Snow (Again) + The Attempted Assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

Snow, snow, everywhere snow. Or at least it feels like I'm trailing or it's trailing me here in Chicago. It wasn't snowing in Los Angeles, which I just returned from a few days ago, but it was chilly, though I can't complain because a little chill in the air is better than sliding across icy roadways as snow pour down from an infinite white sky. That was my experience this morning on the way to my first class. But I got there, and am now hoping that the snow here decides to trail off, soon.

***

I am not going to try to diagnose Jared Lee Loughner or offer some overarching rationale for why this past Saturday this 22-year-old evidently disturbed man attempted to assassinate US Representative (D-AZ) Gabrielle Giffords, who is now in critical care and still fighting for her life, though it increasingly appears as though she will make a strong recovery.  In his attempt to kill her he went on a rampage, murdering her aide, Gabe Zimmerman, 30; Federal judge John Roll, 63; Christina Taylor Green, a 9-year-old girl born on September 11, 200l, who was deeply interested in governmental affairs; Dorothy Murray, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; and Phyllis Scheck, 79. He also wounded a number of other bystanders, making January 8th one of the most tragic days in 2011 America.

One thing that made this crime possible is the easily availability of semiautomatic weapons, such as the Glock that Loughner apparently was able to acquire without any problems.  Another, that many across the Net have pointed, is the extremist rhetoric that is now so common, though I would suggest that pointing to this backdrop does not mean that I am drawing a direct link and, as I've seen some do, I'd add that not forget such rhetoric isn't new in American history and that as recently as the 1990s not only was such rhetoric in wide circulation, but there was surge in private militias, attacks targeting racial, ethnic, sexual and religious minorities, and spectacularly horrific acts like the Oklahoma City Bombing, which killed over 100 people, occurred in 1995.

Let me make two micro points about rhetoric and discourse. First, rhetoric, one of the oldest aspects of verbal exchange (it precedes written language), is meant to have psychophysical effects. The way that one speaks can shape the way others act. This is why orators going back thousands of years were trained in the art of rhetoric. To speak of "rhetoric," even in its degraded contemporary form, then, is to speak of language with the potential make people think and act. We remember the best rhetoric: "Four score and seven years...," "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," "I have a dream..." Second, anyone who has passed through or even near a lit crit class in the last 35 years has learned a little bit about "discourse," primarily via Foucault and his adepts. One lesson anyone who has paid attention learns (and I'm simplifying radically here) is that society, and people in society, change and are changed not simply by individual acts, history, material culture, etc., but also by the discourse that circulates--the language, the ideas, the memes, etc.--throughout an era in any given time. It shapes what people say, think, do, create, and so on. Foucault took the idea in very important and sometimes controversial directions, but it is now pretty much a given, at least in contemporary humanities scholarship, that discursive production, is something always to consider.

I thus do believe this extremist rhetoric and its discursive effects, aided and abetted by fanatics employing the media new and old, have increased, as has the failure of many in the corporate media, or in the upper reaches of the political left even to make any effort to counter it.  I also believe that the "eliminationist rhetoric" in particular, which New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote about on Monday, from politicians no less, is perhaps more prominent.  Yet let me make clear that I am not saying there is a direct causational link between the crazy ranting and the crazy acts. One of the tricks I've noticed online over the past few days is people on the right citing President Obama's "if they bring a knife, we bring a  gun" remark as a counterweight, missing the point that this is an old saw, composed of two metonyms and defensive in its meaning, as opposed to a direct offensive call for violence against opponents, or for revolutionary violence (Sharron Angle's "Second Amendment" solutions), etc.

Nevertheless, to show that the events of this past weekend were not in isolation, I want to post the following link from Dave Neiwert via Digby that details a series of similar events that have occurred since the last presidential election cycle got underway.

-- July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how "liberals" are "destroying America," walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others.
-- October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama.
-- December 2008: A pair of "Patriot" movement radicals -- the father-son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, who wanted "to attack the political infrastructure" -- threaten a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, with a bomb in the hopes of extorting money that would end their financial difficulties, for which they blamed the government. Instead, the bomb goes off and kills two police officers. The men eventually are convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.
-- December 2008: In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear "dirty bomb" in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.
-- January 2009: A white supremacist named Keith Luke embarks on a killing rampage in Brockton, Mass., raping and wounding a black woman and killing her sister, then killing a homeless man before being captured by police as he is en route to a Jewish community center.
-- February 2009: A Marine named Kody Brittingham is arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate President Obama. Brittingham also collected white-supremacist material.
-- April 2009: A white supremacist named Richard Poplawski opens fire on three Pittsburgh police officers who come to his house on a domestic-violence call and kills all three, because he believed President Obama intended to take away the guns of white citizens like himself. Poplawski is currently awaiting trial.
-- April 2009: Another gunman in Okaloosa County, Florida, similarly fearful of Obama's purported gun-grabbing plans, kills two deputies when they come to arrest him in a domestic-violence matter, then is killed himself in a shootout with police.
-- May 2009: A "sovereign citizen" named Scott Roeder walks into a church in Wichita, Kansas, and assassinates abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.
-- June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester named James Von Brunn opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, killing a security guard.
-- February 2010: An angry tax protester named Joseph Ray Stack flies an airplane into the building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. (Media are reluctant to label this one "domestic terrorism" too.)
-- March 2010: Seven militiamen from the Hutaree Militia in Michigan and Ohio are arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate local police officers with the intent of sparking a new civil war.
-- March 2010: An anti-government extremist named John Patrick Bedell walks into the Pentagon and opens fire, wounding two officers before he is himself shot dead.
-- May 2010: A "sovereign citizen" from Georgia is arrested in Tennessee and charged with plotting the violent takeover of a local county courthouse.
-- May 2010: A still-unidentified white man walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque and sets it afire, simultaneously setting off a pipe bomb.
-- May 2010: Two "sovereign citizens" named Jerry and Joe Kane gun down two police officers who pull them over for a traffic violation, and then wound two more officers in a shootout in which both of them are eventually killed.
-- July 2010: An agitated right-winger and convict named Byron Williams loads up on weapons and drives to the Bay Area intent on attacking the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, but is intercepted by state patrolmen and engages them in a shootout and armed standoff in which two officers and Williams are wounded.
-- September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. The man, 26-year--old Justin Carl Moose, referred to himself as the "Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden” in a taped undercover meeting with a federal informant.

Whether this is a higher or lower number of such incidents, I cannot say. It is clear, however,  that a number of people have come unhinged, and in many of these cases, certain threads keep reappearing. I had pointed to some of them on this blog long before the November 2008 election, and their casual usage even by members of the press (the slurs against Obama's name, etc.), and we are seeing the results. Perhaps now the media will wake up and stop furthering this rhetoric and discourse, though as Foucault and others might say, it is already out there, and how it plays out, especially with the economy listing along, failed right-wing economic ideas still dominating policy discussions, and another major election just on the horizon, we'll have to see.

To give another perspective, from someone living in Tucson, here's acclaimed writer Larry McMurtry's reading of the situation there, "American Tragedy," from the New York Review of Books blog.

Goin' Coconuts For President Barry

With the number of seats in the House turned over to Republicans, one might be under the impression that there is lot a lot of love for President Barry these days. Of course, one would have to be rather dense or watch a lot of cable news (I know, it's kind of redundant) to believe that, but that's the impression that the media is spewing out there right now. But if you're following the preparations that are being made for his upcoming trip to India (and who isn't?!), you'd know that not only is there still a fondness for the man out there, but it's still in that silly stage in a lot of parts.

According to the fine folks across the pond at The Telegraph, they are taking some rather extreme measures over there in India. Sure, there's the regular security measures that are being tended to. Tons of Secret Service, even though they're not very secret because everyone can tell who they are. Bolted down manhole covers or whatever they use to cover their holes for men over there. Removing all of the coconuts from the trees. Wait. What.

Correct. The article tells us that they are "...removing all natural threats to the president as well". Apparently, 'natural threats' include "All coconuts around the city's Gandhi museum" which is one of President Barry's stops, and they "...are being taken down." Really? The coconuts? Are they that big of a threat that it warrants taking a bunch of them down?

According to the executive secretary (whose name is completely unpronounceable) at one of the places where President Barry is staying, "We told the authorities to remove the dry coconuts from trees near the building. Why take a chance?" Is there a reason why they can't just steer him clear of the trees with the coconuts in them? I'm serious about this. Why is that not the optimal solution? Are they everywhere? Why can't he just wear a helmet? Now that would be something!

Is Obama A Keynesian?

While the Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear was, in general, a seeming success, it was even more successful in my eyes after I saw the video below. In it, one of the chaps at the rally has a sign which reads: "OBAMA = KEYNESIAN?" As you may or may not be aware, Keynesian economics is a macroeconomic theory developed by a one John Keynes (hence, the name). However, what with all of the birth certificate hooplah still in full swing, some people (if we're lucky) might mistake Keynesian for Kenyan. And if we're really lucky, someone might video those sort of encounters at the Jon Stewart rally. And if you're super lucky, I just might post such a video of such an encounter below. You're welcome.

Guess The Halloween Costume

Yesterday, I rambled on about the whorish Halloween costumes that have been so popular lately. And while I don't really condone them, I will give them credit for at least putting a little bit of thought into the costume. While the Cookie Monster costume doesn't look a thing like Cookie Monster, if you gave me a minute, I could probably noodle it through and figure it out. Granted, that weird little beret hat that it comes with would still be confusing in the end, but I still think that I could put it all together. I'm not so sure that I can say the same about this next costume. Tell me what you think this is:

See, now, I went with the Creepy Urban Rapper Costume. Strangely enough, that wasn't quite right. What did you guess? Never mind. I'm guessing that you didn't surmise that it was really this:

That's right. It's a President Barry mask. Well, technically, it's a "mr. president set". Do all presidential masks come with a Mr. Microphone or whatever that is supposed to be? If anything, shouldn't it come with a teleprompter? It's not like he's giving all of his speeches (and there have been many of them because he seems to really like the sound of his own voice) as some sort of "man on the street" Commander in Chief. Why the microphone? Shouldn't it come with a birth certificate? Kidding! I'm kidding! I kid! Geez...tough crowd.

Illegal Immigrant Thinks We Owe Her

The twisted logic that people use when it comes to illegal immigration always amazes me. And I mean always. It also really confuses me as to how "illegal immigration" seems to be so easily confused with "immigration" when the folks who seem to favor illegal immigration try and paint people who don't favor it as simply "anti-immigration". But I think that might be simply because some folks seem to not define "illegal" in the traditional sense. You know. That of it actually being not legal.

Let's look at an instance of that. Let's look at the instance of a one Zeituni Onyango. (You can pronounce that however you'd like.) I should probably point out that why you're hearing what she thinks of the whole illegal immigration issue is twofold. Fold one: She is in this country illegally. Fold two: She is the aunt of President Barry. Frankly, it's the first point that is more important than the second one. The second one is kind of a little trivia nugget more than anything. But I'm sure you still want to know what she has to say...or something like that.

Ms. Onyango came here in 2000 from Kenya and, according to AOL News, "...fell ill and was hospitalized." Aww. Well, these things happen. But then, "Upon her release...she was out of money. So rather than return to her homeland, she continued to live in the country in violation of immigration laws." Umm, OK. Yeah, those things happen, too. But they shouldn't. But what was she going to do? She was out of money, for cryin' out loud! Does Kenya give people money when they don't have any? I don't know if they do, but I could think of several reasons why they wouldn't or why they don't.

Now, in a sane society, one would think that if you're out of money, that's going to be a problem, especially if you're from another land. But not here in the good ol' US of A! Nope. Not a problem at all! See, "After stints in a Boston homeless shelter, Onyango was eventually put in public housing and began receiving disability payments." Hmm. Disability payments. Don't those come out of Social Security? Hmm. Aren't most folks expected to pay into that before they draw on it? Technically, yes. Actually, theoretically, yes. And people wonder why it's going broke. Duh.

Her story continues with us learning that "In 2004, an immigration judge ordered her to leave the country, but Onyango remained. However, she noted that her story was less about intentionally flouting federal immigration policy and more about its ineffectiveness. "I didn't take advantage of the system...The system took advantage of me." Uh, wait. What now? The system took advantage of HER?! How in the hell did the system take advantage of HER?! The system told her to leave! That's not taking advantage of her! That's booting her out! She stayed! How is it not her taking advantage of the system? HOW?! Of course, she doesn't elaborate on that.

But what she did elaborate on sent me over the proverbial edge. She said that "...she's done nothing wrong by illegally living in the United States for years and is therefore deserving of amnesty. "If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen." What the what now?

So, in her book, "illegal" doesn't mean "doing something wrong". It means "the system is taking advantage of you"? Where in the hell does she come up with that logic? And since when is any country obligated to a citizen from another country for anything?! I'm pretty sure there isn't any obligation here (other than on her part to get out). And finally, you delusional woman, you didn't come as an immigrant. You were living here illegally. You weren't an immigrant. You were an illegal resident! There's a difference! Why does everyone keep overlooking the difference between "an immigrant" and "an illegal immigrant"?! They're different, for cryin' out loud!

Wow. This is what it's come to? Really? People that don't have any legal right to be here thinking that they are owed something by this country simply because they are here? Really? Wow. I suppose that I should end this by mentioning that Ms. Unpronounceable was granted asylum earlier this year by the same judge that denied her asylum in 2004. (Gee. I wonder why that was? Hmm.) I should probably also mention that she still lives in public housing and still collects $700 per month in disability. She's never paid into the system and she's totally getting her entire lifestyle paid for out of the system. Sure, that seems reasonable. No, I can't see why that would be a problem in the long run. Or in any run. Good Lord, people....

The Condescending President

You know what I can't stand? Wait. Let me narrow that down a little bit, lest we be here all the live long day. You know what I can't stand about politicians? Wait. Hmm. There's no way of phrasing this without generating an incredibly long list of possibilities. I'll just cut to the chase. I can't stand a condescending politician. And I really can't stand a condescending President. I'm talking to you, President Barry.

The huffy folks over there at The Huffington Post tell us that President Barry was at some town hall meeting that CNBC broadcast live on Monday. And I guess that the question or the issue was simple enough. Apparently, an audience member pressed President Barry to chime in on what it is that makes the Tea Party movement do its thing. For some reason, President Barry seems to think that there are no specific goals that these folks have. I'm not sure why he thinks that. But whatever the reason is, he came across sounding like a condescending jackass.

Here's part of what he replied (and it's the part that really ticked me off): "So the challenge, I think, for the Tea Party movement is to identify, specifically, what would you do?....It's not enough just to say get control of spending. I think it's important for you to say, I'm willing to cut veterans' benefits or I'm willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits or I'm willing to see these taxes go up. What you can't do, which is what I've been hearing a lot from the other side, is we're going to control government spending, we're going to propose $4 trillion of additional tax cuts, and that magically somehow things are going to work. Now, some of these are very difficult choices." Oh, for cryin' out loud.

There are two basic goals of the Tea Party movement. The second one can be almost automatic if the first goal is met. It's all about smaller government. Yes, it's also about lower taxes, but it's largely about smaller government. The government is huge and bloated. You don't think that there could be some cut backs in government there, President Barry? Really? Because you seem to think that we're all a bunch of idiots who would believe you that the only things that could be cut would be services that are essential.

This is what politicians do. Arnold Schwarzenegger pulls it at least once a year in California when they can't agree on a budget for this fiscally doomed state. They tell folks that, in order to stay within a budget, they're going to have to cut services like firefighters and policemen and school teachers. You don't want that, do you? No, of course not! That's when they justify raising taxes. But hold on a minute! Aren't there things within the governmental bureaucracy that could be cut other than firefighters, policemen and teachers? I'm 100% positive that there are.

President Barry, are you trying to tell me that every single government agency and department and job is absolutely, completely necessary? I don't think that it is. Are you going to tell me that every single government pension plan isn't overly generous? I don't think that you can tell me that and not have your nose grow at least six inches. You're trying to tell me that none of these governmental departments overlap and do the same work that other agencies do? And I'm supposed to believe you? Really?

How about, before you go suggesting cuts to Medicare and to veteran's benefits, you cut all services to those who are in this country illegally. How much money would that save? And that's just one area where money could be saved and where government could be shrunk. Don't go around threatening us by minimizing our obligation to our soldiers by suggesting that we should cut their services. How dare you. Seriously.

Smaller government. Lower taxes. Reduce the size of the government and spending will go down some. Reduce the size of the government to what it really needs to be reduced by and watch spending go down a great deal. Watch spending go down and watch the need to taxes to raise diminish. Remember, over fifty percent of Americans want fewer services and smaller government according to two different polls, one done in April of this year and the other conducted in September of this year. Over fifty percent want smaller government. Is that specific enough for you, President Barry? How else do we need to spell it out for you?

Unemployment Benefits Cut + Baseball's Back + Poems: Shin Yu Pai

I hate to start on a down note, but today 400,000 Americans will lose their unemployment insurance, because members of the Senate GOP--first Kentucky's former baseball player Jim Bunning (see below), and now Oklahoma's gift to the country, Tom Coburn, MD, who reportedly committed Medicaid fraud and also reportedly performed a tubal ligation on a woman against her will--see fit to play games with their lives. Their hobbyhorse, never once raised during the votes for the unfunded Bush tax cuts, which destroyed the surplus President Bill Clinton left and added over $1 trillion to the deficit, or the rush to send troops to raze and occupy Iraq, or blow money on Medicare Advantage, a multibillion-dollar boondoggle, is that any spending must be "paid for."

As anyone who has ever been unemployed and relies on unemployment insurance knows, this little bit of money can be the only thing keeping a roof over your head, food in your stomach, and your lights on. But to Tom Coburn, Jim Bunning, and others in the GOP, the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people, including their children and elderly relatives, who'll also suffer, doesn't matter.

Won't you join me and urge others in calling Tom Coburn to let him know that he is playing games with people's lives, and you don't like it?

Phones:
Washington: Main: 202-224-5754
Tulsa: 918-581-7651
Oklahoma City: 405-231-4941

And if you have a Democratic Senator or two, why not call them and tell them to stop whining and take drastic action to stop the suffering of fellow Americans. They can give tax cuts to the richest people at the drop of a hat, but can only cry and rend their garments and complain about the the terrible GOP when people really need help--and the money that's due them. And you can always call GOP Senators, if they represent you, to urge them to put pressure on Coburn to stop his dangerous, cruel games.

***

Bunning's mention, acrid though it is, provokes another, more pleasant thought: baseball's back. Yes, the national and now an international pastime began last night with the Boston Red Sox--of all teams--defeating the defending World Series Champion New York Yankees 9-7.  Ugh!  I won't read the Red Sox victory as a (bad) omen, especially for the Yankees, who stayed right in the thick of the game, but rather as the stats suggest, as a breakdown by middle-reliever and former starter Chan Ho Park. 161 more games to go, guys, it can only get better.



Now that a baseball team--or a semblance of one--is back in Washington, the president is once again throwing out the first pitch. Barack Obama's inaugural gesture today really stirred up the fans. First, to honor his local team, he donned a Chicago White Sox cap, which hardly pleased the Senators spectators. Then, he threw an eephus pitch that managed to flutter somewhere west of the plate. Now that was an omen!  But it was all in good fun, the Senators faced and, unsurprisingly, were walloped by the Philadelphia Phillies. The Senators, like their football counterparts (with the offensive name, no less), are, once again, a bit of a high-paid mess.



The Saint Louis Cardinals played one of their longstanding divisional rivals, the Cincinnati Reds, and looked like the best American League team in the National League. Cardinals star and reigning NL MVP Albert Pujols hit two home runs, going 4-5 on the day and tying a team record, while catcher Yadier Molina smashed a grand slam in the 9th inning and pitcher Chris Carpenter survived one shaky inning where he also gave up two home runs, leading the Cardinals romped to an 11-6 romp. Here's to hoping that they continue to play like this all season long. Go Cardinals!

Cardinal Albert Pujols, hitting a home run hits a home run in the first inning against the Cincinnati Reds at the Great American Ball Park on March 5, 2010 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)

The New York Mets' starting pitcher and former Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana, one of the best in the game, allowed 1 run in 6 innings, with 5 strikeouts, to trump the Florida Marlin's young 6'7" phenomenon, Josh Johnson. The Mets' 2009 season unfolded like a bad serial, full of unexpected injuries, disaffected players, and a GM who didn't seem to know what he was doing (he still has his job, though), so perhaps after doing penance for releasing Willie Randolph two years ago, they'll turn out to be notably better. Just not good enough to keep the Cards out of the World Series, that is.

***

(© Kent Barker)

And now, for today's poems, here are two tiny ones by Shin Yu Pai, dealing with sports.  Shin Yu and I share a wonderful publisher, 1913 Press, which published her collection of formally innovative and politically trenchant poems, Sightings: Selected Works [2000-2005], in 2006.  Pai's collection includes lots of poems that also function as visual art, while not exactly being concrete, but here are two, from the section "Unnecessary Roughness," all of which riff off sports themes, clichés and metaphors, that appear to be fairly straightforward, at least in terms of form, while also addressing other issues, with a witty edge, if you read carefully.  (You can hear her reading at Reed College here.)

breakfast of champions

egged on
by the public
that guy owes
me some bacon
served up over
easy with a side
of milquetoast
buttered and laid
in a dish of milk
the one who speaks
softly, gets
whacked
first, with
a big stick

rookie

play pitcher
or catcher
take popshots
than hit
the showers
drill and suit
up for more
push-up
bras and
athletic supporters
fitting in
uniform
off sides
everyone's a winner

Copyright © Shin Yu Pai, from Sightings: Collected Poems (2000-2005), 1913 Press, 2006, 2010. All rights reserved.

Spring Break Is Here! + Health Insurance Bills Pass + Immigration Reformers Rally in DC

My grades are now in, which means that Spring Break week begins. It's more of a symbolic break--and brake--than a real one, though, since I still have to finish a syllabus for a new course I'm teaching next quarter, but that's always an enjoyable task. (Well, all except the document-scanning part.) I'm hoping the weather stays beautiful here so that we can start planting by this weekend, before I head back to Chicago, where, I read and heard, it snowed. Yikes. It was 70F here on Saturday, and between the scaling of prose I did get out and about. Spring, please, hang around.

===

The Democratic Leadership
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi celebrates
with other Democrats after
the health care reform
bill passed through the House
of Representatives by a vote
of 219 to 212 Sunday.
(Kevin Dietsch/UPI)

Perhaps it was always so, but politics these past few years have sometimes seemed more thrilling than the most artfully created dramas. To put it another way, there's an art and some farce to--and tremendous artifice in--our political system that was greatly on display yesterday. As I read short and marked up stories and essays and cooked, and C did his thing, we periodically would stop and watch the speechifying and punditizing and all the other lead ups to the dramatic vote last night for the terribly flawed, Republite, but still necessary Senate Health Insurance Reform and Reconciliation bills which passed last night, 219-210 and 220-209 respectively, in the US House of Representatives. We should all give great credit to President Barack Obama and his administration, and to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her caucus's leadership, for pulling off this major and longtime-coming accomplishment.

The recent path to last night's momentous events, easily the most important of President Obama's presidency and one of the landmark non-military votes of the last 35 years, involved ugly scenes and behavior of the sort that have been all to common in our history. Tea Party protesters massed outside the Capitol Building called civil rights hero Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) and a fellow Democrat, Indiana Congressman Andre Carson "nigger"; they spat on black Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO); and hollered "faggot" at out gay Congressional leader Barney Frank (D-MA).  In addition someone hurled bricks through the windows and doors of Representative Louise Slaughter's upstate New York office, and someone shattered a window at Congresswoman Gabrielle Griffiths's (D-AZ) Tucson-area office window.  These acts mirrored some of the most hideous racist, homophobic, and violent rhetoric that emerged during the 2008 campaign, and which has reappeared in various forms in the Teabaggers' protests and gatherings over the last year; in all cases, fear, ignorance and hatred of the Other is motivating these people as much as any economic or economically ideological concerns.



In the House chamber itself, GOP supporters had to be escorted from the gallery, and some of its leaders repeatedly used extremist rhetoric to denounce a bill that in essence was produced by a right-wing think tank and heavily drafted by an insurance company lobbyist.  Things reached such a feverish, unreal pitch last night, in keeping with the GOP's testeria over doing anything to help the less fortunate using GOP-friendly approaches, that after diehard anti-abortionist Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI, and Michael Moore's Congressperson!) who had repeatedly misstaked the facts about the Senate bill's abortion provisions and attempted to take the bill down completely, shifted his position to vote for the legislation based on an agreement with Obama, who issued an executive order setting the Hyde Amendment as the law of the land, an even more extreme Republican, Randy Neugebauer (R-TX), shattered what little decorum remained and screamed out "baby killer." This echoed GOP behavior during the President's address to the joint session of the Houses of Congress last September, when Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) yelled out "You lie!" Neugebauer apologized today, but his actions made clear how difficult any real bipartisan comity or agreement with the extremist-dominated Republican Party rump that now sits in Congress, unless the topic is warmonger and warmaking.

But back to the bill: it falls far short of many of the goals Obama outlined during the campaign. There is no affordable, government-funded public insurance option. There is no drug importation, nor can Medicare negotiate for lower prices. The bill bans rescission based on pre-existing conditions for adults, but not for several years. The bill does not halt the profit-making motives or slash waste and overhead for private insurance companies enough. It includes some well-known and some last-minute giveaways to the insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital industries. It also incentivizes (a horrible word, I know) higher-deductible plans at the cost of more ample, affordable ones. It mandates that all American adults buy often costly private insurance at penalty of an IRS fine. For some individuals and families who don't qualify for Medicaid or fall at the lower, subsidy-ready end of the spectrum, or, conversely, at the top, the costs will be a burden. As the 18% non-enrollment level in the structurally close Massachusetts health care program, introduced by Republican Mitt Romney when he governed that state, demonstrates, affordability should have been a greater consideration. And, despite the deranged outbursts by Wilson, Neugebauer and others, this bill strikes a severe blow to abortion rights, particular for working-class and poor women, and to equality for all US residents, particularly undocumented immigrants. Firedoglake lays out some six of the bill's most egregious flaws here.

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and senior staff react in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, as the House passes the health care reform bill, March 21, 2010.  (Official White House/Pete Souza)

The bill is riddled with problems. And yet...it was worth passing, because it does improve in some key ways on the status quo even as it doesn't challenge or undermine some of the serious structural problems affecting US health care, chief among them reining in corporate interests and the for-profit model of health insurance and coverage. Linguist and critic Noam Chomsky stated in a Raw Story interview today that were he in Congress he would have "held his nose," given how awful this bill is compared to what it could and should have done, and voted for it. Deferring again to Firedoglake, here are some of the realities of what's just been passed: Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Care Bill. Ugh! So what good does it do? Among its immediate benefits, it bans insurance companies from dropping children with pre-existing conditions (adults must wait until 2014); it ensures that people with pre-existic conditions will be able to get insurance through a temporary high-risk pool; it offers small businesses tax credits to provide insurance for workers; it does remove lifetime cost caps; it closes the prescription drug "doughnut-hole" for seniors; it allows parents to carry their children on their plans until the age of 26; it ends recissions; insurance must pay out 80% of premiums in claims; and they have to create greater transparency in their operations.

Now that the bill is passed, where do we go? First, we should keep in mind that, once the Reconciliation sidecar bill passes the US Senate, this historic bill is still only a first step. Its flaws need to be fixed. Second, what we who care about real, progressive health care reform can do is to push our Senators to hold an up-or-down vote for a robust government insurance plan, a true public option. Not only President Obama, but several score US Senators claimed to support a public option, and the initial House bill also included a weakened but viable public insurance option. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has said he'd bring a public option bill up for a vote, but I don't trust him as far as I can throw him; demanding unrelentingly that he, Obama (who dealt away the public option on the gaming table of insurance industry concessions), and so-called progressives in the Senate and House support, pass and sign into law a public option is the main way to make this happen.  US health care costs per person are double or in some cases nearly triple those of comparable industrialized nations; cost-effective care, alongside expanded coverage, must be a goal, and a public option--or single-payer insurance--is the road to ensuring this. At the state level, pushing for changes that allow a public option or to ensure one is also a needed move. Also pushing for expansion of Medicare and Medicaid, drug reimportation, and Medicare drug negotiation also are important. And having more people speak out about the crucial importance of abortion rights and equality of funding, across class lines, and for fair and humane treatment of immigrants, including coverage for them if they become ill, neither of which is popular right now, will also be important.

Nevertheless, it marks the major achievement of Barack Obama's presidency thus far. It also is the major achievement of the post-2006 Congressional Democrats, and huge credit goes to the leadership of the first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.  The president and Congress were able to push through a form of social legislation that over a dozen predecessors, including President Bill Clinton in 1994-95, and several past Republican presidents, could not, and did so with the support of a majority of his party members in both houses of Congress and without any support of the opposition party. It is a victory for the country, and the GOP's "Waterloo." Now it'll be up to President Obama and Congressmembers to sell this new legislation, to ensure that it runs smoothly, and to steadily and regularly improve it. Above all they cannot run away from it; once its decent provisions start to kick in, it will become as popular and vital as Social Security or Medicare, neither of which many opponents of this legislation are willing to give up, especially once they've started to rely on it.

===

Protesters waved signs from a flatbed truck on Sunday during the March for America immigration rally in Washington Luke Sharrett/The New York Times

Overshadowed by the health insurance reform votes yesterday was the massive march yesterday in Washington, DC, for immigration reform.  More than 200,000 immigration reform supporters called for action on the US's broken system, in which many millions of immigrants now resident in the country are undocumented, living in a legal limbo and thus open to exploitation by businesses and citizens who've gamed the situation to their benefit.

While the rhetoric on the right, and sometimes at the center and on the left often paints the immigrants as the source of the problem, what's less often broached, particular in the mainstream media, are the larger issues of what a functioning, enforceable immigration system for the 21st century United States would look like, and what corporate America's role in such a system would and should be.  The result over the last 10 years was a massive influx of immigrants, often lured by businesses of all sizes to work for lower wages, thus depressing the earnings of US citizens, without protections either for the immigrants or native workers, accompanied by an increasingly strident attack against those same immigrants, and minimal inforcement whatosever against businesses via the nation's standing immigration laws.

The result has exacerbated the country's already severe economic problems, both for the immigrants and for US citizens, and, after George W. Bush's failed effort at immigration reform, left immigrants as targets for even more abuse and exploitation, detention, sometimes severing families and leaving children without their parents, and deportation.  Under Obama, enformcement has taken the form of rising detentions and deportations, slightly increased enforcement against businesses, and pantomime on the border.  If it and the nation's ports and airports aren't as porous as they were 5 years ago, they are still quite open. In short, not much has changed for the better, though many things have gotten worse. I don't know whether Obama is serious about immigration reform; what I'd look for is where businesses fall on this issue. Wherever that is, we should expect that the Obama administration will follow. Given the Republicans' behavior surrounding the utterly Republican bill that Obama just pushed through, I cannot see them working with the administration much, if at all, on this issue, which some of their best known Congressional figures, entertainers and intellectuals, and their Teabagger base have demagogued the issue beyond reasonability, so it'll be up to the Democrats, who view many of the potential new Americans as their constituency, to lead. The question on this issue, as on all others, remains: Will they? Let's see.

More rallies are planned for April 10, the final day of the Congressional recess, and according to Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, immigrant groups will be releasing scorecards of every Congressmembers record on immigration issues on May 1.

Tea Partier Brown Wins Massachusetts Senate Seat

When will they learn? Just a few days ago I posted on how President Barack Obama is governing like a moderate Republican.  The Democrats in Congress, to their detriment, also have decided to cast their lot with their corporate masters rather than the people. At no point have the leaders (except Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, on rare occasions) made any attempt to defend this approach, or liberalism or progressivism in general, leaving a void that has been amply filled by the tiny minority of the country that agrees with the Tea Party activists, and exploited by the GOP, with their corporate media allies. And now we see the tangible result in tonight's Massachusetts special election to fill Teddy Kennedy's former seat. By a 52%-47% margin, Bay State voters installed a Tea Party-identified, Birther-linked, pro-torture, anti-LGBTQ, sexist, right-wing corporatist Republican masquerading as a "independent" everyman named Scott Brown. (I guess that means Marco Rubio will not be the first Tea Party Senator if he's elected.) He defeated establishmentarian Democratic state attorney general, Martha Coakley, a lackluster campaigner who wasn't helped by the situation in Washington. Brown's election seriously endangers the seriously flawed health insurance reform bill, echoing the debacle of 1993-94. If they fail to pass this bill, the damage to Obama and the Democrats will be incalculable.

Do I think that President Obama and the Democrats will draw the proper conclusions from this election? Will they see through the cries against higher taxation (Obama has not raised taxes, and his "stimulus" bill unfortunately cut them instead of devoting the money towards better job-creating programs), deficit spending (most of the deficit was created under Bush, and in the current economic climate, government spending and a deficit are necessary), and anti-health care reform (Massachusetts has a public health care system, and would benefit under a more robust national system, with a public health care option, Medicare buy-in, or best of all, single payer system)? It doesn't appear so. Between Evan Bayh, Joe Lieberman, Jim Webb, and what appears to be coming out of this administration, it appears they are going to go the Clintonian route, which might have worked (well, after 1994), two decades ago, after a prior ineffectual Bush administration, but it isn't going to work now, on basic economic grounds (Hooverism is a prescription for disaster), but also because it is only going to drive away the base and will not draw alienated independents or the recalcitrant GOP.  It also doesn't help that Rahm Emanuel, a chancre on the face of this administration, began slamming Coakley before the polls had even closed.  This is no way to operate and you'd never see this from the GOP, but then again, why should anyone be surprised? Emanuel was a corporate sellout as a Congressperson, and loose at the lips when he worked under Clinton.

Changing course towards real change, towards real progressivism that would turn the economy around and show people that the government was not an annex off Bowling Green and countless multinationals, alongside shedding the likes of Emanuel, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and all the other WallStreetbots and plants in the administration would be a great way to start. Bush cut Paul O'Neill ("the genius of capitalism!") loose when he showed he wasn't conservative enough (and a bit incompetent and loose at the mouth); since he's taking pointer after pointer from his predecessor, Obama might want to try this option out. He should also make more of an effort to get out of Washington and visit people across the country as he did for two years before he won. The bubble is cutting off his air supply, and the mirror of lobbyists, yes people, gladhanders, and the airheaded mainstream Washington media aren't helping one bit. Popular anger may be incoherent, but it's real, and he had better think carefully about and then try to address it. If not, and we keep listing towards the muddle of the middle, with more pro-Wall Street/corporate welfarist and right-wing policies, 1994 will look like 1936.

Award-winning blogger Digby, who's been writing quite a bit about the Pete Peterson Foundation's plans for gutting Social Security and Medicare, summarizes what's predictably coming next, and it doesn't look good.

John Stewart on the Democrats' having only an 18-vote majority now.

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Is Obama Really Colin Powell? + Teddy Pendergrass RIP + Noam Chomsky on Haiti

Some weeks back, perhaps at the start of the new academic quarter when I had a smidgeon of time and was feeling thoughtful, I tweeted about a hypothetical situation which had struck me that day: what if instead of electing Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 we had elected Republican Colin Powell to the presidency, and how, in practical terms, would a Powell presidency be different?

What prompted me to ask this was a year's worth of reflection on Obamatude, and how, in so many ways, instead of a true, clean break with the last administration, what we've gotten, and what's become a source of distress for many progressives and independents not bound by hero-worship of the President, is a continuation of the Bush's and the GOP's policies, just in slightly attenuated form. This thinned yet still toxic broth we're being served daily has led me to wonder where Obama, who ran as an agent of "change"--even if his own record hovered between post-partisan beliefs and neoliberal policies relabled as "pragmatism," and sometimes impressively progressive symbolism and rhetoric--has differed from what a counterfactual Powell administration might have looked like. Comparing the record of the real administration with the fictive one, I cannot see where there is much difference, except perhaps in the nomination of someone like Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, though even in this instance, I would not have put it past Powell, with a nominally Democratic Congress, to make such a symbolic, if politically risky, move.

Let me begin by saying that I was happy that Barack Obama and Joe Biden defeated John McCain and Sarah Palin in November 2008. Like many Americans, and almost every black person, American or otherwise that I know, I continue to be both amazed and proud that we now have an African-American president in the White House. I am also proud of my fellow Americans for making this choice. In terms of Obama's first year of governance, I do not agree that he hasn't accomplished some substantive things, but I continue to be disappointed that he has repeatedly backed away from pushing the status quo, that he will not make a more sustained public case for his policies or politics, that he will not push the Congress more to do the proper thing, and that he appears to be more effective as a symbol than as a leader. This, in a sense, is his great triumph so far: symbolic leadership. It led to the premature Nobel Prize; it continues to garner him adulation in this country among elements of his base, as well as across the globe (and I saw this this year in Cuba and Italy); and it endows what leadership he does demonstrate with something extra, a value-added spark and cachet. I try never to forget the importance of this symbolic element of Obama's tenure, and am always urging that he use it more. (Drew Westen's excellent piece on Obama explores this and related issues.)



That said, I have also thought about what it would have meant to elect a black Republican like Powell as president, and how Obama in some ways seems to be behaving as if he were one. As recently as 2000, before the taint of his ineffectual stint in the W Bush administration, Powell was arguably the most popular and electable--at least at the presidential level--major black political figure in the landscape. In many ways, one can draw parallels between Powell and Obama. Like Obama, he had black immigrant parentage (his mother and father were Jamaicans); like Obama he married an African-American woman (from Alabama in Powell's case); like Obama he grew up in a working-class milieu, and has passed through multiple levels of American society, though in Powell's case it was through the older method of the government, and specifically, the US military. Like Obama Powell is an effective speaker, possessed a palpable élan, and, before the Iraq War debacle, projected leadership. Like Obama, Powell was inoffensive to large portions of the white population, and his politics, combined with his military background, gave an especial appeal that other black politicians or public figures interested in politics couldn't claim. Had he chosen to run and been elected in 2000, say, he would have become our first African-American president; had he chosen to run against Obama in 2008, he would still have claimed that mantle, and very well might have made it a closer election. Powell was and has been consistently silent about the extremists on the right, choosing instead to either ignore or conciliate them, much as Obama has done, to his detriment, but vocal about criticizing critics on the left. In so many ways, in fact, Obama is governing as if he were Powell, though without the latter's confident approach to the military hierarchy or related matters, and in such a way that he now finds himself attacked both by the left AND the right, much as Powell was at the end of Bush's disastrous mess of a first term.

Take, for example, the economic policies under Obama. How do they differ from what a moderate Republican might have overseen? At every step, the administration, in collusion with the Democratic-controlled Congress, has taken steps that are friendly to business interests and less beneficial to the majority of Americans, the middle and working-classes and the poor. Salon's Michael Lind has called it "corporate welfarism," as opposed to the sort of New New Dealism that many Americans were expecting. Obama reappointed the "libertarian Republican" Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, who presided over the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. Most of Obama's economic advisors during the campaign came from the "Chicago School" of economics, and the current leadership includes people who accept the basic premises of Friedman, Becker, etc., the Reagan economic and political Revolution, and Clintonian neoliberalism. The only truly progressive economist in their midst works out of the Vice President's office. Obama continued the bank bailout plan initiated by George Bush, on terms that also continue to give away the financial store; his Treasury department seems to be an annex of Goldman Sachs and a department of J.P. Morgan Chase; his stimulus package--i.e., jobs bill--was watered down by centrist and conservative terms, undermined by unnecessary tax cuts, and has been less effective than it could have been; and his mortgage legislation, instead of forcing an effective revaluation of loan principals, instead ceded the power to the banks, wrapped in a net of bureaucracy, making it far less effective--it has been a bust--than it could have been, with the resultant effect that the housing market will continue to ail for some time to come. Indeed, whenever and wherever this administration has had the opportunity to intervene directly in some aspect of the economic turnaround vs. negotiating and then handing power to a middleman, using our tax dollars, they have chosen the latter. Given Powell's moderate instincts vs. outright Hooverism, is there any sense that he would have behaved differently, especially with a Democratic Congress in power?

Then there are the military policies. Obama has not withdrawn the troops from Iraq as he promised, and instead of winding down the war in Afghanistan, he has instead pushed through two surges, with attendant war funding. He claims that the US government does not torture, but allegations of torture continue from Guantánamo, which he promised to shutter, yet which is still operating. He has pressed for no investigations of the prior administration's lies, war crimes, or corrupt accounting. He continues to permit Blackwater/XE to work with US intelligence agencies. He is permitting drone attacks in Pakistan--in fact, he made this a centerpiece of his campaign--and is launching them in Yemen. He continues military aid to "anti-Islamicists" in Somalia, and the US-proxy Ethiopian forces, and is underwriting ongoing military aid to the right-wing government in Colombia. On top of this, he did almost nothing beyond issue mild condemnation of the military coup in Honduras. He has even backed away--or is at least being vaguer--about his mild approach to the Israeli settlements, and has said nothing publicly about the Bush administration's failed policies and alleged attempted coup in Gaza that has created incredible suffering for Palestinians living there. And then there is the abomination of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. How, can anyone tell me, does this differ from what Colin Powell, a militarist Republican, might have done?


On civil liberties, we continue with a milder form of Bushism, as opposed to a break. I have yet to see any public discussion, led by the President or his administration, or leading figures in the Congress, about the 8 years of warrantless wiretapping (illegal spying) on US citizens under Bush, which began in January 2001, yet could not stop the 9/11 attacks, the anthrax attacks, the Shoe Bomber, the numerous terrorist attacks across the globe allegedly launched by Al Qaeda, nor, most recently, another potentially tragic attack on the international and domestic airline system. (Could someone in Congress EVER investigate and publicize what this illegal spying was for and why it began in January 2001? Is that too much to ask?) Indeed, Obama has repeatedly pushed to hide the Bush administration's crimes, arguing on behalf of the state secrets doctrine; has not suggested returning to the pre-Patriot Act FISA situation, but rather wants to keep the odious, invasive new laws in place; and has proposed an incoherent system of trying the alleged terrorists, with some going to federal courts, others being subjected to military courts, and others being kept in long-term detention, which is to say, as political prisoners without trial. Obama's and his administration's public rhetoric appears to take a different turn, but as Glenn Greenwald and others have noted, the noxious Bush-era systems continue. And I ask again, how would a Powell administration, led by someone who essentially agreed with Bush on most of these civil liberties issues, differ from what we've seen on Obama?

Then there are LGBTQ issues. Again, wherever possible, Obama has been halting, timid, seemingly more concerned with symbolism and appearance over substance, unwilling to take public stands that might demonstrate an real belief in full equality, and some horrible missteps, such as the initial brief from his Justice Department that compared gay people to child molesters. Even with the Matthew Shepard Act, which did pass, he was tight-lipped until the bill finally made it through Congress. There was no vocal advocacy, no sense from him of how important addressing the ongoing violence against gay people, ranging from bullying of children to murder of adults, really is. With DADT, with the Employment Non-Discrimation Act (ENDA), as with repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), it appears as though a hands-off approach is the one this administration feels it must take. All of this I would have expected from a Republican like Powell, but from Obama, it has been nothing short of disgusting.

Perhaps one area where Obama has differed is in the appointment of a few truly progressive individuals who would be out of place in a Powell (or any other likely Republican president's) administration. Hilda Solís, the outspoken, progressive Secretary of Labor, who has provoked extensive grumbling from the corporate sector, is one example; I cannot imagine Powell's advisors permitting, let alone him daring, to appoint someone as pro-worker and pro-labor as Solís. Perhaps another would be Amanda Simpson, soon to be Senior Technical Advisor in the Bureau of Industry and Security, and the first transgender person to be appointed to an executive branch-level position. Again, the anti-gay and Christianist branches of the GOP, who have criticized Simpson's appointment, would be trying to string Powell up for such an appointment. Yet beside both of these nominations there is the case of Office of Legal Counsel nominee Dawn Johnsen, an outspoken critic of Bush's criminal actions; after being stalled by Republicans for nearly a year, the administration did and said nothing to support her, the nomination lapsed, and she was only renominated, receiving support from GOP apostate Arlen Spector this month. Yet the administration is still refusing to argue on behalf of someone who not only would be an excellent employee, but who would boost their cred in the eyes of many frustrated supporters. While these nominations and appointments are worthy of celebration among many progressives, the critique remains that Obama hasn't gone far enough, and has squandered his political capital in an attempt to curry favor with the obstructionist, nihilist GOP and placate his corporate funders. Powell, being a moderate, very likely would find himself in similar pincers, though he would have the Democratic Congress to run against, and they have done themselves no favors over the last year either. The health care reform bill, which became a health care industry giveaway, is proof of this, as is the watered down and now disintegrating financial reform effort. Under a Powell administration, I could not imagine bolder efforts on either front, and envision the former not occurring at all. (In fact, just this summer, Powell counseled Obama to take baby steps.) Instead, we'd be muddling through with our horrid health care system, and watching Democrats silently twist themselves into knots to please Wall Street, while being rhetorically shredded by the GOP and their corporate allies.

Perhaps President Obama and Congressional leaders will wake up and figure out that dishwater W-Bushism mixed with distilled Clintonism--an approach I feared more than anything else, and which I would have expected under a moderate Republican, like Powell--will be his and the Democrats' undoing. If establishmentarian stenographers like the New York Times's Adam Nagourney are to be believed, however, the Democrats are drawing the exact opposite lessons from their rising unpopularity. Instead of more social progressivism, more transparency, more direct and immediate relief for struggling and suffering Americans, and less warmongering, we have repeatedly gotten the opposite. Instead of telling Wall Street that with the bailouts come tough conditions, they are setting the terms; instead of sweeping clean the legacy of Reagonomics and neoliberalism, they have provided the framework for every step this administration has taken. They are currently fretting over the potential loss of Teddy Kennedy's former Massachusetts Senate seat to a really far right-winger, anti-gay, anti-abortionist, pro-rape Birther sympathizer Scott Brown, but they have created the conditions that are making this possible. Lackluster, milquetoast establishmentarian candidates, like Martha Coakley, who offer dispassionate bromides and espouse corporatism and neoliberalism are not going to cut it, either with many on the left, or with the GOP, who will institute the same or worse policies, but with even greater pain on the middle-class and poor, but on their own terms. President Powell perhaps would have realized this but very likely would have remained silent and muddled through, as he did for the majority of his service under Bush. President Obama, who is currently in office, cannot and will not succeed if he continues to do so.

***

As is probably the case for many people growing up in inner-city America during the 1970s, the music of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, and later on especially Teddy Pendergrass, formed part of the musical soundtrack of my childhood and early teenage years. He was one of the supreme male crooners and sex symbols bar none (Marvin Gaye and Barry White would have been two of the other major ones), whose voice could seduce the bark off trees and the drawers, as I once heard someone say, off even proper church ladies; the stories of women tossing their panties at him as he sang on stage are legendary. While I loved his songs and his voice, especially "Love TKO," "Get Up, Get Down, Get Funky, Get Loose," and "Turn Off the Lights," the hypermasculinist image he projected felt like an admonition and a repudiation of who I felt myself becoming at the time, particularly at a moment when I was very unsure of my own sense of (not traditionally masculine adolescent) self, and I found it tough to reconcile my love of his music with the image he represented to and for me. What I was specifically struggling with was a sense that being a man, a straight black man, in part meant mirroring the sort of heterosexual dynamo that he appeared to be. It was therefore a shock, as it was perhaps to many others, when I heard about his disabling, tragic car crash, in 1982 (I was in high school then), in which he was paralyzed from the neck down, and the transsexual transvestite who was in the car with him. The crash shifted my perspective back to his music, which remains transcendant, and some of the most erotic soul every recorded, and my appreciation for his gifts grew to the extent that I was delighted when he returned to the stage after a gap of many years, to resume performing. This past week he passed away, at age 59, after suffering through colon cancer. As NPR reported recently, "Before his death, Pendergrass had co-written songs for the biographical musical production I Am Who I Am: The Story of Teddy Pendergrass." His voice and songs remain with us.

EJ Flavors, the music man, has a wonderful Teddy Pendergrass/Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes hits podcast.

***

Some of the rhetoric about Haiti's pre-earthquake state has been, to put it simply, ahistorical. There are reasons why Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and none of them are by accident. Chapter 8 of Noam Chomsky's book Year 501 is entitled "The Tragedy of Haiti," and you can read it here for some background on the history of what had once been France's richest colony in the New World, a virtual mint, run by the blood and sweat of Africans, for the Bourbon and other dynasties and the bourgeoisie around them. Two paragraphs, in case you did not know this history:

The [Haitian] rebellion had broad consequences. It established British dominance of the Caribbean, and impelled its former colonies a long step further on their westward course as Napoleon, abandoning his hopes for an empire in the New World, sold the Louisiana territory to the United States. The rebel victory came at tremendous cost. Much of the agricultural wealth of the country was destroyed, along with perhaps a third of the population. The victory horrified Haiti's slave-holding neighbors, who backed France's claims for huge reparations, finally accepted in 1825 by Haiti's ruling elite, who recognized them to be a precondition for entry into the global market. The result was "decades of French domination of Haitian finance" with "a catastrophic effect on the new nation's delicate economy," Farmer observes. France then recognized Haiti, as did Britain in 1833. Simon Bolívar, whose struggles against Spanish rule were aided by the Haitian Republic on condition that he free slaves, refused to establish diplomatic relations with Haiti on becoming President of Greater Colombia, claiming that Haiti was "fomenting racial conflict" -- a refusal "typical of Haiti's welcome in a monolithically racist world," Farmer comments. Haitian elites continued to be haunted by fear of conquest and a renewal of slavery, a factor in their costly and destructive invasions of the Dominican Republic in the 1850s.
The US was the last major power to insist that Haiti be ostracized, recognizing it only in 1862. With the American Civil War underway, Haiti's liberation of slaves no longer posed a barrier to recognition; on the contrary, President Lincoln and others saw Haiti as a place that might absorb blacks induced to leave the United States (Liberia was recognized in the same year, in part for the same reason). Haitian ports were used for Union operations against the rebels. Haiti's strategic role in control of the Caribbean became increasingly important in US planning in later years, as Haiti became a plaything among the competing imperial powers. Meanwhile its ruling elite monopolized trade, while the peasant producers in the interior remained isolated from the outside world.