On Jan. 19, 1992 Bill Clinton said,

“I want to make it very clear that this middle-class tax cut, in my view, is central to any attempt we’re going to make to have a short-term economic strategy.”

On Jan. 14, 1993 at a press conference, Bill Clinton said,

“From New Hampshire forward, for reasons that absolutely mystified me, the press thought the most important issue in the race was the middle-class tax cut. I never did meet any voter who thought that.”

Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign was the last time he ever talked about a middle class tax cut. Ever. I notice now that Hillary Clinton is promising a middle class tax cut. Two possibilities: 1) she means to make good on her husband’s broken promise, or 2) she’s merely borrowing his strategy.

Will Hillary pull a Lieberman on us and run a third party ticket? At first blush, the answer is obviously no, but as I thought about it, about her rabid supporters who don’t know squat about her stands on issues, about her own quixotic refusal to bow to reality, about her flaming ambition, I thought maybe … just maybe.

She’s a Clinton. She’ll do anything.

This brings up the obvious question – I supported Ralph Nader in 2000 against conservative Democrats Al Gore and Joe Lieberman. Isn’t it the same? Wasn’t Ralph just an egotist?

Well, no, not quite. Ralph was doing something that Democrats just don’t seem to understand – he was trying to bargain with the right wing of his party, to take his small cadre of supporters and leverage them to force the hand of Gore – to make him take leadership on liberal causes. Nader had ten planks in his platform – had Gore chosen to take leadership on just one … Gore was stubborn to then end. I think it was his ego made him so …

Hillary is different. She’s not about principled stands on issues. She and Obama differ very little on anything – a fact overlooked my most Democrats. (They could be triangulatin’ on us again.) What is Hillary’s ’cause’? What does she believe in? She’s taken more money from the health care sector than any candidate of either party, so she ain’t about fixing health care. She voted for the war in Iraq, even as contrary facts were available to her … if only she could listen to dissent. She now claims it was a mistake … what else is she going to say when the public says it was a mistake? But does she mean it? She was very much behind NAFTA when she was First Lady, now says she opposed it. Convenience store politics, anyone? Her support of NAFTA has been marked down! A sale! A sale!

Oh, I know the Democratic mantra – I’ll chant along with you. Yeah, she’s not all that, but ‘marginally’, she’s better…’marginally’, hummmmmm …she’s better…hummmm … ‘marginally’, she’s better…’marginally’ …. Some have said to me that I just don’t understand politics – that you have to work in increments, take small victories. You can’t win big. Oh, I get all of that, and I would vote for Hillary for one reason only – she would likely appoint pro-abortion judges. That’s a marginal point.

Point is, I don’t trust her. I know I’m conflating two personalities, but I don’t trust her husband either. I’ll never forget that he wanted to privatize Social Security, that he was working behind the scenes to make that happen. I’ll never forget his starving of 500,000 Iraqi kids, of his eight years of bombardment and harassment of people in that country.

I was deeply involved in environmental causes back when he was president. There was a bill before the congress called “salvage logging” (since renamed “Healthy Forests”). It was an attempt by the logging barons to get into roadless lands they previously had not been able to access. It was bad policy run through a public relations firm, as most initiatives are. Clinton was against it. He unified us, he had us all in one place … “not gonna sign it….not gonna sign it … not gonna sign it …” – the bastard signed it. The environmental community was up in arms – I think it was this, and his sellout on northern spotted owl lands (done incrementally … step by step…) and the sellout to Charles Hurwitz in California (with critical support from Diane Feinstein) that convinced Clinton that he had better do something glitzy to pacify environmentalists, who were not trusting him anymore.

He came up with some form to hide his ugly substance – he decided to take some marginal issues and make them his cause celebre – we got monuments. Gutted forests, and monuments on marginal lands. Oh, and before he left office, he lowered the arsenic standard for drinking water, probably knowing full well that Bush would reverse him. (He did.) And he attempted to protect roadless lands, knowing full well that Bush would reverse him. (He did.) He had eight years to do these things, and decided to cram it all into his last few months. Symbolism, anyone? False leadership? Manipulation?

That’s how Democrats work. They need our support, but they can’t give us substance. But they are clever. They know how to manipulate. Clinton was at best, at best, a moderate Republican. I look at his Iraq record, his unprovoked attack on Serbia, and I say he was a rabid right winger on foreign policy. But give him the benefit. A moderate Republican.

Now comes Hillary. What’s different? Has she led on any progressive issues? Well, one thing – she wants to corporatize the health care system and expand private insurance which is at the heart of the problem, and this is passing for reform. When we needed her on Iraq, where was she? When we needed leadership to block bad judges, did she do more than vote? Did she rally her fellows, form a voting bloc, put up stiff resistance? Did she lead? She could have stopped Alito – dynamic leaders do ths – they make deals, inspire, form coalitions. They do more than cast symbolic votes.

Nah – she voted no, made a nice little speech – she totally Baucused on us.

And that’s my problem with Hillary. She’s not about coalitions, or organizing, or taking public opinion and making it into a political force. She’s about Hillary. Period. And if she’s anything like her husband, there will be that incremental progress that Democrats love to brag about. The only problem is that it will be for the other side. She’s not one of us. She’s a faux-liberal, a crypto-conservative.

Will she run a third party candidacy? Not likely, but I wouldn’t put it past her. I wouldn’t put anything past her.

Paranoia strikes deep… into your life it will creep. It starts when you’re always afraid. Step out of line the men come and take you away. (Stephen Stills, “For What It’s Worth”)

I am a limited observer of current events and recent history. I suspect that what is going on now has always been going on. Americans have since our country’s founding made evil demons out of ordinary people. They do this to inflame our population. Demons are a convenient cover for our often mendacious and business-oriented foreign and domestic policies.

The lyrics above were written in the 1960’s, when police were breathing down the necks of protesters, who, of course, wanted to overthrow our government and bring in the North Vietnamese. In the 1950’s through 1989, Russia was on everyone’s mind. They were an evil empire. No matter who we attacked, it was because of the Russians.

Before we could attack Iraq in 1991 and again in 2003, we had to paint an archtypical demon, Saddam Hussein, in our collective subconscious. Likewise, in 1999 when we attacked Serbia, Slobodan Milosevik was set up to take a fall. That dude was really evil. Really, really evil.

I read of panic over France getting ready to invade in the early Republic, and of riots over fear of Germans in the early 20th century. In the 19th century ordinary plains Indians became bloodthirsty savages as we set out to steal their land.

And then there was Ronald Reagan’s 1986 warning that Nicaragua was only a two day march from Brownsville, Texas – this as we prepared to invade Central America and crush indigenous independence movements. In the early 1990’s, after the Soviet Union had gone away, conservatives were warning us of Libyans patrolling the high seas. And former communists became drug runners. They were grasping. As John Stockwell said, we are a country constantly in search of enemies.

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, on the op-ed page, there’s a piece by Amir Taheri called “The Problem with Talking to Iran“. The premise is that there are two Iran’s – the nation state, and the place run by revolutionary fanatics. Taheri is critical of Barack Obama for saying we can talk to enemies, this one in particular. He says there’s quite a difference between Iran and other countries:

Iran is gripped by a typical crisis of identity that afflicts most nations that pass through a revolutionary experience. The Islamic Republic does not know how to behave: as a nation-state, or as the embodiment of a revolution with universal messianic pretensions. Is it a country or a cause?

A revolution, he says, “doesn’t want anything in particular because it wants everything.”

Fine – there’s some value to this piece, though it is steeped in typical conservative historical amnesia. Taheri likely thinks that Iranian history began in 1979. He probably regards pre-revolutionary Iran, living under a fascistic ruler, Shah Reza Pahlavi and his bloody secret police (SAVAK), as part of the good old days. You could talk to the Shah. Taheri probably doesn’t know anything about 1953, when the U.S. overthrew the democratic government of Iran, or of the 26 years of oppression that followed.

That’s rote for the right wing. They suffer from tunnel vision – it’s proscribed by their ideology, which is so often at odds with reality. But here’s the kicker from Taheri’s piece:

The problem that the world, including the U.S., has today is not with Iran as a nation-state but with the Islamic Republic as a revolutionary cause bent on world conquest under the guidance of the “Hidden Imam.”

How far is it from Tehran to Brownsville?

Iran is a nation-state, but unfortunately, one caught in a reactionary cycle. 26 years of oppression (1953-1979) created a vacuum, and when the Shah abdicated, it was filled by clerics. That’s not a good thing, but not something we can change without destroying the place. It will have to undo itself. And it will if we just leave it alone.

But no – conservatives are not content to allow events to follow a natural course. They have to stoke the fires and threaten war. They have raised Iran to the dimensions of the old Soviet Union. It’s only making matters worse, cementing the rule of the clerics (Ahmadinejad is only a figurehead, much like the queen). We’re not helping, the 7th Fleet is not the answer.

Iran is a country in transition. They react as normal humans react when threatened with military attack – they are buying weapons, digging trenches. If they are not developing nuclear weapons, they ought to start. For our sake, for theirs, we ought to ease up on the ratchet. The best way to do that is to talk.

Honest, guys, Brownsville is safe.

From The New Golden Age: The Coming Revolution Against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos, by Ravi Batra:

The particular genius of the United States has been to replace emergent leaders in this natural cycle with timid Democrats. They steal the thunder and lead the exploited masses into a brick wall. We are told that our only avenue of change is through the Democratic Party. That party then does all in its power, through dissembling and inertia, to block that change. Welcome, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton.

The question is, does Barack Obama represent real change, or is he merely another Democrat poised to thwart change and preserve the reign of the acquisitors. I wish I knew.

We made a trip to Safeway today. On the bullshit part of the receipt, where they tell you how much you supposedly saved by shopping there, plain as day was my name. This shouldn’t be, as the “value” card we use is registered to Joseph P. Schmeau. How do they know who I am?

Many people resent Safeway asking personal questions that are none of their business so they can track our shopping habits. So they give them false names or trade the loyalty cards with other people. It never occurs to Safeway that they are invading our private space. They are marketers, after all. Privacy means nothing to them.

To be fair, Safeway does try to make it seem like they are giving up something in return for our personal information. We don’t have to pay their regular prices, which are at the level of convenience stores. Some deal.

How did they get my real name? That question was answered here, down in the comments. An employee of one of these chains actually brags they they wait for you to use a credit or debit card, and then they match the information on the credit card to your “value” card. There’s no hiding from them unless you deal strictly in cash.

Of course, a better way is simply not to shop at Safeway, or any other store that uses loyalty cards to glean your private information from you. David Crisp wonders if it is OK to lie to them. I have to confess, it never occurred to me to tell them the truth. No more than if someone asked me about my bank balance or cocaine habits. Lying is OK when one is dealing with information pirates. It’s almost a patriotic duty. The very idea that we owe our private information to a marketer is almost an insult. Feeling an obligation to be honest with them is what is weird.

Anyway, we are stuck away from home today, and Safeway was the only option available. When at home we never darken their doors. A nice little store down the street sells us groceries at a reasonable price without the prying eyes. They only seem to care that we pay at the register. And they are easily the most popular store in Bozeman.

“Numbers Racket” is an interesting article by Kevin Phillips, originally published in Harpers. He maintains that the way we measure the deficit, inflation, unemployment and GDP (formerly “GNP”) has changed over the years in kind of a “Pollyanna creep”.

Phillips says that if we measured these things the way we did during the Carter Administration, that we would have a completely different notion of how well our economy is doing today. For example, had economists not changed the way the consumer price index is calculated, Social Security recipients would today receive 77% more in benefits than they do.

Here are some key statistics:

1: The deficit would be $200 billion higher than they admit to. This is due to the fact that they count excess payroll tax collections against general fund debt. Social Security is being used to hide much of the real deficit. This change was made under Lyndon Johnson to hide the true cost of the Vietnam War.

2. Inflation today would be at 12% based on pre-1983 criteria. (That’s more in line with my personal impression as I do our monthly budget.)

3. Unemployment would be at 9% had they not arbitrarily elected to exclude (1) part-time workers who are looking for full time employment, (2) “marginally attached” workers (those not looking for a job but who say they want one), and (3) “discouraged workers – those who could not find work and quit looking. (What would the rate be if they also counted those who joined the military as a last resort?)

4. In 1991 the concept of Gross National Product (GNP) was replaced by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to eliminate rising U.S. international debt costs, which had become unpalatable. In addition, they “impute” certain aspects of our growth in GDP, such as the rental value of our homes and the value of a free checking account. Imputed income accounts for 15% of GDP. Growth under the old measurement and factoring in higher inflation would be closer to 1% during the Bush years, as opposed to the 3-4% they tout. That’s significant.

The majority of these changes happened under Reagan, Bush I and II, and Bill Clinton. While Phillips says there’s no conspiracy involved, that people from one administration to the next are merely serving their own ends, the net result has been to make things appear to be better than they are and to reinforce policies (and keep politicians in office) that are bad for our general well being.

I was ten years old, and knew nothing of presidential politics. But somebody famous was coming to Billings. (Previously, the town was captivated by a visit from the Lennon Sisters.) To see the face, the features, and to connect it to that man on the TV screen who did all those important things was enough to set me in awe.

Billings didn’t have ramps for loading and unloading passengers. They debarked onto the tarmac and walked into the terminal. When JFK’s plane landed, there was a throng of us, and we surged forward to meet him. I imagine there were security people all around him (although in those days the Secret Service did not guard presidential candidates), but I wasn’t aware of any. No one stopped me from getting close to him.

I was two thirds of the height of the average spectator, so I was not going to see over any heads. I used my size to my advantage, working my way under and around people, making it to the front of the crowd. I could see him as he walked towards us, smiling, his eyes looking off in the distance, only somewhat aware of us. I poked my hand between the grownups, and held it out. We never made eye contact. We shook hands. Only one of us was aware of the importance of that event.

Three years later I would think of that handshake in a different light. But touching him that day was enough to fill my young heart with joy.

Interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week, penned by Karl Rove. Rove, it appears, is such a fan of John McCain that the two of them ought to go to California and tie the knot. It drips with idolatry.

If Rove is saying it, then it must be strategy – to build McCain into this model of personal character that will contrast him with the Bush Administration (and Clinton before him).

Anyway, listen to Rove, as he talks about McCain’s daughter:

… 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.

Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. “I hope she can stay with us,” she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.

This about seals it for me. I’ve seen a lot of hypocrisy, and politics itself is blatant hypocrisy. But, if I’m not mistaken, there was a push poll in the 2000 McCain/Bush race in South Carolina that asked voters what they would think of John McCain if they knew he had a black child out of wedlock. We’ll never know for sure, of course, though it certainly leaves hints of Karl Rove’s aftershave.

Bridget, if I’m not mistaken, is that “black” child (she’s Asian) he had out of wedlock.

Thanks Karl. You lift us all up.

There are a couple of interesting exchanges going on in our (quite small) blog world. I am peripherally involved in both.

One was initiated by Carol at her blog Missoulapolis. She quotes Mike Huckabee speaking at the National Rifle Association convention, where, when hearing a loud noise off-stage, says

That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He’s getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he — he dove for the floor.

I’ve debated elsewhere that racism is part and parcel of the right wing, but that they are too smart to come right out and say things, so they speak in code. So allow me to translate Huckabee’s words:

That was the nigger, Barack Obama. They are scared shitless of white guys with guns, man. You point one at them, and they hit the floor and say “Please suh! Please suh!”

I made the comment that Huckabee had a tinge of “cracker” in him, an epitaph for poor racist southern whites. I was immediately attacked for stepping over the line, of denigrating Huckabee, and using foul language.

I should have spoken in code, like they do. I should have said “Anyone for a Ritz?”

The other debate is over at Left in the West, where Anna put up a searing and emotional defense of Hillary Clinton, claiming that she’s the victim of misogyny. She claims that it all boils down to male resentment of a strong woman, though she admits that sexism may not be the only reason that Hillary is losing.

Marie Cocco rightfully calls out the Democratic Party for their refusal to address the way Hillary Clinton has been treated. To me, this is the biggest hurdle I’m going to have to overcome before I can enthusiastically get behind this party again. …I’m going to have a hard time forgetting this, and it’s not because it was directed against Hillary Clinton personally – it’s because her treatment, and the party’s refusal to stick up for women, will have a chilling effect on Democratic women in the future who might want to run for president. They have no reason to believe that the party will be there for them when they encounter the type of sexism that Hillary Clinton has dealt with during the 2008 primaries.

It’s a mixed message, and I think in her denial that sexism is making Hillary lose, she’s really saying that it really boils down to sexism. And I take issue – how dare she set aside all of the real and important reasons to vote against Hillary Clinton, and instead hurl epitaphs at us.

I commented:

You’re so sure you’re point on that you’re looking for every little thing and blowing it out of proportion.

A lot of people don’t like Hillary. I don’t like her. I didn’t like her husband. It has nothing to do with gender. It’s totally about them being Republicans at heart, and corporatists. Hillary has raised virtually all of her funds by “bundling”, or shaking down corporate executives, and yet she has the temerity to say she’s going to represent us when she gets to DC. Same with Billo.

You’ve posted here a lot, but you seem blind to issues and stuck on the gender thing. Get over it. She’s got flaws. Big ones.

Read on if you want. She doesn’t put up much of a defense other than to say “Obama too! Obama too!” Yeah – she speaks to my deepest fear, that Obama is not genuine either. But she hides from the obvious – that those of us who oppose poseurs claiming the mantle of “liberal” have reason to resent DLC stalwart Hillary Clinton, as we did her husband, Billo.

Jay chimes in afterward, hurling the “m” word at us again. This is basically what I did to Huckabee – looked for a base motive, seeing through the veneer. Maybe he is on to something. Maybe not.

I don’t like Hillary. I think I have very good reasons not to like her. She is divisive, and seems willing to stop at nothing, even destruction of her own party, to fulfill her ambition. Would it be different if it were, say, Ralph Nader who was running a quixotic campaign to the finish line, doing untold damage even as he knows he will lose in the end?

People might claim that he let ambition get the best of him. It’s destructive, it’s all about ego, they say. Indeed.

I come from conservative roots, and as I passed from right to left, reflexively adopted feminism along with other left wing rallying points. But over time I began to see feminists in a more objective light. They tend to demand more for less, and to call out the “m” word when they don’t succeed where they think they ought to succeed. It may be hard to be a woman in a male world, but something else is going on – no matter your gender, you’ve got to be really, really good to succeed (George W. Bush aside), and it is too easy to claim misogyny when failure occurs. Look to thine own self for the reasons.

Anna, and Jay, and Hillary need to take a good long look at Hillary. I have seen the darkness of her soul, and am glad to see her lose – not because she is a woman, but because she is blindly ambitious and willing to assume any public persona to achieve her destiny. She’s not one of us.

That is why I oppose her. And Billo. They are a curse upon our party.

Does anyone else notice that whenever they talk about innocent lives and terror and extremism, they are always talking about them? But when you count the bodies, it’s like a mountain on one side, and a small mound on the other, and it is always innocents, and the mountains of bodies are always people killed by us. Israel dispatches innocent civilians with abandon while labeling its enemies terrorists, disappearing them and putting them in secret prisons and confining them to ghastly compounds like Gaza; building walls through their territory and stealing their land. Yet it’s always them. They are the bad guys, while we are somehow accomplishing good with all of the oppression and violence we can muster, including torture.

It’s nonsense. I mean this in utter seriousness, I am not merely calling names: George W. Bush is a violent extremist; he should have been impeached, and the world will be safer when he leaves office. Just sayin’.

These days, when the tanks roll across borders in illegal invasions, it is American kids doing the driving. Bush might have the right historical analogy. He just has it backwards.

Enough. There are times when I can hardly stand to hear that voice and the constant stream of lies.