I just saw yet another documentary in the same vein as "Fareinheit 9/11". It even had cameos by Michael Moore. This one was a documentary on Corporations called "The Corporation". It didn't have too much I wasn't generally familiar with, and it wasn't as radical as I expected it to be. It actually presented a relatively balanced case considering the subject. The thesis of the film is the notion that the modern day corporation is a kind of "frankenstein's monster." Which seems like a nonsensical notion until you start listing the companies that have broken the law, hurt the environment, or otherwise taken people to the cleaners in the name of the God "Profit." Worshipping at the shrine of Mammon, corporations may be driven by decent people, but often behave like sociopaths.
Well, Kerry accepted the Nomination for the Presidency. He has a tough road ahead of him. He somehow has to convince people that he is a better alternative than George W. Bush. You would think that would be an easy task, but it isn't. Republicans prefer GW Bush even when they agree the man is a moron and that the war in Iraq was botched by his administration. And the people in the hinterland often prefer the devil they think they know over an unknown -- and then are often too preoccupied with other things to pay attention enough to find out about the new guy. But I think he set the right tone. For all his wonderful qualities, I don't think the guy will get elected for them, but simply because of the nightmarish errors and attitudes of the current administration.
He has my vote for a list of primary reasons:
1. The Bush Administration's willingness to try to abrogate human rights and to use deceit and deception in doing so. Abu Gharaib is only a symptom of a much bigger scandal involving "Ghost Detainees" and gross disregard for traditions of rule of law or due process.
2. The intentional alienation of our allies. For instance the disdain directed at the French and Germans.
3. The neglect of human rights issues in other countries. And the woeful example posed by point 1 in this effort.
4. The efforts to give tax cuts to rich people during a time of budget stress.
5. The lies and deceptions involved in deciding to invade Iraq, and the failure to provide for the occupation -- and the lies and deceptions about that.
6. The gross favoratism towards "old boy" companies like Halliburton.
7. The efforts to defeat sunshine laws and make cover ups easier.
8. Gross incompetance.
9. Gross hatred of the Constitution Bill of Rights.
I can think of a list of other complaints, but these are the ones I feel are important enough to fight about. Expecially number 9.
The Jewish Mourning day of Tisha B'Av is marked today. It is a fast day, and a sad one for Jewish People. It marks times seperated by hundreds and thousands of years. The destruction of the First Judean Temple by the Babylonians. The destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans. And according to various stories the day of numerous other tragedies. Such as the first outbreak of the Blood Libel in Good King Richard's and Robin Hood's England. The edict of expulsion in Spain. All these things seemed to occur in this month of Av. Probably because that is the height of the fighting season for most of human history. That AMIA bombing I mentioned earlier is only one of the more recent.
Some people commented to me that somehow comparing the reception of the AMIA bombing by the World Community with the reception to the construction of the wall in Israel was wrong. For them Isreal is creating an apartheid. They believe that Isreal is at fault for the plight of the Palestinians living in their midst or in a new diasporah. And yet, it is not that simple. Palestinian Arabs would not be in such a mess if large numbers, (enough to constitute a majority) hadn't been buying into the ideas of "Moslem Extremism" and trying to, and continuing to try to, drive off those Jewish people who had already settled in their midst, prevent new settlers from arriving and trying in every way to defeat the right of Jewish people to settle in their midst in lands they have long claimed as their own. Worse, they have carried their war to places where Jews have been living for a long time, such as Argentina, Turkey, North Africa, Iraq and Iran. And this same moslem extremism that has been at war with Israel since the 1930's and before, is presently at war with the whole world.
Yet people who should know better continue to blame Isreal and Jews. Indeed the Germans, French, Poles, Russians, and others, denied them a place in their own countries while England and the US prevented them coming to their own countries. The World has denied (with the exception of the US) the right of Jews to live anywhere. If Isreal had not been created, where would they have gone? The US wasn't accepting them either.
And of course it's not so simple. Tisha b'av warns Jews that they were indeed partly to blame for the catastrophes that fell on them, past and present. By relying on force of arms, rather than their God, or arrogantly claiming that God was already on their side, rather than a God to be invoked humbly, the sages tell them stories that warn them that their own behavior contributed to the various disasters which are commemorated on this day. To them each tragedy has it's lesson and it's warning. It is figured that if enough lessons are learned then the day may yet come when people will indeed beat swords to plowshares and the Law will be taught out of Jerusalem.
All this is abstract for most of the world. But it provides an institutional memory for those willing to remember it. Tisha B'av is a sad day for Observant Jews, and a reminder that "Never Again" is a hollow slogan as long as the rest of the world doesn't have such institutional wisdom.
http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?strwebhead=AMIA+bombing+anniversary+marked&intcategoryid=2
Ten years ago, on July 18, 1994, the AMIA in Buenos aires was destroyed by a car bomb. This event, along with other similar horrendous events marked an ongoing war against Jews that began before World War II and has not yet ended. This war, aided and abetted by people who see, even efforts at self defense as acts justifying terror, reached it's apogee for Argentine Jews with this tragedy. Their central Synagogue, the AMIA, and the Isreali Embassy were destroyed within weeks of one another by car bombs.
Unfortunately there is more to this story than simply the death of 85 people and the wounding of 200. At the time of the attack, the press reported that there was the death of 'innocents' -- non jews, and of Jews. Since the attack, anti semites have made attacks on the investigation.
For example one of the early investigators blamed the Jews http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/91/368/13429_terrorism.html for attacking themselves! And one thing is true, the investigation has been hampered, because there is abundant evidence that the attack could not have happened without the connivance of (and many believe -- direct participation of) the then President Menem. Menem, a crypto-Arab, built a large Mosque for his familly with money from the Saudis shortly after the attack. They appear to have been gratefull for his contribution to their cause.
For that reason, it is going to take a long time to "end" this war. It is just too easy to blame the victim. Just too easy to look past the guys who are your "friends" when they are knifing you behind your back and go after more visible targets; Like Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile the coverups and stonewallings continue, aided and abetted by European and Argentine anti-semites in high places:
Meanwhile, we mourne the victims. The US passes yet another resolution calling for an investigation. And the UN puts out yet another resolution calling for Israel to pull down the wall they are building to try to defend themselves against these terrorists and their bombs, the ones strapped around their bodies or sent flying across the skies. Something is wrong here. When are we going to hold murderers accountable for their murder? When are we going to decry religious chauvinism -- when are we going to say to the rich and powerful oil barons; "stop funding terrorism!" When are we going to say to Palestinians, "stop promising to kill all the Jews in Palestine!" When are we going to say, "look it's not your religion, but the way you are interpereting it."
I guess when we say this to the Billy Grahams and Meyer Kahanes as well as to Wahabis like Bin laden and his relatives who claim he is a renegade.
On the surface alienation and detachment might seem to be describing the same thing. In both cases one is putting some sort of distance between "self" and "object." But the difference is that "detachment" is a positive process of recognizing the distinctions between "self" and not-self. But "alienation" represents opposition. The alienated individual or group no longer appreciates, values, or wants to be associated with some other group that is in actual fact materially connected to him/her or them. Thus, alienation while it might function similar to detachment is in reality it's opposite. The alienated individual is tied all the more thoroughly to the something that he is "alienated" from, and those ties are precisely the kind of negative ones that "detachment" is aiming to sever.
Let's bring this from the abstract to the concrete by example....
For example, when two people, say high school sweethearts (I have a lot of examples from Saturday night) are "alienated" from one another. That usually precedes the divorce and is a long miserable process. They fight over resources, they struggle, they argue, and in the end they seperate. But is the seperation ever complete? No. They fight over all the things that once bound them together; children, property, etceteras. And when they are done they are full of resentments of one another.
On the other hand detachment represents something different, at least in the Buddhist teachings. It is accompanied by "mindfulness" and "loving kindness" and represents the voluntary letting go not of the objective ties, but of the illusory, delusory, and subjective ones. You cannot claim detachment if you are full of anger and resentment. Whereas "alienation" represents nothing but.
Buddhism offers the world certain "techniques" of thought and self-control that are wonderful if properly understood.
Attended my first high school reunion last night -- of Atholten High School, Simpsonville Md. Actually it was the thirtyfirst reunion, it was just that this was the first one I made it to. For some reason two songs come to mind about the event, one is "Against the Wind" and the other is "Garden Party." I saw a lot of people I hadn't seen in years. Didn't see some I'd like to have seen, and came away satisfied that reunions were probably enough to satisfy my concerns for their well-being and progress. My Then-Closest friends all had such a miserable time in high school that they refused to show. I can understand how they feel.
I loved Atholten, but like most High School experiences it had it's embarrassments and it's disapointments. I probably feel more identification with that school than any of the other dozen or so I attended during my youth. We had a "disasterous school year" sports-wise -- which didn't bother me the least. We had our share of bullies and cliques. And it turns out that all but a small elite felt just as insecure and confused as I felt at the time. I was impressed by the fact that the ones who looked and acted most like Hippies in our school -- everyone of them made out good in the "establishment" after High School. One of the wildest, longest haired, demented guys (in appearance) joined the military and became (apparantly) special forces. We had to put off our reunion because one of those guys was away serving and we couldn't get him back in time for last year.
Most of us made it and were present. There was a short list of who couldn't. I enjoyed everyone's company. Most of them behaved like gentlemen and ladies. It was a good reunion. I'm glad I went to high school with them. My wife and I felt at home.
Chris :-)
The essential problem with societies, is that "classes" are a natural result of the need for societies to organize themselves and the resulting social pecking order. It is said that if you observe most wild, but social animals, you will see a pecking order develop. Thus "classes" emerge naturally from any association of human beings, as anyone who endured American High School or works for another person, will remember from experience. These are "natural" classes, and no Marxist is ever going to do away with them.
Indeed my critique of Marxism started with the obvious observation that no Marxist society ever did away with classes. They may have tried to kill all their "beourgeous" but in the process they inevitably allowed others to step in and take their place. This led to the awful result of most Communist societies developing quickly a very dark darkside as first an intelligentsia and ideological class developed, and then it was "eaten up" by people who were "posing" to play the game and get ahead. Thus the "Communist Party" in every case has become a class even more oppressive of workers than ever the Owner class was.
But that doesn't mean that the Marxian critique of "class warfare" was completely invalid. Just like most critiques provisional and highly flawed. Class warfare does occur. And that results from the very natural fact that once people have something they don't want to give it up. That some people will lie cheat and steal to keep what they have. And that some people aren't content with that but eventually see acquisition and power as a "game" to be played for the 'victory.' In an ideal society these natural conflicts will be regulated and adjudicated in such a way that the rich are limited in their power, but the powerful and rich will always be with us, and the more we try to regulate them the more someone will find a way to use our naive efforts to their own ends. As Orwell described in his fable "Animal Farm" -- the pigs will always be with us.
The other thing that happens as societies evolve, is that no change is fully accepted by everybody. The result is that somebody always feels alienated. You build a suburbia of "Levit-towns" and you will find someone who finds that environement stiffling. One of the problems with evolving societies, is that sometimes elites or groups stop fulfilling an "organic" purpose -- as part of the system -- and start being "alienated" from the body of which they are part. When this happens, they may loose connection with general society and even with time become a body apart from the general body. Thus Marx could talk comfortably about the behavior of rich people during his time; "the capitolist class."
But one can equally talk about the development of an alienated intellectual class which lost its role as leaders of general society and eventually came to actually oppose that society. For instance instead of artists being the heros and leaders of their societies, many of them came to see themselves either as esoteric rebels (embracing secret wisdoms) with art so incomprehensible that the hoi-poi could not possibly understand it -- or as "sell-outs" caving for monetary gain. Instead of leading society such artists became an "alienated class of people" seeking to distance themselves from it. When elites do this, they become disfunction and both the artists and those who have to endure their so-called art. Suffer.
Enough for now.
I knew you when you were somebody,
Yes I knew you then.
I knew you when you were smiling,
I wish I knew you again.
Where are you now? Where did you go?
The house still stands but it's not a home.
I knew you when you were precious.
Precious as a diamond stone.
I thought that the diamond cutter
would leave your heart alone.
Where are you now? Where did you go?
I hear you are broken, why can't you be whole?
Something of you is precious to me,
a fading memory, an empty grave.
I cannot find you anywhere,
except in my prayers.
Come back to me, please? The past is broken.
But the future doesn't have to weigh like a stone.
Like two diamonds made from one.
In my heart you will always have a home.
Chris
"Harry Dexter White (1892-1948) was an American economist. He was one
of the founding fathers of the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank." He was a disciple of John Maynard Keynes, and an important part of Roosevelts New Deal, reforms of the US economy during the great Depression, and basically an American Patriot.
He also was accused during his lifetime of being a "communist." What gives with this?
Wikopedia says:
"White was born in Boston, Massachusetts; he was the son of
Lithuanian immigrants. As a young man, he served in the U.S. Army in
France during World War I. He attended Columbia University when we
was aged 30; then Stanford, where he received his first degree in
economics; and finally a doctorate at Harvard. White took up a
teaching post at Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin for a few
years before being asked to work at the US Trasury department in
1934. In the thirties he met with John Maynard Keynes and other
leading economists."
They designed the policies that were aimed at bringing the US economy out of the Great Depression. It was a difficult job, and the US economy didn't really recover until world War II, but they put their hearts and minds into it. John Maynard Keynes, with white and his fellow Economicists were among the people whose theories were challenging both Communist and Classical Economic
theory. They were trying to explain the phenomena of the business
cycle and to find a realistic way to deal with it. And their problem was real. In the great Depression unemployment reached the majority of American's and Businesses collapsed in a wholesale manner. If they could not provide an alternative to the ideas of Communism, Capitolism in the US could well have fallen.
This page has an excellent article on White:
"When the United States entered World War II White was put in charge of international matters for the Treasury. He had extensive dealings with America's allies, including the Soviet Union."
"Philosophically, White was a Keynesian New Dealer. As a dedicated Rooseveltian internationalist his energies were directed at continuing the Grand Alliance and maintaining peace through a liberal trade regime. He believed that powerful multilateral institutions could avoid the mistakes of Versailles and another world depression."
White was hardly have been prone to be transfixed by classical Marxism, although anyone who studies economics finds it's theories interesting. He seems to have abhorred that system as much as his mentor John Maynard Keynes. The idea of him as a Communist or a Spy is far less plausable than the idea of someone like John Edgar Hoover would have been a spy. But then the behavior of Aldrich Aimes and Hanson seems implausable to me as well. The idea that he might have inadvertently helped the Russians is more plausable. It is certainly no more credible than allegations that people like his behind the scenes tormentor J. Edgar Hoover helped the Nazis. There is no possibility that Harry Dexter White was in any way a Russian spy. He certainly was not a closet Marxist. So let's look at his story and see why.
"After the war, White was closely involved with setting up what was called the Bretton Woods institutions - the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These institutions were intended to prevent some of the economic problems that occurred after the First World War, and help ensure that capitalism became the dominant post-war economic system."
Breton Woods and the IMF were part of what helped prevent a return
into the liquidity trap that had created the Great Depression. They
have become tools of international Banking at this point. But their
original purpose was to set some order into international trade and
finance and prevent a recurrence of the conditions that led to the Great Depression and World War. They were the very opposite of Soviet style economics as they meant to foster cooperation rather than centralization. In the end the IMF and world bank proved a real weapon against Communist style ideology that eventually was more instrumental in breaking the back of and dismantling Communism than anything done by Ronald Reagan or the US military. It was the IMF that the Russians came to when their economy
was inevitably collapsing. It is the IMF and World Bank which have been trying to create a genuinely stable and progressive "world" order. Whatever their flaws without them things would be considerably worse for the people's of the world. Perhaps the Russians understood this. And since this was a "liberal" institution, they knew exactly how to try to undermine it; By undermining it's architects.
"In August 1948, Harry Dexter White appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee to defend his reputation. Two former
spies, Elizabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers, were alleging that
he had spied for Russia. Bentley said his colleagues had passed
information to her from him. Chambers claimed that White gave him
documents for an underground Communist cell in the 1930s. White,
though recovering from a series of heart attacks, stoutly proclaimed
his lifelong commitment to the principles of democracy and the ideals
of Roosevelt's New Deal. He died three days later and HUAC retreated
from the case."
Even if he had been a spy, what kind of information White would have
been privy too is another matter. The actions and goals of the IMF
would hardly have been state secrets.
"J. Edgar Hoover later learned, from the secret VENONA project, that White's name appeared in some decrypted wartime Soviet cables. In 1953 he briefed Attorney-General Herbert Brownell who resurrected the case and declared that White was a spy. White's bronze bust was ignominiously removed to the IMF's basement."
But this was calumny. The mentioning of someone's name is not proof that they are spies. An injustice was done to this man.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dexter_White
Whittaker chambers attacked white on the basis of three allegations. One that he'd received a rug. The second that he'd written a report on how to salvage the Russian economy. And the third one in which he drafted notes on some international issues some of which relied on confidential information, which fell into Whittaker chambers hands. Chambers gave a number of contradictory accounts of how he got the papers. But there are a number of ways he could have gotten his hands on them, and if any spying was being done it might have been Chambers doing it at the time, because at the time he was talking about he was the one working for the Communists. Later Elizabeth Bentley would name white as part of a long list of Communists and people whose friends were communists.
Unfortunately, it appears that White had people working for him or around him, who were indeed communists. That may have been his main mistake. White was also Jewish of a liberal background. Many of his friends were also Jewish and liberals. And some of these were indeed Marxists. To folks like Herbert Hoover, being Jewish was as bad (or worse) than being marxist. So it shouldn't be any wonder about the passion with which Hoover and his ilk persecuted him. Frank Coe and Solomon Adler indeed were Marxists and they worked for White at Treasury. Worse there were four of White's associates who may indeed have actually spied for the Soviets; "Nathan Gregory Silvermaster", Ludwig Ulmann, Harold Glasser, and George Silverman. Silverman was the man who gave him the rug. They were friends. White denied knowing these guys were communists. Probably he knew they were communists but also thought of them as valuable friends and co-workers and was blind to any danger that might come from their friendship. If he was guilty of any sin it was the sin of naivity.
In 1948 a Soviet Defector named Alexander Barmine also named White as a 'source'. But not on the basis of actually spying, but because white had interacted with the Soviets in his official capacity as a Treasury Official dealing with foreign countries. This was classic "guilt by association" and the testimony of these Russians shows that White hadn't given them anything but merely talked to them.
And last we come to "Venona." It details that the Soviets talked to
him regularly, sought information from him regularly. Gave him a code
name (just as they gave Morgenthau and Roosevelt). The cables also
confirm that the Soviets wanted more information than he gave them
and that he was a frustrating source of information. Indeed Whittaker
chambers complained in his testimony about how difficult it was to
get useful information from him. Hardly the behavior of a spy. Maybe
a naive guy, but not a spy. The last cable that refers to white, in
1945 while they were still 'allies' refers to White as 'a fool.' They
didn't like dealing with him.
White appears to have been largely guilty of being willing to talk to
people. Alexander Vasiliev tells the world that White was "nervous,
reluctant, cowardly" in meetings with Russians. But we don't have the
sources and only have his opinion. When White was questioned about
Silvermaster (who was a spy) he appears to have asked him about it.
That was reported to the Soviets (presumably by Silvermaster). This
same Silvermaster complained that White didn't pass him documents but
only was willing to give economic advice. That doesn't sound like spy
behavior. That sounds like Economicist behavior. The author of the
piece I'm quoting from thinks that was what White was trying to do
all along. White wanted to draw the Soviets into the Bretton woods
agreement and while he shared Keynes abhorrance of central planning
He seems to have hoped that they might reform their system. He felt
that to design the fund to preclude Soviet membership would be
a "eggregious error." Stalin disagreed. He thought that to join the
fund would be a mistake for the Russians, it might have forced
changes on them. He refused to ratify Breton Woods.
Chris
There really is a divide in the US between groups of people. And the main source of the division is religion. The world is divided into people who have various traditional beliefs and derive their model for life by living those traditions. And many others who have developed what they suppose are more "modern" beliefs. The former include adherents to all the major religions. The later include many who have "new" faiths, or think they have discarded faith in religion in favor of secular religions such as materialism, athieism, Communism, 'liberalism', etceteras...There really is a gap between the perceptions of these people. Bridging that gap will take a lot of work. But the first step in bridging the gap is to understand why it exists.
The reason why a gap in understanding exists between people who consider themselves "rational" liberals, is that most of us don't understand what religion is about. For the "believer" religion is what they have received from their teachers and is truth, clear and simple. Things like abortion are not things that can be rationalized, but sins. Sin is departing from what is correct and leads to suffering, if not in this life then after it in the "afterlife." Faith is a source of comfort and a guide. To such people the logic of their religion flows from this connection to the truth. And the truth is apriori. Experiences are used to justify the faith, but the faith is a-priori.
For rationalists, faith flows from experience and an accumulation of wisdom. If something is fictional it cannot be true. Faith can never be a-priori, but must be founded in things that can be verified in the material world or at least understood by philosophical understanding. Even so apparantly rational people fall sway to religion. Communism, Libertarianism, and other beliefs, appear to be wholly rational and scientific until you examine their assumptions carefully, and then you find a "faith" aspect even there. And often people believe in these things with the same "a-priori" faith approach that they decry in others.
Thus you find incongruous observations. Such as Communists persecuting Buddhists and Christians in the name of "Materialism" and yet insisting on orthodoxy as if Communism were a faith substitute. It's not an accident that faith based and "non violent" movements such as the Falun Gung scare them more than Capitolists do. Their faith is basically an "anti faith." It involves discarding or cutting off the wisdom of the past on the basis that it is anachronistic. To see that wisdom reformatted and presented rationally undermines the premise on which they proceed...more...
I really don't know what to make of this site:
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/abrose.htm
The original white rose was an anti-Nazi group in Germany just before the World War II. They tried to resist Nazism with all their hearts, but with limited success. This group is dedicated to struggling with what they believed was American Fascism. As usual with groups dedicated to fighting with undefined, amorphous or nearly invisible "enemies" they are prone to attract people of paranoia and suspicion.
And yet, it turns out that there is some truth behind the paranoia. The US doesn't have many active Nazis, but they do have people with some of the qualities attributed to Nazism. Basically, this kind of thing is lumped under the heading "Cultural Populism". And some elements in the Republican Party have embraced it's worst elements.
I for one am Glad that John Kerry has picked John Edwards as his running mate. Edwards is a "future leader of America" and some day may make a fine President in his own right. And the two together represent the mainstream of the American Democratic Party. The right-wing can call them "liberals" but they both represent the best of the liberal tradition inherited from FD Roosevelt. One that looks out for the little guy as much as it does for Enron or Halliburton.
And I hope that we, the people, will pay attention to what they are saying and not be swayed by the propaganda. I really hope so.
I might not have noticed this one had it not been for reading the "Op-Eds" of the Washington Post and reading an article by Joan A. Lukey about it, called "At the Court, Inflating the White House's Power on Sunday, July 4, 2004; Page B02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25004-2004Jul3.html.
This decision, after all the hoopla leading up to it, was practically ignored by the media. As Joan A. Lukey writes:
"The high court clearly disagreed. In one quiet little line, on the 20th page of a 21-page majority opinion, the seven justices in the majority undid decades of evolving doctrine with this: "[the Court of Appeals] labored under the mistaken assumption that the assertion of executive privilege is a necessary precondition to the Government's separation-of-powers objections." Translation: The administration need not invoke a doctrine that would subject the decision to withhold information to judicial review, even regarding matters of domestic policy.
With a strong majority ruling in favor of the Government, the Supreme Court, making a distinction between Criminal and Civil cases, ruled, basically, that the Executive has an absolute right to secrecy. This thin thesis:
"The distinction between criminal and civil proceedings is not just a matter of formalism in this context. The right to production of relevant evidence in civil proceedings does not have the same "constitutional dimensions" as it does in the criminal context. Id., at 711. Withholding necessary materials in an ongoing criminal case constitutes an impermissible impairment of another branch's "essential functions." Id., at 711. Withholding the information in this case does not hamper such "essential functions" in quite the same way."
But the fact is that, with-holding this information may not hamper such essential functions in "quite the same way" but it does hamper them. The Supreme Court, paying lip service to the Nixon Tapes decision, referring to it repeatedly, completely undermines the legal premise behind it, which is that; no man is above the law, that the executive does not have the right to keep secrets from the legistlature and Judiciary, or to effectively rewrite law, and that legistlatures and courts need to have the power to acquire information if they are going to have any hope of exercising the powers granted to them. In effect it is as she calls it a "transferance" of power from the other two branches to the Executive.
Now this is only the culmination in a chain of abusive rulings that started before Judge Scalia refused to recuse himself from the case on the grounds that, well he could do darn well what he wants to. He justified this on the grounds that:
"The question, simply put, is whether someone who thought I could decide the case impartially despite my friendship with the Vice President would reasonably believe that I cannot decide it impartially because I went hunting with that friend and accepted an invitation to fly there with him on a Government plane. If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court Justice can be bought so cheap, the Nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined."
http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=30316
His knowledge of history must not include an institutional memory of another Supreme Court justice with similar Arrogance; Abe Fortas. That man sold his "partiality" for a mere 20,000 fee back in the sixtiesfrom a foundation controlled by Louis Wolfson. But of course, when you are dealing with public arrogance, precedent doesn't matter unless it is convenient to personal theory. He used even more tortured logic when he decided to stop recounts in Florida. And that may be exactly what they are trying to do.
In an article:http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20020510.html, John Dean warns Carl Rove to ignore Nixon at his own peril. But it appears that this administration is not ignoring the Nixon example. This case was a deliberate effort to redefine the relationship between the executive and the Judiciary, and perhaps Cheney knew this even before he brought the case to the courts -- or went duck hunting with Scalia. In any case, John Dean picks up on the theory behind both the administrations actions and the courts decision, and he notes that Cheney hasn't made any bones about his feelings regarding executive privelage -- or the previous decision of the court:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20021011.html
Indeed, Cheney has all but admitted the point. "In thirty-four years, I have repeatedly seen an erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job," Cheney told ABC's "This Week" in late January.
As he notes, the "thirty four" years he is referring to is the time of the Nixon/Watergate Scandal. And he notes that Nixon had tried to usurp powers belonging to the legistlature in four areas:
Nixon was ignoring Congress in four areas. First, he refused to spend money the Congress had appropriated for programs he didn't believe in, simply impounding the money. Second, he ignored Congress's efforts to get him to cut back or end the war in Vietnam, often increasing and widening the war when they were in recess.
Third, he regularly invoked executive privilege, thus denying Congress information it sought as aid in its job of conducting oversight of the Executive Branch. Fourth, finally, and in what was probably his most offensive act of the four, Nixon implemented a total reorganization of the Executive Branch by executive order. The result was to give Congress no say over departments and agencies that had years earlier been created by Congress.
And he notes that had it not been for Watergate, and the refusal of the Courts to grant him executive privelage, he might have succeeded. Will we see this administration embark on a similar course? He notes that Cheney, when in Congress, was a leading defender of the Reagan Administrations role in that war effort:
"In a telling rebuke, Cheney criticized the administration for letting Congress exert control over Central American policy, and banning the sale of weapons to Nicaraguan rebels."
"Plainly, Cheney thinks presidents should not only execute the laws, but write them as they wish they had been. Never mind that Congress has passed a law the President has not vetoed, or as to which his veto was overrided. It is still up to him whether to abide by that law, Cheney seems to believe."
Watergate seems to haunt us yet. The only good thing about all this is that it keeps alive the real scandal that is this administrations "What is good for Business is Good for America" attitude and that Justice Stevens and the Majority sent the case back to the lower courts where it can be decided more on it's merits.
I saw the movie "Farenheit 911" tonight. I'm glad I did. It was an exercise in Democracy. In what dictatorship can someone make a documentary that directly and so thoroughly deconstructs it's chief leader? On the other hand, what the documentary documents is a government that has systematically sought to benefit a few, quite explicitly and openly, using the tools of lies, deceit, and all the mechanism of this Government. He really makes you think. And no matter what you think of the President, it is worth hearing his case. He makes it with archival footage, humor, and an amazing amount of accuracy.
The case he makes is devastating. Among other things he shows the incestuous links between this administration and the Saudis, he shows how this administration compromised the investigation of Al Qaida by sending home Bin Laden's relatives, has been funded by the Saudis, and how they tried to deflect attention from the terrorist Wahabiism of Bin Laden and Al Qaida to Saddam Hussein, despite the overwelming evidence that it was the Saudis who were more responsible for Al Qaida than Saddam ever was. Of course that is just a small part of what Michael Moore was talking about. Well, there is a lot to think of it, and all I can say is, go see the movie. You'll see why the Republicans don't want you to see it.
PS, in researching his stuff, I found out that there are, as always websites "pro" and "con" about Michael Moore. He is a bit onesided, and so are his detractors.
I also got to attend a conference about Latin American Jews. Recommended Reading: Hotel Bolivia, by Leo Spitzer.
Better than the conference was that visit to the relative. They have a home by one of Vermont's many lakes. A calm day with a cool breeze. Tooling around the lake in a pontoon boat. Life is a paradise.
Incongruously, I also visited the birth Place of Joseph Smith. The place is located not far from "Sharon" Vermont. He was the son of a dirt poor farmer who lost his shirt and had to travel from farm to farm, sharecropping as he went. His followers put up an obelisk there nearly a century ago. It is made of a single piece of highly polished Granite. The top of it shines brightly on a sunny day and it was a real piece of engineering to get it up country roads using only horsepower, manpower, and yankee ingenuity. As always with the Mormons, the men solved one engineering problem after another, until they reached one final one that technology couldn't solve. Mud so deep it swallowed a buggy. Mother nature took care of that problem when a freeze came and froze the mud just in time for the dedication on Joseph Smith's birthday.
As usual, I found the place by serendipity. I was looking for a place to eat and found myself lost (and going the opposite direction from the one I thought I was going). The bargain for my pancakes involved listening to a spiel about that man Joseph Smith. My wife says my face said I didn't want to be there. She was right. According to the official myth, the boy was confused about religion. At last he decided to meditate on the subject in the woods. When he did this he had a life-altering vision of two men, presumably one Jesus and the other "God" -- side by side. At least that is how he interpreted that vision. He thought that he was destined to solve the problem of all the "confusion" between the sects of Christianity and years later he'd claim to find a book made of gold that he'd translate with the help of the Angel Moroni. Did that vision solve the problem he sought to solve? There is still a powerful spate of religious confusion, and Mormonism has contributed it's share to that. So, no I don't think so. But his life altering vision transformed his own life, and those who bought it's content from him. Life Altering visions tend to do that. Literalism gets in the way of valuing such experiences. Visions use the language of dreams. They aren't even intended to be taken literally. This is true even of the Book of Mormon:
The Elder kept his end of the bargain. After listening to the whole spiel, we were rewarded because the Elder knew where we could get a "real" local flavor meal. Pancakes thick enough to use as a plate. It was worth it. Nothing better than real pancakes with real maple syrup.