by Ernest Partridge

On Monday, August 2, a federal crime was committed in plain view of millions of Americans and millions more abroad. A Pakistani intelligence mole, crucial in the 'war' against al Qaeda, was outed by an individual in the Bush Administration.

We know that this was a federal crime from the preceding (and still unsolved) Valerie Plame case. While the culprit is still unindicted, the fact that the 'outing' of a covert intelligence asset  is a crime, is now known to all.

Today, more than a month later, the individual who blew the cover of the Pakistani double-agent has not been identified, much less arrested and indicted. And the story has disappeared from the media ' which is, arguably, the greatest outrage of all.

For those who have forgotten, here is a recapitulation of the crime.

On Sunday, August 1, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced that due to 'new and unusually specific information,' he was raising the terrorist threat level from yellow ('elevated') to orange ('high'), thus bumping news of the just-completed Democratic convention off the front pages.

The 'targets' of the terrorists, we were told, were five specifically identified financial institutions in Washington and New York.

In retrospect, several intriguing questions arise: (1) If five specific buildings in two cities were targeted, why a nationwide alert? (2) Why any alert at all? Would it not have been better to warn only the occupants of the buildings, keeping the 'confidential' tip-off a secret, so as to entrap the terrorists?

As more information about the 'plot' emerged, the official version began to unravel. It turned out that the 'intelligence' was three to four years old, and that it had been gathered from the internet and other publicly available sources. In addition, there was no evidence of recent al Qaeda planning.

So we were asked to believe that all this old material was part of a three-year old plot scheduled precisely for early August, 2004, and directed to five specific buildings.

With official credibility hemorrhaging, emergency intervention was necessary. It arrived the very next day, on Monday, with the 'fresh information' that the data wasn't all that old, after all. As Reuters reported:

The New York Times published a story on Monday saying U.S. officials had disclosed that a man arrested secretly in Pakistan was the source of the bulk of information leading to the security alerts. The newspaper named him as Khan, although it did not say how it had learned his name. U.S. officials subsequently confirmed the name to other news organizations on Monday morning. None of the reports mentioned that Khan was working under cover at the time, helping to catch al Qaeda suspects." (Juan Cole)

OOPS!

So there was the crime, as plain as the smirk on Dubya's face: the 'outing' of an intelligence asset.

This is serious stuff. How serious? Peter Graff of Reuters explains:

The revelation that a mole within al Qaeda was exposed after Washington launched its "orange alert" this month has shocked security experts, who say the outing of the source may have set back the war on terror....

Reuters learned from Pakistani intelligence sources on Friday that computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, arrested secretly in July, was working under cover to help the authorities track down al Qaeda militants in Britain and the United States when his name appeared in U.S. newspapers.

"The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse," said Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane's Defense publications. "You have to ask: what are they doing compromising a deep mole within al Qaeda, when it's so difficult to get these guys in there in the first place?"

"It goes against all the rules of counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, running agents and so forth.... Running agents within a terrorist organization is the Holy Grail of intelligence agencies. And to have it blown is a major setback which negates months and years of work, which may be difficult to recover."

So it comes to this: In order to escape from a public relations embarrassment, the Busheviks willingly exposed a 'mole' ' a source of information from inside the operations and planning center of al Qaeda.

Similarly, Valerie Plame's crucially important operation was shut down, in order to punish her husband, Joe Wilson, for committing the crime of premeditated truth-telling.

Once again, the Busheviks burned down the barn to roast the pig.

And what was the political price they paid for these catastrophic blunders? Essentially zilch. True, 'Plame-gate' is still under investigation, though with only two months to go, the damaging denouement will likely be postponed until after the election. Maybe a minor White House apparatchik will be sacrificed. No further damage ' until the nuclear device that Plame's operation might have intercepted falls into the hands of al Qaeda.

As for 'Pak-gate,' after a month, it has totally disappeared from the media radar, presumably never to surface again. No investigation, no indictment, no political cost ' no cost at all, except perhaps the lives of a few thousand of our fellow citizens, when the shipping container containing the WMD package from al Qaeda, about which double-agent Khan might have alerted us, enters one of our harbors.

This is the stuff of major scandal.  Had this happened during the administration of a Democratic president, Congress would even now be drawing up articles of impeachment.  In an election year, that president, like LBJ, would choose not to run for re-election, and for good reason: he would be unelectable.

But not this administration and not this president.  Instead, the media hasn't touched this scandal, much less investigated it. 'Pak-gate' (for which I must invent a name, because the media has not), is gone and forgotten: unexamined by Congressional oversight, and uninvestigated by our 'journalists.'

Where's the outrage?

Meanwhile, the totally baseless and transparently mendacious 'Swift Boat' smear resounds. The media presents 'both sides' of the controversy, pretending that the accusers even have a 'side.' A responsible press would have looked to the merits of the accusations and, finding none, would have exposed the scam sufficiently to have disgraced the slanderers, and made an example of them that might discourage subsequent attempts to besmirch honorable political candidates.

But we've seen so much of this two-faced, double-standard so-called journalism that we should be used to it by now. Accustomed, but not tolerant.

• Eight years and $70 million of persistent probing of the public and private lives of Bill and Hillary Clinton, resulted in nothing more than the discovery of an illicit but consensual sex act.
  
  Comparable behavior by the accusers, Gingrich, Hyde, Livingston, etc., was deemed irrelevant. 
   

• Groundless smears against Al Gore ' that he had claimed to have 'invented the internet' (false), had claimed to have 'discovered Love Canal' (false), and so on. But no mention of George W. Bush's business failures, his possibly illegal investment deals, his 'escape' from his National Guard obligations, his record as the Governor of Texas.

The evidence of the media's bias in the 2000 election is clear and incontrovertible, as Paul Begala demonstrated in a November, 2002 Nexus-Lexus search:

There were exactly 704 stories in the campaign about this flap of Gore inventing the Internet. There were only 13 stories about Bush failing to show up for his National Guard duty for a year. There were well over 1,000 stories -- Nexus stopped at 1,000 -- about Gore and the Buddhist temple. Only 12 about Bush being accused of insider trading at Harken Energy. There were 347 about Al Gore wearing earth tones, but only 10 about the fact that Dick Cheney did business with Iran and Iraq and Libya'

And now, the Administration of George Bush, arguably the most incompetent and corrupt in US history, is given a free pass by the media.

Had the current management of the Washington Post been in charge during the Watergate burglary, Woodward and Bernstein would no doubt have been ordered to get back to covering freeway smash-ups, and Richard Nixon would have finished his term, unexposed and unpunished.

There are precious few indicators of change in this dismal situation. The New York Times and the Washington Post, 'flagships' of American journalism, have both published tepid apologies for their failure to serve as responsible watch-dogs of the government, in the run-up to the Iraq war. But now, having apologized for their misbehavior, they are repeating it. There is an abundance of opportunity for critical, objective and balanced reporting of the current election campaign. Once again, it is an opportunity not taken.

In the face of all this evidence, it is difficult to understand how anyone with more than a casual acquaintance with the corporate media persist in the belief that the media have a 'liberal bias'?

The examples of the corporate media's double dealing could fill a book, as indeed they have, many times over. And I expect to continue this elaboration in subsequent essays. But it is time, now, to bring this to a close.

When I was a youngster half a century ago, the US press delighted in relating the fantasies of Pravda and Isvestia, and we all wondered 'how could they get away with printing such outright lies,' and 'what kind of effect does all this have on the Soviet People?' Today, there is not all that much difference between Pravda c.1960s and the US media today. With FOX, right-wing talk radio and the NY Post there is no difference. As an October, 2003 study demonstrated, the more one watches FOX News, the less informed one is. Shaun Waterman of UPI reports:

It's official -- watching Fox News makes you ignorant. To be precise, researchers from the Program on International Policy at the University of Maryland found that those who relied on Fox for their news were more likely than those who relied on any other news source to have what the study called "significant misperceptions" about the war in Iraq...

After decades of this kind of 'journalism,' discerning Russians came to appreciate that they were being systematically lied to by their media ' a realization that has not yet come to most Americans.

For the Soviet citizens seeking to escape the fog of 'official news,' their reality check was the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, the BBC, illegally smuggled-in publications and 'Samizdat' ' unauthorized personal publications (by handscript or typewriter).

For us, it is the Internet ' while it lasts. After the internet is privatized and then closed to dissenters, we will have to devise our own 'Samizdat,'  perhaps of audiotapes and computer disks.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, we might, as an aroused public, demand the return of a free and diverse commercial media.

For the campaign immediately ahead, we do not ask that the media join 'our side.' It will quite suffice if the media renounce their allegiance to the Bush regime, and instead direct that allegiance to the truth ' to facts, evidence, clarity and logic. That is their legitimate function and their duty to the public. We demand that the media present the facts in an even-handed manner, investigate indications of corruption and mendacity, and spare us the trivia.

Then John Kerry and John Edwards will win.

Because Rove and the Bushistas can't handle the truth. And we the people can. --posted 09.20.04

Copyright 2004, by Ernest Partridge

A Letter to a Republican Friend

Is this the Kind of Country that you Want?

Ernest Partridge, Co-Editor

Note: While I have many Republican friends, none are named 'Whitney.' This letter is for all my Republican friends in general, and none in particular. It is also for all Republicans with whom I am not personally acquainted, who are willing to pause and reflect upon the condition of their party and their country, and then upon their consequent duty as citizens of the United States.

Dear Whitney,

At no time in my memory, or yours, I suspect, has the rivalry between the two major parties been more mean-spirited and poisonous.

And yet, despite our separate party affiliations, we remain close friends as we have for all the decades since high school. Moreover, I see no reason for this to change, nor, I trust, do you..

Surely you know that I have never regarded you as a fascist, just as I know that you have never thought of me as a traitor. Yet these are the kinds of labels that are routinely hurled by one fringe of our respective parties against the other.

Such mutual incivility is more than acutely unpleasant, it strikes at the foundation of our republic. Thus it falls upon cooler heads, such as ours, to reject the insult and abuse, and to restore the calm civic dialog and mutual respect that is the foundation of a just and secure political order.

Sadly, much more is required if we are to restore our republic to its former health and vigor. For our country and its founding political principles are gravely endangered by a radicalism that has taken control of all branches of our government as well as our mass media.

This means that it has, regretfully, taken control of the Republican Party ' your party. It is thus imperative that moderates, such as yourself, take back their party.

I suspect that this stark accusation might put you on the defensive. If you feel that the Democrats also pose a threat to our republic, I invite you to present your case and I promise to consider it carefully. But first, please hear me out,

Our respective political differences manifest more than contrasting political philosophies. These differences issue from contrasting professional perspectives, career choices, family backgrounds, social contacts, and even religious commitments. Though different, our perspectives on life and politics may be more complementary and compatible, rather than exclusive.

I chose an academic career. You opted to join your father's small manufacturing enterprise. So we encountered government differently. The taxpayers furnished my salary, while government imposed environmental and work safety regulations on your company.

I joined the California Teachers Association ' a union. You were management, at the other side of the bargaining table.

In my professional life, I had the privilege of teaching foreign students, corresponding with scholars abroad, and frequently traveling overseas to international conferences. You had to deal with the problem of competition with foreign goods.

As a philosopher, my convictions strayed from the religious faith of my childhood. You have remained steadfast in your religious convictions. So, of course, we have different views on the relationship of church and state.

We have adopted different attitudes toward government, labor relations, foreign policy, and so forth. Almost inevitably, you have allied yourself with the Republicans, and I have supported the Democrats ' albeit often reluctantly, as 'the lesser of the evils.'

Our political differences have been a constant topic of conversation between us over the years, occasionally heated, but never placing our friendship in any great peril. You see, we are both moderates. And while, in our arguments, our attention was understandably focused upon our differences, we took little notice of our common ground of commitment and belief.

You correctly describe yourself as a 'Conservative.' I am willing to be called a 'liberal,' despite the recent disparagement of that once honorable label. However, because of the abuse of that word, I prefer to call myself a 'progressive.' 'Conventional wisdom' treats 'conservative' and 'liberal' as opposing point of view. I prefer to see them as complementary. Thus an authentic conservative and a liberal can hold a great deal in common.

For example:

We both revere our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Accordingly, we believe that 'to secure these rights" to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, governments are instituted among men.'

Along with the founders of our republic, we share a suspicion of 'big government' and thus endorse the protection of our 'inalienable rights' as articulated in the Bill of Rights.

We both believe that our elected leaders have a bond of honor to the citizens which requires that these leaders deal candidly, openly and honestly with the people.

We both prize freedom, though you are more inclined to interpret freedom in economic terms, while my attention is directed to freedom of inquiry and expression.

With Jefferson, we both believe that a free press and the open competition of ideas are the life blood of a democracy.

With Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Monroe, we eschew 'foreign entanglements' and disavow any imperial ambitions for our country.

Despite our religious differences, we both endorse the 'traditional values' that are taught by all the great world religions: tolerance, mercy, charity, compassion, moderation, peacemaking.

We both reject sudden social change through violence or the radical imposition of alien ideologies.

These are all, let us note, 'conservative' values, which we learned together from the outstanding public school teachers that taught us history and civics. These values have stood the test of time, and may serve us well today. Neither of us are at all inclined to abolish these principles.

The differences between 'conservatism' and 'liberalism' are grounded in perspective and in emphases ' again, not necessarily in conflict.

Webster's dictionary defines 'conservatism' as 'The practice of preserving what is established; disposition to oppose change in established institutions and methods.'

The liberal looks forward to an improvement of the human condition. The best expression that comes to my mind is that of Edward Kennedy, at the funeral of his brother, Robert F. Kennedy:

"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it... As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

The liberal, then, is a 'meliorist' ' one who endorses worthy values and institutions received from the past, and who recognizes suffering and injustice in the present which he strives to ease and rectify for the future.

What deserves most to be preserved from the past, and improved in the future? In the specific answer to these questions reside the divergences of our political opinions. But in the general content of these received principles and future aspirations, we are united. It is that concurrence which has bound our nation together.

Until now.

For now I must urge you to look directly and soberly upon your Party. With the aforementioned principles of conservatism firmly in your mind, ask yourself: Does the Republican Party of today embody your conservative convictions? Do those public figures who so readily describe themselves as 'conservative' authentically fit that label? Where your Party is leading our country, do you truly wish to follow?

For consider:

• Can you, as a defender of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, support the Patriot Act, and the fact that under its provisions, at least three of your fellow citizens, and possibly more, are today incarcerated without charge, without access to counsel, with no prospect of a trial and release ' all this in violation of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth articles of the Bill of Rights?
   

• Can you support an Administration that assumed power through election fraud, the disfranchisement of thousands of our fellow citizens, the violent disruption of official vote counting, and an arbitrary and incoherent ruling by five partisan judges?
   

• In the coming presidential election, 30% of the votes will be cast with 'touch-screen' machines that leave no audit trail ' meaning that the votes can not be verified? As a Democrat, I am further troubled by the knowledge that the manufacturers of these machines are avowed supporters of George Bush, and that the software is 'proprietary,' which means secret. I know you to be a patriot first and a Republican second, so you must be concerned about this possible violation of the sacred right to vote, even though ' perhaps especially because ' it may benefit your Party.
   

• Can you, as an opponent of 'foreign entanglements' support a war of aggression, launched under demonstrably false pretenses, and provoking a world-wide hostility toward the United States administration? Are you even more troubled by casual talk by the neo-conservatives of pending invasions of Iran and Syria?
   

• As a Christian, do you truly believe that this Administration can justify the loss of a thousand American lives, and at least 10,000 Iraqi civilians ' numbers that are fated to increase as this war continues?
   

• Can you sanction the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and 'detainees' at Guantánamo, in clear violation of international law and treaties as well as Christian morality? Do you really believe that full responsibility for these atrocities falls solely upon the enlisted personnel directly involved?
   

• Can you, as a conservative, approve of a federal deficit this year of half a trillion dollars and several trillion dollars over the next several years, causing an unbearable financial burden upon the generations that follow?
   

• Don't you agree that the economic productivity of this country should be shared fairly among its people? If so, can you believe that the American economy can continue much longer upon this course of increasing deficits, the outsourcing of jobs, decreased wages and benefits, loss of consumer confidence and disposable income? How long to you suppose that the American people will put up with this injustice? And as John F. Kennedy said, 'those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable.'
   

• Conservatives insist upon responsibility and accountability. Can you then allow exceptions by such well-placed individuals such as Ken Lay, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove? Are you not troubled by the disappearance of over two billion dollars of taxpayers' money into the pockets of corrupt individuals ' cash appropriated to the Halliburton Corporation and intended for the reconstruction of Iraq?
   

• As a conservative who believes in free markets and free enterprise, are you not concerned about the growth of monopolistic cartels and conglomerates which stifle and absorb competitors (e.g., Microsoft). Are you troubled by the fact that virtually all broadcast media in the United States are owned and controlled by six corporations, and that the corporation- friendly Federal Communications Commission has ruled in favor of still greater media market concentration? Are you aware of the devastation that WalMart has caused to small town 'free enterprise' business throughout the country?
   

• If conservatives believe in limited government, then can you, as a conservative, accept without protest, government surveillance of your book purchases and your e-mail? Is it the business of the government to interfere with a woman's control over her own body?
   

• Conservatives uphold the rule of law. Can you then condone the arbitrary violation of laws by the President and members of his administration ' including the Presidential Records Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the law forbidding the 'outing' of covert CIA agents and organizations?  (See "When the Law Goes Flat").
   

If these trends and conditions trouble you, then you are in agreement with this liberal, for we both find in this list a violation of our shared political and economic convictions.

For this reason, I refuse to describe the ideology and policies of the controlling faction of your party as 'conservative.' Far better to describe it as 'right-wing,' 'radical right' or 'regressive.'

Consider next, the corruption of our politics. The right wing has repudiated our tradition of civic friendship, as self-identified 'liberals,' such as myself, are accused of 'treason' by Ann Coulter. Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Viet Nam, is labeled as 'unpatriotic.' John McCain's years as a POW are turned against him and his family is slandered. John Kerry's medals, duly awarded by the Navy, are proclaimed as fraudulent. Liberal policies are condemned, not merely as erroneous or misguided, but as 'evil.' Politics today has become 'warfare by other means,' wherein it is not enough to defeat one's opponents in a fair election; the opponent must be destroyed. Witness the attacks on the Clintons, and on John McCain in the South Carolina primary of 2000. And now once again, against John Kerry and John Edwards in the current campaign.

Thus our once-united national community is being split into warring factions as we forget our common loyalties and lose the capacity to act in common purpose.

There may be among your fellow Republicans, individuals who would respond, 'spare me all this ideological Choctaw. My politics is guided by my self-interest, and it is clear to me that Republican policies are best for my investments, my business, and my personal prosperity.' Surely such a consideration is at least an ingredient of the Republican case.

However, on close examination, even the appeal to self-interest fails the radical right. Be honest, now: would you trade your investment portfolio today with the one you had when Bill Clinton left office? Don't you feel at least a little anxious about the direction of the Bush economy ' with ever increasing unemployment, ever-decreasing consumer confidence and disposable income, interest in the national debt soon to become the largest item in the federal budget, and half of that national debt owed to foreign creditors? In point of fact, throughout the twentieth century, the stock market has performed better under Democratic presidents and congresses. .  (See also).   History confirms Harry Truman's observation, 'to live like a Republican, vote like a Democrat'.

It is not difficult to understand why the self-interest even of the wealthy is best served under Democratic administrations. Democrats along with moderate Republicans believe that a flourishing economy is the result of cooperative teamwork functioning according to fair and explicit rules and regulations ' teamwork among investors, entrepreneurs, educators, researchers, workers, and yes, government. The right wing, on the other hand, takes a short-sighted and self-defeating view of 'self-interest,' whereby society is a jungle, a frontier, where the ruthless and self-serving individuals are best fit to survive. Thus the liberal is more inclined to think of morality in social terms, as justice, fairness, compassion, tolerance, equal opportunity. The radical right defines morality more as an inventory of individual virtues: chastity and fidelity, sobriety, piety. (See my On Civic Friendship  and Consumer or Citizen?) 

In sum, a gang of radical dogmatists have captured the Republican party. Consequently,

• This is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln who urged 'malice toward none and charity for all.'
   

• This is no longer the party of Theodore Roosevelt, who waged political war against the 'malefactors of great wealth."
   

• This is no longer the party of Dwight D. Eisenhower who warned us of the 'military-industrial complex' and who lamented that "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. '

Face it, my friend: your party has deserted you and your fellow moderates. All worthy content has been drained from this party, and all that remains is the empty shell with the name, 'Republican,' and the false attribution of the word 'conservative.'

If you are to take back your party, you must paradoxically leave it for a brief season. Clearly, the moderates can not now wrest control of the party from the radicals ' certainly, not before the November election which, if Bush wins a second term, will solidify the radical right control of our government for another generation.

If moderate republicanism is to revive, the radicals must be repudiated and thrown out of power in this election. To accomplish this, you and your fellow moderates must form an alliance with the moderate Democrats ' with whom, I submit, you share a significant inventory of political ideals and policies. You differ with these Democrats primarily in name ' and 'what's in a name?'

When I reflect upon the political landscape today, and upon the dilemma faced by moderate Republicans such as yourself, I am reminded of the closing scene in the magnificent war drama, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai.' Col. Nicholson (Alec Guinness), the commander of the British prisoners of war, becomes so personally invested in the project of building the bridge, that he forgets that he is assisting the enemy. Seeing the explosive charges set by the Allied saboteurs to destroy the bridge, he rushes down to the river to save the bridge and, upon encountering the British and American commandos, is suddenly shocked into a recognition of his authentic loyalties and duties. 'My God,' he says, 'what have I done?'

So, in closing, I must ask you: Wherein is your ultimate loyalty? To your party or to your country? If you reflect soberly on what has become of your party, on the full import of the crisis facing our country, and upon you duty as a conservative and as a patriot, I am confident that you will arrive at wise and just conclusion.

Your friend and compatriot,

Ernie --posted 08.24.04

 

Copying and distribution of this essay are encouraged, provided author and source (www.crisispapers.org) are indicated.

Copyright 2004 by Ernest Partridge
 

SUCKERS FOR JESUS

Ernest Partridge

The Republican party, once the home of liberals, conservationists, internationalists, and moderate Christians, is now dominated by an improbable alliance of libertarians, free market absolutists, greedy plutocrats, and Christian fundamentalists.  The first three, "the secular right," clearly gain a great deal from their alliance.  But how have the Christians, "the religious right," been persuaded to cast their lot with the Republican party?

How does one convince millions of devout Christians to accept a secular political-economic philosophy developed and articulated, in large part, by atheists? How does one, in addition,
enable this same multitude of Christians to disregard how their political 'allies' are taking cash out of their pockets and redistributing it 'upward' from the middle class and the poor to the already wealthy, at the cost, in addition, of impoverishing essential social services, aid to the poor, and placing a crushing debt upon future generations? And finally, how are these Christians persuaded that the moral teachings of Jesus of Nazareth are somehow consistent with aggressive foreign wars, the increased enrichment of the wealthy, the denial of relief to the poor, comfort to the afflicted, education for the young, and employment for the jobless.?

No small accomplishment. But the political geniuses of the Radical Right who have captured the Republican party, have brought it off. They had to. For without the inclusion of the Religious Right in their coalition, they would lack the 'foot soldiers' ' the votes ' that are essential to their political power.

Here are the 'players:'

The libertarians are champions of 'limited government,' believing that the only legitimate functions of government are the protection of life, liberty and property ' by means of the military (defense against foreign enemies), the police (defense against domestic enemies), and the courts (protection of property). Taxes in support of anything else -- schools, the arts, environmental protection ' are regarded by the libertarians as unwarranted seizures of private property, in a word, 'theft.' (For more about libertarian doctrine, see my 'With Liberty for Some' and 'Environmental Justice and 'Shared Fate'').

The Free Market Absolutists.  (The phrase is from George Soros). This faction embraces and promotes the economic program of the libertarians. The FMAs believe that all social problems and government functions can best be dealt with if all national assets are privatized, and if the free market exchange of goods, services and investment assets is allowed to proceed without impediment. In other words, the FMAs believe that the optimum social order is obtained, 'as if by an invisible hand' (Adam Smith), through the summation of individual self-enhancing 'capitalist acts between consenting adults.' (Robert Nozick). (See my 'The New Alchemy').

The Plutocrats' governing 'ideology' can be distilled down to a single word: More!  Like George Bush, they 'don't do nuance.' Plutocrats hate governments because governments impose taxes and because they regulate the plutocrats' enterprises. Plutocrats recognize no 'public interest.' As Commodore Vanderbilt famously proclaimed, 'the public be damned ' I work for my stockholders.' Plutocrats defend and promote free enterprise and competition ' among their rivals. For themselves, they much prefer monopolies. Despite their proclaimed enmity toward government, they seek control of government as an instrument of their personal wealth-enhancement.

(There are still other components of the Radical Right alliance, such as the neo-conservative imperialists and the 'paranoid right' of militias and skin-heads. But for the sake of simplicity, we will leave them aside).

Together these factions plus the religious right constitute a formidable political force.  The plutocrats supply the money, the libertarians and free marketeers articulate the political dogma, and the fundamentalists provide the votes. (Kevin Phillips writes that 'according to national polls in 2000, evangelicals and fundamentalists cast fully 40 percent of Bush's vote, and his 84 percent support among committed evangelicals was higher than any previous Republican nominee:). Without those votes, the political clout of the right-wing regressives would collapse, and the right would be appropriately relegated the fringes of the body politic.

This is a very agreeable arrangement for 'the secular Right' -- the libertarians, the free-marketeers, and the plutocrats, who have little to dispute amongst themselves. But the alliance of the secular right with the religious right is a marriage of convenience ' convenient for the secular right, which prefers to keep its pious 'partners' barefoot, ignorant and pregnant. 'Barefoot' in the sense of impoverished, ignorant of how they are being exploited, and 'pregnant' in the sense being productive of votes.

For close inspection reveals that the secular and religious right have little in common, and because this is so the secularists are anxious that the religious right refrain from such 'close inspection.'

Consider the contrasts:

Many of the most prominent promoters of libertarianism during the past forty years have been avowed atheists; among them Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Brandon, John Hospers and Robert Nozick. Yet this appears not to bother the evangelicals.

In addition, libertarians share with many liberals a determined opposition to government interference in the private lives of individuals. Accordingly, the libertarians endorse the legalization of marijuana, pornography and prostitution, and they oppose anti-drug laws, restrictions on abortion and discrimination against homosexuals. Strange, isn't it, that the fundamentalists appear not to notice this agenda of their libertarian 'allies'?

Furthermore, the secularists are, of course, generally well-educated and scientifically sophisticated, and thus they accept evolution and reject biblical literalism. They may, however, occasionally pretend otherwise in order to mollify the fundamentalists.

Next, there is the issue of economic justice. It is a safe bet that the socio-economic-educational status of the average fundamentalist is markedly below that of average American citizens. This means that many fundamentalist families are one paycheck or one serious family illness away from financial disaster. Can they not appreciate that their wealthy 'allies' on the Right are not 'their brothers' keepers'? Under the right-wing economic policies, the rich get richer while the middle class and the poor hold their ground if they are lucky, and lose ground if they are not. And there is the ever-growing threat of unemployment. For the vast majority of our fellow citizens, the pittance of Bush's federal tax refunds are more than offset by the necessary increases in state and local taxes and in the loss of government services ' fire and police protection, health care, public schooling, financial aid for higher education.

We all know the sorry economic conditions brought on by right-wing policies. Why then do the victims, who happen to adhere to 'the old-time religion,' meekly support their oppressors? And why does Jesus' admonition to the rich man ' 'If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.' (Matt. 19:21) ' not apply to their political leaders, or, for that matter, their 'spiritual leaders'?

The most jarring disconnect, however, is between the morality of secular-right policies and behavior on the one hand, and the clear message of the ethics of Jesus on the other hand. For those who need reminding, read once more The Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount: (Matt. 5)

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.

Fundamentalists like to ask: 'What would Jesus do?' Good question! So let's ask them:

• Would Jesus launch a 'war of choice' against a non-threatening country?
   

• Would Jesus cut back on school lunches for poor children?
   

• Would Jesus decline to comfort 'those who mourn' as the soldiers' caskets arrive at Dover Air Force Base?
   

• Would Jesus sign 155 death warrants, giving the clemency appeals only a cursory glance?

George Bush wants to tell the world that he's been 'born again.' But 'born again' to what? To pacifism, humility, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, frugality?  The Bible teaches that 'By their fruits shall ye know them.' (Matt: 7:20)   It seems that Mr. Bush has not learned very much from his 'favorite philosopher.' (See my 'What Would Jesus Do?).

Why, then, do religious fundamentalists follow, and vote for, wealthy and powerful individuals who openly violate the basic moral teachings of their 'Lord and Savior'?  True, there are bloody and brutal chapters in the Bible, and the millennial ('rapture') fundamentalists often preach as if the Book of Revelation were the only book in the Bible. But the fundamentalists also believe that the recorded words of Jesus in the Gospels are the words of God Himself. And the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount that contains it, are the central foundation of Christian ethics. What fundamentalist Christian would deny that Jesus said, and meant, 'Blessed are the Peacemakers?' If they believe this, then if they would "do what Jesus would do," they must come to terms with its full implications.

Given these clear and unyielding foundations of Christian morality, how has the secular right managed to seduce the fundamentalists so completely?  Surely this must stand as one of the most amazing accomplishments in the history of marketing!

The tacticians of the Right began, as all good salesmen begin, by identifying the 'hot buttons' of "the mark' (customer), and proceeding to push those buttons.

Fundamentalists crave strong and charismatic leadership. So such leaders were sought out, and then lavishly funded, enabling them to establish colleges, publishing houses and broadcasting networks. Hence the spectacular growth of such subsidiaries of 'Jesus, Inc.' as Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, Pat Robertson's Regent University, and, before they were busted, Jim and Tammy Bakker's 'PTL Club' ('Pass the Loot').

Fundamentalists are most comfortable with a Manichean world view ' a concept of the world as a battleground between unalloyed good (us) and evil (them). ('You are either with us or against us.' GWB). For several decades, Communism fit the bill supremely well. But with the fall of communism, new evils had to be identified, and so they were: Islam abroad, and Liberalism at home.

The demonization of Liberalism is a text-book example of 'branding' ' piling emotions and attitudes onto a label. Until recently, 'liberalism' was a honorific term, as indicated by its dictionary definition: 'favoring reform or progress ... specifically favoring political reform tending toward democracy and personal freedom for the individual.' (Websters Unabridged, 2nd ed.) And, in fact, when a cross-section of the American public is asked about such liberal advancements as the minimum wage, social security, Medicare, racial integration, environmental protection, etc., a large majority approves. But the word 'liberal' itself has been so besmirched by the Right that in self-identification polls, 'liberal' generally comes in a poor third to 'conservative' and 'moderate.'

The Right has, in effect, established a separate and distinct definition of 'liberal,' so that it is effectively equated with 'libertinism' ' sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. In addition, the Right's use of 'liberal' connotes the stifling of religion, welfare cheating, profligate government spending (as in 'tax-and-spend-liberals') and even, in the hands of such uninhibited ranters as Ann Coulter, treason.

In short, this redefined 'liberalism' serves well as an embodiment of 'evil' to the religious right. And when this sense of 'liberalism' is associated, through constant repetitions, with the Democratic Party ' well, you know the rest.

Finally, the tacticians of the Right have learned that fundamentalists are typically much more sensitive to personal immorality ('sin') than they are to social immorality (injustice). Thus when, for example, George Bush speaks to the religious right, his themes are 'right to life' (anti-abortion), opposition to gay marriage, but rarely economic injustice, ethnic discrimination or civil liberties. Recall that on the contrary, secular libertarians are very tolerant about private personal conduct, provided that it is 'victimless.' But the libertarians also take care not to make a point of this in the company of their allies of the religious right.

It follows from the preceding account that if the Democrats are looking for a 'wedge' that might disable the political clout of the regressives, then here it is. The Fundamentalist Christians have been 'had' ' suckered ' by the libertarians and oligarchs. Thus the fundamentalists have worked diligently and faithfully toward their own disadvantage and undoing.

If the rank and file of fundamentalist Christians in the 'religious right' can somehow be shown that they are being used to further the interests not of themselves but of their oppressors, and that by so doing they are violating the central moral precepts of their 'Lord and Savior,' then the political power of the radical right will collapse. (Assuming that our public offices continue to be founded on the consent of the governed, through free and open elections. If not, then all bets are off).

Accordingly, Christian conservatives should be prime recruitment targets of progressive political movements, including 'the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.'


How might the fundamentalists, the 'foot soldiers of the radical right,' be persuaded to abandon their service in behalf of their exploiters on the Right?

First of all, moderate and liberal religious leaders must shed their reluctance to involve themselves in politics. Normally, such reluctance is justified, for it is responsive to our tradition of the separation of church and state. But these are not normal times, for there is no such reluctance on the part of the religious right to throw themselves into the midst of our politics. Thus, when the field of political contention and debate is abandoned by one side, the other side prevails, and much of the public comes to believe that the fundamentalists must be right because no religious leaders see fit to disagree.

And so, it is past time for liberal and progressive religious leaders to speak out ' and to act out, by participation in peace protests, by personal involvement with and assistance to the poor, and with active support of progressive candidates and participation in the political process. In particular, liberal evangelicals should, like Jimmy Carter, take the lead in 'preaching' and demonstrating by example, the Christian virtues of compassion, charity, humility and passivism.

The hypocrisy and venality of prominent leaders of the religious right must be exposed. The fall of Jimmy Swaggert and the Bakkers threw cold water on the over-heated fanaticism of their followers. It is past time to expose Pat Robertson's investments in African diamond mines and his dealings with African despots like Liberia's Charles Taylor.

Finally, constant attention and exposure must be given to the unchristian behavior of the plutocrats, and the unchristian implications of their policies. Cruelty, callousness, greed and aggressive warfare are not Christian virtues. --posted 08.17.04


Some readers will no doubt have additional and better ideas about how to pry the fundamentalist Christians away from the radical right alliance. We invite you to send these ideas to us at crisispapers@comcast.net , so that we might continue this discussion.
 

Copyright 2004 by Ernest Partridge

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When the Law Goes Flat

by Ernest Partridge

Amidst all the outrages of the Bush Administration -- raiding the Federal treasury, starving education and social services, trashing the environment, launching an aggressive war -- it is all too easy to overlook the erosion of the rule of law. Yet the law is the institution that most immediately affects us all, because the law, as established by the founders of our nation, protects us all from the reckless power of abusive government -- from what Hamlet called, "the insolence of office."

To be sure, laws can be petty or even silly, especially in local jurisdictions. Far worse, they can be cruel and unjust when enacted by oppressive regimes such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. But this is not the case in the United States of America. Our laws are founded on our Constitution, ratified with "the consent of the governed," and devised, in the words of the Preamble, "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." When our courts are functioning properly, laws judged to be in violation of these Constitutional objectives and protections are ruled null and void.

The protection of the law, and the loss of that protection, is the central theme of Robert Bolt's play and movie, "A Man for All Seasons," which dramatizes the life and martyrdom of Thomas More.  In the play,  More warns his son-in-law:

"[Would you] cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ... And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide.., the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast..., and if you cut them down... do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake."

Thomas More's offense, which eventually cost him his life, was his refusal to recognize the supremacy of the English Monarch over papal authority. More, a legal scholar, believed that so long as he remained silent, the law would protect him, even from the sovereign, Henry VIII. But when that law was "flattened" as it became subordinate to and a political weapon of that sovereign, Thomas More's fate was sealed.

The fate of Thomas More, and of countless others throughout history who have fallen victim to the corruption of law by the wealthy and powerful, must stand as a warning to all Americans today. For the evidence of the corruption of law in the hands of the present administration and its party is compelling to any who have the eyes to see and the judgment to appreciate the threat. Put bluntly, the Bush administration is literally an "outlaw" regime -- it has placed itself outside the law that both constrains and protects the rest of us.

I will examine five of the many offenses by the Bush Administration against the rule of law: the election of 2000, the unequal enforcement of the law, the violation of international treaties, the infringement of civil liberties, and the attempt through so-called "tort reform" to deny ordinary citizens the protection of civil law.

The 2000 Election:  To begin, we must never forget that this administration was conceived in lawlessness. Thousands of Florida voters were unlawfully "purged" and denied access to the polls. Military ballots postmarked past the deadline were counted. In Miami-Dade county, an official act of ballot counting was shut down by a "yuppie riot" of GOP staff members -- an event as blatantly illegal as the disruption of a trial or of a debate on the floor of the Congress. Yet no one was ever charged, much less punished, for this lawlessness.

Article Two, Section One of the U.S. Constitution explicitly states that "each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors." Thus it is the business of the states, as interpreted by the Supreme Courts of the states, to select the presidential electors. Accordingly, the Supreme Court of Florida ordered the continued counting of the ballots, and that decision was upheld by two appellate federal courts. No matter. In a legally indefensible ruling ("limited to the present circumstances"), clearly concocted with the sole purpose of putting George Bush in the White House, five Republican judges on the Supreme Court ordered an end of the vote counting and, in effect, selected the President. (See my "A Day of Infamy," and a collection of legal and journalistic responses to Bush v. Gore: "We Dissent.").

Subsequently, more than 600 Professors of law signed a petition of protest, which included the following:

We are Professors of Law at American law schools, from every part of our country, of different political beliefs. But we all agree that when a bare majority of the U. S. Supreme Court halted the recount of ballots under Florida law, the five justices were acting as political proponents for candidate Bush, not as judges.

The Unequal Enforcement of the Law:   Carved above the entrance to this same Supreme Court, are the words "Equal Justice under Law." Would that it were so. Unfortunately, there are two kinds of "justice." There is one standard of justice for the wealthy murderer with a team of high-priced attorneys, and another standard for the poor murder suspect with the court-appointed lawyer. There is one law for wealthy users of powdered cocaine or oxycontin, and another for poor black users of crack cocaine. There is one law for the corporate executive who fixes energy prices, another for "Grandma Millie" who must pay those inflated prices. There is one law for the Republican donor who cheats thousands of taxpayers of billions of invested dollars, and another for Democratic contributor, Martha Stewart, caught "dumping" $50,000 of stock on an "insider tip." There is one law of perjury for Casper Weinberger, Eliot Abrams and Oliver North, all of whom escaped fine and imprisonment due to "technicalities" and presidential pardons, and another law for President Bill Clinton caught, at last, in a "perjury trap" over a non-material sexual indiscretion.
 

The Violation of International Treaties:  Article Six of the Constitution decrees that "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land." But not, apparently, to this Administration which has casually ignored and violated numerous treaties at its convenience. The most outrageous has been the violations of the Geneva Conventions in Iraq, and specifically at the Abu Ghraib prison. In a March 6, 2003, memo from the Pentagon "working group," we read: "In light of the President's complete authority over the conduct of war, without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the President's ultimate authority in these areas." Regarding this memo, Molly Ivins wrote:  "Quite literally, the president may as well wear a crown -- forget that 'no man is above the law' jazz. We used to talk about 'the imperial presidency' under Nixon, but this is the real thing." 


Civil Rights:  George Bush's violation of the rights of citizens' is open and flagrant. Until very recently, at least three U. S. Citizens (that we know of) were incarcerated without specific charges, without access to counsel, without expectation of a jury trial -- all this in violation of the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution (the Bill of Rights). Even worse violations of basic judicial rights were visited upon the non-citizens held at Guantánamo. But now, at last, the courts have dug in their heels, as the very Supreme Court that appointed Bush to his office, finally drew the line and ordered that U.S. citizen Yaser Hamdi be allowed access to his lawyer and be formally charged. (The Supremes "punted" the similar case of Jose Padilla back to the state court).

Even so, the Bush Administration's aspirations to "transcend" the law remain a constant threat.  Last month, the conservative legal journalist, Stuart Taylor, Jr., wrote:

"These warped analyses [by the Defense Department legal team] are not just the work of a few lawyers carried away with clever circumvention of the law. They reflect an attitude deeply entrenched in the Bush White House -- including Bush and Dick Cheney as well as (White House counsel Alberto) Gonzales -- that whenever the president invokes national security, he enjoys near-dictatorial powers and is quite literally above the law. ... These perversions of the law would allow Bush to seize, imprison, and torture anyone in the world, at any time, for any reason that he associates with national security. Little did the Framers suspect that their Constitution would be twisted by a president to claim powers more appropriate to Roman emperors, Russian czars, and King George III."

Anyone claiming to be an authentic "conservative" who can still support this president, is engaging in an extraordinary feat of mind-bending.

 

"Tort Reform:"   Finally, we come to the issue of "tort reform," brought to public attention by the selection of "trial attorney" John Edwards as the Democratic Candidate for Vice President.

Libertarians, and in particular the libertarian faction of the Republican party, have long contended that tort law -- court mandated compensation for damages -- would accomplish all that government regulation attempts to achieve, and that it would do this more effectively and at less cost.  Unfortunately, history clearly testifies that it simply won't work.  Furthermore, the attempt to have tort law take on the same task as regulation would entail a re-establishment of the same sort of bureaucracy that the libertarians deplore. This is a bold charge that I make against the libertarian "tort and court" remedy. Because I have defended this criticism of libertarianism at length in a published article, "With Liberty for Some," I will not repeat that argument here.

But just suppose that the libertarians are right: that the work of the EPA, the Food and Drug Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other regulatory agencies, can all be accomplished through the threat of personal lawsuits against private corporations. This proposed alternative to government regulation is insincere, to say the least of it.  For if the Republicans really believed that the courts could and should protect the citizens and consumers from injuries from the corporations, then they would be in the vanguard of those who would at least retain, and perhaps even increase, the legal penalties imposed upon offending parties and corporations. And, of course, the opposite is the case.

Instead, they propose "tort reform" which would make access to the courts prohibitively expensive for ordinary citizens.  In addition, this so-called "reform" would result in "settlements" unlikely to fully compensate for damages, and would exact costs to large corporations sufficiently small to have virtually no deterrent effect. Such "reform" would truly be a "flattening" of the law, leaving little or no protection for private citizens from corporate abuses, damages and injuries. But, of course, that's precisely the objective of "tort reform."

In short, the GOP and its corporate sponsors want it both ways: no protection of the consumer-citizen through enforcement of government regulation, and no protection of the consumer-citizen through punishing court settlements. The corporation as screwer -- the citizen as screwee.

In Conclusion:  The founders of our Republic resolved that the inalienable rights of every citizen would be protected by the equal application of the rule of law. They understood that in a well-ordered polity, justice, embodied in the rule of law, is above politics; the law sets the rules and defines the constraints of acceptable political activity. The Law is the "referee" that assures "fair play." And it does so blindly, with equal fairness to the various factions. The law protects the individual citizen from the abuse of power, from the lowliest citizen to the President. This is what Robert Bolt's Thomas More had in mind, when he said that "I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake."

The blindfolded Lady Justice makes no distinctions: all are to be protected equally by the law. And when the blindfold is torn off and the scales of justice are weighted in favor of the rich and powerful, and against the opposing parties and dissenting citizens, then the lowliest citizen is not safe. Worse still, when that citizen comes to appreciate this fact, he will no longer look to the law for justice and protection. Law, for the citizen, will then have ceased to be his protector, and will instead have become his oppressor - a political tool of a sovereign that has thus forfeited his right to govern. "When in the course of human events" such misfortune befalls a public, the time has come to replace the government -- peacefully if possible, but forcibly if necessary.

If you disagree, then your argument is not with me, it is with all the signers of the Declaration of Independence. --posted 07.27.04

Copyright 2004 by Ernest Partridge

Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy. He publishes the website, "The Online Gadfly" (www.igc.org/gadfly) and co-edits the progressive website, "The Crisis Papers" (www.crisispapers.org).

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