Myth Taken Politics

Dismantling Our Democracy and the Rule of Law

The allegation of a "liberal" bias in journalism is a based on a misunderstanding of journalism. Journalism can be serious, not so serious or deceptive. Serious journalism is designed to bring to the public issues that matter in ways that allows the public to draw their own opinions and influence their society. Sometimes serious news is uncomfortable to those in power, sometimes it is uncomfortable for the public, but discomforting news is not by its nature biased against its subjects. It is easy to confuse the critical thinking necessary for producing serious news with bias, but the two are fundamentally different. What makes it serious is if it is important or significant, well written, well researched, well documented and novel (not just history).
So I was heartened to see several examples of serious journalism in the Washington Post today that the public might find uncomfortable. Several articles, if taken together, paint an ominous portrait of our society and its decline into an undemocratic and unruly form of government. We should consider well this news, and then as responsible citizens make decisions based on them to help (assuming you prefer democracy and a true rule of law) keep our society from destroying itself.
Below are a list of the articles and a description of the issues they raise:

Blame the Victim

Hmmmm. The Social Security law states that money be spent putting the onus onto the government to come up with the money. The President wants to shift the funds from this protected by program into "personal" accounts. Then when the market turns down as it does periodically, the Social Security safety net will no longer protect citizens. Under the current Social Security system any threat of lack of funds would be met by calls for government reform and outrage at mismanagement. Under the President's plan the same threat of lack of funds the calls for better management would be softer and mainly from those crushed by an unfeeling market. Those that are years away from retirement will be hopeful of a market recovery and support subsidizing corporations to prop the market up, and those that "mistakenly" placed their faith in the "scientifically" proven market returns will be chided for their stupidity. The point of personal accounts is to shift the blame from our government and our society to the individuals who are blamed for circumstances usually beyond their control. Shame, shame and more shame on the greedy who perpetuate the lie of personal choice in our interdependent society.* (read the following story by Pete Seeger)

A Rhetoric of Life

I will not fault politicians from scoring points by latching on to a cause celebre. But what irks me  about the Sunday late night session to reinstate the feeding tube of a person who is either alert and possesses cognitive powers or is essentially brain dead is the bitter irony. Many of the same people who claim to support this one life battle day and night to risk millions of other lives at the foot of the almighty dollar. Who speaks for the uninsured millions in our country whose life and death choices fall on deaf ears in those hallowed chambers? Why do most of these same pontificators stand mute on child poverty? How can such hollow words of concern ring true as thousands breath polluted air and drink poisoned water unprotected by crippled environmental laws? When will the light shine on these shallow men whom we have entrusted our lives to, but to whom we are little more than worthless pennies? What shall we do beside shed tears for their silent victims?

Peter Glossing Over Torture

"I am not able to tell you that." In plain English that meant that CIA head and former Intelligence Committee Chair, Peter Goss, has reason to believe that United States tortured people being held in American custody. He should have used the plain English. Instead we get horrifying gibberish, designed to gloss over the truth.

"As I said publicly before, and I know for a fact, that torture is not - it's not productive," Mr. Goss said. "That's not professional interrogation. We don't do torture."

The argument that torture is not a productive source of intelligence is a non sequitur. The statement implies that the sole role of the "interrogators" was to gain intelligence, which is debatable. My logic would entail determining what took place, then later discern the intent. And claiming that "we don't torture" rings hollow in the face of the prior "I am not able to tell you that." The methods that I have heard of taking place in the official record and those that have been asserted by past detainees sound like torture to me. I wish that a truly independent prosecutor could look into these apparent crimes.

Of course, brutalizing people is not a good way to treat anyone for any reason. But the "interrogation" techniques are not designed like medical procedures, where care is taken to avoid danger and side effects. Worst case scenario for the modern day Torquemada's is that the prisoner is injured or killed, which probably seems like fair play for self-righteous American interrogators. It has been a dangerous experiment to allow U.S. officials to have the leeway to use any physical force, mental cruelty or humiliation unrelated to the suspected crimes (like smearing fake menstrual blood on prisoners).

Peter Goss was not held in a "stress" position in the chair he sat in before the congressional committee. That would have been torturous. I doubt he would have been any more forthcoming. But those that he is protecting should be liable for criminal prosecution.

Potemkin Town Hall Meetings

With the polls indicating support for the Bush plan (or sort of an idea, but not actual legislation) on Social Security dropping fast, the campaign is back on the road. In each village, the advance folks cook up a fake town hall meeting (fake in that it is based on invitations of predominantly supporters as opposed to what a town hall meeting is). The Potemkin Village approach is supposed to help gain support for the plan. May be people will be fooled by the accounts of these "meetings" although surely it must be pretty obvious that the questions are rigged.

But even outside of those echo chambers of positive thoughts there are some aspects of the plan that do not seem to come up. I will list a few that I feel are important, but realize do not fit into the "game plan" of defeating the Bush plan. First the Bush plan is designed to be overly bureaucratic and stilted. Unlike their rhetoric, the plan is to make it hard for individuals to invest money in stock the way they might want, the ability to use the money is heavily restricted and the opportunity to vote the stock is completely verboten. Although Democrats are unlikely to bring up these points, perhaps because it might sound like an endorsement of private accounts, it is crucial to understand the plan in these terms. Republicans seem to like to destroy and/or support government entitlements by creating huge bureaucracies and red tape. Look at the unnecessary complexity of the Medicare drug benefit system.

I am trying to understand what leads them to propose bizarre plans. It is as if they do not believe that government can be efficient or good, so they prove it by purposely making it bad and inefficient. This is only a theory to explain their behavior. Perhaps it is part of crafty way to "prove" to citizens that government is always a bad solution. I can not figure it out. Nor can I figure out why opponents of the plan do not even discuss these aspects of the Bush plan. The absurdities of myths are very hard to perceive from those whose debates are framed by them.