Friday, February 6. 2009
Hold Your Fire: Children and Civilians In Gaza
First Published in Huffington Post
In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag's meditation on images depicting the atrocities of wartime, she cites Virginia Woolf's lacerating indictment of war, written in 1936 as the Spanish Civil War was unfolding. Woolf's polemic was a response to a lawyer who had engaged her on the issue of war.
She opened her argument by declaring that the lawyer as a man and she as a woman could not possibly see war in the same way. Woolf proposed reconciling the disparity by looking at some images of war together. "Let's see whether when we look at the same photographs we feel the same things," she wrote, for she believed, according to Sontag, "that the shock of the images could not fail but unite people of good will".
Many people around the world, looking at the same photographs together--of bloodied, broken, mangled bodies of civilians and children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since December 27th--have felt the same things. And they have united in compassion for the Palestinian people.
No matter which side of the Israeli-Palestinian issue we stand on, we ought to feel empathy, and pain, and sorrow for the people killed in Gaza--not because we're pacifists, or weak, or pro-Palestine, or anti-Israel, or pro-terrorist, or anti-Semitic, but because they were unarmed civilians in a blockaded war zone, who had nowhere to run and no place to hide.
"One body can hold all the suffering the world can feel," wrote Graham Greene in The Quiet American, another polemic about war. Upon seeing the photographs from Gaza-- of babies with war wounds and third degree burns, children with missing body parts, screaming toddlers with blood pouring from their sides, tiny corpses turned blue in death, silent and still as no child ever ought to be--should the proper response from our government and leaders be the morally feeble talking point: "Hamas is to blame"?
According to the latest reports, more than 149 children have died in Gaza since Israel began its attacks on December 27th.
In Zeitoun, one of the poorest sections of Gaza, Masouda al-Samouni, 20, was preparing food for her baby when Israeli warplanes launched missiles in her neighborhood; one of them struck her house killing her baby, her husband, and her mother-in-law. "He died hungry," she said of her infant.
In Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, a missile killed three Palestinian children, aged 8-12, as they played on a street. One boy was decapitated; another had both his legs blown off. Madth Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor working in a Gaza hospital said, "These injuries are not survivable injuries."
Protection for civilians in wartime is a fundamental principle of international humanitarian law set in the Geneva Conventions of 1949--ironically, established as a response to the Holocaust--and in the treaty's Additional Protocols of 1977. Unarmed civilians not engaged in war must be spared and protected, and may not be attacked. In situations not covered by the specific laws of the Geneva Convention, civilians are protected by the fundamental principles of humanitarian law and human rights law.
In the face of international outrage over the killing of unarmed civilians, Israel defends itself by saying that Hamas is using children and civilians as human shields and hiding among civilians. If this is true, Israel and its military need do only one thing to inoculate itself from charges of wanton disregard for human life and war crimes: hold their fire until civilians have been cleared from the area.
There are lies we tell ourselves, delusions we adopt, just to get through each day with our political convictions intact. But our leaders unleash something close to immoral into the geopolitical incubator, when they and our allies embrace norms that they deem barbaric or monstrous--in other circumstances and when practiced by others.
If the killing of unarmed civilians by terrorist groups is wrong, Israel's killing of unarmed Palestinian civilians and our defense of Israel's conduct cannot be right. Hamas may be guilty but Israel is not innocent, and neither are we when our leaders defend the slaughter of innocents. The situational ethics our government chooses to practice in this matter can only come back to haunt us.
"Sooner or later one must choose a side if one is to remain human," Greene wrote in The Quiet American. Since December 27th, people of good will everywhere have stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people because they believe intuitively, emotionally, and intellectually in the preeminent rights of unarmed civilians and children in wartime. The Geneva Convention treaties, humanitarian law, and human rights laws are in place to remind governments of the same.
(c) Gail Vida Hamburg
In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag's meditation on images depicting the atrocities of wartime, she cites Virginia Woolf's lacerating indictment of war, written in 1936 as the Spanish Civil War was unfolding. Woolf's polemic was a response to a lawyer who had engaged her on the issue of war.
She opened her argument by declaring that the lawyer as a man and she as a woman could not possibly see war in the same way. Woolf proposed reconciling the disparity by looking at some images of war together. "Let's see whether when we look at the same photographs we feel the same things," she wrote, for she believed, according to Sontag, "that the shock of the images could not fail but unite people of good will".
Many people around the world, looking at the same photographs together--of bloodied, broken, mangled bodies of civilians and children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since December 27th--have felt the same things. And they have united in compassion for the Palestinian people.
No matter which side of the Israeli-Palestinian issue we stand on, we ought to feel empathy, and pain, and sorrow for the people killed in Gaza--not because we're pacifists, or weak, or pro-Palestine, or anti-Israel, or pro-terrorist, or anti-Semitic, but because they were unarmed civilians in a blockaded war zone, who had nowhere to run and no place to hide.
"One body can hold all the suffering the world can feel," wrote Graham Greene in The Quiet American, another polemic about war. Upon seeing the photographs from Gaza-- of babies with war wounds and third degree burns, children with missing body parts, screaming toddlers with blood pouring from their sides, tiny corpses turned blue in death, silent and still as no child ever ought to be--should the proper response from our government and leaders be the morally feeble talking point: "Hamas is to blame"?
According to the latest reports, more than 149 children have died in Gaza since Israel began its attacks on December 27th.
In Zeitoun, one of the poorest sections of Gaza, Masouda al-Samouni, 20, was preparing food for her baby when Israeli warplanes launched missiles in her neighborhood; one of them struck her house killing her baby, her husband, and her mother-in-law. "He died hungry," she said of her infant.
In Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, a missile killed three Palestinian children, aged 8-12, as they played on a street. One boy was decapitated; another had both his legs blown off. Madth Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor working in a Gaza hospital said, "These injuries are not survivable injuries."
Protection for civilians in wartime is a fundamental principle of international humanitarian law set in the Geneva Conventions of 1949--ironically, established as a response to the Holocaust--and in the treaty's Additional Protocols of 1977. Unarmed civilians not engaged in war must be spared and protected, and may not be attacked. In situations not covered by the specific laws of the Geneva Convention, civilians are protected by the fundamental principles of humanitarian law and human rights law.
In the face of international outrage over the killing of unarmed civilians, Israel defends itself by saying that Hamas is using children and civilians as human shields and hiding among civilians. If this is true, Israel and its military need do only one thing to inoculate itself from charges of wanton disregard for human life and war crimes: hold their fire until civilians have been cleared from the area.
There are lies we tell ourselves, delusions we adopt, just to get through each day with our political convictions intact. But our leaders unleash something close to immoral into the geopolitical incubator, when they and our allies embrace norms that they deem barbaric or monstrous--in other circumstances and when practiced by others.
If the killing of unarmed civilians by terrorist groups is wrong, Israel's killing of unarmed Palestinian civilians and our defense of Israel's conduct cannot be right. Hamas may be guilty but Israel is not innocent, and neither are we when our leaders defend the slaughter of innocents. The situational ethics our government chooses to practice in this matter can only come back to haunt us.
"Sooner or later one must choose a side if one is to remain human," Greene wrote in The Quiet American. Since December 27th, people of good will everywhere have stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people because they believe intuitively, emotionally, and intellectually in the preeminent rights of unarmed civilians and children in wartime. The Geneva Convention treaties, humanitarian law, and human rights laws are in place to remind governments of the same.
(c) Gail Vida Hamburg
You Morons, What Have You Done With Our Money?
First published on Huffington Post
Three weeks before the election -- as John McCain was flailing about for a message to connect with voters to resurrect his comatose campaign, and settled on Nobel Laureate in Economics and also Bad Plumbing, Joe Wurzelbacher, to inspire us all -- Ed Rollins, GOP strategist and CNN commentator, tried to give McCain a clue about what was on people's minds.
"What McCain and his campaign need to understand is that whatever happened in the past is no longer relevant. James Carville's famous slogan in Bill Clinton's 1992 victory over the first Bush: "It's the economy stupid!" can now be replaced with "You morons, what have you done with my money, my life and my kids' future?" Though lacking grace and lyricism, the question begs asking now.
I don't have a Harvard MBA like Henry Paulson, so I was willing (under protest) to set aside my skepticism about the bailout. When he began his Prophet Jeremiah-like fear-offensive, informing us that the only way to prevent a financial tsunami, was to close our eyes and think of America -- while he picked our pockets for $700 billion -- I took him at his word, but with a caveat.
Since there was radio silence from the President, I counted on Congress to ask Paulson basic questions, such as: How will the money we give you help the economy in real terms, rather than in the sunny Mediterranean scenario inside your bald head? What are you going to do with it and why, and what's in it for the taxpayer? Why should we give you and your deputy, Neel Kashkari, an engineer eight years out of B-School, the password to an account holding $700 billion?
I expected Congress to hold Paulson's feet to the fire and spell out in no uncertain terms that this was not business as usual -- that this was not an entitlement program to reward shareholders, or capital for solvent companies to make new business acquisitions. I hoped Congress would remind Paulson that there's nothing that would make American taxpayers more angry -- after Bush's illegal and expensive war -- than hearing about bailout funds spent on million dollar bonuses for TARP company executives and beachfront corporate retreats.
Was it too much to ask Congress to examine this unprecedented government intervention in the free market critically, microscopically, quantitatively, and numerically, before authorizing the Paulson-Kashkari/Goldman Sachs alum transfer of US taxpayer dollars to benefit, surprise, surprise, the finance and banking sector, including solvent companies?
It has been proven repeatedly that when government officials get their hands on taxpayer money, they can't help but spend it like very young children. In his book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Rajiv Chandrasekaran reports on the squander of American taxpayer dollars by Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority at the start of the American occupation in Iraq. Chandrasekaran writes about a young American contractor without any experience in construction, who won a $16 million bid for yes, construction. Unprepared to begin the work he was contracted to perform, he told the CPA that he had no money for start-up. "Bring a duffel bag," the CPA told the entrepreneur with big dreams, little experience, and no capital except the dirt on his neck. When he arrived at the CPA, Chandrasekaran writes, "Two million dollars in shrink-wrapped bricks of brand new hundred dollar notes, flown in from the Federal Reserve of New York, lay on the desk... he packed the bricks into a four-foot-long duffel bag ... a few hours later, he boarded a plane for Beirut to deposit the funds in a Lebanese bank."
The American people set a very low bar for the President and Congress on the bailout -- close the loopholes so we're not robbed by public servants who don't know the meaning or the value of a dollar. President Bush, who evidently won't be satisfied until he has fully plundered our national treasure for the benefit of a few, sneaked in a last-minute insertion to the original bailout bill, a one-sentence loophole, that effectively erases basic restrictions on executive compensation put in place by Congress. In this economic freefall, when churches and synagogues in financial districts are filled at lunchtime with finance and banking workers worried about keeping their jobs, bailout company heads using taxpayer dollars to pay six figure bonuses "to retain talented employees," should be given their last cigars, flogged, and put out to pasture.
How has the bailout helped anyone other than banks, their shareholders, and their six-figure-bonus-earning employees? Like a zen koan which holds that two plus two equals a rhinoceros, the answer is, a slippery eel -- maybe it will, in the fullness of time or when the stars and planets align or on the 12th of Never.
I am intoxicated by the exuberance of Paulson's platitudes. He wants the money "to shore up the economy," "to support financial market stability," "to put the companies on a path to the significant restructuring necessary to achieve long-term viability." He walks between rain drops.
Elizabeth Warren, Chairperson of the Bailout Oversight Panel, appears to be the rare voice making any sense on this issue, cutting through the jargon, deconstructing its complexities, telling us what Paulson and Kashkari are up to, and looking out for the public's interest. There is no consolation in what Warren says. "These are not Masters of the Universe here, they're not omniscient, they're people who are fallible like the rest of us... Throwing billions of dollars at a problem is only going to work if you know what the problem is." And laurel wreaths to Frank Bass, Rita Beamish and Associated Press for their study and report on bailed out banks and their profligate spending: $1.6 billion reward to 600 executives.
Our elected representatives have also been busy -- blogging on the issue and railing against the failures of the bailout. Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee was appalled by the AP report. "Most of us sign on to do jobs and we do them best we can," he said. Actually, you didn't do enough. His colleague, Rep. Brad Sherman added, "The tougher we are on the executives that come to Washington, the fewer will come for a bailout." Bravo, Mr. Sherman, that's the sound of one hand clapping. Thank you for sliding into homeplate after the stadium has emptied, and $350 billion in bailout funds went that way.
Paulson, undeterred by his lack of success in jumpstarting the economy, perhaps because he's still trying to figure out what the problem is and making things up as he goes along, has told Congress, it "needs to release the second half of the S700 billion bailout."
In The Sun Also Rises, Earnest Hemingway's character Bill asks, "How did you go bankrupt?" "Two ways," Mike replies, "Gradually and then suddenly." A decade of reckoning looms.
Gail Vida Hamburg
Three weeks before the election -- as John McCain was flailing about for a message to connect with voters to resurrect his comatose campaign, and settled on Nobel Laureate in Economics and also Bad Plumbing, Joe Wurzelbacher, to inspire us all -- Ed Rollins, GOP strategist and CNN commentator, tried to give McCain a clue about what was on people's minds.
"What McCain and his campaign need to understand is that whatever happened in the past is no longer relevant. James Carville's famous slogan in Bill Clinton's 1992 victory over the first Bush: "It's the economy stupid!" can now be replaced with "You morons, what have you done with my money, my life and my kids' future?" Though lacking grace and lyricism, the question begs asking now.
I don't have a Harvard MBA like Henry Paulson, so I was willing (under protest) to set aside my skepticism about the bailout. When he began his Prophet Jeremiah-like fear-offensive, informing us that the only way to prevent a financial tsunami, was to close our eyes and think of America -- while he picked our pockets for $700 billion -- I took him at his word, but with a caveat.
Since there was radio silence from the President, I counted on Congress to ask Paulson basic questions, such as: How will the money we give you help the economy in real terms, rather than in the sunny Mediterranean scenario inside your bald head? What are you going to do with it and why, and what's in it for the taxpayer? Why should we give you and your deputy, Neel Kashkari, an engineer eight years out of B-School, the password to an account holding $700 billion?
I expected Congress to hold Paulson's feet to the fire and spell out in no uncertain terms that this was not business as usual -- that this was not an entitlement program to reward shareholders, or capital for solvent companies to make new business acquisitions. I hoped Congress would remind Paulson that there's nothing that would make American taxpayers more angry -- after Bush's illegal and expensive war -- than hearing about bailout funds spent on million dollar bonuses for TARP company executives and beachfront corporate retreats.
Was it too much to ask Congress to examine this unprecedented government intervention in the free market critically, microscopically, quantitatively, and numerically, before authorizing the Paulson-Kashkari/Goldman Sachs alum transfer of US taxpayer dollars to benefit, surprise, surprise, the finance and banking sector, including solvent companies?
It has been proven repeatedly that when government officials get their hands on taxpayer money, they can't help but spend it like very young children. In his book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Rajiv Chandrasekaran reports on the squander of American taxpayer dollars by Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority at the start of the American occupation in Iraq. Chandrasekaran writes about a young American contractor without any experience in construction, who won a $16 million bid for yes, construction. Unprepared to begin the work he was contracted to perform, he told the CPA that he had no money for start-up. "Bring a duffel bag," the CPA told the entrepreneur with big dreams, little experience, and no capital except the dirt on his neck. When he arrived at the CPA, Chandrasekaran writes, "Two million dollars in shrink-wrapped bricks of brand new hundred dollar notes, flown in from the Federal Reserve of New York, lay on the desk... he packed the bricks into a four-foot-long duffel bag ... a few hours later, he boarded a plane for Beirut to deposit the funds in a Lebanese bank."
The American people set a very low bar for the President and Congress on the bailout -- close the loopholes so we're not robbed by public servants who don't know the meaning or the value of a dollar. President Bush, who evidently won't be satisfied until he has fully plundered our national treasure for the benefit of a few, sneaked in a last-minute insertion to the original bailout bill, a one-sentence loophole, that effectively erases basic restrictions on executive compensation put in place by Congress. In this economic freefall, when churches and synagogues in financial districts are filled at lunchtime with finance and banking workers worried about keeping their jobs, bailout company heads using taxpayer dollars to pay six figure bonuses "to retain talented employees," should be given their last cigars, flogged, and put out to pasture.
How has the bailout helped anyone other than banks, their shareholders, and their six-figure-bonus-earning employees? Like a zen koan which holds that two plus two equals a rhinoceros, the answer is, a slippery eel -- maybe it will, in the fullness of time or when the stars and planets align or on the 12th of Never.
I am intoxicated by the exuberance of Paulson's platitudes. He wants the money "to shore up the economy," "to support financial market stability," "to put the companies on a path to the significant restructuring necessary to achieve long-term viability." He walks between rain drops.
Elizabeth Warren, Chairperson of the Bailout Oversight Panel, appears to be the rare voice making any sense on this issue, cutting through the jargon, deconstructing its complexities, telling us what Paulson and Kashkari are up to, and looking out for the public's interest. There is no consolation in what Warren says. "These are not Masters of the Universe here, they're not omniscient, they're people who are fallible like the rest of us... Throwing billions of dollars at a problem is only going to work if you know what the problem is." And laurel wreaths to Frank Bass, Rita Beamish and Associated Press for their study and report on bailed out banks and their profligate spending: $1.6 billion reward to 600 executives.
Our elected representatives have also been busy -- blogging on the issue and railing against the failures of the bailout. Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee was appalled by the AP report. "Most of us sign on to do jobs and we do them best we can," he said. Actually, you didn't do enough. His colleague, Rep. Brad Sherman added, "The tougher we are on the executives that come to Washington, the fewer will come for a bailout." Bravo, Mr. Sherman, that's the sound of one hand clapping. Thank you for sliding into homeplate after the stadium has emptied, and $350 billion in bailout funds went that way.
Paulson, undeterred by his lack of success in jumpstarting the economy, perhaps because he's still trying to figure out what the problem is and making things up as he goes along, has told Congress, it "needs to release the second half of the S700 billion bailout."
In The Sun Also Rises, Earnest Hemingway's character Bill asks, "How did you go bankrupt?" "Two ways," Mike replies, "Gradually and then suddenly." A decade of reckoning looms.
Gail Vida Hamburg
Wednesday, December 3. 2008
Catholic Priests Issue Fatwa On Obama Voters While Pedophile Priests Roam
Perhaps appalled by a South Carolina priest's fatwa to his parishioners informing them that they should not receive communion if they voted for "Barack Hussein Obama" because of his position on abortion, another priest from Modesto, California cast himself as a more forgiving Ayatollah.
"If you are one of the 54 percent of Catholics who voted for a pro-abortion candidate, you were clear on his position and you knew the gravity of the question, I urge you to go to confession before receiving communion. Don't risk losing your state of grace by receiving sacrilegiously," he wrote in a letter to more than 15,000 parishioners.
A mere seven days after the historic election that apparently made sinners of so many who voted for Obama, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests released a list -- The Ten Most Dangerous US Pedophile Priests. On the honor roll is a priest who secretly fathered triplets seven years ago and molested two of them in recent years. Another, according to SNAP, drugged dozens of boys into unconsciousness and sodomized them. Yet another fathered eight kids with teenagers. All have been accused of sexually molesting children, some have been tried in criminal court, none have been convicted, and each of them walks free.
Run a Google News search for "Catholic Priests Child Molesters," and there are 32 hits from Election Day till today, Nov 30. Among the litany of heinous cases, reports of bishops knowingly sending predators priests to communities without telling parishioners of their criminal past, profiles of children and families destroyed, and their faith dead as dead can be, is one bit of hopeful news. A US appeals court has ruled that the Vatican can be sued for sex abuse committed by US priests. The reason: A Vatican mandate issued in 1962, which became public only in 2003, outlined a policy to treat allegations of sexual abuse by clergy "with the strictest secrecy." According to the Church mandate, anyone who spoke out against the sexual abuse of children by priests would be excommunicated.
Americans who influenced this election by defying so many of their own strongly held beliefs are more than capable of looking at the pro-choice pro-life debate anew, and reach new conclusions about this complex issue, without being bullied into submission by their priests. Women are having this debate every day, just not with their priests. The Founding Fathers in their wisdom called for a separation of State and Church, so we wouldn't one day find ourselves bowing to something like a Taliban.
For the clergy to act like avenging moral authorities on Americans' voting choices, while at the same time disregarding the most reprehensible conduct of their own members, takes a special kind of shamelessness. "You hypocrites! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye." (Matthew 7:5)
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World Mirare Press, a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives. Her novel, Liberty Landing a social novel inspired by John Dos Passos' USA,is scheduled for release by Mirare Press in 2009.
"If you are one of the 54 percent of Catholics who voted for a pro-abortion candidate, you were clear on his position and you knew the gravity of the question, I urge you to go to confession before receiving communion. Don't risk losing your state of grace by receiving sacrilegiously," he wrote in a letter to more than 15,000 parishioners.
A mere seven days after the historic election that apparently made sinners of so many who voted for Obama, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests released a list -- The Ten Most Dangerous US Pedophile Priests. On the honor roll is a priest who secretly fathered triplets seven years ago and molested two of them in recent years. Another, according to SNAP, drugged dozens of boys into unconsciousness and sodomized them. Yet another fathered eight kids with teenagers. All have been accused of sexually molesting children, some have been tried in criminal court, none have been convicted, and each of them walks free.
Run a Google News search for "Catholic Priests Child Molesters," and there are 32 hits from Election Day till today, Nov 30. Among the litany of heinous cases, reports of bishops knowingly sending predators priests to communities without telling parishioners of their criminal past, profiles of children and families destroyed, and their faith dead as dead can be, is one bit of hopeful news. A US appeals court has ruled that the Vatican can be sued for sex abuse committed by US priests. The reason: A Vatican mandate issued in 1962, which became public only in 2003, outlined a policy to treat allegations of sexual abuse by clergy "with the strictest secrecy." According to the Church mandate, anyone who spoke out against the sexual abuse of children by priests would be excommunicated.
Americans who influenced this election by defying so many of their own strongly held beliefs are more than capable of looking at the pro-choice pro-life debate anew, and reach new conclusions about this complex issue, without being bullied into submission by their priests. Women are having this debate every day, just not with their priests. The Founding Fathers in their wisdom called for a separation of State and Church, so we wouldn't one day find ourselves bowing to something like a Taliban.
For the clergy to act like avenging moral authorities on Americans' voting choices, while at the same time disregarding the most reprehensible conduct of their own members, takes a special kind of shamelessness. "You hypocrites! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye." (Matthew 7:5)
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World Mirare Press, a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives. Her novel, Liberty Landing a social novel inspired by John Dos Passos' USA,is scheduled for release by Mirare Press in 2009.
Monday, November 17. 2008
About That Bipartisan Cabinet, Hold Your Horses.
President-Elect Barack Obama's intention to bridge the chasm between Republicans and Democrats, by assembling a bipartisan cabinet. is a gorgeous idea.
It's the embodiment of his vision for America to be that 'more perfect union,' the Founding Fathers wished it to be. It is also a testament of his magnanimity and refinement, his political intelligence and statesmanship, his ease and self assurance.
And surprise, surprise, the party of ideological purity that wouldn't yield on anything in the last eight years, has had a deathbed conversion about bipartisan government. What happened to the Republican principle of unilateralism, and contempt for dissent? What happened to "either you are with us or youare with the terrorists/other preferred GOP bogeyman"?
On March 19, Dick Cheney, who was shoveling a large pile of horse manure about progress in Iraq, was asked how his trenchant analysis fit with polls, showing two thirds of Americans opposed to the war in Iraq. "So?" Mr. Cheney retorted. "You don't care what the American people think?" the reporter asked. "We can't be blown off course by polls," he said, once more giving the American public what he felt they deserved from their leaders--the one-fingered salute.
After the President-Elect named Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, Republicans got their collective knickers in a twist. Alex Conant of the RNC and John Boehner, Minority Leader shuddered with outrage. "This decision undermines his promise to 'heal the divides'. Rahm Emanuel is a partisan insider," said Conant. "This is an ironic choice for a President-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil, and govern from the center," Boehner huffed.
I love their gush of vitriol and lectures about non-partisanship and governing from the center. After two terms of absolute and unconditional power, which they used to serve only their own agenda, Republicans are singing the virtues of collaborative government--citing Lincoln's plan to create a bipartisan Cabinet that would govern "with malice toward none, with charity for all."
Why was bipartisanship hiding like a shy Geisha behind her rice-paper fan, during the attorney general firings and hirings orchestrated by Reptilian Rove and Amnesiac Alberto?
Democrats and Republicans are like the citizens of Lilliput and Blefuscu in Gulliver's Travels, who had doctrinal differences about the proper way to crack eggs.
A bipartisan cabinet is a knucklehead idea. Besides, how will Republicans go through their dark night of the soul and reinvent their party--an exercise best conducted in the wilderness--if they're sitting in the Cabinet?
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives referencing Graham Greene's The Quiet American. (Mirare Press, 2007) Her second novel, Liberty Landing -- inspired by John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy -- is planned for release by Mirare Press in 2009
It's the embodiment of his vision for America to be that 'more perfect union,' the Founding Fathers wished it to be. It is also a testament of his magnanimity and refinement, his political intelligence and statesmanship, his ease and self assurance.
And surprise, surprise, the party of ideological purity that wouldn't yield on anything in the last eight years, has had a deathbed conversion about bipartisan government. What happened to the Republican principle of unilateralism, and contempt for dissent? What happened to "either you are with us or youare with the terrorists/other preferred GOP bogeyman"?
On March 19, Dick Cheney, who was shoveling a large pile of horse manure about progress in Iraq, was asked how his trenchant analysis fit with polls, showing two thirds of Americans opposed to the war in Iraq. "So?" Mr. Cheney retorted. "You don't care what the American people think?" the reporter asked. "We can't be blown off course by polls," he said, once more giving the American public what he felt they deserved from their leaders--the one-fingered salute.
After the President-Elect named Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, Republicans got their collective knickers in a twist. Alex Conant of the RNC and John Boehner, Minority Leader shuddered with outrage. "This decision undermines his promise to 'heal the divides'. Rahm Emanuel is a partisan insider," said Conant. "This is an ironic choice for a President-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil, and govern from the center," Boehner huffed.
I love their gush of vitriol and lectures about non-partisanship and governing from the center. After two terms of absolute and unconditional power, which they used to serve only their own agenda, Republicans are singing the virtues of collaborative government--citing Lincoln's plan to create a bipartisan Cabinet that would govern "with malice toward none, with charity for all."
Why was bipartisanship hiding like a shy Geisha behind her rice-paper fan, during the attorney general firings and hirings orchestrated by Reptilian Rove and Amnesiac Alberto?
Democrats and Republicans are like the citizens of Lilliput and Blefuscu in Gulliver's Travels, who had doctrinal differences about the proper way to crack eggs.
A bipartisan cabinet is a knucklehead idea. Besides, how will Republicans go through their dark night of the soul and reinvent their party--an exercise best conducted in the wilderness--if they're sitting in the Cabinet?
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives referencing Graham Greene's The Quiet American. (Mirare Press, 2007) Her second novel, Liberty Landing -- inspired by John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy -- is planned for release by Mirare Press in 2009
Saturday, November 15. 2008
Wake the Neighbors: The President Has Regrets
In the sunset of his presidency, George W. Bush who has the singular distinction of being the most unpopular President in US history, and possibly the most reviled and despised American around the world, decided to do the honorable thing and do something he previously took pride in not doing -- reflect, ponder, contemplate.
When I read the headlines, "Bush Recalls Moments of Regret," Bush Speaks of Regret," I broke open the chips and hummus to read his Apologia. This will be good, I thought. The President who once said, "I'm not a guy who looks in the mirror," should have something profound to say... like someone looking past the long shadow of a life to talk about that first love, the one that got away.
A well crafted apology can work wonders. Who can disown a swaggering teenager who takes the family car for a midnight spin, and then cries with great beauty, pearls of remorse streaming down cheeks, when caught? A cheating spouse can redeem him/herself with a good mea culpa and aerobic make-up sex. In Japan, politicians who screw up render public apologies about their misdeeds, and the bravest of them show they really mean it by ending their own lives. This I think is a bit unfair -- to leave the innocent electorate with survivors guilt.
So, lay it on me Mr. President, I thought as I opened the first link. You got us into a war that costs us $435 million dollars a day, $3 billion a week, $12 billion a month. It would be a good thing to apologize for -- at a time when many of us are wondering if we should sell our remaining assets (prized rubber band and CD collections) to make rent. It would reassure those who're worried that Stephen Colbert is right -- that Chinese people may soon be allowed by law to keep Americans as household pets, since they own us by the short and curlies.
Perhaps he'd apologize to our servicemen and women who went to Iraq to fight the good fight -- to avenge 9/11, to find the WMD, to secure the weapons of chemical warfare first touted by Colin Powell during ceremonial waving of perfume bottle at the U.N. Or maybe he'd say sorry to the military families who made the greatest sacrifices, while his acolytes, Ari Fleischer and Bill Kristol,and all the other war-mongering media sat at their computers, sipping cappucino, while pontificating on the price we must all pay for freedom and democracy.
Or, just maybe the President would apologize to the Iraqi people for bombing their country and turning it into rubble, for no reason other than to "kick some ass," as he told former terrorism czar, Richard Clarke days after 9/11.
But, no. The President has regrets speaking in front of a "Mission Accomplished," banner, and he regrets saying "dead or alive," and "bring 'em on." Nothing, it seems, will dim the eternal sunshine in the spotless mind of our 43rd President.
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives referencing Graham Greene's The Quiet American. (Mirare Press, 2007) Her second novel, Liberty Landing -- inspired by John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy -- is planned for release by Mirare Press in 2009
When I read the headlines, "Bush Recalls Moments of Regret," Bush Speaks of Regret," I broke open the chips and hummus to read his Apologia. This will be good, I thought. The President who once said, "I'm not a guy who looks in the mirror," should have something profound to say... like someone looking past the long shadow of a life to talk about that first love, the one that got away.
A well crafted apology can work wonders. Who can disown a swaggering teenager who takes the family car for a midnight spin, and then cries with great beauty, pearls of remorse streaming down cheeks, when caught? A cheating spouse can redeem him/herself with a good mea culpa and aerobic make-up sex. In Japan, politicians who screw up render public apologies about their misdeeds, and the bravest of them show they really mean it by ending their own lives. This I think is a bit unfair -- to leave the innocent electorate with survivors guilt.
So, lay it on me Mr. President, I thought as I opened the first link. You got us into a war that costs us $435 million dollars a day, $3 billion a week, $12 billion a month. It would be a good thing to apologize for -- at a time when many of us are wondering if we should sell our remaining assets (prized rubber band and CD collections) to make rent. It would reassure those who're worried that Stephen Colbert is right -- that Chinese people may soon be allowed by law to keep Americans as household pets, since they own us by the short and curlies.
Perhaps he'd apologize to our servicemen and women who went to Iraq to fight the good fight -- to avenge 9/11, to find the WMD, to secure the weapons of chemical warfare first touted by Colin Powell during ceremonial waving of perfume bottle at the U.N. Or maybe he'd say sorry to the military families who made the greatest sacrifices, while his acolytes, Ari Fleischer and Bill Kristol,and all the other war-mongering media sat at their computers, sipping cappucino, while pontificating on the price we must all pay for freedom and democracy.
Or, just maybe the President would apologize to the Iraqi people for bombing their country and turning it into rubble, for no reason other than to "kick some ass," as he told former terrorism czar, Richard Clarke days after 9/11.
But, no. The President has regrets speaking in front of a "Mission Accomplished," banner, and he regrets saying "dead or alive," and "bring 'em on." Nothing, it seems, will dim the eternal sunshine in the spotless mind of our 43rd President.
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives referencing Graham Greene's The Quiet American. (Mirare Press, 2007) Her second novel, Liberty Landing -- inspired by John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy -- is planned for release by Mirare Press in 2009
Monday, November 10. 2008
White Pundits: Make Some Black Friends Before Opining on Obama Effect
To save us all from further excruciating meditations on the meaning of Barack Obama’s capture of the Presidency to blacks, pundits like Maureen Dowd, Roger Cohen, and Frank Rich of the New York Times and syndicated opinionator, Kathleen Parker should be forced at pencil point to make some black friends.
This may be the deep background white pundits need to enable them to analyze Obama's win without sounding like, well, Archie Bunker. News flash for Roger Cohen and Kathleen Parker: black people will tell anyone willing to listen that they don’t ever, repeat ever, want to hear or read stories about your black nanny, no matter how much you loved these women who left their own children to look after you. I mean it. Keep your black nanny stories to yourself.
Dear Frank Rich, trying to explain Obama’s rise through a 41 year old movie about bigotry (Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner) is as relevant as refracting gay marriage in California through Quentin Crisp’s The Naked Civil Servant, a 41 year old movie about homophobia.
In her Nov 8, ’08 column, Ms. Dowd attempted to elucidate the stunning new history of our young country by talking about what Obama meant to African Americans.
By paragraph 3, Ms. Dowd, who clearly doesn’t have any black friends of her own, is forced to rely on white strangers interrogating black people about their feelings on Obama’s victory.
In Ms. Dowd’s D.C., white people don’t know any black people except “a black waitress at a chic soul food restaurant,” and “a black bartender at the Bombay Club,” and “a black UPS delivery guy.” How is it possible that the only black people in Dowd’s DC are in the hospitality and service trades? Couldn't she find a black lawyer or political scientist or poet?
After several paragraphs of this, she debates the pros and cons of asking the “black patron at a downtown restaurant or a movie or the Kennedy Center,” how they feel. Would it be condescending, she wonders.
Finally, just when we think that Maureen Dowd is Archie Bunker with very red lipstick, she decides to prove us all wrong by reaching out to the black friends in her own life. She writes, “I heard my cute black mailman talking in an excited voice outside my house Friday, so I decided I should go ask him how he was feeling about everything, the absolute amazement of the first black president.”
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, a chilling novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives. (Mirare Press, 2007)
This may be the deep background white pundits need to enable them to analyze Obama's win without sounding like, well, Archie Bunker. News flash for Roger Cohen and Kathleen Parker: black people will tell anyone willing to listen that they don’t ever, repeat ever, want to hear or read stories about your black nanny, no matter how much you loved these women who left their own children to look after you. I mean it. Keep your black nanny stories to yourself.
Dear Frank Rich, trying to explain Obama’s rise through a 41 year old movie about bigotry (Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner) is as relevant as refracting gay marriage in California through Quentin Crisp’s The Naked Civil Servant, a 41 year old movie about homophobia.
In her Nov 8, ’08 column, Ms. Dowd attempted to elucidate the stunning new history of our young country by talking about what Obama meant to African Americans.
By paragraph 3, Ms. Dowd, who clearly doesn’t have any black friends of her own, is forced to rely on white strangers interrogating black people about their feelings on Obama’s victory.
In Ms. Dowd’s D.C., white people don’t know any black people except “a black waitress at a chic soul food restaurant,” and “a black bartender at the Bombay Club,” and “a black UPS delivery guy.” How is it possible that the only black people in Dowd’s DC are in the hospitality and service trades? Couldn't she find a black lawyer or political scientist or poet?
After several paragraphs of this, she debates the pros and cons of asking the “black patron at a downtown restaurant or a movie or the Kennedy Center,” how they feel. Would it be condescending, she wonders.
Finally, just when we think that Maureen Dowd is Archie Bunker with very red lipstick, she decides to prove us all wrong by reaching out to the black friends in her own life. She writes, “I heard my cute black mailman talking in an excited voice outside my house Friday, so I decided I should go ask him how he was feeling about everything, the absolute amazement of the first black president.”
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, a chilling novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives. (Mirare Press, 2007)
Monday, September 1. 2008
Women's Backlash Against Sara Palin & GOP Logic
No sooner had McCain dropped the bombshell, naming Sara Palin as his choice for VP, Republicans fell all over themselves to justify the logic of choosing the barely housebroken, gun-toting, moose-hunting, home-schooling mother of four … or five, if you believe Alaskans who have known Palin a lot longer than the national media.
Fred Thompson woke up from his extended stupor long enough to appear on Sunday talk shows to say that Palin is extremely qualified because she’s a mother of five. Several Republican windbags said Palin would be strong on Iraq because she has a son who is fighting there. According to William Kristol, “a star is born,” … exactly what this country needs to help us get back on track after the last eight years of wholesale government incompetence, and a war, a deficit and an economy that will bring this country to its knees. Kristol who still believes we’re succeeding in Iraq fights the war like a true neo-con—from his computer in New York. He punctuates his barely-formed, vocabulary-challenged think pieces with phrases like “our troops,” and “our boys,” and somehow believes himself to be a true patriot who is fighting the good fight. Cindy McCain threw her full support behind Palin by stating that the small-town governor with the big hair has national security experience because Alaska is close to Russia.
Let's follow this GOP logic. Since my dog is a mother of five, she's ready to be vice-president. She would be ideal actually, since she knows how to multi-task, and one of her pups loves fighting with the family cat, an Iraq like situation. And why not me for Vice President? While I wait for the call, I'll be practicing open heart surgery at the local hospital, since I live close to it.
I’ve received email from women across the political spectrum, former Hillary supporters, independents, and Republicans. They are appalled that John McCain would be willing to jeapordize the country with this reckless selection, in order to win an election.
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, (Mirare Press, www.mirarepress.com) a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives. Her novel, Liberty Landing, inspired by John Dos Passos' U.S.A will be released in Spring 2009.
Fred Thompson woke up from his extended stupor long enough to appear on Sunday talk shows to say that Palin is extremely qualified because she’s a mother of five. Several Republican windbags said Palin would be strong on Iraq because she has a son who is fighting there. According to William Kristol, “a star is born,” … exactly what this country needs to help us get back on track after the last eight years of wholesale government incompetence, and a war, a deficit and an economy that will bring this country to its knees. Kristol who still believes we’re succeeding in Iraq fights the war like a true neo-con—from his computer in New York. He punctuates his barely-formed, vocabulary-challenged think pieces with phrases like “our troops,” and “our boys,” and somehow believes himself to be a true patriot who is fighting the good fight. Cindy McCain threw her full support behind Palin by stating that the small-town governor with the big hair has national security experience because Alaska is close to Russia.
Let's follow this GOP logic. Since my dog is a mother of five, she's ready to be vice-president. She would be ideal actually, since she knows how to multi-task, and one of her pups loves fighting with the family cat, an Iraq like situation. And why not me for Vice President? While I wait for the call, I'll be practicing open heart surgery at the local hospital, since I live close to it.
I’ve received email from women across the political spectrum, former Hillary supporters, independents, and Republicans. They are appalled that John McCain would be willing to jeapordize the country with this reckless selection, in order to win an election.
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, (Mirare Press, www.mirarepress.com) a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives. Her novel, Liberty Landing, inspired by John Dos Passos' U.S.A will be released in Spring 2009.
Saturday, July 26. 2008
New McCain Strategy: Excrete Against The Wall And Pray It Sticks
After a 5-year losing streak on Iraq and an 8-year catastrophe on the economy and foreign policy, one would think Sen. McCain would learn from his party’s abysmal violation of public trust and conduct himself with some propriety.
McCain’s most important task as the Republican Party nominee is to convince the American people that despite his party’s arrogance, ignorance, bad judgment, and corruption, and his own political leanings, he will be someone the American people can count on to correct the terrible mistakes of this Administration. At a time when Americans are united only in their anxiety and fear over the future, and in need of a leader to bind them into some vaguely cohesive national consistuency, Sen. McCain plays the dirtiest, most reprehensible kind of gutter politics.
Bankrupt of a single original idea to end the war in Iraq--other than regurgitating President Bush’s trope about keeping our courage and resolve and winning with honor, McCain accuses Barack Obama of near treason for having the courage and resolve to declare victory and bring the troops home.
Nearly seven years after September 11th, McCain, a senior senator with instant access to the President from 2001 to now, declared this week, like some wide-eyed ingénue just recently arrived to Washington, that he knows how to catch Osama Bin Ladin. Why did he keep this critically important information to himself for seven years? If he had actively campaigned for his plan to catch Bin Ladin when it mattered, it would be admirable. But intellectual and moral impotence during a war of choice -- by his party and his leader -- that has resulted in suffering to countless Iraqi and American lives, and belated boasting about what should have been, makes one nothing but a trash talker.
Mr. McCain’s recent attacks of Mr. Obama, questioning his patriotism, his judgement, and his love for the troops, and accusing him of vanity, deceit, and political expediency are unseemly by any definition.
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, (Mirare Press, 2007 ) a novel about American foreign policy inspired by Graham Greene's The Quiet American. Her forthcoming novel Liberty Landing, inspired by John Dos Passos' USA is scheduled for a Fall '08 release, also by Mirare Press.
McCain’s most important task as the Republican Party nominee is to convince the American people that despite his party’s arrogance, ignorance, bad judgment, and corruption, and his own political leanings, he will be someone the American people can count on to correct the terrible mistakes of this Administration. At a time when Americans are united only in their anxiety and fear over the future, and in need of a leader to bind them into some vaguely cohesive national consistuency, Sen. McCain plays the dirtiest, most reprehensible kind of gutter politics.
Bankrupt of a single original idea to end the war in Iraq--other than regurgitating President Bush’s trope about keeping our courage and resolve and winning with honor, McCain accuses Barack Obama of near treason for having the courage and resolve to declare victory and bring the troops home.
Nearly seven years after September 11th, McCain, a senior senator with instant access to the President from 2001 to now, declared this week, like some wide-eyed ingénue just recently arrived to Washington, that he knows how to catch Osama Bin Ladin. Why did he keep this critically important information to himself for seven years? If he had actively campaigned for his plan to catch Bin Ladin when it mattered, it would be admirable. But intellectual and moral impotence during a war of choice -- by his party and his leader -- that has resulted in suffering to countless Iraqi and American lives, and belated boasting about what should have been, makes one nothing but a trash talker.
Mr. McCain’s recent attacks of Mr. Obama, questioning his patriotism, his judgement, and his love for the troops, and accusing him of vanity, deceit, and political expediency are unseemly by any definition.
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, (Mirare Press, 2007 ) a novel about American foreign policy inspired by Graham Greene's The Quiet American. Her forthcoming novel Liberty Landing, inspired by John Dos Passos' USA is scheduled for a Fall '08 release, also by Mirare Press.
Sunday, June 29. 2008
Narcissist-in-Chief Bill Clinton Acting Up ... Again
The UK Telegraph reports that our impeached and retired Narcissist-in-Chief, Bill Clinton is furious at Senator Obama for having the audacity to co-opt the Democratic Presidential nomination from his wife.
Evidently, similar to Israel’s Law of Return that enables every Jew anywhere in the world, who expresses a desire to settle in Israel, to do so, the President believes in a law of return for him to re-establish residency at the White House. As Jon Stewart quipped, the Clintons believe the White House to be their ancestral home.
The last time the Israeli law was used on a grand scale was during the famine in Ethiopia. While the rest of us tried to sing, with feeling, all the parts of Michael Jackson’s ensemble song, We Are The World, more than 35,000 Ethiopian Jews were gradually airlifted to Israel.
President Clinton croaking, “I Am The World,” to anyone who hasn’t already tuned him out, has decided that what this country really needs at this critical moment of the 21st century, is more of his finger-wagging, 1950s racism-tinged, leadership.
According to the Telegraph, Mr. Clinton recently told friends that Mr. Obama should “kiss my ass if he wants my support.” While playing the race card yet again to patronize Senator Obama, Mr. Clinton continues to suffer from a persecution complex, claiming that the race card was wickedly used by Senator Obama against him.
America calling Mr. Clinton: Senator Barack Obama is now the legitimate and rightful leader of the Democratic Party. He is the container of the American peoples’ hopes and dreams for their future. For Mr. Clinton to patronize and disrespect Senator Obama shows a lack of respect for the electoral process and the American people. Senator Obama is the post-modern leader we have chosen to claim the Presidency for the 21st century. We believe that he will work hard to return sanity to our foreign policy, steer us from the military industrial complex to intelligent diplomacy, improve the economy, commit to the stewardship of the environment, forge ties across party lines, and reclaim our moral authority in the world.
President Clinton would do well to remind himself of the American people’s needs before his own, so as to maintain one last shred of dignity and the respect of those who support the Democratic Party's legitimate leader and nominee.
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge Of The World
The Edge of the World a novel shaped by war and American foreign policy. She has a forthcoming novel, Liberty Landing, inspired by John Dos Passos' USA, his trilogy about America.
Evidently, similar to Israel’s Law of Return that enables every Jew anywhere in the world, who expresses a desire to settle in Israel, to do so, the President believes in a law of return for him to re-establish residency at the White House. As Jon Stewart quipped, the Clintons believe the White House to be their ancestral home.
The last time the Israeli law was used on a grand scale was during the famine in Ethiopia. While the rest of us tried to sing, with feeling, all the parts of Michael Jackson’s ensemble song, We Are The World, more than 35,000 Ethiopian Jews were gradually airlifted to Israel.
President Clinton croaking, “I Am The World,” to anyone who hasn’t already tuned him out, has decided that what this country really needs at this critical moment of the 21st century, is more of his finger-wagging, 1950s racism-tinged, leadership.
According to the Telegraph, Mr. Clinton recently told friends that Mr. Obama should “kiss my ass if he wants my support.” While playing the race card yet again to patronize Senator Obama, Mr. Clinton continues to suffer from a persecution complex, claiming that the race card was wickedly used by Senator Obama against him.
America calling Mr. Clinton: Senator Barack Obama is now the legitimate and rightful leader of the Democratic Party. He is the container of the American peoples’ hopes and dreams for their future. For Mr. Clinton to patronize and disrespect Senator Obama shows a lack of respect for the electoral process and the American people. Senator Obama is the post-modern leader we have chosen to claim the Presidency for the 21st century. We believe that he will work hard to return sanity to our foreign policy, steer us from the military industrial complex to intelligent diplomacy, improve the economy, commit to the stewardship of the environment, forge ties across party lines, and reclaim our moral authority in the world.
President Clinton would do well to remind himself of the American people’s needs before his own, so as to maintain one last shred of dignity and the respect of those who support the Democratic Party's legitimate leader and nominee.
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge Of The World
The Edge of the World a novel shaped by war and American foreign policy. She has a forthcoming novel, Liberty Landing, inspired by John Dos Passos' USA, his trilogy about America.
Sunday, May 25. 2008
Hillary and Bill, Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out
Among the Americans I know, real Americans, hardworking Americans, white Americans, black Americans, and every shade in between, there is a terrible sadness about the Clintons’ racist, take no prisoners bid for the Presidency.
In the middle class neighborhood where I live, we have strived to live respectfully, even harmoniously with each other. The sixth grade teacher raising her adopted daughter from China, the distinguished "Wasp" octogenarian couple whose failing health and eyesight worry us all, the gay Latino engineer who works at a technology company with plummeting stock prices, his partner who works for an airline that is going bust, the Muslim family from Pakistan who live quietly in collective purdah so as not to offend anyone, the industrious, ambitious African-American family with children settled in three top colleges, the elderly grandmother from Bosnia who ritually boasts about the future of her American grandchildren, the artist across the street who cobbles a living out of part-time work, the man on disability who disappears a little each day from lack of comprehensive health insurance, the woman with a brain tumor, happy as a lark, because her son is back from Iraq, are just some of the sixty families who have found a way to co-exist peacefully, respect each other, and search for commonality. We are not so different from each other, we found. We're all worried about the war, about the economy, about our jobs, our children's future, our health, our retirement. We are something close to a tribe, a neo-American tribe stitched together from people of every background.
We would never consider saying the hurtful, racist bile Hillary and Bill Clinton have spewed since the beginning of their campaign to install Mrs. Clinton in the White House. The America we know is better than Hillary and Bill and their unenlightened race baiting. It’s time for the Clintons to stop wrecking this country’s slow, plodding, but inevitable post-modern march towards raceless meritocracy, and return to 1950s Arkansas--where they evidently still live.
Gail Vida Hamburg, author of The Edge of the World, has a forthcoming novel, Liberty Landing, inspired by John Dos Passos' USA, his trilogy about America. Look for Liberty Landing from Mirare Press www.mirarepress.com in Fall 2008.
In the middle class neighborhood where I live, we have strived to live respectfully, even harmoniously with each other. The sixth grade teacher raising her adopted daughter from China, the distinguished "Wasp" octogenarian couple whose failing health and eyesight worry us all, the gay Latino engineer who works at a technology company with plummeting stock prices, his partner who works for an airline that is going bust, the Muslim family from Pakistan who live quietly in collective purdah so as not to offend anyone, the industrious, ambitious African-American family with children settled in three top colleges, the elderly grandmother from Bosnia who ritually boasts about the future of her American grandchildren, the artist across the street who cobbles a living out of part-time work, the man on disability who disappears a little each day from lack of comprehensive health insurance, the woman with a brain tumor, happy as a lark, because her son is back from Iraq, are just some of the sixty families who have found a way to co-exist peacefully, respect each other, and search for commonality. We are not so different from each other, we found. We're all worried about the war, about the economy, about our jobs, our children's future, our health, our retirement. We are something close to a tribe, a neo-American tribe stitched together from people of every background.
We would never consider saying the hurtful, racist bile Hillary and Bill Clinton have spewed since the beginning of their campaign to install Mrs. Clinton in the White House. The America we know is better than Hillary and Bill and their unenlightened race baiting. It’s time for the Clintons to stop wrecking this country’s slow, plodding, but inevitable post-modern march towards raceless meritocracy, and return to 1950s Arkansas--where they evidently still live.
Gail Vida Hamburg, author of The Edge of the World, has a forthcoming novel, Liberty Landing, inspired by John Dos Passos' USA, his trilogy about America. Look for Liberty Landing from Mirare Press www.mirarepress.com in Fall 2008.
Tuesday, May 6. 2008
Ass Kicking, Cojones, Testicular Fortitude Got Us Into Iraq War
All this talk by Hillary Clinton about “obliterating Iran,” and Clinton sycophant, James Mushmouth Carville waxing lyrical about Clinton having cojones to spare, worries me. Does the Clinton camp really believe that the answer to eight years of mindlessness and high testosterone swagger is more mindlessness and high testosterone swagger?
In an old episode of Fawlty Towers, the British sitcom starring Monty Pythoner, John Cleese, his slightly crazy hotel keeper character, Basil Fawlty, is urged by an exasperated American guest who is disgusted with the hotel’s employees to “go kick some ass.” “It’s all about kicking ass with you Americans, isn’t it?” replies Basil.
Indeed, it has been throughout the Bush Administration. Former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke wrote in his book, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror that on the evening of September 11, 2001 President Bush—surely overcompensating for his earlier paralysis while reading My Pet Goat to kindergartners— went into ass kicking overdrive. When reminded of the constraints of international law, our Commander in Chief responded, "I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass."
Taking a cue from the President, before the invasion of Iraq (sorry Operation Iraqi Freedom), Toby Keith had half the country humming, “we’ll put a boot up your ass, it’s the American way.” It was mindlessness that led us to associate Saddam Hussein with Islamic fundamentalists in the first place. Saddam, who tried to live up to his self-fashioned destiny as “The Lion of Baghdad,” was a known hedonist without a shred of fundamentalist convictions. Cupcake shots of him in testicle-enhancing bikini trunks would have led any mindful intelligence analyst to conclude that the kohl-wearing, henna-mustached former American puppet was not in cahoots with Al Queda.
It is no surprise that President Bush favors C.Q to I.Q when taking the measure of a man. In Bob Woodward's book, Plan of Attack, Bush marveled at British Prime Minister's Tony Blair's cojones, for playing Ted to his Bill in their excellent adventure in Iraq. When Donald Rumsfeld strutted the stage and talked about the benefits of "Shock and Awe," it wasn't just mainstream media who swooned. Our President is reported to have said, "That man has cojones."
If Bush and Cheney hadn’t been so aroused and ready to start a war, they would have seriously considered the reports of Iraq’s then Foreign Minister, who told Western media that Saddam was busy putting the finishing touches to his fourth novel, Begone Demons. But no. We were in full mindless, asskicking mode.
On television, during the run-up to the war, reporters worked the American people into quite a lather. Our military were shown scribbling, “This one’s for 9/11” on missiles, before the invasion of Iraq. And the media induced frenzy left us all feeling that it was time for the foreplay to end and the fun to begin. And so started the invasion of a foreign country that had done nothing to us.
In Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, he cites the asskicking mentality of our representatives in Iraq. Tom Foley, President Bush’s classmate at Harvard was charged by the President to oh, bring democracy to Iraq. A week after his arrival. Foley announced that he intended to privatize Iraq’s state-owned enterprises within thirty days. A contractor pointed out one hardly worth mentioning, insignificant, teeny, weenie detail—international law, that quaint Hague Convention, that prevents the sale of assets by an occupation government. Foley is reported to have replied, “I don’t give a shit about international law. I made a commitment to the President that I’d privatize Iraq’s businesses.”
Five years after he waged a muddle headed war punctuated by bouts of lunacy (it’s about defeating evil in the world, democracy blooming like cactus flowers in the desert etc) the President is still full of swagger and hot air. "The economy will come on." "We will prevail." "The definition of success is victory." During a trip to Australia after a fall sojourn in Iraq, the President appraised Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile about the realities on the ground in Iraq. “We’re kicking ass,” our Commander in Chief replied. Reports that the Founding Fathers were rolling in their graves were quickly confirmed.
Tres Cojones Clinton and Mr. Mushmouth, listen up. The majority of Americans would like a new President who thinks deeply, who can add two and two and come up with something besides a rhinoceros, and uses his/her intellect to solve problems instead of running off at the mouth, kicking ass to prove testicular fortitude and cojones, and making a fool of us all.
It’s embarrassing.
Gail Vida Hamburg, a former print reporter, now in science communications, is the author of The Edge of the World, a novel shaped by American foreign policy and war. Visit Mirare Press www.mirarepress.com for details. Gail blogs at www.gailvidahamburg.com
In an old episode of Fawlty Towers, the British sitcom starring Monty Pythoner, John Cleese, his slightly crazy hotel keeper character, Basil Fawlty, is urged by an exasperated American guest who is disgusted with the hotel’s employees to “go kick some ass.” “It’s all about kicking ass with you Americans, isn’t it?” replies Basil.
Indeed, it has been throughout the Bush Administration. Former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke wrote in his book, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror that on the evening of September 11, 2001 President Bush—surely overcompensating for his earlier paralysis while reading My Pet Goat to kindergartners— went into ass kicking overdrive. When reminded of the constraints of international law, our Commander in Chief responded, "I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass."
Taking a cue from the President, before the invasion of Iraq (sorry Operation Iraqi Freedom), Toby Keith had half the country humming, “we’ll put a boot up your ass, it’s the American way.” It was mindlessness that led us to associate Saddam Hussein with Islamic fundamentalists in the first place. Saddam, who tried to live up to his self-fashioned destiny as “The Lion of Baghdad,” was a known hedonist without a shred of fundamentalist convictions. Cupcake shots of him in testicle-enhancing bikini trunks would have led any mindful intelligence analyst to conclude that the kohl-wearing, henna-mustached former American puppet was not in cahoots with Al Queda.
It is no surprise that President Bush favors C.Q to I.Q when taking the measure of a man. In Bob Woodward's book, Plan of Attack, Bush marveled at British Prime Minister's Tony Blair's cojones, for playing Ted to his Bill in their excellent adventure in Iraq. When Donald Rumsfeld strutted the stage and talked about the benefits of "Shock and Awe," it wasn't just mainstream media who swooned. Our President is reported to have said, "That man has cojones."
If Bush and Cheney hadn’t been so aroused and ready to start a war, they would have seriously considered the reports of Iraq’s then Foreign Minister, who told Western media that Saddam was busy putting the finishing touches to his fourth novel, Begone Demons. But no. We were in full mindless, asskicking mode.
On television, during the run-up to the war, reporters worked the American people into quite a lather. Our military were shown scribbling, “This one’s for 9/11” on missiles, before the invasion of Iraq. And the media induced frenzy left us all feeling that it was time for the foreplay to end and the fun to begin. And so started the invasion of a foreign country that had done nothing to us.
In Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, he cites the asskicking mentality of our representatives in Iraq. Tom Foley, President Bush’s classmate at Harvard was charged by the President to oh, bring democracy to Iraq. A week after his arrival. Foley announced that he intended to privatize Iraq’s state-owned enterprises within thirty days. A contractor pointed out one hardly worth mentioning, insignificant, teeny, weenie detail—international law, that quaint Hague Convention, that prevents the sale of assets by an occupation government. Foley is reported to have replied, “I don’t give a shit about international law. I made a commitment to the President that I’d privatize Iraq’s businesses.”
Five years after he waged a muddle headed war punctuated by bouts of lunacy (it’s about defeating evil in the world, democracy blooming like cactus flowers in the desert etc) the President is still full of swagger and hot air. "The economy will come on." "We will prevail." "The definition of success is victory." During a trip to Australia after a fall sojourn in Iraq, the President appraised Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile about the realities on the ground in Iraq. “We’re kicking ass,” our Commander in Chief replied. Reports that the Founding Fathers were rolling in their graves were quickly confirmed.
Tres Cojones Clinton and Mr. Mushmouth, listen up. The majority of Americans would like a new President who thinks deeply, who can add two and two and come up with something besides a rhinoceros, and uses his/her intellect to solve problems instead of running off at the mouth, kicking ass to prove testicular fortitude and cojones, and making a fool of us all.
It’s embarrassing.
Gail Vida Hamburg, a former print reporter, now in science communications, is the author of The Edge of the World, a novel shaped by American foreign policy and war. Visit Mirare Press www.mirarepress.com for details. Gail blogs at www.gailvidahamburg.com
Friday, April 11. 2008
28% of Americans Who Approve of Prez Also See Naked Woman in Veep’s Sunglasses
From the Department of Denial, Tangents, and Small Thoughts.
An April 9, 2008 Associated Press poll showed that 28 percent of Americans approve of the overall job Bush is doing.
The cluster survey involved telephone interviews with 2500 residents of Dymphna Meadows, named for the patron saint of neurological disorders and epilepsy; Bernadine Siena Forest, named for the illustrious saint of public relations; Elmo Village, named to honor the patron saint of ammunition and explosive workers; and Justin Park, a township that honors the patron of apologists.
The same survey showed that 54 percent of Republicans from Thaddeus, named for the go-to saint for desperate causes approve of the President’s economic policies. “My stocks took a nosedive and I lost nearly everything, but I've put what's left on laddered CDs earning less than 2 percent. But I feel good, the surge is working and victory is within reach,” said Itsma Story. “I know we’re spending a lot of Yuan in Iraq, but the tree of liberty must be nourished from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” said his partner, Donny Deranged.
The cluster survey respondents said they were pleased that the media is finally focusing on the real story. “We needed someone to blow the lid off the Veep’s sunglasses, and identify the imaginary naked women standing in front of blue sky and no fences,” said Kristol Light, a Dymphna-ite. “I am glad that the Fourth Estate is finally focusing on the real issues,” said Nan Nonsequitor, who wore a shirt with the legend, "Avenge 9/11, Operation Iraqi Freedom."
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, a novel shaped by American foreign policy and war. Visit Mirare Press for details.
An April 9, 2008 Associated Press poll showed that 28 percent of Americans approve of the overall job Bush is doing.
The cluster survey involved telephone interviews with 2500 residents of Dymphna Meadows, named for the patron saint of neurological disorders and epilepsy; Bernadine Siena Forest, named for the illustrious saint of public relations; Elmo Village, named to honor the patron saint of ammunition and explosive workers; and Justin Park, a township that honors the patron of apologists.
The same survey showed that 54 percent of Republicans from Thaddeus, named for the go-to saint for desperate causes approve of the President’s economic policies. “My stocks took a nosedive and I lost nearly everything, but I've put what's left on laddered CDs earning less than 2 percent. But I feel good, the surge is working and victory is within reach,” said Itsma Story. “I know we’re spending a lot of Yuan in Iraq, but the tree of liberty must be nourished from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” said his partner, Donny Deranged.
The cluster survey respondents said they were pleased that the media is finally focusing on the real story. “We needed someone to blow the lid off the Veep’s sunglasses, and identify the imaginary naked women standing in front of blue sky and no fences,” said Kristol Light, a Dymphna-ite. “I am glad that the Fourth Estate is finally focusing on the real issues,” said Nan Nonsequitor, who wore a shirt with the legend, "Avenge 9/11, Operation Iraqi Freedom."
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, a novel shaped by American foreign policy and war. Visit Mirare Press for details.
Monday, April 7. 2008
Downgrade “Body Politics” this Election
Downgrade “Body Politics” this Election, Unless It's About U.S. Military and Iraqi Civilian Bodies.
In past Presidential elections, body politics has been a defining factor for many Americans when choosing among candidates. The body politics of gay marriage and the withholding of that right, and the body politics of women’s right to choose versus the right of the unborn have prevailed in so many previous elections.
Is it possible for those of us with a personal stake in these issues to downgrade them from: “MUST HAVE IT NOW, OR ELSE!!” to “IT CAN WAIT”?
If we could focus our first efforts on nominating the candidate who will best secure Iraq, and keep safe the bodies of US Military and Iraqi civilians, and then* focus on our own body politics agenda, it would show that we care about those who, since 2003, have paid the highest price for this war.
Gail Vida Hamburg, author, The Edge of the World, Mirare Press.
The little that we can do, we should do, especially when it is painless. Help U.S. Military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan keep in touch with their families. Send your old cellphones to www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com for recycling, and the proceeds will be used to purchase prepaid calling cards for those military who need it.
In past Presidential elections, body politics has been a defining factor for many Americans when choosing among candidates. The body politics of gay marriage and the withholding of that right, and the body politics of women’s right to choose versus the right of the unborn have prevailed in so many previous elections.
Is it possible for those of us with a personal stake in these issues to downgrade them from: “MUST HAVE IT NOW, OR ELSE!!” to “IT CAN WAIT”?
If we could focus our first efforts on nominating the candidate who will best secure Iraq, and keep safe the bodies of US Military and Iraqi civilians, and then* focus on our own body politics agenda, it would show that we care about those who, since 2003, have paid the highest price for this war.
Gail Vida Hamburg, author, The Edge of the World, Mirare Press.
The little that we can do, we should do, especially when it is painless. Help U.S. Military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan keep in touch with their families. Send your old cellphones to www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com for recycling, and the proceeds will be used to purchase prepaid calling cards for those military who need it.
Sunday, February 24. 2008
Americans Not Worried About Obama's Lapel Pin or Hand Placement During National Anthem
With Barack Obama’s dazzling crossover popularity around the country, I thought, we’d heard the last from the hyper-patriotic, “we’ll put a boot up your ass,” American hee-haw, whose collective aggression and monumental stupidity put us in Iraq in an unwinnable war.
One hoped that Obama's surge was a barometer of something important--a damning indictment of President Bush's policies and divisive tactics. One hoped that those who worship at the altar of jingoism, and measure patriotism by the size of their flags, recognized that the reason we're in Iraq today is because their Flagbearer-in-Chief exploited their feelings of extreme patriotism, playing it like a violin with tunes about mushroom clouds and WMDs, after 9/11.
If they now prefer to console themselves that history will prove him right, hey, go for it. Those of us who questioned the war from the beginning, understand the need for opiates to alleviate embarrassment, feel less stupid, or feel less guilty for attacking those who did not attack us, and causing pain to those who did not hurt us.
We understand the need to spin a yarn to forget that you supported a war without cause that wrecked the foundations of a country that did nothing to us, caused the deaths of 3968 US military, caused the deaths of more than 88,000 Iraqis (600,000 in a cluster survey by Johns Hopkins), displaced more than 2 million Iraqis from their country, and is costing America $338 million each day to fight it, $343 million of it borrowed each day from China, with no end in sight.
But along with that, it would have been nice to see the demise of hyper-patriotism, the tumor that metastasized into imperial hubris and the attack on Iraq. But no. Instead of putting the extreme patriotism card away and reflecting on how it failed America, here they come again with cheap thoughts about what it means to be a patriotic American. According to Associated Press, Feb 24, 08: Sen. Barack Obama's refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin along with a photo of him not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem led conservatives on Internet and in the media to question his patriotism. … Obama's wife, Michelle, has drawn their ire, too, for saying recently that she's really proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.
One conservative consultant, according to the article, calls Obama, “the poster child for the anti-war movement.” This may be how Republican pols and conservative bloviators in Punditland see things. But on Main Street USA, it is already a fact that any American with a brain and the ability to see reality, Democrat and Republican alike, is worried about the economy, their job, food prices, houses that don't sell, decline in local government services, higher property taxes, and the cost of the Iraq War. We are worried about our future and who will best solve the problems of our country. We are all poster children for the anti-war movement. Listen to us now, and hear us later in the voting booth: We are not worried about Barack Obama's flag lapel pin or his hand placement during the National Anthem.
Read my book, The Edge of the World, Gail Vida Hamburg, Mirare Press.
One hoped that Obama's surge was a barometer of something important--a damning indictment of President Bush's policies and divisive tactics. One hoped that those who worship at the altar of jingoism, and measure patriotism by the size of their flags, recognized that the reason we're in Iraq today is because their Flagbearer-in-Chief exploited their feelings of extreme patriotism, playing it like a violin with tunes about mushroom clouds and WMDs, after 9/11.
If they now prefer to console themselves that history will prove him right, hey, go for it. Those of us who questioned the war from the beginning, understand the need for opiates to alleviate embarrassment, feel less stupid, or feel less guilty for attacking those who did not attack us, and causing pain to those who did not hurt us.
We understand the need to spin a yarn to forget that you supported a war without cause that wrecked the foundations of a country that did nothing to us, caused the deaths of 3968 US military, caused the deaths of more than 88,000 Iraqis (600,000 in a cluster survey by Johns Hopkins), displaced more than 2 million Iraqis from their country, and is costing America $338 million each day to fight it, $343 million of it borrowed each day from China, with no end in sight.
But along with that, it would have been nice to see the demise of hyper-patriotism, the tumor that metastasized into imperial hubris and the attack on Iraq. But no. Instead of putting the extreme patriotism card away and reflecting on how it failed America, here they come again with cheap thoughts about what it means to be a patriotic American. According to Associated Press, Feb 24, 08: Sen. Barack Obama's refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin along with a photo of him not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem led conservatives on Internet and in the media to question his patriotism. … Obama's wife, Michelle, has drawn their ire, too, for saying recently that she's really proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.
One conservative consultant, according to the article, calls Obama, “the poster child for the anti-war movement.” This may be how Republican pols and conservative bloviators in Punditland see things. But on Main Street USA, it is already a fact that any American with a brain and the ability to see reality, Democrat and Republican alike, is worried about the economy, their job, food prices, houses that don't sell, decline in local government services, higher property taxes, and the cost of the Iraq War. We are worried about our future and who will best solve the problems of our country. We are all poster children for the anti-war movement. Listen to us now, and hear us later in the voting booth: We are not worried about Barack Obama's flag lapel pin or his hand placement during the National Anthem.
Read my book, The Edge of the World, Gail Vida Hamburg, Mirare Press.
Thursday, January 10. 2008
Election Coverage Like It’s 1999
This is supposed to be the election of reckoning, the election for thinking people. Voters need a media that reports the process. deconstructs the candidates and their positions, and gauges their competence, with all the seriousness, consideration, critical thinking, and skepticism it can muster.
For the media, this is the opportunity to redeem themselves after unconscionable dereliction of duty— failing to report abuse of power, and the egregious violation of the Constitution and international law by a sitting American President and his Administration.
But no. Instead, Hillary’s tears and Romney’s hair, Obama’s voice and Huckabee’s ease, and all the sentimentality and drivel one can swallow, issue from the Fourth Estate.
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives.
For the media, this is the opportunity to redeem themselves after unconscionable dereliction of duty— failing to report abuse of power, and the egregious violation of the Constitution and international law by a sitting American President and his Administration.
But no. Instead, Hillary’s tears and Romney’s hair, Obama’s voice and Huckabee’s ease, and all the sentimentality and drivel one can swallow, issue from the Fourth Estate.
Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World, a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives.
(Page 1 of 3, totalling 37 entries)
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