Captive of the One

Wyatt Erp, the new sheriff came to town.  Most just call him W.  He's a real tough cookie and it doesn't take much time till he plasters the trees with the picture of his most wanted – that singular bad guy whose demise will transform Dodge into a safe a peaceful place.  "We're going to get him, dead or alive!"  W sends forth his posse, canons in tow, guns a ‘blazing.  Lot's of destruction, lot's of bodies "theirs" and "ours" – fortunately fewer of ours.  But no enemy number one.  No matter, just as the townsfolk are getting antsy, beginning to ask questions, W has the perfect distraction.  Down come the old pictures to be replaced by another, a guy sporting a mustache and hiding untold boxes of TNT or worse.  The posse will have to go out again, but there is good news -- less mountains and (shhh) lot's of oil.  More loud noises, more destruction and, guess what, no bad guy dead or alive.  We could have sworn that we got him eating in a restaurant, driving in a wagon train, but things just didn't turn out.

I don't know if Osama or Saddam will be caught.  I don't care, nor should you.  W's bravado notwithstanding, it is of little global consequence.  Leaders do make a difference, but in large measure they simply reflect those whom they lead.  Sure some of them are tyrannical, but even the most evil example Adolph Hitler, represented prevalent public sentiment.  Demonizing and personifying the "enemy" makes for good sound bytes and PR, but is totally out of sync with the current reality or with history.  It leads to the illusion, astoundingly expressed in Washington, that one simple act, the elimination of an individual, will turn things around.  What is so disconcerting about the current situation is that W's team talks with certainty and feigned erudition, but is so clueless.

Ask the Israeli's about the impact of their leadership assassination program?  Did the killing stop when we "got The Sons?"  Of course not.  Five more young Americans have died so far this weekend.  We have lost more kids since W's war ended early in May than during the hostilities that preceded his proclamation of victory.  Perhaps Saddam was a threat, but the fact is that Iraqi's, like almost every other people in human history, don't like being occupied, even by "friends."  Look at the dismal history of Colonialism, and you'll find that not one occupation proved successful long term.  People may not like their own dictators, but they seem to like dictation from the outside even less.  And it's people, not a single individual.  There are no magic bullets in deep seated human conflict.  The idea that there is a "one" has made us all captives – we are the one's imprisoned by circumstance.  And it isn't the first time.  Remember Ho Chi Min?

Paul Bremer was in town.  He made the talk show circuit like someone on a book tour or touting a new Hollywood film.  It was clearly a piece of theater aimed at reassuring us that we had a sound man on the job.  Meanwhile, people are still getting killed (something that's escalating rather than receding), water and electricity remain problems, the kind that hurt ordinary Iraqis, and there seems no discernable light at the end of the tunnel.  So W and the guys (excuse me Condi) keep on talking about the One, when they should be sending Bremer back to Saigon (oops, Baghdad) to figure out how to get us out of the Iraqi's hair and of our own captivity of the one, sooner rather than later.

The War Dividend

Isn't it hell the price we pay for war, the sacrifice?  Well not for everyone.

I have done a lot of interesting things in a multi-faceted career, among them almost a decade on Wall Street working, often directly, for the fabled Sandy Weill.  To the surprise of many, perhaps even including himself, Sandy announced his phased retirement earlier this week.  Stepping aside is not quite in his nature, but I guess the past couple of years have not been that much fun.  Needless to say, there was a lot of ink expended on the Citigroup Chairman and his career.  It's a great story, but it was one little line in the Times that caught my attention.  It seems, with more than 22 Million shares in hand, many of them acquired through a super generous option program, Sandy will be looking forward to more that $30 Million in annual dividend income.  Now let's not get into the coincidence that Citigroup had announced a 75% dividend increase just two days earlier, a change that materially effects his post retirement income.  What really struck me, perhaps more concretely than anything else I've seen on the subject, was the total one-sided absurdity of the recent cut in dividend tax rates.

Sandy will be pay only 15% on this enhanced dividend.  That comes to a hefty $4.5 Million or so, but far less than the $12 Million he would have paid just a year ago.  So here we are, spending $1 Billion a week in Iraq (with wonderful results), mired in a recessionary environment in which 3 Million Americans have lost their jobs (income), watching a growing number of military families losing their loved ones and we're paying stockholders like Sandy a huge tax dividend.  So much for sacrifice.  Now don't get me wrong, I own a few shares of Citigroup and am happy to have both the increased payout (good for Sandy, albeit vastly less, good for me) and reduced tax burden.  But Sandy's windfall, along with those of all the other Sandy's, just shows how absurd and wrongheaded is this so-called economic policy. 

In the aggregate, I don't think too many ordinary Americans (that's 99% of us) have benefited from the Bush tax cuts.  This doesn't mean their benefits aren't being touted on the Treasury Department's website -- our taxpayer dollars used for thinly veiled partisan spin.  We're all seeing the bill for War as will our kids and grandkids, but none of these specially targeted benefits.  Those youngsters at risk on the killing fields come from small town America, off Main Street not on Wall Street.  Sandy Weill's retirement in affluence is assured, while most of America's pensions have been decimated or eliminated.  And they say with a straight face that this is not a benefit for wealthier Americans.  But of course, they also said the still illusive WMD's were a present and imminent danger.  Can you believe just yesterday these same people sanctimoniously impeached Bill Clinton for lying about his personal and private sex life?  The theater of the absurd, which sadly is the stage on which we play every day.  What has happened to our national sense of balance not to mention of outrage?

No matter, I want my dividend too.  We all do.

The Doctor and The General

Have you noticed the growing number of wags predicting a decade of Republican rule, essentially writing off the Democratic Party?  When everyone joins the band wagon, predictions are usually wrong.  Nevertheless, the realist in me is deeply concerned.  While Karl Rove and his well oiled company spend all their waking hours laying the ground work for George Bush's first election to the White House (wonder if they will suggest that term limits don't apply to the unelected), the Democrats seem in total disarray. 

Too many people are running.  Most of them know they can't win but that doesn't get in their way.  They claim to represent an important point of view, and perhaps they do, but in the face of political reality it's hard to not see more than an act of hubris.  We may all pay a very high price for their self indulgence.  To win back the White House my party can't continue to act like a rudderless ship.  It's time to get our house in order.  That means most of the want-to-be Presidents need to take a good look in the mirror, perhaps conjure up the image of Ralph Nader, and get real.  I'm not suggesting that there be no contest, but that there be a manageable contest so that we can begin to sort things out without the distraction of extraneous noise.

And here is the rub.  I've listened to a number of "debates" between the current candidates and have yet to find a standout.  I've seen the possibilities but have failed to fall in love, which of course in the days of anti-charisma may be asking too much.  Not that all the seemingly viable pretenders are not decent or credentialed, but let's cut to the chase.  John Kerry, who has it all, war hero and war protester, has failed to ignite.  John Edwards still seems more surface than substance.  Claims of electability notwithstanding, I don't think Joe Lieberman or Bob Graham can win.  I respect Dick Gephardt but, hard as he tries, the never-to-be Speaker seems yesterday, not tomorrow.  Most important in the current context, none of these candidates had the courage to oppose a highly questionable war, choosing political expediency over conviction. 

That brings me to the Doctor, Howard Dean.  Dean is new to the Presidential game and has made a few gaffs.  That's pretty common first time out and hardly a disqualification.  Remember the current occupant of the White House's appearance at Bob Jones University?  Some say Dean is too dovish, too left, the latter belied by his public record.  His stewardship of Vermont was essentially in the Bill Clinton mode, fiscally moderate conservative, socially progressive.  His State is among our smallest, but I sense he himself can grow in the absolute, grow on me and on the electorate emotionally which is ultimately what counts.

The dove issue in these hysterical times may be more problematic.  It's a troubling that anyone questioning placing untold numbers of human beings in harms way without proven good reason is so discredited?  Chalk one up for the heirs of the Gipper.  Dean was against Iraq and so far his skepticism appears to have been more than justified.  No WMD's and no post-War plan.  Nevertheless, in the post 9/11 real politic that doesn't cut it.  Which brings me to the General, Wesley Clark.  I know there is continued talk about Clark for President, and perhaps that's where it will end out, but I'm suggesting a Dean-Clark ticket.

Promoting a Vice Presidential candidacy at this juncture may seem odd.  The Constitution gave the office short shrift.  Jack Garner, its one time tobacco chewing incumbent thought it wasn't worth spit. But Jimmy Carter changed all that, making Walter Mondale his full and active partner with a real role to play.  George H.W. may have been out of the loop and Danny Q out of it altogether, but Bill Clinton brought the idea of partnership to new heights with Al Gore. The current Vice President, Dick Chaney is the most powerful of them all.  He may be spending a lot of time in undisclosed locations but no one can doubt the defining role.  Consequently, it is not too early to think running mate.  I don't know how you can consider one without the other.

The truth is we don't know very much about Wesley Clark's domestic politics, but we know a lot about his record as a balanced Military man who had a fine reputation as both a thinker and administrator when he led the Alliance.  We also know that, like Howard Dean, he had substantial reservations about Iraq.  No one could suggest that he lacked military credentials or having led our forces in the Balkans, the will to use power when truly justified.

I don't know if Dean-Clark is a dream ticket (dream ticket and I say Gephardt is living the past), but it seems a compelling one.  Two men of talent and apparent conscience.  Perhaps they could win.

Stars & Stripes Hijacked

My elder son is a creative dresser.  A few Sundays ago, we went over to the flea market to find a birthday gift for his girlfriend.  As he browsed through some books and records, the vendor noticed the American Flag he had sewn on the back of his blue jean jacket many years ago.  Seeing it, he immediately told us about a just returned GI who had visited his stand the week before.  His effusiveness clearly communicated his own support of the Iraq war and, with the flag and all, he assumed we agreed.  That is not the case, but his assumption reminded me again that our Stars & Stripes have been hijacked.

I'm not big on flags.  My family arrived from Nazi Germany in 1937 a month before I was born.  Like many Americans with similar experiences, they were devoted to their adopted country with an intensity that often alludes the native born.  In our family everyone, in every generation, votes.  At the same time, having lived under a totalitarian regime where flag waving and the like became so symbolic, they always were squeamish about any show of ultra-nationalism, and thusly about flag waving even in their beloved United States.  I think their view was prescient.

Without discounting the many people of all opinions who have strong attachments to Old Glory — showing colors has become a not so subtle sign of "loyalty" and support for the President.  Partisans have taken ownership of this non-partisan symbol and made it their own -- taken hold and made it sacrosanct.  The lapel flag has become a loyalty uniform, and I'm sure no one in the administration with any ambition would dare come to work without it.  That in itself is a little unnerving because it smacks of civilian uniform wearing, if even on a mini-scale.  Remember George Bush's threatening "either you're with us or against us" words after 9/11? Well wearing the flag answers in the affirmative.

Far more disturbing than the fact that Conservatives have appropriated the Stars and Stripes for their own agenda, is that we have permitted it to happen.  We all know the bumper stickers about supporting our troops and God blessing America (right or wrong), but where are the bumper stickers saying "free to dissent?'  Now don't get me wrong, I'm really not a bumper sticker kind of guy, with our without flag.  The point is that in a very powerful way, this abrogation of flag rights is a metaphor for the continued and very audible silence that is threatening both our present and our future.  Disturbing things are being done by these flag wavers, things that in many cases potentially threaten the very democracy and way of life that we claim to defend.  The vast majority of Americans, not to mention our increasingly pathetic and media conglomerate controlled press, are either giving them a pass or acquiescing by simply looking on in silence.

We've invaded two countries and, regardless of how you might feel about these conflicts, at street level neither is doing very well in the aftermath.  We have instituted Homeland Security which is big on propaganda but small on funding.  The cheap talk leaves the cost on local desks which is part of why our states and cities are in financial crisis.  We have given extraordinary powers to an Attorney General whose respect for individual rights and ultra-conservative social agenda is highly suspect.  Our economy is in the dumper with more than 2 Million American's having lost their jobs since the Supremes put George W in office.  Tax cuts won't help those people giving new meaning to the cliché "adding insult to injury."  It also means that the previously unemployed, many of them less prepared and qualified, have been pushed back another rung in the job line, extending their life of poverty even further. That's a consequence no one is talking about.  The forces against Choice and Gun Control are gaining in political ground, if not wider popular support.  Women may once again be driven into the back alleys of shadow medicine and more handguns may land on the streets.  International treaties affecting the quality and indeed the endurance of human life have been written off.  Meanwhile the President continues his saber rattling bravado which they say isn't really imperialistic, but "if it walks like a duck…."  And they have taken our flag.

Take a look at the red, white and blue.  Don't you want it back?

All That Fit News

I'm a creature of habits (an understatement, my children will tell you). One such habit is my morning routine that begins with two acts confirming the day has begun: reaching out to turn on my computer and picking up the remote to flick on the news. For habit-impaired people like me, it's hard to break any part of the routine, but after many years of the Networks and CNN, I've switched to the BBC. In fact, aside from regularly

tuning in to Jim Lehrer and Bill Moyers on PBS, I find myself watching significantly less television news than ever before.

Another habit, begun it would seem before I was born, is The New York Times. The Times has gotten bigger and more featured than it needs to be, but it's still the best. Needless to say, as a lifelong reader I too was unhappy to learn of the lapses that ultimately resulted in the ousting of its two top editors. Unhappy, but not turned off. Perhaps it's because, despite the high regard in which I hold the Ochs family trust, I don't think even the Times is superhuman. Perfect is just not in the natural order and we've seen ample examples of lapses in every segment of life. To be sure, excellence and quality of reporting are real issues for contemporary journalism at the Times and elsewhere, but what bothers me even more these days is content.

Some of my friends don't like the BBC because they think it is slanted against Israel. That's probably more a case of the myopia we Jews suffer when we see our survival at risk than of reality, but that's another subject. I find the BBC pretty evenhanded. But what really attracts me is that BBC presents real news seriously. Wonder of wonders there is a big world out there and, despite half hour broadcasts, they are able to cover more than one story at a time. Their cameras routinely go to "exotic" Continents like Africa and Asia where, if you can believe it, important things are going on each and every day. You may not hear about it too often, but thousands are dying in civil conflicts, from epidemic disease and, in more places than any of us would like to think about, from hunger. Like our own media, BBC focused on Iraq during the war and even expanded its coverage to an hour, but even then that larger world didn't disappear.

The other morning, thinking my abandonment of CNN perhaps too precipitous, I switched over when the BBC World News ended at 7:30. Lacey Peterson is what I heard and it was only the middle of an extensive report. Now don't get me wrong, I feel very sorry for her and a grieving family, but in the scheme of things is that really major news? On the day Lacey was murdered, I'm reasonably sure other women were as well — that day and the ones before and after. We'll never know their names despite deaths that are no less tragic, no less important to their near and dear. Lacey Peterson, yet another made-for-TV and the Tabloids "news" drama. Another (thank your Frank Rich) Mediathon. No ours is not a problem of shoddy journalism, though that is part of it, but of trivial content. The world is falling apart, millions of innocents have died in Africa in the last few years alone, democracy is being stifled in places like Indonesia and we're talking about Lacey Peterson. Shame on us.

David Brinkley died this week. When he and Chet Huntley held sway at NBC and Cronkite told us "that's the way it is" on CBS, I became a TV news junky. I also felt pretty well informed, pretty well served even though it wasn't 24/7. Today I can watch three hours of Network and CNN news and miss 90% of what's really going on, what is truly important and newsworthy Shoot me, I simply don't trust Wolf Blitzer the way I did Walter Cronkite. Do you?

Mainstream Extremism

Yet another, albeit awkward and tentative, move away from conflict in the Holy Land. My parents witnessed the historic 1947 UN Partition vote and later celebrated with soon to be leaders of the fledgling State. Their recounting of both events the next morning are among my most vivid childhood memories. My father had become a Zionist in 1917 when it was far from fashionable. From the start, so much hope, so much fear. Now, more than half a century later, the only change is that the fear seems greater than the hope. Painful.

The problems between Israel and the Palestinians are extraordinarily complex, but I tell myself, perhaps unrealistically, not insurmountable. More than any other obstacle to peace, more even than what to do with Jerusalem and the Refugees, is the reality that both sides are captives of extremists. Both give in to them. What makes a solution so difficult is that Arab and Jewish extremists (supported not so incidentally by American Christian fundamentalists) share a undeniable bond of commonality. Neither wants the other to stay on "their" land. What's more, both will use violent means to reach their goal, though admittedly not the same violent means. To most of us, certainly to those who consider ourselves political or religious Liberals, these are alien forces. They have nothing to do with us.

But is that really true? What's interesting about today's extremists is that they are largely from the Right, not the Left. A large percentage of them espouse the most Conservative form of their religion, a position that extends to societal issues. Whatever the nature of the government under which they live, philosophically they are not democrats. Quite the contrary, they have little patience for what the majority may want, since they see themselves as the embodiment of a higher order, the ultimate word, in possession of the single "Truth." This effects us directly because it is having a profound impact upon the global body politic.

Look at Israel and equally at our United States. The extreme fringe caused a hard pull to the Right producing the ultra-conservative Likud that, in comparison, operates under a cloak of "moderation." The same can be said for us. The ruling Republican Party is not that of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Olympia Snow, but of Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush and Tom DeLay. To be sure these Conservatives are not terrorists, but they are certainly belligerent, often a belligerence that turns to violence of enormous consequences. With "right" (think about the double meaning of that word) on their side, they barrel ahead with their agenda, broaching no criticism and using whatever means may be required to meet their ends.

The Bush agenda for America is not merely out of a Conservative songbook, but out of the extreme. And it's an agenda that is being carried forward by a deft use of underlying uneasiness or dissatisfaction as a cover-up for action. As victims of terror, albeit limited compared with other parts of the world, Americans live in fear. That's real and a great smokescreen for John Ashcroft's draconian administration of "Justice." A very rare and wrenching medical procedure is given a politicized name and is used to undermine a woman's right to choose. This list goes on, but the reality is clear, extremism is going mainstream while those who should be exposing it are sitting around timidly shaking their heads but keeping their mouths shut. That may change at some point, better late than never. The question for our lives is, will it be too late? Will extremism and mainstream be the same?

Bring Back The French Fries

Why is it that the word hypocrisy comes to mind so often these days? OK you don't much like the French and you still suspect their motives. But let's look at the record, not at the spin. Before we went to war in Iraq, Secretary Powell unashamedly appeared before the world at the UN to make his case about the threat of WMD's. Yes Saddam Hussein was a bad and brutal guy, but that wasn't our primary reason for action. How could it have been given the large number of equally bad guys around the world whom we regularly ignore? No, we had to take immediate action because of the clear and present danger of Iraq's WMD's. We had non-compliance with a UN resolution. The French Foreign Minister responded. He never questioned Saddam's evil character, he did however question the existence of the alleged WMD's as did the UN Inspectors on the ground. You probably remember he received unprecedented applause from the many diplomats observing the session.

So here we are. I watched the articulate and still attractive Tony Blair fend of questions before Parliament yesterday. Wonder how George W would fair in such an open forum? Blair is adamant both about the WMD's and not having cooked the books of the intelligence community. The British are focusing on those 45 minutes and I couldn't help but think of Rosemary Woods. Blair's leadership and, more importantly, reputation are on the line. Don Rumsfeld, doesn't have the Blair problem. He dismissively says may never find these alleged WMD's and should "get a life." With a silent Congress, the Bush Administration simply changes the subject, talking only about how wonderful it is that the bad guy is gone. So it is, but that doesn't change the fact — WMD's are why they told us that we had to risk the lives of our children and thousands of Iraqi civilians. Tom Friedman, says we shouldn't have been talking WMD's in the first place, that Saddam's cruel regime was enough reason to go, so we should "get a life." Well that's not the point. "Should have" is not the issue. Manipulating the world and all of us in the "Homeland" is.

Our Administration now suggests that the weapons have either been destroyed or remain hidden. Perhaps we'll never know which. Thoughts of Watergate again, perhaps we'll never uncover Deep Throat. I have just one simple question. If these WMD's were such a present and immanent threat and if Saddam knew we would fight to his end (which he most assuredly did), why didn't he use them against us in battle? Wasn't that what they were for? Why didn't he lob dirty missiles over to Israel, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait? Why didn't his Guard gas our troops? He certainly wasn't protecting his humanitarian reputation. Perhaps there were indeed no WMD's, only a the myth of them to prolong his power and justify the deteriorating quality of life in his beleaguered country.

In light of the facts at hand, isn't our finger pointing at the French a bit disingenuous? Perhaps they had ulterior motives, but the questions they had the temerity to ask of Emperor George were valid then and remain unanswered. I wish more of our own Senators and Representatives had been equally challenging. Perhaps Powell's erroneous claims reflect honest failure on the part of our intelligence. Perhaps he and the entire Bush Administration were knowingly extrapolating fact out of fiction. We may never know. Clearly the jury is still out and it will be fascinating to see the outcome of the CIA's internal review in that regard and what action follows.

The other day a huge gas guzzling Cadillac SUV pulled up in front of my building. It had a flag with a patriotic slogan on its rear bumper. If that wasn't a sufficient show of colors, it also had a big flag on its side window and other even bigger one on the passenger side dash. Wow. I couldn't help rewriting the slogan on that back bumper in my mind. It would have been far more honest and accurate to say,: "go baby, keep the oil flowing." We claim the United States didn't go into Iraq for oil, but we quickly secured the oil fields while letting the treasures of our mutual civilization fly out the museum doors and archeological digs under our noses. We secured the oil fields while the hospitals were stripped of their bandages and medicines. And what is most disturbing, is that both our press and politicians continue to give these people a pass. Yes many of these things are reported, but for the most the focus on how wonderful it is to have that terrible dictator out of power. So it is, but what were our real reasons for instituting regime change?

At this very moment in Iraq anarchy continues and basic necessities are scarce, while good and loyal Administration friends are lining up for contacts. This is truly the coalition of the willing. The boys from the Oil Patch are on the move and, while George Bush may not always know how world leaders stand or feel about him, he sure can count on these people. Make no mistake about it, they will prosper regardless. As for me, I'll stop drinking French Wine, when the patriotic Hummer owners stop using the oil of dictatorships, stop winking at the deeds of these "needed" suppliers, and stop calling them allies. I guess it won't be necessary to abandon my wine rack any time soon. And as for those cholesterol laden French Fries, don't tell the President, but most Americans won't give them up either, not even their name.