic nominee down the throats of the voters. They will try to “define” the Democratic nominee…just as they defined Kerry as a windsurfing snob, instead of the war hero he was.

Obama (or Hillary) needs to be ready for this.

Obama should stick with basketball!

The “issues” are not really decisive for Democratic voters now. Obama and Hillary have virtually the same positions.

The issues are boring.

But that doesn’t mean the debates have been exercises in futility.

The most important question for Democratic voters– what the primaries are all about, now– is who can defeat McCain. All other questions are inconsequential. And this question of electability was what the recent ABC debate was all about.

Voters know that they will be lied to. During the debate when Hillary was asked if Obama can win, she lied. And when Obama was asked the same question, he lied. Everybody knew it, because what they are saying in private is …the other guy can’t win.

It doesn’t really matter who opposed the Iraq war first or whether there were snipers in Tuzla or what hate Rev. Wright spewed forth…

Of course, issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag pins, Clinton’s pardons, Bittergate, William Ayers, and the Tuzla airport will play a role in the election.

Obama will probably be the Democratic nominee, and he will be a stronger candidate for having confronted trivial issues. ABC and Hillary Clinton will be remembered as gentle questioners compared to what the Republicans will throw at him.

Fortunately, in the general election candidates will have real issues to debate, —- the economy, the war, our position in the world, and maybe by then the voters will have decided that Obama really Is One Of Us.

write: jfleetwood@aol.com

(Parts of this blog were cross posted at Huffington Post)