January 2008 Archives

I need to thank a fellow Post blogger for setting me straight on a lot of misconceptions I’ve held about what really threatens us as a nation. One of his latest, entitled, “Death by degrees,” has truly opened my eyes and helped me see the error of my concerns. He speaks about the “death of liberty” brought about by a culture of “liberal thinking” which is “eroding away our little freedoms.”

I had missed the “liberal thinking” threat, instead mistakenly concerning myself with the new “conservative” thinking, or is it more accurately described as neo-conservative or Republican thinking? It’s hard to know. Namely, I’m referring to the thinking and policies brought to us by the present Administration and largely enabled by the Republicans in Congress; call it what you will.

I was focused on what I now realize were small things -- illegal government wire tapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, torture and compromise of the Geneva Conventions, the coercion of the phone companies to allow government access to private conversations, political interference by the Attorney General, desire to alter the Constitution to define marriage, and attempts to control what a woman might do with her own body. I was also needlessly worried about tax cuts for the top one percent not needing them, and, coinciding with an illicit war (costing 1.5-2 billion dollars per week), war profiteering, the misuse of billions of dollars, and the loss of billions in cash and large number of missing arms – all resulting in cries to spend less by cutting funds for unnecessary social entitlements like healthcare and education. I was also stupidly focusing on the inability or absence of motivation for our government to safeguard US consumers from toxic products coming in from China, the outsourcing of too many jobs, the sub prime lending fiasco, and rapidly rising credit card debt which has many in serious trouble.

I heard a news pundit just today characterize the way the media took some recent remarks by Bill Clinton about Barack Obama, and out of context, as simply being “what the media does.” This woman appeared quite young, and in her defense perhaps it can be said she doesn’t know any better, and doesn’t have a memory reaching back to a time when reporters actually reported facts instead of misreporting and twisting people’s words to sensationalize rather than inform -- a time before media was controlled by a government owned by corporations.

The latest fiasco is NBC’s decision to renege on their invitation to Dennis Kucinich to appear in the Las Vegas Democratic primary debate. I find this rather outrageous. It should not be up to the media to determine the voter’s access to all candidates, and, Kucinich had already met their criteria (being the fourth contender), been invited, and then informed they had decided to change their mind about allowing a four candidate debate. I say @#*$@& to NBC! I wrote to them, as did several others I know, and spoke of my outrage, telling them Kucinich should be re-invited. Good luck!