Peter N. Kirstein

History News Network has generously featured my Constitution Day remarks on its Historians Roundup page. I had not known in advance of this prominent dissemination of my talk and was very flattered at their decision to do so. H.N.N. has been a very “intimate” part of my career since my suspension in 2002. They were one of the first to report on it in a manner that was objective, civil and impartial. H.N.N. also courageously invited me to publish articles of historical and contemporary issues shortly after my auto-da-fé which was primarily responsible for averting a possible McCarthyite blacklisting or academic-wide censorship of my progressive work. The views expressed in my remarks were presented as individual opinion and having not anticipated such a wide dissemination, such a disclaimer, however stupid and odious, is probably good sense as the ghost of McCarthyism always hovers above my shoulder.

Rick Shenkman, the editor, presidential historian and frequent guest on national cable shows has developed a website that  is ideologically neutral. It features articles and opinions from historians and other scholars that traverse the ideological spectrum. I am very grateful for this latest unsolicited gesture: running and featuring my Constiution Day remarks which it encountered on my blog.

Source: Peter N. Kirstein blog (9-15-09)

Constitution Day, which is actually on Sept. 17 as if it matters, should be ignored and this university (St Xavier in Chicago) should engage in academic freedom civil disobedience and avoid any connection with such a governmental requirement. Senator Robert Byrd, a former K.K.K. member who to his credit voted for President Barack Hussein Obama and eloquently opposed the Iraq war, initiated this boosterism with legislation, but we should not comply with unfunded federal mandates dictating higher education content since it invariably bleeds into nationalism and patriotic education which is the antithesis of critical thinking and liberal education.

Senator Byrd, Democrat of West Virigina: his head may be superimposed but joined the K.K.K. as a young man in the Jim Crow south.

Yet I never say no to student invitations and this is the second time I have participated in such an activity that implicitly, however subtly, suggests adulation of a founding document based on racism, slavery, genocide, sexism and misogyny.

Yet the next best thing is to insure that the Constitution is seen for what it is: a fake, class-based document that selectively confers democratic freedoms as elite class interests expropriate its meaning. Americans should not revere the constitution, gush over the Founders’ alleged touch of genius, exaggerate its protections of our supposed freedoms, anoint it with Biblical reverential inspiration and bow down to this graven image as the protector and enabler of our nation and well-being.

This view was advanced by George Bancroft (1800-1891) in the nineteenth century. Bancroft was known by some as the “father of American history.” He was a secretary of the navy, an architect of the imperialistic, racist Mexican War, minister to the United Kingdom and Germany and wrote a ten volume history of the United States which, while breaking new ground in subject matter, such as exploring the colonial period and using primary sources, was basically government propaganda in the guise of history. Many of these volumes were written before the general emancipation of slavery in 1865. Since Bancroft was indeed an anti-slavery Democrat, this quotation is even more astonishing for its hyperbolic display of Constitution love:

“The Constitution establishes nothing that interferes with equality and individuality. It knows nothing of differences by descent, or opinions, of favored classes, or legalized religion, or the political power of property. It leaves the individual alongside of the individual…. As the sea is made up of drops, American society is composed of separate, free, and constantly moving atoms, ever in reciprocal action … so that the institutions and laws of the country rise out of the masses of individual thought which, like the waters of the ocean, are rolling evermore.”

The Preamble to the Constitution appears to be progressive and inclusive:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Establish justice? Promote the general welfare? Secure the blessings of liberty? Slavery lasted over three-quarters of a century after the Constitution was adopted in 1788. We had a Jim Crow apartheid system, similar to South Africa, until 1965 almost two centuries after the meaningless little document entered into force. The subjugation of women, with particular reference to the lack of voting rights, remained in force under the Constitution for another century and a half until 1920. And these epochs of shame continued even after the Constitution was amended with the ten Bill of Rights articles in 1791.

To merely read the Constitution, and it has some rhetorical virtues to be sure, does not tell the story. It’s not what it says but whether it is enforced. It’s not what its rhetoric is but who interprets it such as the Supreme Court. It’s not about strict construction; it’s about the power elite from business to politics to the media defining how it is implemented.

For example, take the gun lobby and the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  It does not expressly confer a federal right to bear arms outside of a state militia but just say it does, form a treacherous organisation such as the National Rifle Association, and hire Charlton Heston as your spokesperson if someone thinks killing kids in drive bys, presidents, spouses and children, Beatles’ singers, college students and professors on campuses such as Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois are appropriate prices to pay for the freedom to carry handguns and assault weapons. Tell the next dead cop’s family whether conservative law and order advocates of “right to carry” protected their father or mother in their stupid and selfish perversion of the Constitution.

Read what the Constitution says but understand the realities of power and the blinding effects of Constitution love. Who controls the government and power in this country is much more important than the Constitution’s alleged democratic provisions. Do not believe that the Constitution protects your freedoms or your rights and do not be lulled by the opium of patriotism, reverence for American founding documents and the notion of American exceptionalism.

A historian, who disagreed with Bancroft’s glorification of the Constitution was the great Charles Beard. He wrote one of the most important histories of the twentieth century: An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States in 1913. This is a quotation influenced by the materialist theories of Karl Marx whose death preceded Beard’s work by only thirty years:

“Inasmuch as the primary object of a government…is the making of the rules which determine the property relations of members of society, the dominant classes …must obtain from the government such rules as are consonant with the larger interests necessary to the continuance of their economic processes, or they must themselves control the organs of government.” Beard is stating that elites make sure those in government make rules that advance their interests and failing that take over the government to suit themselves.

Beard researched the backgrounds of the fifty-five men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 during the Constitutional Convention. Most were lawyers; most acquired wealth derived from land, chattel slavery, early manufacturing, or shipping. Forty of the fifty-five speculated or owned government bonds which would appreciate with a stronger centralised economy. (Howard Zinn, Peoples History of the United States, 90-1).

According to Howard Zinn: “Beard found that most of the makers of the Constitution had some direct economic interest in establishing a strong federal government: the manufacturers needed protective tariffs; the moneylenders wanted to stop the use of paper money to pay off debts; the land speculators wanted protection as they invaded Native-American lands; slave owners needed federal security against slave revolts and runaways; bondholders wanted a government able to raise money by nationwide taxation, to pay off those bonds.”

Beard noted in his progressive analysis that slaves, indentured servants, women and property-less males were not present at the Constitutional Convention, much less Native Americans who discovered the country.

This is why Marxism is so valuable as a component of critical thinking and pursuit of the truth. Prior to Beard, few historians adopted an economic analysis of history. It only emphasised power, politics and white-elite male rule. Marx introduced a materialist view of society that saw economic forces as the dominant motive force in political economy. While Marx exaggerated economic determinism and overlooked the essentials of non-economic forces, it drove Beard and modern progressives in many disciplines to expand the search for the truth from the vantage point of economic forces.

People do not control the Constitution but vested elite interests control the Constitution. The masses, the working class, the 46,300,000 without health insurance, the 13% unemployed Hispanics, the 15.1% of African-Americans who are unemployed, [compare to 8.9% white unemployment rate], the 13.2% of the American population living in poverty, the 18.6% of seniors living in poverty despite Medicare and Social Security and the 35.1 million on food stamps (now called Electronic Benefit Transfers!) don’t benefit from the Constitution. Adults who wish to marry others of their own gender have no national Constitutional protection. It is merely a shell, a veneer that conceals the realities of America’s class system. Those with power, with or without a rhetorically benevolent constitution, will continue to run this country and the world with bombs, arms sales, multinational corporations, nuclear non-proliferation for non-white countries and agribusiness interests with a smattering of democracy and civil rights so as to prevent a full scale insurrection here at home.

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879)

It is time on this so-called Constitution Day to recognise the meaningless Constitution should be abandoned, and possibly burned as it was outside of Boston on July 4, 1854 by the glorious abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison who described the pro-slavery document as “a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell.” Let’s replace it with international law, that is creeping into Supreme Court opinions in such areas as the death penalty, which is much more progressive and supportive of democracy, the dignity of the human person, and international peace and security.

Judge Billings Learned Hand (1872-1961)

No less an authority than Learned Hand, the iconic judge of the fifth circuit United States Court of Appeals and possibly the greatest jurist never to serve on the Supreme Court, affirms much of my presentation:

We “rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts…Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.” (quote in Haridakis and Ferris, “The Use of ‘Speech Zones,’” in Morgan, 9/11 and the New Legal Landscape, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 52.)

I will contribute the highlighted entries below on J. Robert Oppenheimer and Academic Freedom.

This work has been delayed several times as a result of wanting to include the latest culture-wars phenomena of the Obama transition to power. The editor Roger Chapman has certainly undertaken an ambitious project on a topic of unending complexity and progression. While the nation is not as divided as it was during the genocide in Vietnam, there are still progressive elements that engage issues and, however meekly, demand equal justice, civil rights, women’s rights including abortion rights and an end to American imperial dominance and militarisation.

These are the current content entries which is quite comprehensive and ideologically inclusive in scope.

Abortion; Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; Academic Bill of Rights; Academic Freedom; Adler, Mortimer J.; Affirmative Action; Afrocentrism; Age Discrimination; Agnew, Spiro T.; AIDS; Alexander, Jane; Ali, Muhammad; American Century; American Civil Liberties Union; American Civil Religion; American Exceptionalism; American Indian Movement; Americans with Disabilities Act; Androgyny; Angelou, Maya; Animal Rights; Anti-Intellectualism; Anti-Semitism; Arnold, Ron; Arrow, Tre; Aryan Nations; Atwater, Lee; Automobile Safety

Baez, Joan; Bankruptcy Reform; Barbie Doll; Battle of Seattle; Beauty Pageants; Behe, Michael J.; Bell Curve, The ; Bennett, William J.; Biafra, Jello; Biotech Revolution; Birth Control; Black Panther Party; Black Radical Congress; Blackface; Bob Jones University; Bono; Book Banning; Boy Scouts of America; Bradley, Bill; Brock, David; Brokaw, Tom; Brown, Helen Gurley; Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Bryant, Anita; Buchanan, Pat; Buckley, William F., Jr.; Budenz, Louis F.; Bullard, Robert D.; Bunche, Ralph; Bush Family; Busing, School; Byrd, Robert C.

Campaign Finance Reform; Campolo, Anthony “Tony”; Canada; Capital Punishment; Carson, Rachel; Carter, Jimmy; Catholic Church; Censorship; Central Intelligence Agency; Chambers, Whittaker; Charter Schools; Chßvez, CTsar; Cheney Family; Chicago Seven; Chick, Jack; China; Chisholm, Shirley; Chomsky, Noam; Christian Coalition; Christian Radio; Christian Reconstructionism; Christmas; Church and State; Churchill, Ward; Civil Rights Movement; Clinton, Bill; Clinton, Hillary; Clinton Impeachment; Cold War; Colson, Chuck; Columbus Day; Comic Books; Comic Strips; Commager, Henry Steele; Common Cause; Commoner, Barry; Communists and Communism; Comparable Worth; Compassionate Conservatism; Confederate Flag; Conspiracy Theories; Contemporary Christian Music; Contract with America; Corporate Welfare; Coulter, Ann; Counterculture; Country Music; Creationism and Intelligent Design; Cronkite, Walter; Cuba; Culture Jamming

Dean, Howard; Dean, James; Dean, John; Deconstructionism; DeLay, Tom; Deloria, Vine, Jr.; Demjanjuk, John; Democratic Party; Diversity Training; Dobson, James; Donahue, Phil; Douglas, William O.; Dr. Phil; Drudge Report ; Drug Testing; D’Souza, Dinesh; Du Bois, W.E.B.; Dukakis, Michael; Duke, David; Dworkin, Andrea; Dylan, Bob

Earth Day; Ecoterrorism; Education Reform; Ehrenreich, Barbara; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; Election of 2000; Election of 2008; Endangered Species Act; English as the Official Language; Enola Gay Exhibit; Environmental Movement; Equal Rights Amendment; Evangelicalism; Executive Compensation

Factory Farms; Faith-Based Programs; Falwell, Jerry; Family Values; Farrakhan, Louis; Federal Budget Deficit; Federal Communications Commission; Felt, W. Mark; Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Ferraro, Geraldine; Flag Desecration; Fleiss, Heidi; Flynt, Larry; Focus on the Family; Fonda, Jane; Food and Drug Administration; Ford, Gerald; Foreman, Dave; Forests, Parklands, and Federal Wilderness; Foucault, Michel; Founding Fathers; France; Frank, Barney; Franken, Al; Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial; Freedom of Information Act; Friedan, Betty; Friedman, Milton; Fundamentalism, Religious; Fur

Galbraith, John Kenneth; Gangs; Gay Capital; Gay Rights Movement; Gays in Popular Culture; Gays in the Military; Gender-Inclusive Language; Generations and Generational Conflict; Genetically Modified Foods; Gibson, Mel; Gilmore, Gary; Gingrich, Newt; Ginsberg, Allen; Global Warming; Globalization; Goetz, Bernhard; Goldwater, Barry; Gonzßlez, Elißn; Gore, Al; Graffiti; Graham, Billy; Great Books; Great Society; Guardian Angels; Gun Control; Guthrie, Woody, and Arlo Guthrie

Haley, Alex; Hall, Gus; Hargis, Billy; Harrington, Michael; Hart, Gary; Harvey, Paul; Hate Crimes; Hauerwas, Stanley; Hay, Harry; Hayden, Tom; Health Care; Heavy Metal; Hefner, Hugh; Heller, Joseph; Helms, Jesse; Heritage Foundation; Hightower, Jim; Hill, Anita; Hill, Julia “Butterfly”; Hillsdale College; Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Hispanic Americans; Hiss, Alger; Hoffman, Abbie; Hollywood Ten; Holocaust; Homeschooling; hooks, bell; Hoover, J. Edgar; Horowitz, David; Horton, Willie; Human Rights; Humphrey, Hubert H.; Hunter, James Davison; Huntington, Samuel P.; Hurricane Katrina; Hutchins, Robert M.

Illegal Immigrants; Immigration Policy; Indian Casinos; Indian Sport Mascots; Individuals With Disabilities Education Act; Internet; Iran-Contra Affair; Irvine, Reed; Israel

Jackson, Jesse; Jackson, Michael; Japan; Jehovah’s Witnesses; Jesus People Movement; John Birch Society; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Jorgensen, Christine; Judicial Wars

Kennedy Family; Kerouac, Jack; Kerry, John; Kevorkian, Jack; Keyes, Alan; King, Billie Jean; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; King, Rodney; Kinsey, Alfred; Klein, Naomi; Koop, C. Everett; Kristol, Irving, and Bill Kristol; Krugman, Paul; Kubrick, Stanley; Kushner, Tony; Kwanzaa; Kyoto Protocol

La Follette, Robert, Jr.; La Raza Unida; Labor Unions; LaHaye, Tim, and Beverly LaHaye; Lapin, Daniel; LaRouche, Lyndon H., Jr.; Lear, Norman; Leary, Timothy; Lee, Spike; LeMay, Curtis; Leopold, Aldo; Lesbians; Lewis, Bernard; Liddy, G. Gordon; Limbaugh, Rush; Literature, Film, and Drama; Lott, Trent; Love Canal; Loving, Richard, and Mildred Loving; Lynching

MacKinnon, Catharine; Madonna; Mailer, Norman; Malcolm X; Manson, Marilyn; Mapplethorpe, Robert; Marriage Names; Marxism; McCain, John; McCarthy, Eugene; McCarthy, Joseph; McCarthyism; McCloskey, Deirdre; McGovern, George; McIntire, Carl; McLuhan, Marshall; McVeigh, Timothy; Mead, Margaret; Media Bias; Medical Malpractice; Medical Marijuana; Medved, Michael; Men’s Movement; Mexico; Microsoft; Migrant Labor; Militia Movement; Milk, Harvey; Millett, Kate; Million Man March; Miranda Rights; Mondale, Walter; Montana Freemen; Moore, Michael; Moore, Roy S.; Moral Majority; Morgan, Robin; Morrison, Toni; Mothers Against Drunk Driving; Motion Picture Association of America; Moynihan, Daniel Patrick; Ms.; Multicultural Conservatism; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; Mumford, Lewis; Murdoch, Rupert; Murrow, Edward R.; Muslim Americans; My Lai Massacre

Nader, Ralph; Nation, The ; Nation of Islam; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; National Endowment for the Arts; National Endowment for the Humanities; National Organization for Women; National Public Radio; National Review ; National Rifle Association; Nelson, Willie; Neoconservatism; New Age Movement; New Deal; New Journalism; New Left; New York Times, The ; Niebuhr, Reinhold; Nixon, Richard; Norquist, Grover; North, Oliver; Not Dead Yet; Nuclear Age

Obama, Barack; Obesity Epidemic; Occupational Safety; O’Connor, Sandra Day; O’Hair, Madalyn Murray; O.J. Simpson Trial; Operation Rescue; Oppenheimer, J. Robert; O’Reilly, Bill; Outing

Packwood, Bob; Paglia, Camille; Palin, Sarah; Parks, Rosa; Penn, Sean; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; Perot, H. Ross; Phelps, Fred; Philadelphia, Mississippi; Pipes, Richard, and Daniel Pipes; Planned Parenthood; Podhoretz, Norman; Police Abuse; Political Correctness; Pornography; Postmodernism; Premillennial Dispensationalism; Presidential Pardons; Prison Reform; Privacy Rights; Privatization; Progressive Christians Uniting; Promise Keepers; Public Broadcasting Service; Punk Rock

Quayle, Dan

Race; Racial Profiling; Rand, Ayn; Rap Music; Rather, Dan; Reagan, Ronald; Record Warning Labels; Red and Blue States; Redford, Robert; Redneck; Reed, Ralph; Rehnquist, William H.; Relativism, Moral; Religious Right; Reparations, Japanese Internment; Republican Party; Revisionist History; Right to Counsel; Right to Die; Robertson, Pat; Rock and Roll; Rockwell, George Lincoln; Rockwell, Norman; Rodman, Dennis; Roe v. Wade (1973); Rosenberg, Julius, and Ethel Rosenberg; Rove, Karl; Ruby Ridge Incident; Rudolph, Eric; Rusher, William A.; Ryan, George

Said, Edward; Same-Sex Marriage; Sanders, Bernie; Saudi Arabia; Schaeffer, Francis; Schiavo, Terri; Schlafly, Phyllis; Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.; School of the Americas; School Prayer; School Shootings; School Vouchers; Schwarzenegger, Arnold; Science Wars; Secular Humanism; Seeger, Pete; September 11; September 11 Memorial; Serrano, Andres; Sex Education; Sex Offenders; Sexual Assault; Sexual Harrassment; Sexual Revolution; Sharpton, Al; Sheen, Fulton J.; Shelley, Martha; Shepard, Matthew; Shock Jocks; Sider, Ron; Silent Majority; Simpsons, The ; Smoking in Public; Socarides, Charles; Social Security; Sodomy Laws; Sokal Affair; Soros, George; Southern Baptist Convention; Soviet Union and Russia; Sowell, Thomas; Speech Codes; Spock, Benjamin; Springsteen, Bruce; Starr, Kenneth; Stay-at-Home Mothers; Steinbeck, John; Steinem, Gloria; Stem-Cell Research; Stern, Howard; Stewart, Jon; Stone, Oliver;
Stonewall Rebellion; Strategic Defense Initiative; Strauss, Leo; Structuralism and Post-Structuralism; Student Conservatives; Students for a Democratic Society; Summers, Lawrence; Supply-Side Economics; Symbionese Liberation Army

Taft, Robert A.; Talk Radio; Tax Reform; Televangelism; Teller, Edward; Ten Commandments; Terkel, Studs; Thanksgiving Day; Think Tanks; Third Parties; Thomas, Clarence; Thompson, Hunter S.; Three Mile Island Accident; Thurmond, Strom; Till, Emmett; Tobacco Settlements; Tort Reform; Transgender Movement; Truman, Harry S.; Turner, Ted; Twenty-Second Amendment

Unabomber; United Nations; USA PATRIOT Act

Ventura, Jesse; Victimhood; Vidal, Gore; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam Veterans Memorial; Vietnam War; Vigilantism; Voegelin, Eric; Voting Rights Act

Waco Siege; Wall Street Journal, The ; Wallace, George; Wallis, Jim; Wal-Mart; Walt Disney Company; War on Drugs; War on Poverty; War Powers Act; War Protesters; War Toys; Warhol, Andy; Warren, Earl; Warren, Rick; Washington Times, The ; Watergate; Watt, James; Watts and Los Angeles Riots, 1965 and 1992; Wayne, John; Wealth Gap; Weekly Standard, The ; Welfare Reform; Wellstone, Paul; West, Cornel; Weyrich, Paul M.; Whistleblowers; White, Reggie; White Supremacists; Wildmon, Donald; Will, George; Williams, William Appleman; Wilson, Edmund; Winfrey, Oprah; Wolf, Naomi; Wolfe, Tom; Women in the Military; Women’s Studies; Woodward, Bob; World ; World Council of Churches; World War II Memorial; Wounded Knee Incident

Young, Neil

Zappa, Frank; Zero Tolerance; Zinn, Howard

I have been touring the Pacific Northwest and the Canadian province of British Columbia. I happened to be in Seattle on Sunday, June 28th, the day of Gay Pride parades commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall gay-bar resistance in Manhattan. It launched, so they say, the gay liberation movement. While some historians actually believe the resistance began at a gay sit-in at Dewey’s Restaurant in Philadelphia and NOT Stonewall, history has a way of creating “facts” which may be more or less true. I think the heroes of Dewey, whose names are buried in history, should be lauded for the non-violent actions of that event. Stonewall was violent but certainly liberationist in effect.

I was walking with my backpack on the way to Cafe Presse on Capitol Hill in Seattle when I saw the preparatory staging of the Pride parade. It had not started but I could see a marching band rehearsing, corporate sponsored logos such as Orbitz Gay travel floats and Microsoft-sponsored platforms. Anyway, I walked up a steep hill to the Cafe, then north on 14th Avenue to Volunteer Park to see the Conservatory and the Water Tower view of the sparkling city. As I headed back to my hotel down Pine Street, I could see the Space Needle again. I had seen it from a ship traversing Puget Sound on the west and through the “Black Sun” sculpture of Isamu Noguchi which is right in front of the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park. It looks more like a doughnut but according to the New York Times inspired Soundgarden’s grunge anthem “Black Hole Sun.”

http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:pbZ791SOdAf_yM:http://farm4.static.flickr.com

Anyway on my downhill return to the waterfront, I got to Union and the Pride Parade was still in full swing some two hours after my initial pre-parade encounter. I had never witnessed a gay-pride parade before or any parade since my parents would take me to a July 4th event every year on Lindell Blvd. in St Louis. I was able to catch a space between floats and dash across 4th Avenue but decided to stop and watch the extravaganza.

The parade was mobbed. I noticed a float with: “Atheists believe in you” and smiled, applauded and admired the touch. Then I saw some HIV/AIDS sponsors as they passed out written information. Signs declaring “Use a condom” were passing me as I stood on the corner as a policeperson tried to get the crowd back onto the sidewalk. Then the United Church of Christ displayed its solidarity. Folks were screaming with joy and clapping as display after display rolled by. Yes there were the narcissistic bare-chested-only-underpants wearing men on a float and one or two drag queens but most of the parade thematics were quite educational and progressive in substance. “Remember Stonewall.” “Marriage should be Equal.” “Our time has come.”  “Don’t Discriminate by Gender” etc.

I did not ask spectators what their orientation was but I was struck at the large numbers and wondered, “Were they all gay?” Probably not since I am straight and folks like a good parade. A great parade actually in a very progressive city. The Seattle Times on its front-page covered the event and also listed Pride events for the weekend.  I did not see President Barack Obama in the parade or Hillary Clinton but I suppose Barack was getting ready for his chat in the White House on Monday with gay and lesbian organisational leaders and Hillary was probably just being Hillary. Wondering if those “Hard working Americans. White Americans” which was her racist mantra during the primaries in 2008 would ever be able to vote for her again for president. I hope not as the wife of Mr Racist (remember the South Carolina primary remarks?)  D.O.M.A. revels in her splendour.

That evening I went out for dinner to Wild Ginger to get some clams and scallops and the parade was over and the area was pretty empty.  Later as I was getting read for bed, I thought well the police this time were protecting spectators and Pride participants, watching to preserve order and basically just doing their job. Not hassling, or breaking up folks enjoying what was then one of the few public spaces where homosexuals could socialise: gay bars. So some manifestations of overt persecution have ended as evidenced with the reversal of the sodomy is a crime Bowers v Hardwick (1986) case with the Lawrence v Texas case in 2003. A little stare decisis can be dangerous and oppressive. I am glad it was eviscerated in this instance.

One of the reasons I used “Coming Out Straight” as part of the subject title was up until a few years ago I was afraid to discuss the Gay Liberation struggle in my history classes. It was like well they may think I am gay or something as if that would be so bad. In my syllabus I first stated I was straight. Then I removed that but when distributing a handout outline, I indicated  I did not participate in the gay lifestyle. This year I hope to treat it more as a normal topic for a history survey course like women’s or African-American history. Historians have generally avoided the gay and lesbian topic for reasons which may be either fear of misidentification or underestimating its importance in the tapestry of American history.

Coming out straight may be necessary in achieving a comfort level in discussing the topic of homosexuality for some–especially those teaching at a conservative (at least by my standards to be sure), Catholic university. Yet avoiding the topic ignores a significant contemporary and historic phenomenon of  the struggle for human rights and equal justice. One’s orientation is irrelevant in terms of character and ability and citizenship. The more open gays and straights are about the persecution of gays and lesbians and transgender and bisexuals then the veil of silence will be lifted further and a just society more comprehensively advanced.

The essay below has been published in a book, Necessary Discourse on Hysteria, that accompanied a major art exhibit at the Koroska Gallery of Fine Arts, Slovenj Gradec, Slovenia that was held in November-December 2008. Its chief curators were Jernej Kozar and Rado Poggi. While the essay was written before the 2008 presidential election, it has been updated and its main arguments remain valid. I just received a copy of the exhibit publication with essays from other international contributors and images of the exhibit. This is the full citation: Necessary Discourse on Hysteria. Slovenj Gradec, Slovenia: The Koroska Gallery of Fine and Applied Arts Slovenj Gradej, 2009. {ISBN: 978-961-91463-5-4}

“American Imperialism and the Paranoid Style of American Politics.”

Richard Hofstadter, a major American historian of the postwar era, wrote an essay for Harper’s magazine, The Paranoid Style in American Politics in 1964. Whether it was Roman Catholicism, populism or masonry, communism or McCarthyism, this tendency to construe America as a nation under siege is a strong undercurrent of its oppressive culture and ethos. Yet I think paranoia is to a large extent cynically manufactured by the ruling classes in order to advance their personal quest of power projection and global domination.

An example was the shameless political advertisement of Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York. It depicted a phone ringing in the White House at 3:00 a.m. to suggest that then Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, could not be trusted as Commander in Chief and lacks the capacity to deal with an unannounced threat to the national interest. The ad was also inherently racist, as it depicted non-African-American children sleeping at that hour, but vulnerable if an African-American were elected president. It simply pandered to age-old hysterical themes of racial and national-security insecurities. Hysteria is frequently a manufactured by-product of power maximizing. An imperial, racist nation that practices global state terrorism is unwilling to encounter its own malevolence and so it projects onto others irrational qualities of evil and power. Recall the criminal invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003 was fueled by a hysterical overreaction to both the potential power and putative presence of non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Jihadists, Muslims in general, terrorists, Al Qaeda, Hizbollah, Hamas, al Quds unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) are designated or depicted as terrorist organisations. The Department of State would be well served to designate the United States as a terrorist organisation if that term is going to be utilised to designate crimes against civilians committed for political objectives. The deemphasis on using the word “terror” is noticeable since Barack Hussein Obama became the 44th president on January 20, 2009.

Yet the continued listing of so-called terrorist nations or non-state actors is an effort to dehumanise and marginalise those who have legitimate grievances against the United States, Israel and other oppressive governments. No other nation is as frightened as the United States about the external world and yet ironically no other nation can project power across the full spectrum of military assets. Yet this power has led to a perpetual unease, a sense of hysteria, a compulsion and addiction to war, a rogue state status of human rights violations and a slow but palpable decline in both the standard of living and civil liberties.

America’s greatest enemy is not external but internal. The power elites ranging from the neo-conservatives, the Israel Lobby, the centrist supporters of imperial overstretch such the Council on Foreign Relations, the Democratic and Republican parties, the immoral and unethical rulers of Wall Street and the Pentagon are the true enemies of the people. Great nations cannot sustain popular support of its endless wars and military adventurism unless it convinces the populace that their freedoms are enhanced by this madness.

Most Americans are proud of their country’s superpower status and are convinced that their freedom and putative democracy are sustained and nourished by constant muscular vigilance, frequent wars and an unrestrained worshipping of its military culture. Indeed, patriotism and love of country are to a large extent predicated on the belief that the American military is the sine qua non for our prosperity, protection and stability as a nation. Military academies, think tanks, specialised military universities, war-memorial monuments as prolific as McDonalds’s restaurants, veterans groups, Air Force Ones, marine presidential helicopters, colour guards, bellicose “bombs bursting in air” national anthems, p.o.w. flags, national holidays such as Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Independence Day and lesser ones as Armed Forces Day and the universality of the American flag are constant reminders of martial attributes that embrace war and violence to resolve interstate conflict. Washington, D.C. is virtually a military theme park that reflects the core values of the nation with scant attention to international peace and security.

At some point, the military empire that undermines our nation’s security needs to be dismantled and downsized in a manner that would not lead to unilateral disarmament beyond legitimate self-defence, but would clearly reduce the capacity of the arrogant hyperpower to wage war. Speaking truth to power, the United States of America is such a dangerous, irresponsible and destructive force, that for the sake of international peace and security, America must become a less powerful and more rational-state actor. The Fate of the Earth hangs in the balance.

Presidential Election, 2008:

I would prefer that one of the major candidates would have stated categorically that American imperialist forces would be withdrawn from Iraq without the usual qualifications of “orderly,” “systematically” etc. and critique the war in a manner that does not merely emphasise its impact on United States vital strategic interests in Afghanistan but as an immoral and ruthless projection of American power. The only candidate that did not vote for the authorisation to use force was former Senator Barack Obama. Even though he was not serving in the United States Senate but the Illinois State Senate, he publicly opposed the war on October 2, 2002, nine days before the Senate, with a Democratic party majority I might add, approved the evil joint-war resolution to send American military forces to Iraq.

In comparison to then Senator Clinton, there could be construed a greater credibility in the Illinois senator’s plan to withdraw one to two combat brigades a month and complete the withdrawal in sixteen months. As president, he appears to be implementing this phased withdrawal from Iraq and then deploying them to Afghanistan.

Senator Obama stated before his election as president he would engage in direct diplomacy with heads of state with which the United States has adversarial relations. These would include Iran, Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Venezuela and Syria that would be diplomatically engaged without preconditions but with a suggested agenda of relevant items. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Mrs. Clinton, now ironically secretary of state, rejected such a rapprochement as naïve and as giving aid and comfort to our enemies.

The old politics of Cold War era confrontation does not quickly subside from this ruthless nation. A new politics is certainly needed where hegemonic aspirations are tempered with a more collegial and internationalist view of world politics. I think it naïve that America’s role in the world can be more constructive and less lethal in the absence of a more creative inter-state diplomatic agenda.

The costs of the Iraq war may reach three trillion dollars according to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. The war budget alone is annually about one trillion when, in addition to the Pentagon, one includes the intelligence services, the Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Also the soaring health care costs for tens of thousands of wounded and psychologically damaged Iraq War veterans are part of the unsustainable economic burdens of the war to the United States economy. Rich nations do not have unlimited resources to police the world. Forty eight million Americans are without health insurance and the gap in life expectancy between the rich and poor is growing. Poor African-American males die at age 66.9 but the life expectancy of affluent white women is 81.1 years. This is not entirely the result of the Iraq War but it is arguable that the priorities of war, hegemonic domination and white Judeo-Christian supremacy demonstrate that a militarised society does not emphasise social equality at home, much less abroad.

This magnificent ad and I don’t wear LensCrafters products and have absolutely no desire to peddle their product, contains an unidentifed song and artist. Cutwater, the ad agency does not identify the artist in any of its literature nor does extensive online ad company trade sites and promos reveal the musician’s name. However, this is a great ad, digitally mastered from a studio version with acoustic guitar of course and virtuoso banjo and it really infuriates me that the singer is not acknowledged online. The Internet is full of inquiries over who the singer is? Well it’s the Scottish-born Donovan singing “Colours” which appeared on the Universal Soldier album. This was released the same year when Donovan was chastened in a hotel room by Dylan’s winging of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” in Don Pennebaker’s epic Dylan-centered masterpiece, Dont Look Back (1967)! {without an apostrophe in “Dont.”}

President Barack Obama was asked twice at his initial prime time press conference on Monday February 9  by Helen Thomas whether there were any countries in the Middle East that had nuclear weapons. This courageous reporter, who was essentially banned by the Bush administration from asking questions at press conferences, knew precisely what she was doing.

America’s political elites, in the grip of fear to challenge the Israel lobby or its client state, Israel, will not concede what is absolute fact. Israel is a major nuclear power with both fission and thermonuclear weapons. While I admit the latter is not 100% verifiable, the existence of Israel as a nuclear state is. There is not one arms control specialist or nuclear weapons’ expert who does NOT know that Israel, with the help of the French and Americans, has developed a nuclear arsenal. Dimona is their primary nuclear research center. They even jointly tested  in 1979 a nuclear device in the South Atlantic with then-apartheid South Africa.

While this blog would not be adding much to the public knowledge in reiterating  the tens of thousands of reports on Israel’s status as a nuclear power, it is essential that President Obama muster the courage to speak truth to the American people. His response to Ms Thomas was, “I will not speculate,” and glossed over the question. Part of the reason for this lack of candor is Iran. If the United States concedes that Israel is a nuclear-weapons state, it would diminish its argument that Iran, a Muslim state, should not be allowed to develop a fission device. It would render the hypocrisy in attempting to thwart a Muslim bomb in the region while ignoring the fact that a “Jewish” bomb exists. It would reveal the inconsistencies of counterproliferation.

While the Obama administration should be lauded for its tone and willingness to engage in dialogue with Iran, it should seek a nuclear weapons free zone. No nuclear weapons in the Middle East should be U.S. policy. Of course that would antagonise the Israel lobby for daring to concede that Israel must make concessions in bringing peace and stability to the region, but the primary purpose of an American president is to protect the national security of the American people. America’s interests in a denuclearised region are served by reducing horizontal proliferation. With a hectic arms race whereby Muslim states are attempting to match Israel, little is served except continued tension.  I am sure Iran is acutely aware that a non-nuclear Iraq was invaded and that a proto-nuclear state of North Korea was not.

I love his name by the way and when he took the oath of office from the unprepared chief justice, his entire name was used. The New York Times has also used it liberally after his nomination and his electoral victory. President Woodrow Wilson gave a seminal speech during World War I on January 8, 1918 known as the “Fourteen Points Address.” He called for reduction in armaments, an international organisation to resolve interstate rivalries and war, less secrecy in diplomacy (open covenants, openly arrived at) and open access to the seas and trade routes. This is relevant idealism in today’s world of war, power aggrandisement, sadistic realism and utter anarchy.

President T Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) 

http://www.historicaldocuments.com/WoodrowWilson.jpg

1) Quit referring to the middle class all the time and focus on the endemic poverty in America. In particular, the life expectancy gap between whites and African Americans, the income gap and the health insurance gap are monstrous and growing.

2) Declare it is American policy to recognise democratically elected governments such as Hamas in Gaza.

3) Confirm or deny the Los Angeles Times article that torture by other means will be allowed. Extraordinary rendition by the C.I.A. which is nothing more than snatch and grab Muslims and whisk them to a third country is apparently going to continue with your adminitration. I hope you have the qualities of “change” to tell the C.I.A. that their worldwide terrorist network which is much more sophiticated than Al Qaeda will be dismantled.

4) Resist the build up of troops in the creeping Vietnamization of Afghanistan. Tell General David McKiernan that there will be no more surges, no more brigades of death, no more war in that country. American forces will merely go to enclaves to preserve what territory is currently not under the Taliban but aggressive offensive operations will not be tolerated in what is increasingly looking like a war without end in that miserable, poverty-drenched country. It is also destablilising Pakistan as the Taliban are driven east into that country.

5) Reaffirm the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq will be withdrawn in sixteen months as promised. Do not allow yourself to be sucked into the vortez of a permanent military presence in Iraq. Our departure indeed might slow down or cause Iran to consider the value of a rapprocchement with the United States.

6) Spend, spend, spend as much money as you can to end the economic stagnation in America. Recall Keynesian economics: spend, borrow, build public works.

7) Declare an objective of your administration to cover all Americans with health insurance. It is your moral responsibility to do so and it would facilitate the eradication of poverty.

8) Give an official unambiguous apology for slavery.

9) Apologise for the Vietnam War and the deaths of two to three million Vietnamese.

10) Reestablish the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

11) Actively pursue a Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty and cancel N.A.T.O. enlargement and the basing of interceptors and radars in Poland and the Czech Republic.

12) Join the International Criminal Court.

13) Apologise for the atomic genocide in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945.

14) Do not pardon or even think of commuting the sentence of traitor-spy, Jonathan Pollard

I was told by Roger Chapman, the distinguished editor of the Encyclopedia of the Culture Wars, that the original publication date of December 2008 has been extended. Additional entries reflecting the new era of Barack Hussein Obama were being added to the two-volume compendium. I was informed by a library professional staff person at my university that the publisher M.E. Sharpe had indicated August 2009 would be the release date.

Projected to be over 400,000 words in two volumes of text, and illustrated, the Encyclopedia of the Culture Wars  will be published by M.E. Sharpe of Armonk, New York.

I am contributing articles on J. Robert Oppenheimer and Academic Freedom:

http://www.ias.edu/midcom-serveattachmentguid-935ce07342d1f39fe243350321705d90/Oppenheimer_Einstein.jpg

Albert Einstein, whose 1939 letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt triggered the atomic bomb Manhattan Project and Dr Oppenheimer, director of Los Alamos laboratory near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ironically, Dr Einstein was excluded from the Manhattan Project by some who felt he was too independent and too radical. He later became a strong opponent of atomic weaponry.

Beware of groups such as Campus Watch, the David Project, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and occasionally David Horowitz for attempting to move beyond critiquing progressive academicians into pressuring institutions or the public at large to remove or sanction such scholars.

The economic bailout package of the Bush-Obama presidencies is pure Keynesian economics. Yet no one calls it that since the Laffer Curve simplistic macroeconomic nonsense of the Reagan Era which postulated tax cuts ALONE stimulate economic activity and greater revenues. John Maynard Keynes was the true architect of the New Deal, rarely mentioned by historians including the fraudulent, plagiarising, corrupt, faux historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. The British Cambridge-educated economist wrote the seminal General Theroy of Employment, Interest and Money in 1936 which is probably the single most important book in economics since Marx’s Das Kapital.

Only in post-Reagan America would there be fear of describing the great Democratic Socialist’s economic strategy of governmental activism for what it is: The roadmap of the current order. Keynes attempted to put finality on the discredited classical, Smithian world of economic laissez-faire capitalism. Yet he did not wish to eliminate the market, but to manage it. “Market” refers to private economic activity of suppliers, producers and consumers like you and me. Keynes believed that governments must play a pivotal role in transforming market capitalism by regulating and indeed subsituting government capital for private capital in times of economic stagnation.

Keynes believed three major fiscal policies should be applied during depressions. Fiscal policy refers to the tax and spend decisions of a governmental authority.

1) Increase deficit spending: Governments should spend themselves out of depression. When the private sector fails to adequately address issues of employment, then the government must. Balancing budgets and attention to the deficit should become marginalised in importance while economic stagnation is at hand. Governments don’t have credit cards but they issue treasury notes and bonds which pay interest to the lender. That is basically how governments borrow money when in deficit. Issue I.O.U.s to lenders which are governments, central banks, currency speculators and private citizens.

2) Tax reduction: Governments should be smart and not burden a distressed population with more taxes. The Bush plan of tax cuts was actually part Keynesianism if only for the well to do. In times of economic challenges, tax cuts should be widely implemented. Whether Barack Obama will extend the Bush tax cuts through 2010 for incomes above 250,000 or repeal them before then in order “to level the playing field” is unknown. Yet Keynesian economics would reject tax increases during a depressionary cycle of unemployment, decline in industrial activity, credit seized and growing destitution in general.

3) Public Works: If one combines the first two components of Keynesian economic activism, there is inevitably a huge deficit: Increase spending and tax reduction means less money for the treasury and, therefore, growing deficits. A deficit is when income is exceeded by spending. Keynes believed that public works is the best application of fiscal policy. Create jobs, hire the unemployed, pay them. They will spend, create effective demand, stimulate the need for production, reduce the unemployment rate and pump money into the system.

Combined, this triad of welfare-state capitalism is “priming the pump.” This is what is contemplated with a $750 billion minimal stimulus package. So let’s call it what it is. The return of Keynesian economics and a rejection of free-market unregulated capitalism: at least for the short term. If neo-classical economics is dead, I will provide the casket since Keynes provided the shovel and dirt.

Governor Rod Blagojevich has apppointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to Barack Obama’s vacated senate seat on December 30, 2008. A couple of weeks ago I took my car in for service at a dealership on 159th Street in Orland Park, Illinois. Former Attorney General Burris, who I believe would make an excellent United States Senator, was just a few feet from me as we were checking in our cars. My “advisor” as he was test driving my car after repairs told me, “Roland Burris is seeking the Senate seat.” I said I heard that but I wonder if that is possible given the “politiking” going on.

Governor Blagojevich, who has not been indicted or convicted of any criminal misconduct, has a history of making astute political decisions. Giving seniors free riding passes on the Chicago Transit Authority, attempting heroically to cover Illinois children with health insurance and his rather significant effort to purchase Canadian pharmaceuticals at discounted prices.

I think his appointment of Attorney General Burris is quite remarkable. It is his right under the state of Illinois constitution and his way of asserting that political witchunts by the headline-hunting US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and the unseemly campaign to unseat him by Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Lt Governor Pat Quinn will not deter him from his responsibilities. Most thought the governor would eschew making an appointment and that the impeachment proceedings in the Illinois House would cow him into submission. Illinois needs a senator and Roland Burris would be a mainstream Democrat not given to histrionics or sensational pr campaigns such as Represenative Jesse Jackson Jr of the second congressional district or Jan Schakowsky of the ninth congressional district. He is also a historic figure being the first African-American to win statewide office in 1979 when elected comptroller in Illinois.

Also there is no evidence that Chief of Staff-Designate Rahm Emmanuel lobbied for Mr Burris as he did for the other two representatives. In addition there is no evidence that any quid pro quo ever arose between the governor and Mr Burris. Mr Burris is a modest individual, of little pretense and would serve Illinois well in the senate. As an African-American this would insure that a capable minority would represent Illinois and that at least one United States Senator would be representative of that ethnic group.

I think Governor Blagojevich is acting with principle, honour and integrity with this particular action in filling a vacant senate seat in the “Adopted Land of Lincoln.”

Governor Rod Blagojevich proclaimed he had done “nothing wrong” at the James R. Thompson Center office building in Chicago’s Loop on December 19, 2008. Referring to the unseemly campaign of Lt Governor Pat Quinn and Attorney General Lisa Madigan to force him from office, he referred to their shameful “thirty-second sound bites” on “Meet the Press” on December 14. I am pleased he is fighting this inquisition and has the courage NOT to resign under pressure. His vulgarity and lack of popularity appear to be more important to the political elites, than the questionable practices and gratuitous arrest by the United States Attorney for Northern Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald.

While the governor’s wiretapped phone calls are hardly the substance of political greatness, it is always a concern when the government intrudes upon a citizen’s privacy and then releases the information in such a public manner. Big government has a responsibility to use its power with restraint and maturity. This was so egregiously violated in this instance that one may opine that the public interest is indeed enhanced when a defiant governor demands his day in court prior to bending to the will of his politically ambitious enemies to resign or surrender his authority.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

The Democratic governor’s quoting the first verse, except wisely for the last line, of the British poet Rudyard Kipling’s “If” was a clear affirmation of his determination not to be forced from office without the benefit of a trial or an appropriate response in a judicial setting.

                      “If”

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son! 

~Rudyard Kipling

I have argued that the Illinois governor, Rod R. Blagojevich, was set up and not guilty of any crime with regard to his “dispensing” of the vacant senate seat due to the presidential ascension of Barack Obama. David Johnston of the New York Times has written on December 15, 2008 an article also questioning whether actual criminal conduct was committed in his taped phone calls concerning “pay-to-play” schemes with senatorial aspirants.

When an out-of-control U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald uses smoke and mirrors to prosecute a high-profile official, that person is treated under the glare of the klieg lights as if he or she is guilty before proven innocent: a disgraceful and arbitrary method of law enforcement and an example of vigilante, arbitrary justice.

The stench of political blind ambition is spreading. You have the Illinois attorney general, Lisa Madigan, a child of nepotism, of modest legal abilities and perfervid political ambitions, attempting to sack a democratically elected governor through judicial removal. It is clear her motivation is not clean government but the continuation of the “Madigan Dynasty.” Her father Michael Madigan is the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives and the leader of the impeachment movement. This hijacking of a governor’s right to stay in office at least until indictment or conviction is nothing more than a power grab and a ruse for personal ambition. Popularity is not a requirement for continuation in office until the fulfillment of one’s elected term.

Rod R. Blagojevich is one of the most compassionate and creative governors in my state since Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1949-1953) or John Peter Altgeld (1893-1897), who spared by commutation some of the Haymarket Martyrs. As a result of Governor Blagojevich’s leadership, Illinois children are largely insured; because of him seniors ride gratis on the Chicago Transit Authority; he also tried rather heroically to get more affordable Canadian pharmaceuticals to be imported by the state suppliers but was stymied by the criminal Bush administration. He has saved lives in a nation that so gratuitously spills their blood in foreign wars or in emergency rooms as close to 50 million Americans suffer without health insurance. He has stood in solidarity with sit-in workers at the Republic Windows and Doors company displaced from jobs without adequate notification or severance pay. He has suspended all business with Bank of America that withdrew its credit lines for the company.

While he is presumed innocent until proven guilty according to the hyperbolic US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald, I can see that the application of this principle is null and void in this instance. Obviously elected officials should not engage in personal or spousal enrichment through unethical “pay to play” schemes but the hypocrisy in the criminal complaint and the obscene early morning “Entertainment Tonight arrest” at the Chicago home of Governor Blagojevich is unseemly. The FBI stated they did not want to wake up his children yet called him at 600am! The Democratic governor could have merely surrendered himself which is standard operating procedure v. arresting a governor at his home in handcuffs. Please!! This governor saved lives; this governor refused to reinstate the death penalty and continued the courageous moratorium instituted by his grandiose, if morally inconsistent, predecessor, George Ryan.

I am sure the replacement senator for Barack Obama will sell out to American militarism, vote to fund the Iraq War, oppose equal marriage, oppose ending the persecution of gays in the military, oppose a single payer health care system and adopt the smoke and mirrors of the Obama health plan. What difference does it make whether Rod discussed profiting from selling a senate seat or the senator-select becomes another prowar liberal who sells his or her soul to the “vital center?”

Our values should respect those who succor to the poor and weak and not parade these officials before a media inquisition that has essentially convicted him due to talking trash with the f-word and maybe scheming to defraud somebody for the president-elect’s senate seat. Did anyone actually take a bribe? Was one actually offered? Or is the wiretapping of speech leading to trumped up conspiracy charges the US Attorney’s gambit for glory in which possibly no illegal actions were committed?

Governor Blagojevich should be lauded for what he has done for the vulnerable in the state, and since he is supposedly innocent until proven guilty, remains a positive and constructive force for Illinois and its people. Mr George Bush should pardon him prior to his fiefdom’s exeunt on January 20, 2009. Unfortunately, he will probably not pardon or commute the sentence of Governor Ryan given the glare of publicity concerning his successor.

Much has been made about the “insults” and “slurs” directed against Barack Obama by Al Qaeda’s deputy Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, the brilliant Egyptian physician, in a videotape released on November 19. The New York Times described the reference to “house negro” as an “insult” and the Chicago Tribune as “slurs.” The American press also disparaged Malcolm X, who was praised by Dr al-Zawahiri, as a “militant.” I did not see any press accounts that even mentioned that President-elect Obama has threatened to kill Dr Zawahiri and Osama Bin Laden. I would assert that Dr al-Zawahiri exhibited restraint and a more conciliatory approach than Obama. There was no threat directed against the American future president. There was no boasting of capturing or killing the Illinois president-elect. I would aver that an insult directed against an individual in response to a death threat does suggest a less belligerent and hostile attitude. If Obama indeed is willing to speak to our adversaries, then why has he consistently excluded Al Qaeda from that conversation and refreshing diplomatic approach?

In fact, Barack Obama wants to merely transfer the war from Iraq to Afghanistan. While the term “house negro” is unfortunate, I think Dr al-Zawahiri was correct in claiming Mr Obama appears to be adopting the Bush-Clinton approach to the Muslim world. Vice-President Elect Joe Biden and Senator Hillary Clinton voted for the 2002 Authorisation to Use Force resolution in Iraq. Senator Clinton threatened to devastate Iran if it attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. Such murderous and hate-filled speech was not only vicious but also utterly ignorant of key foreign affairs issues. Senator Clinton never mentioned that Israel possesses an enormous nuclear deterrent and that no nation would attack it preemptively with nuclear weapons for fear of a second-strike devastating retaliation.

Yet the racist Hillary Clinton who gloated in the primaries that she gets “the hard-working Americans, the white American” vote and lied about being almost killed in Kosovo at a flower-festooned reception at the airport, is apparently going to become Secretary of State. Twenty-three Senators and 133 members of the House of Representatives voted against the war in Iraq. Why did not President-elect Obama ask one of them to serve as Vice President or Secretary of State or Secretary of “War” or U.N. Ambassador? Where is the peace dividend, that so many of us who supported him initially in the primaries with our financial support and time, hoped would come?

While I have little regard for Al Qaeda due to their use of force and disregard for sparing noncombatants, I do believe President-elect Obama has become captive to the Clinton crowd and the establishment support of Israel that is beyond our geopolitical and national security interests. The crimes against humanity in Gaza and the destruction of the Palestinian people by Israel and the United States is a legitimate concern of Al Qaeda and those who seek justice through PEACEFUL means.

Malcolm X was a great figure. He ultimately did seek reconciliation between Muslims and non-Muslims after he saw white Muslims on his haj to Mecca. He was an advocate of internationalism and bringing people of colour together from all regions of the world. He was not a captive of the vital center in this country that is frozen in hatred of the Arab nation and is intimidated in even acknowledging that Israel has nuclear weapons but is determined to ultimately go to war with Iran that dares to explore and develop nuclear properties and reactors.

Following the November 4, 2008 presidential elections, I offer the following predictions.

I see more militaristic, vulgar Rahm Emanuels and his Machiavellian ilk infecting the hope and change of an Obama administration.

I see a push to the center as they already prepare for 2012 which will confer only modest change in America.

I guarantee that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will not be substantially reduced before 100s more Americans die. If wrong, I will openly admit my error and lack of perspicacity.

I see no change in deployment of missiles and interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic. Senator Obama was disgracefully pandering to militaristic America in the campaign with his denunciations of Russia, knowing full well it was Georgia who tried to settle the South Ossetia question by force and Russia attempted to reverse this naked imperialism.

I see no direct negotiations with adversarial heads of state such as Raul Castro or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il or with Al Qaeda, despite President-Elect Obama’s repeated avowals to do just that–except in the case of the latter.

I see no ending of the blockade against Cuba.

I see no “war” on poverty but merely pandering to the white middle class recognising other ethnic groups are in it.

I am sure the Obama of the Ayers, Khalidi, Hyde Park liberal, community organising days will be sufficiently “liberalised” as to make him virtually indistinguishable from a Senator Chuck Schumer or even worse Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mildly progressive but no war on poverty, no support of gay marriage, no ending of vouchers, continued hate speech against “Middle Eastern oil” and support of the continued genocide by Israel against the Palestinian martyrs in Gaza and West Bank.

At the end of an Obama presidency, the current number of medically uninsured, about 47,000,000, will probably not be reduced by more than 15%-20% of the current total.

I am pleased an African-American is president. I was touched by Congressperson John Lewis and the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson’s emotional response. It was they who did the heavy lifting to make this possible.

I believe America’s military will never allow a significant reduction in budget, weapons systems or personnel. Their wicked monstrosity of empire and racist murder will not confer an easy surrender. So American militarism and Hitlerian arrogance of racial superiority will not be significantly attenuated due to the fragility of civil-military relations in the U.S. I have no “hope” that I can believe in that Barack can stay true to his earlier ideological instincts. He will be too isolated and feted by royalty to truly stick to his promises.

I “HOPE” I am wrong but Reverend Jeremiah Wright was so correct when he “God damned” America for its atomic genocide and racist history. An attack on him was an attack on progressivism which Barack has convinced so many he represents despite a misogynist Larry Summers-fired from Harvard as president although still teaching there-as key economic advisor and possible return as Treasury secretary. Can’t Mr Summers just go quietly into the night?

Unlike the Democrats who seek mere increases in the minimum wage, Ralph Nader, a graduate of the Harvard Law School, demands a living wage in which the basic necessities of life are attainable and not a mere flirtation with escaping poverty. Example, Ralph Nader supports health insurance for all Americans unlike Senators Barack Obama and John McCain who have NO intention of insuring all Americans through a single-payer plan.

It is being reported my advisor at Boston University and academic role model, Dr Howard Zinn, is endorsing Ralph Nader for president of the United States in the 2008 election. He had endorsed Senator Barack Obama but is now urging voters in slam-dunk states to vote for Nader. It appears in toss-up states he is still recommending a vote for the Illinois senator. I also had supported Senator Obama financially and attended fundraisers and participated in numerous foreign-policy network conference calls. I began to have grave misgivings after his selection of Senator Joe Biden who voted for the Iraq War.

Dr Zinn is one of the preeminent historians of the 20th Century in his approach to revisionist history and giving voice to those who lurked in the shadows of consensus historiography: Namely women, African-Americans, union organisers, immigrants, blue-collar workers, antiwar patriots and socialists.

In Illinois, early voting is allowed from October 13, 2008, through October 30, 2008. I voted for the Nader/Gonzales ticket in Illinois on October 28 and was surprised at the numbers of early voters in long lines. While I hope Senator Barack Obama wins the presidency, I could not in good conscience vote for Senator Joe Biden as a result of his prowar vote to Authorise the Use of Force in Iraq in October 2002. Because of his imperialist ambitions, I could not support the Democratic ticket. I did give Senator Obama the maximun allowed under federal election law for the primaries and met him and spoke to him at a fund raiser. I was also on a conference call with him as well during the New Hampshire primary. I also gave a similar amount for the general election but they graciously returned it upon request.

I would have voted for Governor Sarah Palin for vice president due to the liberal and (some conservative savants), savage, misogynist attacks on her that reek of elitism, intolerance and meanness. She is clearly qualified to be vice president, if not president, due to her current status as governor of Alaska but I could not vote for her without voting for Senator John McCain. I revile and loathe him for his Vietnam crimes against humanity and his gratuitous support of Israel and Manichaean vision of the world. Also my trepidation in Senator Joe Lieberman having a senior position of authority such as Secretary of State in a McCain administration gave me pause to support the Republican ticket.

Ralph Nader is one of the pivotal figures in postwar America who has remained relevant and committed to peace and justice, a more open electoral system and a democratic socialism to replace the rapacious greed of American unbridled capitalism. His career as consumer advocate gives him experience and demonstrated judgment that would make him a wonderful president of the U.S. Recognising his position as one of earnest dissenter as opposed to likely candidate to be elected, I would prefer that of the major party candidates, Barack Obama prevail despite his cynical and irresponsible choice of a running mate.

It is being reported my advisor in college, Dr Howard Zinn, is endorsing Ralph Nader. He had endorsed Senator Barack Obama but is now urging voters in non-slam

http://english.sxu.edu/sites/kirstein/?p=5

The following are candidates for president and vice president of the hyperpower imperialistic American empire that will appear on Illinois ballots for the November 4, 2008 “election.” Illinois which has one of the more restrictive, ELITIST ballot access procedures, has finally allowed easier access to dissenting, creative candidates who are not part of the Democratic-Republican duopoly. In 2004 Ralph Nader was only listed as a pre-approved write-in; now he is on the ballot.

Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez (Independent) – Ballot No. 7

Barack Obama and Joe Biden (Democrats) – Ballot No. 1 Senator Biden voted for the Authorisation to Use Force Resolution in Iraq in October 2002 who asks god only to protect “American troops” as if the children slaughtered by U.S. imperialist forces are mere detritus. He should be arrested for his vote and the resulting mass murder he so ardently advocated.

John McCain and Sarah Palin (Republicans) – Ballot No. 2 Senator John McCain flew an airplane repeatedly over North Vietnam and dropped bombs on a nation that was not a threat to the United States. While he appropriately served some time for his crimes as a prisoner of war, he is not a hero but a coward who bombed high in the air over a country that did not even have an air force. Does he not feel guilt for bombing innocents below? Does he not put humans first and NOT “Country First” when the latter emulates Nazi Germany in its crimes against humanity.

Cynthia McKinney & Rosa Clemente (Green) – Ballot No. 3 Both are minority women.

Bob Barr and Wayne A. Root (Libertarians) – Ballot No. 4

John Joseph Polachek and No Candidate – Ballot No. 5

Charles O. Baldwin and Darrell L. Castle (Constitution) – Ballot No. 6

Source: http://chicago.about.com/od/governmentandmedia/a/BallotPresident.htm

217. October 27, 2008 3:22 pm

On the Campaign

Second-Guessing the Palin Pick

A big question inside and outside the McCain campaign is whether the senator would be in a better position had he not chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate…

245. October 27, 2008 3:22 pm

At the Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C.

PNK: Thank you sir for meeting with me here. Allow me to begin in a provocative manner. Mr Bush are you a war criminal?

GWB: This is irresponsible. I am attempting to defend the free world from Islamic fundamentalism and will until I leave office on January 20, 2009. How can you, a professor, ask such an egregious question?

PNK: Mr Bush do you endorse the use of torture and a never ending war in Iraq?

GWB: You are a disgrace. I agreed to give you an interview in an effort to reach out to the academic community and you come up with these questions. The U.S. does not torture. The U.S. is in accord with international law. We understand our obligations under the Geneva Conventions. We are the model and leader of the free world. The surge in Iraq was successful and the country is stable and in good order. Casualties are down substantially and I am not leaving my successor a major shooting war in Iraq.

PNK: Did you not resist the McCain Amendment to prohibit, “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” of POW. You voted for him by absentee ballot so I assume you support most of his views. He does yours; at least he did before his polling data began to plummet. Also you are leaving your successor 160,000 troops in Iraq, a government that is a puppet in terms of its survival dependency on U.S. forces, a lack of consensus on the use of oil revenues, power sharing and even a status of forces agreement.

GWB: Hold on fella. We were concerned that C.I.A. operatives who were trying to prevent perhaps an immiment attack, be allowed appropriate means of inducing information. No one tortures for the U.S. and if they do, they are prosecuted. Also counterinsurgency is not microwave; it takes awhile and nervous nellies like you are always eager to disengage even when vital interests are at stake.

PNK: Some believe that the claims that President Hussein…

GWB: Former president please.

PNK: We use the title of president and senator and governor for those who previously served in that capacity, but to please you sir, “former” President Saddam Hussein you charged had weapons of mass destruction. He did not. Do you feel any remorse in starting a war on an assumption that proved to be false?

GWB: Professor, as you know, presidents do not independently verify intelligence. We received intelligence that we operated on and it was wrong. Pure and simple.

PNK: But 4,187 Americans have been killed; 125,000-250,000 Iraqis have died for a war that was fought for the wrong reasons. Are you not a war criminal or if you prefer an incompetent leader who went to war against the wishes of the international community for reasons that proved to be utterly false? Should you not be arrested or at least removed from office for such a monumental blunder if not intentional effort at deception?

GWB: Let me tell you something Professor Kirstein and all your leftist friends. We overthrew a dictator. We regime changed an animal. We know and have no doubt that Saddam was sympathetic to Al Qaeda, had contacts with Al Qaeda, and was a growing and gathering threat.

PNK: Mr Bush…

GWB: Let me finish! I am the president of the United States and had we not replaced the Baathist government, he would have been a supporter and an enabler of more Al Qaeda operations. 3000 people died on Sept. 11! Maybe you don’t care but I do sir.

PNK: Both the 911 Commission and every independent analysis has concluded that President Hussein, ok, “former” President Saddam Hussein was not involved in the 911 attacks; was not a meaningful or significant ally of Al Qaeda and that claims that Saddam was supporting terrorism, as you call it, were false.

GWB: I know who you are. You were suspended for condemning the military for using “baby killing tactics of collateral damage.” You were reprimanded for denouncing our military–our men and women who fight so you can be free. Free from censorship, free to say whatever you wish! I like the way you say, “as you call it,” when referring to terrorism. I understand people like you are not overly concerned about protecting America from terrorists. I am not questioning your loyalty but you insult me with your casual use of the term.

PNK: Mr Bush, the term “terrorism” some believe sir is used as a means to dehumanise the “enemy” and as a gratuitous effort to deny the legitimacy of any group that opposes US or Israeli foreign policy. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are labeled “terrorist” and Israeli policies of assassinations, settlement expansions in the West Bank, Golan, wanton destruction of housing, concentration-camp barrier construction, refusal to recognise the Palestinian right to a homeland is never condemned. Iran’s nuclear programme is construed as unacceptable and Israeli’s status as a nuclear weapons state is ignored by my country. Some believe that your use of military force is terrorism. Your destruction of Falluja was terrorism. The sanctions against Iraq were terrorism. The use of white phosphorous weapons are terrorism. The bombing of civilian population centers is terrorism. Abu Ghraib was terrorism. Bagram torture in Afghanistan was terrorism. Shock and awe was terrorism. Guantánamo crimes in that gulag are terrorism.

GWB: Are you here to get an interview or a supporter of Barack Obama? I wonder sir if your students are subjected to this reasoning? I wonder if you are even capable of discerning between rhetoric and reality? We are in a war against savage Islamic Jihadists and on my watch we will do everything we can to kill and capture them.

PNK: “Kill and capture them.” Shouldn’t presidents be a better role model? Killing people is wrong isn’t it? Could you imagine Dr King speaking like this–advocating the killing of humans? Don’t you think of the children who listen to this and grow up to be the next carriers of ethnocentrism and violent nationalism? Can’t we move from war to peace? Can we tone down the rhetoric of empire and live creatively with each other? “Kill and capture.” I am not pleased at this level of discourse.

GWB: Professor Kirstein, I have one more thing to say. It was people like you that caused our defeat in Vietnam. People like you who undermined the president’s capacity to wage war against the communists in North Vietnam. Again, you are entitled to your opinion but the left in this country is soft on security, unwilling to recognise the realities of international power and I believe are not helpful to the United States. I am responsible for defending this country and will do everything in my power to do so for the next three months of my term.

PNK: During Vietnam, many allege you shirked your duties when in the Air National Guard and kinda dropped out of sight if not worse. You may wish to compare your military record with mine Mr Bush. But I assume when you say “everything in my power,” that includes illegal spying on Americans by the N.S.A. (Ed: National Security Agency) without a court warrant as required under F.I.S.A. (Ed: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and holding American citizens incommunicado without counsel or a writ of habeas corpus. I thank you for your time Mr Bush. I wish you peace.

GWB: I wish we had less professors like you giving aid and comfort to the enemy. It would make my job a lot easier. Good day and I hope your students learn a lot in your classes!!

PNK: Oh they do sir. They are free because I am free and I declare that and dare anyone ever again to violate my rights. Thanks again Mr Bush.

[This was a notional interview.]

Some of the REAL maverick’s views on public policy.

Ralph Nader:

Because he is the only presidential candidate who supports:

• Health Care that’s Truly Universal
• Actual Campaign Finance Reform
• Sound Financial Policies (Including the Abolition of the Income Tax for those Earning Under 50k a Year)
• An End to the Iraq War and the Foreign Policy that Brought it About. Why did Senator Barack Obama, who parlayed his 2002 opposition to the Iraq war as his primary issue in defeating the prowar, militarist Senator Hillary Clinton, then cynically select Joe Biden who also voted for the Iraq war? Inquiring minds want to know.
• An End to the Corporate Strangle Hold on US Politics.

So there’s the issues. There’s that.

But beyond even that, you need to donate to the Nader campaign today because he is the only candidate capable of broadening the discussion and actually governing.

Not just running for office while in office, but actually governing. Showing up every day, trying to make people’s lives better.

What’s at Stake:

Q: If on your first day in office as president, you had one trillion dollars to spend, what would be your priorities?

A: [My priorities would be]:
1. I’d rebuild public works – all those things underground. Mass transit and public transit should be built in city after city.
2. I’d do more to abolish child poverty.
3. I’d upgrade preventive health care.

That’s what’s on the table:

• Food
• Health
• and Infrastructure

Those are the stakes. Those are the stakes, and the system’s broken.

Help us fix it.

The person with the blue shirt–#187 over a Chicago Cubs logo– and black cap-ExxonMobil–{I got it free from robber barons} is Peter N. Kirstein running next to a virtual ”Ms Illinois” in the red shirt. I ran a comeback personal best, breaking my previous effort a year ago by 1m 35sec even though my training was interrupted for months with an unexpected medical condition. I am not satisfied with my lousy time but I know what I did in previous years would have placed me easily in the top twenty-five.

Having not run competitively since I was injured running in Amsterdam in 1990–I tripped and sprained my ankle and almost fell in a canal–I guess I should be somewhat satisfied with my recrudescence. At Boston University in my junior year I received an “Athlete of the Year” plaque from my fraternity as we had a very good intramural athletic programme of basketball, touch football and fastpitch softball. Hey, it’s my blog and if I want to indulge in athletic moments, so be it. Not everything has to be about “politics” and “academic freedom”–or the lack thereof as we resist the forces of suspension, persecution and Procrustean conformity. :-)

Which Vietnam vet John McCain and the plagiarist Joe Biden so ardently support.

http://www.zombietime.com/us_out_of_iraq_now_sf_3-18-2007/IMG_2515.JPG

I think it ironic that the charge of incompetence and lack of preparation in being able to assume the august position of vice president is solely aimed at the charming Republican Governor  of Alaska, Sarah Palin. While she would not have been my choice, probably Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, should have been selected by Arizona Senator John McCain, Vietnam war criminal. I think Senator Joseph R. Biden, Democrat of Delaware, is even less competent and qualified to serve as vice president of the United States.

This warmonger voted for the Iraq War in October 2002 which was the single most important foreign policy issue of his Senatorial career. He thought there were weapons of mass destruction. He thought murder and invasion were necessary to replace a feckless President Saddam Hussein. Senator Biden’s lack of judgment in authorising Mr Bush to go to war has led to the deaths of 4,176 Americans, roughly 30,000 injured and perhaps 100,000s of Iraqi deaths. It has bankrupted the country, destroyed our reputation in the world, and was an act of Hitlerian aggression similar to the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 and the Low Countries in Spring 1940.

I find it deeply disturbing that Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, who campaigned as an anti-Iraq War peace candidate versus the militant, prowar Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, would then select as his own vice-presidential running mate, a senator who voted for the war. If Senator Obama were truly opposed to the Iraq War, the defining issue of our time, he would have  chosen an antiwar Democrat who shared his prescience and loathing of war. Senator Biden demonstrated incompetence, meanness and a willingness to gratuitously use military force with immoral insouciance and ethical failings.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, supported the criminalisation of flag desecration by supporting what would be the Twenty-Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. She is considered a major player in the Democratic Party; the fawning press is mesmerised by her monotone gravitas. She is adored, respected and indeed her D.C. home was used for a secret encounter between the flip-flopping prowar? Illinois Senator Barack Obama and the racist, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York. ["Hard working Americans, white Americans," vote for me dear superdelegates.] Senator Feinstein is a threat to America and a vile and reprehensible figure ensconced in her bubble of power and privilege with vast millions and numerous homes. I can well understand why she wants to censor and silence those who challenge the system and the core values of a nation from which she has so profited.

I have never burned the American flag but would not hesitate to do so if it were banned by constitutional amendement. Unlikely with a Democratic majority but a possibility nonetheless. Yet when the Republicans controlled the Senate, Senator Feinstein, with cowardice and shame, voted to amend the Constitution to eviscerate the First Amendment and carve out an egregious taboo on protected speech. The flag is not a sacred symbol for me. It does not represent a positive, progressive, nationalistic ideal. It symbolises Jim Crow, war, greed, colonialism, poverty, genocide and millions of sick Americans who are not provided health care.

We need to deemphasise the sacredness of nation-state and develop a greater sense of planetary solidarity. Love of country unfortunately has created a terrorist democracy that uses war as its pretext for defining its greatness. Until that is shattered, there must be sustained resolve to dissent and protest. Otherwise, one is merely surrendering to autocracy and an ultra-nationalist, ethnocentrism.

Flag desecration is a legitimate and non-violent form of disobedience. People have died to protect that right or so we are told. Senator Feinstein, you cannot take away this precious right: To burn, tear or bespatter a flag in protest must survive assaults on protected speech in our putative democracy.

What does Hillary want is the new refrain as she delayed her endorsement of Senator Barack Obama? Now speculation is centering on what her future role will be as the putative pioneer for women’s breakage of the Oval Office glass ceiling: Supreme Court Associate Justice, vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket, majority leader of the Senate?  

It is true that Senator Clinton came the closest to being nominated by a major political party and perhaps subsequent opportunities for women to seek the presidency will be easier.  However, one should not forget Senator Margaret Chase Smith, Republican of Maine, who ran in 1964 in many primaries and received twenty-seven delegates at the frenetic, raucous GOP convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. In the Illinois primary she received 206,000 votes and 26% of the total vote! In some ways she is more of a pioneer and pathbreaker than was Mrs. Clinton. Senator Clinton is not the kind of woman I want to see as the political leader of American women or as a role model for subsequent women seeking higher office.

A) She is a warmonger, a vicious killer without conscience or affect. She voted for a barbaric, inhumane, unjust war in Iraq in October 2002. She is not qualified to lead but to be condemned for what she is: a person with blind ambition who supports mass murder to advance her political machinations.

B) Her stand on abortion was beginning to unravel as she initially emphasised prevention, reducing and finding alternative strategies for reproduction. I am not condemning that but I know she was beginning to play the bubba card and seek approval from the center-right abortion is ok, but really objectionable crowd. That is why NARAL Pro Choice America courageously endorsed the Illinois senator. They knew she would throw away women’s rights in a heartbeat if she thought it would advance her political ambitions. They knew this is not a person with values and commitment but merely a Machiavellian pursuit of power and influence.

C) I don’t want a woman as role model for other women who is a racist. Senator Clinton is a racist and there is no need to be diplomatic or imprecise here. She is a virulent racist who is the first candidate that I can recall who openly used her skin colour to advance her career. Her argument to the Superdelegates to bypass the democratic, if not the Democratic process, and anoint her as candidate due to her capacity to appeal to ”hard working Americans, white Americans” should have driven her out of the Democratic party. Such a statement will not be forgotten by me and will be used as a constant reminder that Senator Clinton is a vile individual, without moral compass and is unscrupulous.

D) She is also a liar that is a quality that I don’t think “hard working Americans, white Americans” wish to emulate. Her constant invention of being fired upon in 1996 by snipers as she landed in Tusla, Bosnia with her daughter Chelsea after the civil wars there was obscene. Here we have a pampered, multimillionaire, surrounded by Secret Service who perhaps has not driven a car for decades due to her privileged status as Arkansas First Lady, U.S. First Lady and now senator from New York since 2001, using her “I am a male too you know” tough guy proof that she has been in combat as it were. On three occasions, she mentioned this sniper fire incident on the tarmac which video demonstrated was a lie. She was greeted by a young child with flowers and walked with her daugher ever so slowly across a tarmac. It was a reception not a bunker that she graced with her presence.

E) Father Michael Pfleger had it about right. There is a sense of white entitlement to this person that is most objectionable. She did believe she had the right to the Democratic nomination due to her “name” and privileged position in the party. She did resent the race of Senator Obama and as Geraldine Ferraro, another race baiter Democrat, began to play and feel the white resentment game of reverse discrimination. “Well, these blacks are getting where they are only because they are black, you know. Well Barack won South Carolina as did Jesse Jackson you know, because you know they are all black.” President Bill Clinton made a reference quite similar in substance if not in actual rhetoric to my invented quotation.

Senator Clinton I have no respect for you but only loathing. I can think of many women who are qualified to be president but you are not one of them. If you are on the ballot as vice president, I will look to see if Ron Paul’s or Bob Barr’s name is on a third-party here in Illiniois. Dr Paul voted against the war and wants to remove our troops from Europe and Korea as well. I may very well vote for  Ralph Nader. Mrs. Rodham Clinton, you do not represent progress or the advancement of womyn’s rights but more war, more dishonour, more selfish nationalism and more disinterest in the sufferings of real Americans.

Two ideological confrere. I am certain Senator Clinton will vote for the Vietnam war criminal, John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who initially opposed the Martin Luther King Jr national holiday. Why not run with him?

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton ran a campaign that disgraced the nation and hopefully will shame her reputation and drive her permanently off the national stage. Her vote for the Iraq War was a politically calculated move either to pacify the Israel lobby and Jewish voters in New York-although many Jews opposed the war-or to Thatcherise herself for a pending presidential run. I believe this action more than anything else destroyed her prospects for winning the Democratic party nomination. It allowed Senator Barack Obama to register quite poignantly the issue of change to a war-weary public.

Senator Clinton’s declaratory policy of destroying Iran’s civilian population if the nation were to attack Israel-a major nuclear power-with atomic weaponry was utterly gratuitous and shameful. Such a threat debased her claim to moral authority, revealed her lack of judgment in major national security matters and linked her lack of vision to the traditional themes of empire, war, American exceptionalism and indiscriminate use of force.

Her racist remarks and that of her husband, President Bill Clinton, were not what one would have anticipated from a Democratic candidate much less from the first “black president.” I have never heard a candidate directly appeal to white voters even though there have been candidates and presidents less inclined to promote racial harmony than the New York senator. Her comment that she deserved the nomination because only she could attract the “hard-working Americans, white Americans” was an appeal to our worst tendencies: that her race, as opposed to her opponent’s, could be leveraged for political purposes and used by the superdelegates to annoint her as their presidential candidate.

Her refusal to drop out of the race even as she lost the majority of the pledged delegates revealed the hypocrisy of her purported “populism.” Her beer and a chaser photo-ops and supposed champion of rural, Appalachian, “hard working” European Americans apparently did not extend to Demcratic Party voters who had sealed the nomination for Senator Obama after the Indiana and North Carolina primary evening. She then appealed to the elites–the elected officials and Democratic party hacks–who gave us this inchoate and unruly electoral process to choose her over Senator Obama despite his electoral victory in the primaries and caucuses. Her claim of having an electoral-vote majority was equally dishonest in that she counted Michigan where Senator Obama, in playing by the rules, decided not to have his name on the ballot. She left hers on although she did not campaign in the breakaway state that scheduled its primary before Super Tuesday (Feburary 5, 2008).

She does not need sympathy. She does not need to be coddled. What I saw in her New York speech the day Senator Obama secured the nomination on June 3 is proof of that. No concession, a continuous campaign, scant praise for the senator from Illinois who defeated her in an epic primary marathon. I believe the Democrats would lose with her on the ticket–both their moral authority and the election. An African-American and a woman cannot win in this country and on that point I do not err. Senator Obama must select a progressive white male or he will lose. If he must select a woman, there are several who do not have the stain of militarism, dishonour and racism on their political and moral reputation. Examples would be the fresh face of a Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri or a governor such as Kathleen Sibelius of Kansas. If he needed a more experienced woman as his running mate, he could indeed consider one of Maine’s two Republcian senators–Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins. Their vote for war is egregious but perhaps a pragmatic choice to get Sen. Obama into the White House. In any case he need not select such an unworthy and polarising figure such as Senator Clinton.

Number of delegates Senator Obama needs to secure the nomination: 62

Including the projected 31 delegates Senator Obama won in Oregon, the 14 the antiwar candidate won in Kentucky and the support of superdelegate Congressperson Joe Courtney, Democrat of Connecticut 2nd congressional district, that was announced this morning, the Illinois senator has now won a majority of pledged delegates and is just 62 delegates away from securing the nomination.

The Math

Total Pledged Delegates from Primaries and Caucuses: 3,253

Pledged Delegates needed for majority: 1,627

Total delegates needed for nomination: 2026

Pledged delegate projections from May 20 primaries:

Oregon: Obama 31, Clinton 21

Kentucky: Clinton 37,  Obama 14,

Senator John Edwards’s pledged delegates now supporting Obama: 9

Obama Pledged Delegates: 1,647.5 (20.5 more than needed for the majority)

Obama Superdelegates: 307.5

Obama Total Delegates: 1,964 

For various reasons, the defeat of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination is being cast as a defeat for women: an Oval Office glass ceiling. Indeed there may have been voters who could not have supported a woman for president but I imagine her gender was more of an asset than a liability–not to mention her Clinton brand prior to its tarnish. Her defeat for the presidential nomination was due to her policies, racism and utter lack of ethical compass, not to mention an amateurish bunch of campaign managers who ignored caucus states as the pledged delegate pool mounted for Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois.

I have voted for several women for president over the years from Angela Davis to Shirley Chisholm and rooted for Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder. Hillary Clinton, however, is the least qualified of any woman candidate I have seen campaign for the presidency. She is a warmonger which means she relishes and enjoys sending young Americans to die for the hyperpower and kill innocents abroad. Her cynical vote for the Iraq War and threat to wipe Iran off the map through a nuclear exchange are beneath contempt. This is emblematic of a violent woman whose hatred of Muslims and those who dare resist Isreali apartheid and extermination is out of control. To think that the Democratic Party would nominate its second prowar candidate since the inception of the Iraq War would utterly eviscerate the party and render it as indistinguishable from its duopolistic Republican brethren (sisters too).

The racism of Hillary Clinton is similar to the racist motif of Harry Dent’s Southern Strategy and its refinement with Lee Atwater during the Reagan Era appeal to lower income, rural white voters. Senator Clinton’s appeal to superdelegates to vote for her because she appeals to working-class whites is racist and abominable. To claim, through her husband, that Senator Obama’s victory in South Carolina was due only to race and that his candidacy was racially focused as that of Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson was racist. The constant gratuitous repetition in the debates that Senator Obama was the “African-American candidate” and she was the “woman” candidate I think was a trick to highlight his blackness to drive white voters away. It was not a celebration of diversity but a ruse to sharpen the fact that a white-establishment conservative woman as president could protect children at 3:00 in the morning but a young, humanistic, Afro-American male could not. I think the 3:00 A.M. politcial advertisement that ran in Texas and elsewhere was racist. She deserves not our sympathy for her defeat but this unscrupulous multi-millionaire merits our condemnation for her anything-to-get-elected strategy.

Her foreign policy is identical to Senator John McCain, the Republican presumptive presidential nominee: narrow nationalism over international peace and security; mass murder through American nuclear bombast and not denuclearisation; a vote for the Iraq War; the preference to use American military power over diplomacy and constructive engagement.

My only hope is that Senator Obama will not invite this failed, cyncial, amoral and imperialistic senator to run as vice president. I simply could not vote for an individual who has never apologised much less conceded the outrage of having voted “with conviction” in October 2002 to destroy and desiccate a little country in the Middle East–Iraq. Shame on her and may the New York senator finally disappear from the nation’s headlines and news and perhaps atone for her immorality and lack of respect for non-white peoples from presidential candidates to Muslim people striving to be free from the yoke of Western colonialism and apartheid.

Nota bene: Even N.A.R.A.L. Pro-Choice America , the leading women’s organisation in the country, that is not blinded by narrow gender politics (pace N.O.W.), endorsed Senator Obama because of his consistent support for women’s reproductive freedoms including the right not to have children. One could hardly claim that N.A.R.A.L. is sexist or anti-woman.