HYPOCRISY

Wednesday night I went to listen to Nancy “Impeachment is off the table” Pelosi at Temple Judea.  She was promoting her book “Know Your Power: A message to America’s Daughters.”  So, what overarching message did I take away from this event?  She’s a hypocrite. 

During the introduction, it was made clear that Madam Speaker would have no real interaction with the audience. There would be no live questions from anyone, including the media.  It was made clear that anyone who spoke out of turn would be escorted out.  A small group of us (proudly wearing our Impeach Bush & Cheney t-shirts) was approached by one of the several police officers present and told that not only were signs prohibited but that any interruption of the event would result in being tossed out.  That being said, we decided that our action would be to stand quietly in the back of the hall after everyone was seated so that Ms. Pelosi would at least be able to see that some of us think impeachment should be placed back on the table.

The ground rules laid out to us would not ordinarily have upset me, except that Speaker Pelosi’s first talking point was the importance of everyone, especially women, recognizing not only their power to speak out but actually using it.  I stood there shocked, thinking that she’s saying how important it is for women to speak out, and here this woman had just been told that I had to shut-up in order to stay in the room.  I can’t voice my fears, dreams, nada.  What is wrong with this picture? 

She went on to speak of her awakening to the power that she held as Speaker of the House and to speak of some of the legislation that the House passed in the past two years (equal pay, SCHIP, etc., none of which got past the Senate or a Presidential veto threat).  She also spoke about finally having a seat at the table and discovering what that meant.  She also spoke of the strength it took to raise five children and realizing that women could lead the way on what’s good for the country.  Two questions ran through my mind as she said those words:  Is the rule of law not good for the country?  If she had the courage to raise five kids, why doesn’t she have the courage to lead the House in standing up to George Bush and the Republicans?

Speaker Pelosi’s mantra was “Know Thy Power” as a woman, a mother, a citizen.  I couldn’t help but wonder, what about the power of the Constitution?  Having power is one thing.  It takes courage to use it.  My final question to Madam Speaker is, do you dare?

DAVID SIROTA COMING TO MIAMI!

Free Speech, Q&A and book signing

sponsored by Democracy for America Miami-Dade

Friday, July 25th, 8:00pm

Books & Books, 265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, 33134

CNN anchor and illegal immigration critic Lou Dobbs supports doubling or tripling immigration levels, Montana senator Jon Tester calls primary challenges to incumbents "useful," and a global warming fight being waged by shareholders is making more gains than anyone in Washington. These are only a few of the revelations in David Sirota's eye-opening and important new book, THE UPRISING: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington (Crown/May 27, 2008).  David Sirota is a nationally syndicated columnist & New York Times bestselling author who The American Prospect says is the kind of reporter "you'd like to have on your side in a knife fight and wouldn't want to cross in a dark alley."

The Uprising is all new, firsthand investigative reporting from across the country, showing how populism has become a dominant political force in both national and local politics. Sirota takes us far from the media spotlight into the trenches where real change is happening-from the headquarters of the most powerful third party in America to the bowels of the U.S. Senate; from the auditorium of an ExxonMobil shareholder meeting to the quasi-military staging area of a vigilante force on the Mexican border. This uprising is now playing a pivotal role in the 2008 presidential election campaign, through the heated debate over immigration, the Obama and Clinton NAFTA dialogue, and the competition to prove who has better anti-Iraq war credibility. Sirota's journey aims to find out whether these battles will transform the populist uprising into a full-fledged movement.

Voting members can attend a private reception with David Sirota before the speech!

Pay your dues today, and get a chance to meet David Sirota up close & personal.

Today I will join friends at a cookout and later watch fireworks in celebration of Independence Day.  I will enjoy the company of my friends and marvel at the beauty of the fireworks, but my feelings on this day will be tempered as they always are on July 4th.  I love my country and deeply believe in the principles that this nation was founded upon, but as a Black American (I'm a child of the seventies, I'll always be "black") I can't quite muster the full blown rah rah spirit of the day.  My ancestors were not free and were deliberately left out as part of a deal to placate the colonies from the South.  I understand intellectually why it was done, but it does not lessen the legacy of pain and social neglect, wrought by the decision, and it still resonates today.  Through great sacrifice and struggle by people of all races & creeds, things have changed tremendously in this country.  A Black man has a real chance of becoming President of the United States. Still, we have not quite "gotten there".  We also are at a turning point when it comes to the founding principles of the country.  It seems that we may be willing as a people to give up all that was fought for out of ignorance and fear.For the past four years at this time I read a speech given by Frederick Douglass that inspires me to keep fighting for what I believe in and reminds me that it is possible to love your country and still hold her accountable. 

The full text of the speech is posted blow.  Please take the time to read it as its still relevant today.

I have to give props here to Meteorblades at Daily Kos.  It seems that I am not the only person who reads Douglass' speech.  Thanks for giving me the courage to post this blog.

In 1852, the leading citizens of Rochester asked Frederick Douglass to give a speech as part of their Fourth of July celebrations.  Douglass accepted their invitation.  In his speech, however, Douglass delivered a scathing atack onthe hypocrisy of a natin celebrating freedom and independence, while, within its borders, nearly 4 million humans were being kept as slaves.

Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you, that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation (Babylon) whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin.

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!"

To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.

My subject, then, fellow citizens, is "American Slavery." I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing here, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July.

Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery -- the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate - I will not excuse." I will use the severest language I can command, and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slave-holder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother Abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slave-holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment.

What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then I will argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that we are engaged in all the enterprises common to other men -- digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave -- we are called upon to prove that we are men?

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? How should I look today in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do so would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What! Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? No - I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman cannot be divine. Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may - I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.

What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Frederick Douglass - July 4, 1852

 

You know how important this November's election is going to be for Florida. We have opportunities up and down the state to pick up key seats in the Florida House and Senate as well as the U.S Congress. We have a hateful state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and all domestic partnerships to defeat and a Presidential election to decide. Florida matters more than ever this year and the DFA Campaign Academy has scheduled a campaign training in Florida this year to help you win these crucial elections.

Miami - July 12th & 13^th

www.democracyforamerica.com/miami_training

The DFA Campaign Academy brings together dozens of local activists and candidates for two days of intensive campaign training. Top campaign professionals give you a step-by-step guide to running a winning grassroots campaign. Sessions include: field planning and targeting, voter contact, fundraising, communications, volunteer recruitment and much more.  Space is limited and with so much at stake this year it will fill up fast. Save your seat by clicking below and signing up:

Miami - July 12th & 13^th

www.democracyforamerica.com/miami_training

General Tuition: $60 Advance or $70 @ Door

Students & Low-Income: $30 Advance or @ Door

If you have specific questions, call the DFA Training Department hotline at 802-651-3200 Ext. 191.

Hope to see you there.

 

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

Some straight-talkin' maverick, this John McCain -- a pol who's dependent on one of the GOP's most familiar gunslinger-lobbyists whose peculiar political ethics once helped design and construct the party's modern seek-and-destroy machine. 

Then, as now, that machine delivered precious little straight talk and the only thing "maverick" about it was how ethically low it was willing to operate. And one of its co-designers was Charlie Black, whose most recent association with Mr. McCain is summarized here [1] by the New York Times:

When Senator John McCain’s campaign was collapsing last summer, it was Charlie Black who set the comeback strategy.  When conservative opposition threatened to derail Mr. McCain just as he was surging again this winter, it was Charlie Black who called prominent conservatives to secure their backing. And when Mr. McCain was finally the last man standing, it was Charlie Black who engineered the campaign’s takeover of the Republican National Committee.

All pretty straightforward stuff; nothing untoward there, for sure. But when one travels farther into Mr. Black's past, it is then that his surname begins to take on a bit more symbolic meaning -- for instance, "he cut his teeth on Jesse Helms's campaigns." Given the context, the trope should have been altered to read, "fangs."

But it was this passage from the Times that especially caught my attention and provided, perhaps, a historical preview of what the nation is in for throughout the general election:

In 1975, Mr. Black and two other young conservatives, Roger Stone and Terry Dolan, founded the National Conservative Political Action Committee, which set a new standard for negative advertising with its campaigns against six liberal senators in 1980, portraying them as 'baby killers' for their support of abortion rights, cozy with Castro and soft on national defense.

A new standard? I'd love to know how many times, after researching the squalid history of "Nickpack," as it was commonly called, that the Times' reporter wrote "a new low," only to have her editor rewrite it in less subjective, less accurate language. Because the early cogs in the New Right's attack machine didn't operate any lower than those of Messrs. Black, Stone and Dolan's.

Most of the money they raised for Nickpack in the late 1970s and early '80s was funneled by direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie, who has since gone completely crazy and attacks pretty much everyone, whether left or right. Throughout 1979 and the first half of 1980 alone, for instance, Black, Stone and Dolan raked in more than $4 million of Viguerie-cash to conduct the negative campaign referenced above by the Times -- a campaign that Nickpack's chairman, Dolan, succinctly described to the Washington Post as one of simply "bugging the hell out of" their liberal opponents.

How did they do it? By lying, that's how. Against one of the six Democratic senators, for instance, Nickpack ran ads accusing him of "giving $75 million of taxpayers' money in aid to revolutionary government in Nicaragua" -- aid the senator had, in fact, voted against. It assailed another in TV ads for being able to "legally spend as much of his own money [on his campaign] as he wants -- and he's got millions" -- even though, as the Post pointedly corrected the record at the time, the candidate "had applied for matching funds and is therefore limited to spending $50,000 of his own money."

There were other famous examples of Nickpack's outright lies and distortions, yet no public corrections had any effect on its tactics. At the direction of Messrs. Black, Stone and Dolan, it went right ahead and continued blasting the airwaves with fraudulent garbage. And the results were instructive for the New Right. Of the six liberal senators targeted -- Frank Church, George McGovern, Alan Cranston, John Culver, Birch Bayh and Tom Eagleton -- four lost their seats: Church, McGovern, Culver and Bayh. A new public relations era for the GOP was dawning, one as wretchedly effective in operation as its red-baiting of the late 1940s and early 50s.

In a moment of irresistible if not injudicious public pride over all the damage he and his partners Black and Stone were doing to respectable politics, Nickpack's Chairman Dolan blurted this, in 1980, to the Post:

Groups like ours are potentially very dangerous to the political process. We could be a menace, yes. Ten independent expenditure groups, for example, could amass this great amount of money and defeat the point of accountability in politics. We could say whatever we want about an opponent of a Senator Smith and the senator wouldn’t have to say anything. A group like ours could lie through its teeth and the candidate it helps stays clean.

Which was, of course, precisely what the "group like" his was doing and which, along with right-wing others, turned the "potential" of "defeat[ing] the point of accountability in politics" into a grossly successful 30-year run.

And who was there all along, helping to plot the GOP's crooked course? Why, straight-talkin' John McCain's top adviser, Charlie Black.

Brace yourself.

Source URL:  http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/articles/carpenter/049