How we each remarkably think for ourselves and think alike

This could end up being a very bad post. If you are not reading it, it is because I thought twice and took it down.

There’s a phrase for people like me – many, actually, but the one most often used is conspiracy theorist. There is truth in it – I look around me and see random events like earthquakes and crazy governors like the guy who hit the Appalachian trail that ended in an Argentine valley, and understand that it is random. I see smart and dynamic personalities that cannot be constrained or contained … people like Bryan Schweitzer and Arnold Schwarzenegger are simply destined for high achievement. And then there is stupidity, so much a part of us that it is manifested in every walk of life and every philosophy, from Tom Cruise’s Scientology to Sarah Palin and the Teabaggers.

That is all the natural flow of life, but as I look at it all I sense there is more to it than just random events and bright and stupid people. There is a functioning and powerful intelligence at work as well, kind of a back light to all that we see.

Maybe that is crazy talk, but suppose that we had a mass media owned by wealthy private investors, a powerful weapon in the hands of a few. Given such power, would the collective impulse of those self-interested investors be not to use it? Would they simply step back not choose not to influence events to their own favor?

What we call “NBC”, for example, is people like Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, the parent company and a major weapons contractor. NBC was therefore invested in war, and benefited each time our country entered one.

Jack Welch is but one man, but at one time had considerable influence over the behavior of the news anchors and reporters and photographers who were the face of that network. When our country went into any of its many wars, NBC cheered our country on.

He’s just one example – Roger Ailes another, and Sumner Redstone another.

It’s hard not to be reductionist, as the media is large, and my mind small, so let’s be more general, and say that there are possibly a thousand people who have enough influence over major media outlets to dictate to us what is considered important and what is not. These people are wide and varied, but share one common trait: They are wealthy. They have an interest in preservation of the wealth machine. They feed us a constant stream of words and images, and in so doing exhibit heavy influence over our private thoughts and opinions.

Perhaps the media merely reflects popular opinion, and does not attempt to influence it. That’s possible – it is entirely possible that these thousand people who have this awesome power over us have opted not to use it. But unlikely.

So I point to two phenomena, each treated differently. The first is Sarah Palin. There is no better word for her than “stupid” – she’s classic beauty-queen/cheerleader stock, uneducated, unable to think properly, conditioned to make her way in life by use of her looks and charm. There’s nothing to her beyond surface features. She’s common enough that we all know people like her – shallow but influential just because men imagine themselves riding her bones, while women wish they were as desirable as her. She has power, but it is the kind of power that only works in small circles. Women like her, ‘trophies’, generally marry powerful men and live well, but on their own don’t offer up intellectual force or strategy to make business or politics. Often enough, they outlive their men, and become forceful actors on their own, destructive and crazy. Think … Marge Schott,

Here’s the other phenomenon: Howard Dean. He’s a smart man, a doctor, former governor, intelligent strategist who ran a groundbreaking campaign using the Internet for fund raising, thereby avoiding the corporate bundlers. He made his way in politics by shrewdness and calculation, and furthermore seemed driven by ideological impulses of a progressive nature.

Dean was a formidable candidate for president in 2004, and the media destroyed him. They took a speech he gave to exhort his campaign workers to keep on working, typical fare, and magnified it, repeated it and hounded us with it. They used it to destroy him. It appeared to be a conscious effort dictated by that backlight that this ‘conspiracy theorist’ sees as conscious manipulation of public opinion by media corporations.

Contrary to popular illusion, the vast majority of us don’t form our opinions based on reasoning, but rather by means of the food chain. Each of us looks above us to formulate an appropriate opinion about serious events. If all of the talking heads and serious people thought that Howard Dean had committed a “gaffe”, had done something terribly wrong, then Howard Dean must not be credible. Proper thinking people came to that conclusion all by themselves, and Dean had to quit his campaign. He was destroyed.

I see an overarching intelligence at work there. A decision was made high up the command structure of the news media, and the eerie part is that it was carried out not by one news outlet, but by all of them, as if they were lemmings with but one CEO. The on-air faces we see are mostly friendly idiots reading teleprompters, but the people who sign their paychecks are not. As Spock would say … “fascinating!”

And my question then is this: Why does that same intelligent force not destroy Sarah Palin? It could be done this afternoon, what with her incoherent babble, illegitimate offspring, flimsy education and inability to even read newspapers. Most recently she was caught by our real news media, the comedy shows, referring to the palm of her hand for crib notes in a friendly interview. That could easily destroy any other politician if given proper attention.

Howards Dean’s “I have a scream” speech could have passed without notice, but a decision was made to use that speech to destroy him. No such decision has been made about Sarah Palin.

Why?

The Buddhists nailed it for us

The Buddhists commit the worst of cultural offenses because they are boring. Listening to a Buddhist lecture is like having nails pounded in the forehead, one ….. by one …. by one …. but they are right about one thing: Most of what we “know” to be real is illusion.

Are political boundaries real? Money? Sports franchises (why are “Broncos” different than “Titans”?) What is “democracy”?

In order to have a “country,” we need cohesion. It takes centuries for countries to solidify, and even in the 21st century, many routinely break up into smaller factions. When cohesive populations within larger countries attempt to separate themselves and form their own countries, the results are usually violent – witness Chechnya, the Balkans, Kashmir, the Kurds and Tibetans, and the most bloody of all, the 19th century Southern American plantation system.

Common cultural heritage is a cohesive force, but another part of the glue that cements a populace into a country is myth. History is scrubbed, heroes and grand deeds are invented. The U.S. has powerful myths that are everyday reinforced in every classroom – the Founding Fathers, the glorious October Revolution (no – wait! Am I confusing glorious revolutions?), the Alamo, Iwo Jima, Tonkin. The more distant in the past a deed, the more clearly defined it is. It is now easy to see how the Japanese were so ruthless in attacking Pearl Harbor — all of the intrigue and chicanery of that period has been scrubbed, and we are left with one easily understood evil act. (9/11 is similar to Pearl, but the scrubbing was instantaneous, evidencing remarkable advances in thought control techniques.)

The myth-making process is usually unconscious. Imagine that you are the author of textbooks, a lucrative calling. Imagine that you were to put into your history texts a narrative of events as they actually happened … Jefferson banging his slaves, Texas separating from Mexico to preserve slavery, early Americans repeatedly invading Canada, one time laying waste to its capital city … imagine doing that and then encountering the wrath of civil leaders, school boards, parents.

Over time the rough surface of history is sanded smooth, and the result is the myth of the glory of the United States of America. Without it we fray at the edges. New Mexico might join old Mexico and California might exit, stage left. The United States is a cohesive country held together by powerful myths. The world has seen few of its caliber.

Myth-making of the past is a long and mostly unconscious process. Myth-making in the present is much more difficult.

Imagine that you are Barack Obama, and that you are portrayed in imagery as the “leader” of a country that is in reality controlled by powerful private financial sectors. Those private interests are threatened in a place called Afghanistan. Obama is powerless to stop the use of the military by those private power sectors to attack that region.

As the titular head of the country, Obama could lay out all of that facts and identify the power centers involved, and using his intellectual and forensic skills, seek to convince the citizens of the U.S. of the rightness of his policies and actions. This would possibly work over time, but understand that Obama understands that most of the citizens are not rational thinkers. Even if they were, persuasion is a long process, and there is no time. It would be best is Afghanistan would simply attack us and make it easy, but life seldom offers such simple remedies.

It is much easier to invent dragons in need of slaying and noble goals in need of fulfillment. And in fact that is what is done, not just in foreign affairs, but also in domestic affairs. Virtually every issue in American political discourse is argued from all sides and in most quarter by various appeals to the emotions, or the “humors” as they were known in the past. (If one can disengage and step back, one might see the shadow of Carl Jung. We are harassed by one archetype after another from Hitler himself to the Hitler of the Nile (Nasser) to the Hitler of the Tigris (Saddam Hussein) to the Hilter of the Jordan (Arafat) to Osama, who might be Hitler himself. (Just curious … why do they all have facial hair?))

The grandest myth of all is that we are a self-governing people. We are only allowed to think that. It is important that we are invested in the notion of self-government so that we can run off and work for our parties and burn all of that otherwise useful energy.

I have a long-running dispute with my nemesis, the “Wulfgar“, about the utility of attempting to participate in national politics by working through the Democratic Party. Doing so is considered rational and proper, a good way for housebroken citizens to vent frustration without affecting the ruling classes.

Organization outside that party is discouraged. We are told that it is futile, and even counterproductive, as it might even prevent the election of good Democrats to office.

In this manner, we are encircled. The supposed “two-party” structure is a myth. Certain voices in our media go to great lengths to reinforce the myth that there are great differences between the parties. These are the Limbaugh’s, Hannity’s and Beck’s. Because of their efforts, those who do engage in citizen rule through the Democratic Party are validated. They perceive a difference, a lightness and darkness, themselves, of course, basking in light.

Even in a fake democracy, real democratic governance can manifest on occasion. The two-party structure is one way to control this, but even with that powerful monolith in place, reform movements still organize. In those cases, pretenses are set aside, and brute force is unleashed. Real American history is replete with examples of brute repression – mass murders, imprisonments, brutal beatings. A presidential candidate once sat in prison during the election.

Censorship is all-pervasive in our society, but subtle at all times too, as open censorship is counterproductive. But it can be harsh and open when there is a real threat of movement politics surfacing. Hence the arrest of single-payer advocates by Max Baucus – not to really arrest them, but to send us a message. Resistance is futile.

But there is a Catch-22 for the ruling classes in their democratic pretensions – by publicly honoring popular governance, they are often forced to abide by it. Hence at times in American history there have been true reforms – the end of legal slavery, civil rights for women, and for colored and sexual-preference minorities, laws to protect the commons … all of these things come about because of people working outside the monolithic single party masquerading as two.

Wulfgar says repeatedly that I am “delusional.” This is a real and honest observation on his part. This is the way it appears – a man free of mythology may indeed appear to be delusional to one who is enslaved.

Anyway, so much for Wulfgar. He’s a bit of a tyrant, a man with some verbal skills but possessing only rudimentary political knowledge. He is, like virtually all the population, steeped in myth, which appears in our daily lives in so many forms and seems so real.

Damned Buddhists nailed it, didn’t they.

My fifteen minutes in Denver

I wrote the following letter that appeared in the Denver Post. I was a little bit annoyed (moi?) that they were all over JD Salinger’s death, giving him front page and a big story inside, but only gave Howard Zinn brief mention on page 11. They did take the trouble to note in the headline that Zinn’s book was “leftist.”

Re: “Author Salinger a legend, recluse,” and “Author Zinn wrote leftist ‘A People’s History,’ ” Jan. 29 obituaries.

Two authors of note passed on last week: J.D. Salinger and Howard Zinn.

Holden Caulfield, Salinger’s creation in “The Catcher in the Rye,” is a bright but misdirected young man, searching, confused and in clueless rebellion. People often use Caulfield as an archetype to reflect on their own youthful years before responsibilities took over. Salinger’s passing ignited widespread fits of self-indulgence.

Zinn was given brief note on page 11 of The Post, and dutifully identified as a “leftist.” (Just curious: On passing, were Milton Freidman or Ronald Reagan identified as a “right wingers” for Post readers?) Zinn was a fighter pilot in World War II, among the first to use napalm. Then he did the unusual: he self-reflected and changed course, thereafter leading an uncompromised life.

What ever happened to young Holden Caulfield? Did he choose the road not taken? Salinger never let on.

Mark Tokarski, Boulder

The sentence in boldface was deleted by the Post, but heck, it’s a big deal to me to have a letter published in a big city newspaper, and they improved it a bit, as the comment was off-track.

Newspaper editors unconsciously reveal their bias in the headlines they tag on stories, as in compulsively labeling Zinn a “leftist.” Those who write the stories do the same as they hang tags on the people they write about. Generally I see a tendency to follow official state propaganda – so and so is a “terrorist” while someone else is a “strongman” or “warlord,” those terms reserved for official enemies. People on ‘our’ side who engage in the same behaviors (Israelis savaging Palestinians or Americans launching drone attacks on Afghan weddings) are not given such labels. (Has any newspaper ever referred to American attackers as “militants”?)

In politics, it is rare to see someone labeled as a “right winger”, even as so many in the news are just that. But it is not unusual to label people leftists or terrorists for benefit of the readers. It helps us think for ourselves.

And I say “unconsciously” as I know that to maintain sanity in this crazy world, we all have to buy in to what we are doing. We cannot live comfortably doing things we do not believe in. It helps to buy in, so those of us who work for others subconsciously adopt the mindsets of those who control our work behaviors. Newspaper editors will indignantly tell us that no one ever tells them what to write. But if they were not housebroken, they would not be editors.

A substantial change in appearances is underway

President Obama appeared before congressional members and made a stunning show of it, impressing even the right-wing commentator Jon Stewart. Now, David Corn tells us, “A bipartisan group of bloggers, techies, and consultants is now demanding they do it again. And again.”

It’s important to note here that there has been no substantive change in policy emanating from the White House, that Rahm Emanuel still regards Senate liberals as “fucking retarded”.

Here’s how to connect the dots: President Obama has brought back David Plouffe, his campaign manager. He is doing some image management.

As the inimitable Rusty Shackleford would say, “That is all.”

The Whole Foods compromise

The New Yorker recently ran an article on Boulder/Austin resident John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods. (Food Fighter, Jan 4, 2010.) I found in it common ground between socialists and capitalists, where each of us must give up something to get something.

First, the down side. Whole Foods is a very expensive place to shop. Consequently, there is no reach-out to people of ordinary means. When they scout locations for new stores, they count the number of college graduates within ten miles of the store. Score one for the capitalists.

John Mackey is a very conservative man who is pursuing a business model that embraces lefties, in a sense manipulating us. He caters to our tastes and fetishes with granola food and aisle upon aisle of cultural abundance, much of it shipped in daily from hundreds, if not thousands of miles away.

Mackey also made an untimely remark about national health care in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. He’s against it. This sparked the usual left-wing uprising and calls for the usual futile gesture, a boycott.

Mackey is anti-union. This again flies in the face of his constituency. He is a believer in free markets, and believes that workers are amply rewarded without unions. China aside, I will leave that alone today.

But here is the upside: Whole Foods pays its help well and gives them good benefits, thereby marginalizing unionization efforts. It’s a nice compromise.

Whole Foods tries, as best it is able, to buy locally and pay fair prices for its products. There is a natural clash in this philosophy simply because of its success. It has to feed many mouths, and to do that must operate on a large scale. Consequently, we have the phenomenon of mass-market “organic” food, which pushes the line towards compromise to achieve efficiency.

So if you buy a dozen brown eggs from Whole Foods, it is probably wise not to go too far back down the food chain to see if those chickens really were allowed to wander freely and pick and peck at bugs, their favorite activity.

But Whole Foods is sincere about its ethics. Organic food may not be more nutritious than processed food, but it takes less toll on the land, introduces less petroleum and insecticides into the growing process. Organic cows have better lives before slaughter, actually getting time to enjoy being cows. Organic pigs are not docked or kept in miserable pens prior to slaughter.

Paying extra at Whole Foods may be a conscience-salving exercise for we of the gray pony tail set, but it has real benefits for hired help, animals, the land. and the farmers who raise our food.

In Whole Foods I find that not all is good or wholesome, that we are making compromises. But unlike a Democratic Party “compromise”, Whole Foods does not demand that we give up all our values, and I shop there willingly knowing that both the right and the left have gained something in the process.

And, we can afford it. That’s a stickler.

Should there be any doubt ..

The ad below cost $460,000, and was funded by the Democratic National Committee. In it, Ben Nelson reassures his constituency that the health care reform will not be “government run.”

Democrats: Can’t live with them, can’t kill them.

Some suspect there is a payoff here for Nelson’s vote on the Senate bill. Progressives might wonder why they never get offered payoffs … I don’t wonder about that at all.

Tea bagging goes upscale

This recently came in the mail (I am a on the Bozeman,Montana Tea Party list):——————————————-

How the Supreme Court Decision on Citizens United Changed the Political Landscape

Dear Tea Party Patriot,

Here at the Bozeman Tea Party, we are fortunate to have a number of organizations. One of them is Western Tradition Partnership, (WTP) a grassroots organization dedicated to “Rediscovering the Treasures of the West”through rational, responsible natural resource development and land use policy, while free-market oriented solutions are developed for future needs.

WTP is providing easy access to a webinar conducted by Cleta Mitchell, attorney for one of the most respected law firms serving non-profit organizations nationwide. Read below for details.

Find out why President Obama, in an unprecedented move, slammed the U.S. Supreme Court during his State of Union message, for its decision on the Citizens United case.

WTP Invites You: Webinar with Top Conservative D.C. Lawyer on “Citizens United” 1st Amendment Supreme Court Decision

Don’t miss this opportunity to participate in this top-level conference call February 3rd with nationally recognized campaign finance expert Cleta Mitchell, of Foley & Lardner LLP, on what the Citizens United decision really means to you, to non-profits, and to businesses

Is the ruling, as the radical Left claims, “the end of Democracy”, or does the Citizens United vs. FEC Case decision restore fundamental rights that have been stripped away by incumbent politicians who desperately want to control the flow of information?

Western Tradition Partnership invites you to get the real story from one of the nation’s foremost experts, attorney Cleta Mitchell, on what this will mean to our political future.

Earlier this week, WTP’s Jacob Leis hailed the Court’s decision and declared that, “This ruling levels the playing field for smaller grassroots organizations and companies who – unlike unions and mega-corporations – cannot afford a platoon of lawyers every time they want to express their opinion on policy or political candidates.”

To get a FREE invitation to this exclusive conference call on Wednesday, February 3rd, 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM Mountain Time, click the link below and WTP will take you right to the registration page.

BONUS: Register now and you’ll instantly receive the Foley & Lardner LLP “quick facts” memo on Citizens United case – free to all WTP registrants!

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

If you’d like to learn more about Western Tradition Partnership, visit their website at www.westerntradition.org. Check out their free speech updates or, if you are affiliated with another Tea Party organization, invite one of their representatives to speak at your next Tea Party gathering by contacting Tim Ravndl at 406-266-5212 or Karolin Loendorf at 406-544-5639.

Sincerely,
Ken Champion, Chairman
Henry Kriegel, Director

P.S. We’ll update you on latest developments and activities of the Bozeman Tea Party and some of the many excellent organizations affiliated with us so stay tuned for more.

———————————————————————-

Western Tradition Partnership is an advocacy group that was founded by Former U.S. Congressman Ron Marlinee and Montana State Representative John Sinrud. I joined the group this morning, and was not asked for contributions or dues, nor does the web site offer up anything on funding or founders. Apparently, the group gets all of its money from industry and business executives, at least according to The Union News.

In other words, it is a classic astroturf outfit.

It is interesting that WTP is taking time and trouble to sell Citizens United, a ruling that favors wealth and power more than any in United States history. Tea baggers are ordinary Joes, only able to have any voice at all because they banded together (even if they are being manipulated). The effect of C/U will be to drown out the voices of anyone lacking the money to be able to buy air time. Since the Tea Baggers in theory rely on news coverage to spread their message, they will be among those of us drowned out.

Yet here is anonymous money and power taking time and trouble to sell them on this awful ruling.

All very interesting …

Footnote: “Tea-bagging” is a form of mass cohesion among various alienated elements within our society, and conscious manipulation by higher and unseen elements. It is but a more base form of what Obama did in facing Congress – giving voice to grievances without actually addressing them. It’s fulfilling and has the effect of muting opposition to ruling forces by redirecting energy at contrived enemies.

And, it is conscious – that is, those who are manipulating this movement (not Marlinee or Sinrud, who are only a step above the common tea bagger) are very much aware of what they are doing and why they are doing it. In a sense, they are preventing a revolution by neutering the anger of those who have the most cause to rebel. Konrad Kellen and Jacques Ellul would be awash in substance for further investigations into the art of propaganda were they to come back and observe our world today. Here’s Kellen:

Cast out of the disintegrating microgroups of the past, such as family, church of village, the individual is plunged into mass society and thrown back up on his own inadequate resources, his isolation, his loneliness, his ineffectuality. Propaganda then hands him in veritable abundance what he needs: a raison d’etre, personal involvement and participation in important events, and outlet and excuse for some of his more doubtful impulses, righteousness – all factitious, to be sure, all more or less spurious; but he drinks it all in and asks for more. Without this intense collaboration by the propagandee, the propagandist would be helpless.

Perception Management 101

I had a very interesting exchange over the weekend with Wulfgar and JC over at 4&20 Blackbirds. This is not meant as a ‘gotcha’, as I don’t have any problem making my points in those kinds of debates. But the exchange was illustrative.

It started out with a post by Pete Talbot:

Now I’ve been a very vocal critic of our senior Senator. IMHO, he botched health care reform. He voted for W.’s tax cuts and an abysmal bankruptcy bill. He’s one of the top recipients of insurance, pharmaceutical and finance industry dollars. He …

There’s no need to analyze that much – he’s going to say that gee whiz, Max is bad, but then he’s done some good things, and gee whiz, if we had a Republican in there, it would be worse. It’s the old triangulation gambit. Yada yada yada.

It got interesting in the comments:

Wulfgar:It isn’t that Max is mediocre so much as it is that he thought too much of what he could accomplish. He sees himself on par with Mansfield, and sought to do everything with the HCR bill the Senate Finance committee passed….

Mark: Mansfield was regarded as LBJ’s rubber stamp. Lyndon forced the senate to put Mike in the leadership position because he was so weak and malleable.

I distinctly remember listening to the LBJ tapes one day as I drove the highway … Lyndon has a conversation with Mike, and after hanging up says something to the effect that “the man has no spine at all.”

Anyway, it is because of your inability to understand the nature of humans that you don’t understand politics or Max. The CEO of Wellpoint cannot simply decide one day to man up and stop rejecting people with preexisting conditions. He does not control what is under him so much as what is under him dictates his behavior. If he were to do as I said, he would be fired.

Now later I am going to get hammered to for reading motives into the actions of politicians. But notice here that Wulfgar as done just that – in fact, has almost psyched Max out down to his desire to emulate the very mediocre Mike Mansfield.

Wulfgar:Mark once again spectacularly misses the point, because he’s too interested in ragging on me for shit that spontaneously appears in his head. It doesn’t matter what Mansfield was, but what Max thinks of that role in the current environment.

Keep this in mind. Wulfgar understands Max’s motivations. After this, he goes into an unworthy discourse on how it was possible for LBJ to twist arms, but not Obama. Oddly, this is in part because Obama is black. In poker, it is known as a “tell.”

Wulfgar makes it seem as though LBJ-style politics doesn’t happen anymore. I pointed out that George W. Bush got things done, and that given their spectacular numbers, Democrats could also get things done. .

Wulfgar: Prove it, asstard. What are the numbers of which you speak? 10%+ unemployment? 40 Republicants +LIEberman in the Senate? 10+ Trillion in debt? Show me anyone else who ‘got things done’ under those circumstances or shut the fuck up with your conspiracy theories.

He buys into the Lieberman theater in total. But notice the transition here. We are no longer talking about legislative logrolling, but rather about solving the nation’s problems, which are indeed daunting. Wulfgar changed chords. “Bush got things done” means that when he wanted legislation to pass, he had a tool box full of ways to make it happen, as does Obama. Now, in using his toolbox and in passing laws, it so happens that Bush exacerbated and created the national problems we now need to solve. But that’s another matter entirely.

From here we moved on to the subtleties of politics. Wulfgar was in awe of Obama’s Q&A performance before the House, saying that he “corralled” them.

JC: I’d like to see him repeat his performance in the Senate. With both dems and reps, separately. That would be illuminating, to say the least.

“The One” is back. Both JC and Wulfgar here mistake theater for reality. They think that because Obama appeared before the House and appeared strong and in control that the power dynamics of Washington have changed.

Mark: Wulfgar – if I quoted Max here, would it begin to sink in a bit? “In politics, perceptions are reality.” In politics, they make things appear to be a certain way when they are really another way. They are really, really clever negotiators.

JC – I do not believe that scenario, I do not believe that Harry Reid is weak or that Obama, who now openly admits to belonging to the DLC, shares your agenda. His job is to contain that agenda. He, like both parties, sits far to the right of the American public.

It’s a matter of managing your perceptions.

JC: I can manage my perceptions by myself, thank you very much, mark.

… You can make conspiracy talk all you want about “the fix,” but that doesn’t allow us to deal with the politics at the surface. Politics has always been about the fix. That’s not news to many of us. And it doesn’t stop us from following politics or commenting on it. If I started to think and write about politics like you do, I’d probably burn my computer and go live in the woods without a tv, newspaper or radio, because I’d go stark raving mad otherwise.

As to agendas, I have many. Not all of them political. As to my political agenda, I think there is more overlap with say, Obama’s than McCain’s. I have no illusions about the depth of Obama’s political agenda, and where it goes. I think he is a good man with good intentions, unlike his predecessor. But good intentions does not a good leader make.

But what I do know, is that when you speak about my, or any others’ agendas here, you are really looking at our motivations for saying and doing the things we do.

And I always have said that trying to second guess my, or anyone else’s motivations is misguided and will lead you into false conclusions.

Eureka! This was the movement when the fog lifted. The comment section started out with Wulfgar understanding full well the motivations of Max Baucus, and here JC impugns motivations on Obama – that he is “good man with good intentions, unlike his predecessor. So it is not about trying to understand the motivations of others, and the problem that they have with me is that I do not impugn good motivations on Obama.

In other words, while JC and Wulfar are smarter than the average bear, in the end they are just ordinary Democrats. They are unable to see the political maneuvering behind the Obama Administration’s work in banking or health care because they see a likable man who speaks well in public, and feel simpatico with him even as he worked against them in his real dealings with Congress. JC and Wulfgar have had their perceptions managed.

Mark: JC: This had better not be what I think it is – you had better not be saying that we should not be second-guessing the motivations of a politician. If you are, then I am like a doctor who opened up a patient and found massive cancer – there’s nothing I can do but sew you back up and talk to you about the quality of your remaining days. You are beyond hope.

Remember, and this is key and critical: While you vote for him, someone else finances him. …

… the complexities of politics can[not] be reduced to syllogism. … It is complex, like chess. Max is not the best chess player. Obama is quite good, something you might want to think about as you drool all over him for talking tough to Congressman. Maybe they weren’t the object of the performance. Maybe it was intended for you.

But I remember when I first got involved in Democratic politics in the early nineties. I very quickly figured out that Max was disingenuous, and noticed that his followers were very loyal to him (naive). The loyalty was easy to figure out – the ones I met were bugs around the porch light. Then I tried to figure out his motivations. That’s a little more complex, but I concluded this, and have seen nothing to make me think it is wrong:

He is surviving. He’s not strong enough to lead. He can’t fight the money people- they will easily destroy him in state like [Montana]. So he gave in, and works for them and with them. He has rationalized all of his cowardice down to the point where he believes he is doing good – its kind of like the Stockholm Syndrome. …

Notice that if I say that the motivations of politicians are malevolent, I have a conspiracy theory, where they naively presume the politicians to be as they are presented to us in full theater regalia, as Obama before the House, they think themselves astute in their suspension of disbelief.

You can’t teach poker. You are not playing cards. You are playing the other players. Obama, I am told, is quite a good poker player.

What it must be like to be a Democrat

Incredible as it seems, it appears that John Roberts and Samuel Alito lied at their confirmation hearings about their views on stare decisis. Imagine that – lying to Congress!

Even more incredible, and this will blow your socks off, a bunch of Democrats believed them!

Have you had all you can handle? Because it gets worse. Among the 43 Democrats who voted against the Alito confirmation, seventeen voted in favor of debate cloture (which passed 72-25), which cleared the way for him, but then voted against confirmation (passed 58-42). It’s a bit -much to absorb all in one day, but apparently they favored confirmation but wanted to make it appears as though they were opposed. I think they lied!

(By the way, 17+25 = 42, enough to stop him. This is why some of us think that many Democrats present false opposition to Republicans, and are in reality opposition forces within our own ranks.)

So we have Supreme Court judges lying to Congress, and Senators lying to the public, and as a result we get Citizens United. It appears a bipartisan screwing we have just endured. Without Alito, there is no C/U.

That’s it. I cannot handle politics anymore. It’s too confusing. I’m just going to turn off my brain and join the Democratic Party. (Pssst! Wulfgar: In logic, that’s known as a “tautology.”)

Honor Roll: Democratic senators who votes ‘Yea’ on cloture, and then ‘Nay’ on confirmation: Akaka (HI), Baucus (MT), Bayh (IN), Bingaman (NM), Cantwell (WA), Carper (DE), Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), Inouye (HI), Kohl (WI), Landrieu (LA), Lieberman (CT), Lincoln (AR), Nelson (FL), Pryor (AR), Rockefeller (WV), Salazar (CO).

Well done, Howard

Howard Zinn, 87, a life well-lived. Time now to celebrate that life. People will gather all over the country, all of the millions he influenced, all of the students for whom he was that special teacher who brought things in focus, brought history alive. There will be meetings and words spoken all over the country, and none in the nation’s capital, where men like Zinn, who are real men, receive no notice. That is a tribute to his special character, that the place where character does not count will ignore his passing.

Well done, Mr. Zinn.