November 2006 Archives

[Equation for inertia at the moment an object stops spinning: courtesy UC Santa Barbara]

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 — The bipartisan Iraq Study Group reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal, according to people familiar with the panel’s deliberations.

The report, unanimously approved by the 10-member panel, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, is to be delivered to President Bush next week. It is a compromise between distinct paths that the group has debated since March, avoiding a specific timetable, which has been opposed by Mr. Bush, but making it clear that the American troop commitment should not be open-ended. The recommendations of the group, formed at the request of members of Congress, are nonbinding.

So what are we to think of these findings, which are certain to be criticized as too centrist, so as to be uselessly vague and murky?

And what of the thousand and one questions that the report fails to answer? Doesn't this just complicate matters, giving no real solutions to the very real problem of Iraq?

Actually, I think that the commission's recommendations give me cause for hope. Let me explain...

The commission had only one real task before it, and that was to unanimously agree on something about Iraq. Find a point of shared reality, and state that as the new beginning line (or the new center line, if you prefer), and move the discussion forward from there, as opposed to the same old political fight (stay the course, cut and run, stand still and die, redeploy, let's see what happens in two Friedmans from now...you get the idea).

The spectrum of solutions in this evenly split bipartisan commission ranged from "stay the course forever" to "leave immediately".

What the commission agreed upon as the shared reality was that all discussion from here forward should be started on the basis of we are leaving and not we are staying .

While that is a marked shift in the generally accepted Republican world view reality, it has been the leading point of discussion for top Democrats for well over a year.

Although I could easily make the argument that the commission abdicated its duty to make any specific recommendations, I think it made the only recommendation worth making, which is to center discussion around leaving versus staying.

That, combined with the decision earlier this week by several major news bureaus to start describing the bloodbath in Iraq as a 'civil war', may well provide enough cover for Republicans leaders to change their position on redeployment of US forces from Iraq.

We can only hope. It is, after all, the season for miracles.

Congress is back in session next week. But only for one week.

You know what to do.

Please join me in choosing hope.

Take action.

Every now and again we need to step outside of politics to take a look at what lies behind the politics.

Recent blog comments here at the Democracy Cell Project have touched upon the arrogance of power, the hubris of geocentricity, the divisiveness of racial and sectarian bias -- all things that may be in the forefront of our minds today, but that are hardly new in the human condition.

Reading through these comments, and reflecting upon the timelessness of the assumptions that they address, kept calling to my mind some poetic remarks that are commonly attributed to a letter allegedly written by the Native American leader Chief Seattle to President Franklin Pierce in 1854.

While there is scholarly question as to the veracity of that attribution, as noted in some detail here, there is little doubt that those widely-quoted remarks have become familiar to all of us over the years.

But one of the frailties of being human is that we tend to forget too quickly the things that should guide us in our hearts and minds. And regardless of their source, those words attributed to Chief Seattle deserve to be quoted here once again, because they speak as truly to us now as they ever have.

Perhaps Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and Ms. Rice and Mr. Gates should take a moment to read and take to heart these words and the meaning behind them before embarking on their next rounds of international meddling. The world would be a better place for it if they did.

There's much discussion underway in the blogosphere and in the media on the use of the term civil war to describe the violence in Iraq in the mainstream news media. NBC applied the term yesterday on the Today Show and in its nightly news broadcast--after much editorial forethought.

The conclusion that the sectarian violence in Iraq was a civil war is not new. It was drawn over five months ago by Monica Duffy Toft for the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. It was confirmed through the scrutiny of six questions identifying the players, their roles and the type of conflict for this country. And the blogosphere has been saying the same thing for the last three years. Check out Steve Gilliard's 2003 post on Daily Kos (hattip to Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake for the heads up).

The use of the term civil war has raised serious red flags in the White House, who are now engaged in a full fledged jihad against the use of the term. The mission: to keep all ten fingers and toes in the holes of the leaking seawall of fact. Yesterday, in the face of the use of the term civil war, the President blinked, and instead of seeing or acknowledging the writing on the wall, today, he just saw the wall.

It's interesting to watch the twists and turns of the bubble reality and acrobatic contortions of the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Set as they encounter this new concept called reality. How much more reality will it take before it's acknowledged and something can be done? How can we allow one more American or Iraqi to die for a mistake when a mistake can't even be recognized?

Photo from Lockheed Martin

The new Congress, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is set to take on the task of reducing corruption in government. Ethics is a concern when considering appointments to committees. A "culture of corruption" has developed which is strong enough to disturb the voters and undermine their confidence in Congress.

Powerful special interests historically pull hard on legislators, particularly from the "military industrial complex." Arms manufacturers make campaign contributions, but far more important is their leverage they exert on the Congressional spending of taxpayer money.

In Ronald Reagan's 1985 State of the Union address, he said, "We must not relax our efforts to restore military strength. You know, we only have a military-industrial complex until a time of danger, and then it becomes the arsenal of democracy."

In an excellent column entitled "The antigay obsession" in the Boston Globe, columnist Derrick Z. Jackson has some great quotes from leaders in South Africa, where the parliament just voted to legalize same-sex marriage.

South African Defense Minister Mosuia Lekota was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, "The roots of this bill lie in many years of struggle. . . . This country cannot afford to be a prison of timeworn prejudices which have no basis in modern society. Let us bequeath to future generations a society which is more democratic and tolerant than the one that was handed down to us."

The tone of affirmation in South Africa had been set years before by the likes of former South African President Nelson Mandela, who lost a son to AIDS, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, who has repeatedly criticized homophobia in the church. "This is crazy," the retired archbishop said eight years ago. "We say the expression of love in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship is more than just the physical but includes touching, embracing, kissing, maybe the genital act. The totality of this makes each of us grow to become giving, increasingly God-like and compassionate.

"If it is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual, provided the relationship is exclusive, not promiscuous?"

My ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower. Nor did they live in the wilds of what was the northeast coast of America. They came in the 1950s after World War II to settle in a small farming town in Central California. So we have no traditional claim to the historic significance of Thanksgiving. We just like the food.

Our family never appreciated turkey until the 1990s. By then, I was the one who had to do the dirty deed. Please ask me at another time what it was like to load, on my own, a 25 pound mastodon-sized bird into a brown paper bag, and then into the oven for what would be a desperate eight hour onslaught: A kitchen battle filled with remorse, angst and finally prayer to the Almighty God of Turkeys that when I finally took the beast out of the oven, that please God, I wouldn't kill my mother with e coli, salmonella, or whatever other mad bird disease that might occur.

I am a devotee of side dishes and this year, we will be incorporating our own cultural panache into the proceedings. Forget the Mayflower--give me Lumpia Shanghai!.

That's what we will be eating, along with turkey and sides, on Thursday.

Thanksgiving's non-denominational aspect makes it one of the coolest holidays of the year. Also, the diversity of spices, flavors, even choices of main course protein makes it special. We are the nation of immigrants after all, and when all is said and done, the differences on our plates, in our prayers, through our languages, and with our family traditions on this day IS WHAT BINDS US. Our unity of differences makes the Great-Experiment-Called-America what it is.

I think that every one of us has a special recipe, albeit untraditional, that graces our Thanksgiving feast. So my fellow DCPistas, feel free to share your "special" holiday recipe below, or a memorable feast memory or even a holiday disaster story from your family/tribe.

And please give thanks for whatever you feel like giving thanks for. Believe it or not, we have lots of reasons to feel gratitude today.

First of all, thanks to all of you at the DCP who work so hard and who are part of the sea change that is going on right now in this country. We have lots more work to do to assure the restoration of "government by the people and for the people", but it is happening.

However, as we gather with loved ones for recuperation, let's think about what we can do to ease the pain of those this country has cruelly hurt:

Agustin Aguayo's case was heard in the D.C Circuit Court yesterday, but no judgement was made. And so, Agustin, whose case for conscientious objector status has resonated globally, sits in a jail cell in Germany, unsure of whether or not he will remain in that cell or, even worse, be sent back to Iraq to fight and kill.

We can help.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 20, 2006: DCP will be there!

Aguayo v. the Secretary of the Army: The first military conscientious objector case to come before the powerful and influential D.C. Circuit Court in the 35 years since the Vietnam War. U.S. Combat Medic Facing Up to Seven Years Military Prison For Refusing a Second Deployment to Iraq Could Be Freed by U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C.

Press briefing Tuesday, November 21, 2006.

Who: American Voices Abroad (AVA) Military Project and U.S. citizens abroad supporting U.S. soldiers stationed abroad

What: Press briefing 8:15 to 8:45 am Tuesday, November 21, 2006 re: Aguayo vs. the Secretary of the Army

Where: John Marshall Park (between the U.S. District Court & the
Canadian Embassy) 4th & Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20001 (near Judiciary Square Metro Station)

When: Press briefing 8:15 to 8:45 am Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Informal Interviews to follow until Court Session begins at about 9:30 am Security Clearance of Press & Visitors; *

John Marshall Park Entrance to the U.S. District Court
333 Constitution Avenue, NW (Photo ID is required. No cameras are allowed.)

Oral Arguments follow, about 9:30 to ca. 11:00 am**
U.S. Court of Appeals 5th Floor, U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia

---------- Background Information ---------

U.S. Combat Medic Facing Up to Seven Years Military Prison For Refusing a Second Deployment to Iraq Could Be Freed by U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C.

Agustin Aguayo’s full statement to the court, as well as pleadings and court decisions, can be found on www.AguayoDefense.org. Also see http://agustin-aguayo.blogspot.com/

Washington, DC: Army Specialist Agustin Aguayo, age 34 – a Mexican-born, naturalized U.S. citizen from Los Angeles and a decorated Iraq War veteran – is facing a sentence up to seven years in military prison for refusing to deploy to Iraq for a second time. His refusal to deploy, at the beginning of September, 2006, followed a more than two-year struggle to get the Army to grant him an immediate honorable discharge on the grounds that he is a conscientious objector (CO). In 2005, he decided to challenge the Army’s denial of his application in a civil court – the federal U.S. District in Washington, D.C., which has jurisdiction over all U.S. military personnel stationed outside the U.S.

On November 21st, 2006, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will consider Agustin’s appeal in his civil court case, Aguayo vs. The Secretary of the Army, and decide upon the merit of his claim that the Army wrongfully denied his 2004 application to be recognized as a CO. The three judges hearing the appeal are: Douglas H. Ginsburg (Chief Judge), David R. Sentelle, and A. Raymond Randloph. This is the first military conscientious objector case to come before the powerful and influential D.C. Circuit Court since 1971, during the Vietnam War. Decisions on appeal are often issued only after several months, but the judges could also rule immediately from the bench to free Aguayo.

Aguayo, who is a combat medic with the 1st Infantry Division, enlisted in the Army prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He was initially assigned to the Schweinfurt Army base in Germany. In February, 2004, at the beginning of his first deployment from Germany to Iraq, he filed his application for recognition as a conscientious objector. In preparing his application, he was counseled by Military Counseling Network (MCN), in Bammantal, Germany, a project of the German Mennonite Peace Committee and a member of the GI Rights Hotline. While in Iraq, Aguayo refused to load his gun as required when on guard duty or patrol.

Although the officers and experts who interviewed Aguayo found him to be sincere and recommended granting his CO application, it was ultimately denied by higher officers in August, 2004. No reasons were given. With the assistance of American Voices Abroad Military Project (AVA), a network of U.S. peace activists in Europe and the Center on Conscience and War in DC, Aguayo’s wife Helga after several months raised enough funds to retain attorneys Peter Goldberg and Jim Feldman of Philadelphia to file his civil lawsuit as a plaintiff against the Secretary of the Army. In this suit, Aguayo argues that the Army has given no grounds for rejecting his application. “Under compulsion of conscience,” Aguayo wrote in his statement to the court, “I will risk court-martial and imprisonment rather than deploy.”

"We'll succeed unless we quit".

Striking words from the former Texas Air National Guardsman, but here we have the irony of ironies, President Bush, comparing Vietnam to Iraq

This brings to mind another President, coincidentally also from Texas, who had a similar approach

AUSTIN, Texas - As American involvement in Vietnam deepened, President Lyndon Johnson railed against "the bunch of commies" running The New York Times and complained about the newspaper's criticism of the war, according to taped phone conversations released Friday.

..."They want to get out of Vietnam and yield it to them, and I don't think I can quite do that," the president said. At the time, as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara reported, there were 400,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam.

In my research, I came across this article written in May of this year by Charles J. Hanley, AP Special Correspondent which analyzes the difference between the two wars, with a far more subtle approach than either other two Presidents above.

"The two aspects of Vietnam and Iraq that show the most similarities involve an effort at state-building in an alien culture that is poorly understood by the United States, and the attempt to sustain U.S. domestic support for a prolonged war against an irregular enemy," ...

As with Vietnam, approval for the Iraq operation has plunged as U.S. casualties mount. "Casualty for casualty, support has declined far more quickly than it did during either the Korean War or the Vietnam War," says political scientist John Mueller of Ohio State University, an expert on wars and U.S. public opinion.

"If history is any indication, there is little the Bush administration can do to reverse this decline," Mueller adds.

What the Americans are trying to do is "Iraqization," training a new Iraqi army to move into the front line against the largely Sunni Arab insurgents, so U.S. troops can pull back.

"As the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down," Bush says.

It's an eerie refrain of another presidential voice. "As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater," Richard M. Nixon said in announcing "Vietnamization" in 1969. Four years later, the American withdrawal was complete, and two years after that, in 1975, so was the failure, as triumphant communist forces rolled into Saigon.
...

In the worsening civil conflict among Iraq's Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds, the new army is viewed by Sunni Arabs as a Shiite and Kurdish force and its deployment deepens their hostility.

The United States, more and more, is in a Vietnam-like bind in Iraq, many commentators say. It cannot stay; it cannot go.

It's time to thank one of the Democracy Cell Project's most indefatigable members and supporters, Violet Bliss Dietz.

Today is Violet's birthday, so take a little time to express your appreciation for the person who has contributed so much of her time and spirit over the last two years to the DCP. Violet installed the blog, built the website, integrated the forum: if it works, Violet made it happen.

When I would have been pulling my hair out in frustration with some obscure technical problem, Violet kept her cool and worked out a solution. Without her careful attention, the DCP would have run aground many times, and when we did get stuck, she quickly got us out of the mud and back in the channel again.

Thank you Violet. Have a great birthday, and best wishes from your DCP crew.

Over 50 people gathered together in Highland Park’s Free Speech Park on a cold, cloudy Veteran’s Day this year to dedicate a new exhibit that mourns the death of our Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, & the Geneva Convention. The exhibit is sponsored by the North Shore Women for Peace, a local Illinois organization that is 50 years strong in living their motto: “Working for peace, justice & a healthy planet.”

The weather was indicative of the moods & mixed emotions shared by many that day. The short bursts of sunlight through the overcast clouds mirrored the hope we have for our country & our world, as a result of the mid-term elections. The cold & clouds reminded us that we are still a country that is in the midst of an unjust war, a country whose soldiers are dying & being wounded daily, a country that bears responsibility for the death & destruction of Iraq & many of its citizens. We’re a country that is damaged from 6 years of misguided foreign policy & attacks on our Constitution and civil liberties. We have many wounds to heal among ourselves & with others in the world.

Vicki Bailyn, a key member of the North Shore Women for Peace, was cautiously optimistic that we will now have “fresh eyes” in our government. Her warning of “Be careful what’s happening to America” was one of encouragement & hope that people will now step forward & raise their voices because there’s a chance of getting Congress’s attention. Vicki also said, “It isn’t just the war, which is a key issue & will be until our soldiers are home, taken care of, and working. It’s justice. No justice, no peace.”

Tom McMenamin, a business attorney & concerned citizen of Highland Park who has one brother in Afghanistan and one brother in Kuwait, was the invited guest speaker. With the fanfare of the final few bars of our national anthem played on the trumpet as an introduction, Tom delivered this powerful speech:

If this article below is any indication, the people of Virginia may have done us a much bigger favor than we knew when they threw George Allen out of office and replaced him with Jim Webb.

There has always been a tough, populist streak beneath the gentlemanly surface of Virginia's politics. In this piece from the Wall Street Journal, Senator-elect Webb goes straight at the growing inequalities of income and opportunity in the U.S. since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, as our country has moved towards an increasingly class-based society.

Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard.
Wall Street Journal
November 15, 2006

by Jim Webb

The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

Bush is escorted from Air Force One by Russia President Vladimir Putin after arriving in Moscow on Wednesday.
(Photo and caption courtesy of Associated Press)

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., talks to state business leaders in this Thursday, Nov. 2, 2006 file photo, at the annual MEC 'hobnob' meeting between the state's elected officials and business leaders in Jackson, Miss. Lott, ousted from the top Senate Republican leadership job four years ago because of remarks considered racially insensitive, won election to the No. 2 post Wednesday for the minority GOP in the next Congress. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, FILE) (Photo and caption courtesy of Associated Press)

Any comments?

[EDITOR'S NOTE: As Congressional leadership elections proceed, we will update the DCP Community on how proceedings will evolve and possible effects. In the meantime, this piece by Dick Bell gives us a flavor of what to expect from one of the beneficiaries of the 2006 midterms - The Congressional Progressive Caucus.]

Here's a different perspective on the impact of the elections on the new Congress. According to a press release from the Congressional Progressive Caucus:

PROGRESSIVES INCREASE THEIR NUMBERS AS LARGEST GROUP WITHIN THE HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representatives Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey, Co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), anticipate adding at least seven new CPC Members in the 110th Congress. This would increase the size of the CPC to at least 71 Members, making it by far the largest and most diverse sub-group among all Democrats in the new 110th Congress to take office in January and an increase of 14 new House Members in just the past 18 months.

“ Some inside-the-Beltway commentators, columnists, and conservatives want the American people to believe that last Tuesday’s election results have especially empowered moderate-to-conservative elements within the House Democratic Caucus in the 110th Congress, but that is an incomplete picture of the new political landscape on Capitol Hill,” Congresswoman Lee noted, pointing out that the newly-expanded Congressional Progressive Caucus will be decidedly larger than either the ‘Blue Dog’ or ‘New Democratic” Coalitions.”

“We also anticipate that at least half of the incoming chairs of the House standing committees will be Progressive Caucus Members,” Congresswoman Woolsey underscored, “and we are so pleased that our friend and leader –soon-to-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi – belonged to the CPC before assuming leadership duties for all House Democrats. We will support Speaker Pelosi in the adoption of strong ethics reforms, the restoration of open, free-wheeling debate on the House floor that gives voice to the hopes and needs of all Americans, and the offering of a wide range of floor amendments to major bills.”

CPC Members stand to benefit from the degree to which the election results vindicated their leading edge work to change President Bush’s policy in Iraq. In addition to the CPC Co-Chairs, it was CPC Members like Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA, and founder of the Out of Iraq Caucus) who first warned against authorizing President Bush to use military force in Iraq and they were the first to speak out in January, 2005 to end the occupation of Iraq and to bring our troops home. “This election made crystal clear that a growing majority of Americans across the political spectrum agree with us,” the CPC Co-Chairs pointed out. “The American people want an end to the Iraq fiasco and it will be progressives who will be dogged in making that happen.”

Drawing upon their Progressive Promise agenda first unveiled in June, 2005, CPC Members are also expected to advocate:

(1) for a different national security strategy that uses diplomacy and conflict mediation and beyond over-reliance upon using military force to protect U.S. national security and combat terrorism;

(2) for reducing poverty and promoting economic fairness beyond raising the minimum wage;

(3) for election reform beyond voter verifiable paper trails to ensuring the voting rights of all Americans and voluntary public financing; and

(4) for energy independence beyond repealing tax breaks for oil and gas companies to curb reliance upon imported oil from the Middle East and reduce global warming.

It's safe to say that the curious and curiouser political dynamics of last week's remarkable turnaround elections will be analyzed to death in the public press, across the blogospheres, and among professional political operatives everywhere for many months and years to come.

It's certainly striking when one of the emblematic figures of those curious and curiouser political dynamics comes out and tells the public press that he's seriously considering changing parties in the aftermath of those remarkable turnaround elections. As the Associated Press reported on November 10,

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) -- Two days after losing a bid for a second term, Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he was unsure whether he would remain a Republican.

Chafee lost to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in a race seen as a referendum on President Bush and the GOP. On Thursday, he was asked whether he would stick with the Republican Party or become an independent or Democrat.

"I haven't made any decisions. I just haven't even thought about where my place is," Chafee said at a news conference. When pressed on whether his comments indicated he might leave the GOP, he replied: "That's fair."

Okay, now what?

Hmm. Let's see here.

Take back control of the House?

Check.

Take back control of the Senate?

Check.

Get rid of Donald Rumsfeld?

Check.

Get rid of Dennis Hastert?

Check.

Get Nancy Pelosi a new set of drapes?

Check.

Block John Bolton's nomination?

Check.

Turn Lincoln Chafee into a Democrat?

Probably.

Turn Joe Lieberman into a Democrat?

Well...

Okay.

Not bad so far.

But now what?

Gee. Dunno.

What do YOU think?

The euphoria is settling, though I am still dancing on air. The victories guaranteeing Democratic control of Congress is a breathtakingly giddy, rewarding aftermath after six long years of bitterness, fury and regret under an uncontrolled and uncontrollable Bush Administration and Republican majority in Congress.

Today, I keep wanting to pinch myself, and then take few friends out to dinner somewhere and preen gloriously under the stars of a city where Nancy Pelosi started her political career. She built a Democratic machine which in San Francisco, Sacramento and California, still endures.

Which brings me to the next topic: "WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?"

I found this gladkov diary from KOS truly impressive for its grasp of the realities Nancy Pelosi will be facing as Speaker of the House. Up against a President, albeit a truly lame duck President, who still has a media arsenal and a remaining Republican contingent that brought another sitting Presidency to its knees by pressing for investigations on allegations of scandal, Pelosi is right in the middle of a machine that still functions this way. And this machine is no joke. It operates as a take-no-prisoners grinding mechanism, and the new class of freshmen congresspeople and the new Speaker of the House will be marks for its hopper.

Which is why the KOS diary is important. It stresses the need to see the realities the new speaker will see inside the House, and suggests patience--on both sides of the aisle in Congress and across the country.

On a personal note, I've seen Pelosi's work close up. She started her work on the ground level, raising money for Democratic candidates in the Bay Area. She rose to prominence from this groundwork, and is as relentless as she is gracious, with a knack for creating long-term political solutions and institutions that still operate to this day. Attested to by the candidacies and long-term tenure of Senators Feinstein and Boxer. They are still at their posts.

The first steps for all of us are the hardest, and in this instance for Democrats, who have been held in check for so long. Perhaps for the new Speaker, these first steps will be the hardest of all. But after seeing her work over many years, we may have cause to have faith in her ability to think in the long term, which is what our country needs right now.

Its been a long while since adults have been in charge. Its time to let them take the reins, and trust them. (Nice diary, occam's hatchet.)

So Donald Rumsfeld is R.I.P., and we're launched into a new age of what the president repeatedly called "bipartisanship" at his news conference today.

Might we be a little skeptical of this sudden enthusiasm for bipartisanship, coming from a man who is arguably the most divisely partisan presidents in the country's history?

Even in fairy-tales, the leopard struggles with the spot-changing problem. As for a spot-changing White House, Time Magazine reports on thinking within the White House in recent weeks, when an unnamed "strategist" said that the Bush team was planning:

"a cataclysmic fight to the death" over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is "going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation."

That sounds like fun doesn't it?

--That's the attitude that Bush unveiled in November of 2000 in Florida, and it's the attitude that has carried him through the first 6 years of his presidency.

--It's the attitude that paid for the airline tickets for Republican staff thugs from the Congress to fly down to Florida and stage a Brown Shirt assault to stop the vote counting.

--It's the attitude of a "torture first, write legal fig leaves afterwards" administration. It's the attitude of keeping a House vote open for three hours while threatening one retiring congressman with cutting off the funds for his son's campaign to succeed him.

--It's the attitude of a party that paid for thousands of phone calls threatening voters with imprisonment if they showed up at the polls to vote.

Under our system of government, the presidency has aggrandized an ever-more powerful arsenal with which to fight the restraints of the legislative and judicial branches.

So while the voters have voted in the most unmistakable way against the president's leadership, and have specifically repudiated the president's policy on Iraq, there is no reason to believe that anything will change without the most unrelenting pressure.

Changing control of the Congress was necessary. But the election was only the first step in a continuing process that will require an even greater level of mobilization over the coming years to succeed.

Casey and I thought it might be a good idea to reflect on all the things we can be grateful for as the results of the 2006 midterms come in:

Here's one.

Here's another.

How about this one. (buh-bye Ms. Harris wherever you are...)

And I personally like this.

And speaking on behalf of the city by the Bay, I would like to add this:

S P E A K E R P E L O S I

And who can deny this one makes your heart feel quite full. (Thank you again for your courage, Michael J. Fox.)

We will be adding more updates as the tight races open up, particularly the ones in the Senate, where Montana and Virginia are still neck and neck.

I'm sipping a beautiful Cab Syrah. Last time I spoke to Karen, which was 4pm my time, she said Dick told her to get the champagne. It's 11:30pm in California, and the Daily Show Midterm Midtacular is on.

But before I go, Casey INSISTED I add this to the list as the most important reason why we should be grateful for the 2006 midterm elections:

We won't have two years of this.

UPDATE: More good news on the Senate front, from the great states of MT and VA.

The other night, at a 30-year retrospective for the Liz Lerman Dance Company, Peter DiMuro, her Artistic Director, stepped forward and led the audience through a movement exploration around the issue of genocide. The last gesture in the series we came up with was one in which we wrote the initials of someone who had stood up for us on our palms.

Then we took the initials and gave the hand gesture to the rest of the audience. It was moving and lovely and I had no trouble thinking of whose initials belonged inside that movement.

And tonight I went to the Vietnam Memorial to meet up with Cindy Sheehan and Ann Wright and others for a vigil. Cindy spoke about the hope we all have for tomorrow and for the end of this war, hopefully before the number of names surpass those on that wall.

She also pointed out that if we added the Iraqi names of those killed, the wall would be twelve times the size it is, and if we added the names of the Vietnamese killed, it would be double that.

Who stands up to genocide? Who speaks for those ghosts?

Tomorrow we vote, and it is a most important election, because it is surely our last chance to end this particular genocide. It may be the last chance to end the genocide of the planet.

And I know you all understand this and have already worked blessedly hard to get out the vote. But after you vote yourself, please take a moment to think about those who have lost lives for profiteering, those who have suffered under this administration, and vow to prevent these criminals from continuing with their program of callousnes and callowness.

Write the initials of someone who has stood against them on your hand and say thank you. And then pick up the phone and call your local organization and ask what small thing you can do to make the difference between despair and hope.

Everything counts on this day. Everything.

Courtesy of Vanity Fair
Richard Perle photo by Nigel Parry
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice photos by Annie Liebowitz

Take a look at the faces captured by Annie Liebowitz (one of my favorite photographers) and Nigel Parry. In the split-second a camera takes to capture the essence of a human being, one can gather all the micro-specks of information one needs to see into the soul of a person. If that's the case with these intimate portraits above, then I see the arrogance, pride, inflexibility and secrecy that so smothers this Administration.

Reading this article by David Rose in Vanity Fair on the eve of what could be the gotterdamerung of this Administration - the 2006 midterm elections, its sickeningly predictable that these neocons, seeing water rising above the portholes, now point fingers of blame upon the Administration itself, using a chapter from the playbook familiar with the rodents in the White House roost. (Hattip to Kos for his bringing this article to light.)

It doesn't occur to them that the entire concept of a neocon strategy for the Middle East was a bad one to begin with. I wonder, after all the carnage, what inside them turned off the normal moral decency switch that would stop any one of us in our tracks, self-scrutinize and re-consider the error of their ways? Or is that switch still in the "off" position as they jockey themselves clear of the fallout for the disaster the Iraq War has become?

Its evident their remorse is not for the lives lost, and the disaster of American foreign policy, but for poor execution.

I guess then, the switch remains in an "off" position.

Read the article, and tell us: After so much destruction caused by a neo-conservative illusion for the Middle East, is this blame game adequate to what they have wrought? Where should the buck really stop?

We’ve all been wondering if the Prince of Darkness, a.k.a. Karl Rove, had one final October Surprise up his sleeve. And with the flood of political gay bashing that we’ve witnessed from President Bush ever since the New Jersey Supreme Court shockingly decided that homosexuals were Americans too, and his demonization of the intent behind John Kerry’s badly delivered joke, it seemed possible that Rove might pull off one final dark miracle.

Well, Election Day came a little bit later in 2006 – and that left room for life to present an already disenchanted electorate with its own November Surprise. One of the cornerstones of Rove’s GOTV strategy involves the placing of amendments that would ban same sex marriage in state constitutions on ballots, in an attempt to insure that religious conservatives, thought to be strong supporters of GOP candidates, would turn out in large numbers on Election Day. Well, this time that effort may backfire.

Before yesterday, Ted Haggard, the pastor of the New Life mega-church of Colorado Springs, was the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and a fiery opponent of gay marriage. Today, he is a pastor forced to step down from his pulpit, accused of having a three-year relationship with a male prostitute, not to mention a taste for Crystal Meth.

Our friend Lori Perdue, a veteran herself and Camp Democracy sistah, sent this along and wanted us to know it is dedicated to Etheridge Knight.

She went on to say:

It was inspired by two of his opinions. He was quoted in an interview as saying in front of his son, who was in the U.S. Navy and likely to be shipped to Desert Storm, "They let you raise them up, and then they take them and kill them." He also said, in the same interview, "Poetry belongs in the People's ears."

An uprising of poets really is on my Wish List, though. It's been bubbling around in my head for quite a while now and still the thought of it makes me smile. I dream of instigating, I guess.

Wish List

I want to have a poet’s uprising on the White House lawn.

I want to have heartfelt, sometimes tearful talks with people that care about human rights.

I mourn for America still.

I want to listen to people who don’t think World Peace is a radical idea.

I want to learn how to return this country to the roots of respectability.

I want Dick, George and Donald to face their Butcher’s Bill.

I want to march in the streets of D.C. and raise my voice with others putting out the call.

I want to stomp my feet demanding peace and have the vibrations soak into the soil of the National Mall.

I want to stop bitching about the Mainstream Media and lead others to abandon it, replace it with truth. Render its sales techniques obsolete. Because my red white and blue, freedom-loving, All-American soul is not a part of any marketable demographic.

I defy definition and I want to combat the popular opinion

That any Grassroots movement in America is either quaint or run by a bunch of hippies.

I want to help my people realize that Global Catastrophe, in whatever form it takes…

Pandemic Illness, Nuclear Winter, Global Warming or Massive Meteor Strike (which to be honest, would be my personal choice for it’s brainless and blameless instantaneous decimation of life.) …

None can be considered quaint nor do you have to be high to see that it’s high time we did something about the three preventable possibilities of the Earth’s demise.

I want all the votes to count.

I want our Senators and Representatives to take a walk up the Hill and act on behalf of the People.

I want our Justices to take the Bench and uphold the Rule of Law.

And I want every single American who has taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States to actually do so.

But I’d settle right now for rhyme making a way for reason.

And there’s probably a contingent out there that would accuse me of treason, but…

I want to have a Poet’s Uprising on the White House Lawn.

I want peace poets, past their anger, to infuse the positive and reinforce reason with flowing prose like the winds of change.

I want academic poets to remind us of the past and the dangers of it’s repetition; Repetition of the facts from every angle like acid rain.

A Poet’s Uprising on the White House Lawn.

I want hip-hop wordsmiths to spit phrases crying out against all -Isms, resurrecting the resistance that faced fire hoses.

I want slam Poets hurling free verse, solid, like Anarchist bricks through Starbucks windows.

I want Sonnets flung like service medals from the hands of veterans trying to spare the soldiers of tomorrow.

A Poet’s Uprising on the White House Lawn.

I want rapid-fire couplets filled with apple pie anguish.

And tortured triplets soaked in yellow ribbon tears.

I want silky quatrains whispering how we can change this.

And gritty limericks like sand in the war machine’s gears.

I want a Haiku that can restore Democracy in 17 syllables.

I want a Poet’s Uprising on the White House lawn.

I want the Poets who refused Laura’s invitation

To read – as an act of demonstration –

Something they have written in the last five years.

A Poet’s Uprising on the White House lawn.

Stanzas excising Spin from Law.

A Poet’s Uprising

Freedom of Speech without fear.

A Poet’s Uprising

Because Truth and Poetry

Belong in the People’s ears.