A MELTDOWN OF WILL

The recent triad of catastrophes in Japan: an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, followed by the potential meltdown of a number of nuclear power plants, juxtaposed with the events unfolding in Libya,  fairly beg for some kind of official pronouncement from President Obama. Both situations have the potential to influence national and global affairs over the short term–and longer.

Japan, as a major holder of US Treasury issues, in order to cope with the massive reconstruction effort needed to repair the losses sustained over the past several days, will be issuing its own bonds and dipping deeply into its savings to become whole again. What are the consequences in the bond markets for our own issues? Likewise, whoever prevails in Libya, the events of the last month are going to create havoc in oil markets. What will be the effect on our struggling economy?

Due to the seriously malfunctioning safety mechanisms of the Japanese nuclear reactors damaged by the quake and tsunami, one should presume that the nuclear power industry will be forced to rethink many of its protocols and designs. If Libyan oil is removed from the global market–even for a short time–one should presume that the barrel price of oil can inch even higher. The oil industry is no stranger to fifth column political manipulation; high gasoline prices are a convenient way to make the earth move under President Obama’s feet during his re-election campaign.

Isn’t this a perfect moment to discuss our energy future and the national sacrifices we have to make  in order to effect energy reform? Obama had such a moment last year when, in April, the BP oil spill commenced. He didn’t make much use of it. Isn’t this also a good time to discuss the role of public and private debt in restructuring economic priorities?

If President Obama continues to allow Republicans to dominate the national political agenda with their cynicism, hypocrisy and “Wal-Mart” policy values–cheap ideas taken down off the lay-away shelf  every four years–who will be motivated to appear on his behalf at precinct polling stations?

What should he talk about? How about the “return on investment” we get from our enormous Defense Department budget? LINK How about the challenges we face globally that are in no way linked to the”war on terror” or war-making–China, for example, is financing the modernization of the Panama Canal, and can be observed in Africa, South America, Europe and Central Asia doing business, not waging war. Watching the drama of the middle east struggling to self-actualize; South Asia and South America striving to develop; and Japan, not to mention Haiti, coping with chaos and ruin.

How lucky we are, and always have been, as a nation; and what a third-rate, banana-Republican job we are doing to secure our future.

GEE, WHAT DID WE JUST SAY? LINK AND, AGAIN, FROM REUTERS AT 11AM EDST;  and  Monday, March 14th: LINK In addition, this LINK from the NYTimes on Friday, March 18, about effects of the Japan crisis on the US auto industry.

WHERE THINGS ARE HEADED

The militant miscreant wing-nut James O’Keefe’s latest sting LINK came at the expense of the leadership of NPR and resulted in the resignation of Vivian Schiller, its CEO. Schiller, because of her dumb handling of the controversial 2010 Juan Williams dismissal, probably deserved it. Juan Williams, as well, deserved his ass-kicking. There ought to be a law prohibiting miscegeny between News Corporation and CPR. There are plenty of statutory examples on this subject on display below the Mason-Dixon line.

O’Keefe, one may recall, was arrested last year in a futile exploit against Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. O’Keefe and his posse–in and out of the Tea Party movement–are emblematic of the assault the nation is under from the janissaries of the right involving established areas of progressive public discourse and policy that one presumed were untouchable.

And how easy it has been for these people to mount their campaign.

First, using Dick Armey and others, let’s create a “grassroots” movement– “Americans for Prosperity”–funded by the odd and  oligarchic Koch brothers, Charles and David; then combine this alliance (motivated not because of reform of health care,  but on racialist indignation at the prospect of a family of African-American Democrats in the White House–just as Ron Schiller suggested in the O’Keefe video) with that traditional source of Republican sanguinity, the tax cut. The tax cut cures everything, including AIDS and dropsy. Sustain tax cuts for the top five percent of earners, enhanced with dramatic effect by a deep recession and a consequent  massive decline in tax revenues everywhere, then whine about government spending, deficits, bail-outs and the national debt.

Then, let’s check off, one by one, a conservative’s laundry list of canards: public broadcasting, abortion, integrated schools and public schooling itself), Muslims and sharia law, regulation of banking and other industries, labor unions, the Consumer Protection Agency and the FTC……..and so on.

Third, use as exponents–in addition to the eternal squawk box of the right, Fox News–a freshly-elected crop of Republican ideologues, combined with the usual suspects, career politicians like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

No one, of course, can trump the demagoguery of Glen Beck, who has recently been the object of scorn of a number of RINOs–to use the tea party’s sobriquet for them–like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. Beck has even surpassed Rush Limbaugh as uber Metropolitan of unorthodox conservative demagoguery and frequently emits gibberish that would make Father Coughlin blush. Fox News will be sure to help us.

As a nation, we now endure an orchestra of hyperbole and cynicism that includes, as the NY Times pointed out LINK , Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, who frequently makes statements that cannot be substantiated; and the vaunted governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker–notably, the son of a Baptist minister–who was caught on tape LINK conspiring in a telephone call with a man posing as Charles Koch. This is not to mention NY’s Congressman Peter King who is holding hearings, HUAC style, on home-grown  Islamic terrorism. This hypocrite has been a known sympathizer with the IRA LINK; but one guesses that Irish terrorists are among the good guys. For one thing, they’re white. Can the reader imagine if a Democrat with King’s background was hosting such an event? Where is William Ayers, by the way?

Political grifter Newt Gingrich, he of the five-thousand dollar gavels and numerous discarded wives, is also in the choir, and is traipsing around the country using as a meme the fear of sharia law. Hot on his heels is yet another RW has been: former Senator Rick Santorum.

Ideologues abound at the local levels of government as well. Take note of Ron Margiotta, the  chairman of the Wake County School Board and his fellow member, newly-elected, tea-party infused, Jon Tedesco LINK. Margiotta was recently recorded referring to people who disgareed with him at a school board meeting as “animals” LINK. Here is a tape of the actual remark. Right-wing ideologues and business interests are striving to alter the very notion of a diverse public education in Raleigh-Durham, NC LINK–one more detail in furtherance of the over-all conservative agenda.

If one recalls, the attempts made by members of Congress in 2009 to explain the details of the Affordable Health Care Act to their constituents in public meetings–that were frequently turned into raucous shouting matches by tea party thugs and Americans for Prosperity lackeys–became harbingers of our current national dialogue. Right-wingers are unable to compromise on anything and will force their values on the public unless they are met with vehement opposition.

WHAT CAN BROWN AND BOEHNER DO FOR YOU?

On the promo circuit with a new bio LINK, Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts must be preparing for a 2012 presidential bid. His gooey, self-pitying tome describes a childhood of misery that included welfare, physical abuse by a number of his mother’s boyfriends or husbands, pedophilia and a short stint in the soft porn industry. Many additional details, like cocaine, Rick James and Studio 54,  that would have been burdensome to the political hucksters who will manage his campaign, are disclosed in the book  in order to give the erstwhile candidate plenty of time to generate bullspin.

The life Brown describes is worthy of page six in the National Enquirer and is as sleazily superficial as only American lives can get. Admittedly, a dose of narcissism is  a necessary trait for those who lust after the White House. But the only CV that is more lurid than this one belongs to Sarah Palin.

John Boehner’s biography is hardly better than these, and is probably the source of his lachrymosity. He has good reason to burst into tears today, as his leadership was rebuffed by his own House members LINK, as well as sensible Democrats, who passed an amendment defunding the second jet engine to be built for the F-35–in Boehner’s home state of Ohio. Of the jobs to be lost as a result? Well, to quote the speaker, “So be it.”