Heroes and Villains

(apologies to Brian Wilson)

It's an amazing cast appointed, annointed, and otherwise trotted out on the runway these days by "our" Repressive machine-with-a-mandate. Maybe the strategy is that a three-ring event increases the chance of backstage stuff going undetected. The "villain du jour"would be one James Guckert, though his underwear apparently has "Gannon" stitched in it when he's doing his woefully sophomoric imitation of a journalist at the White House

It's beyond imagining what the real story is here, but given the appalling censorship and secrecy surrounding our uberfuhrer - unprecedented as far as I can tell outside of the Soviet bloc and Third Reich - it seems likely to be a good long time before anything resembling truth emerges. Slim as the electoral margin sanctioned by the sycophantic mainstream media might have been, even with criminally racist voter suppression and every other imaginable type of cheating, these guys seem to think they can keep milking that "mandate" as an anti-reality charm. But despite effectively owning most of the mainstream media, they are apparently so paranoid as to have spawned a media prostitution racket in hopes of conning yet more easy marks needing help with their "heil bush" salutes.

On the off-chance you have not plumbed the latest "white" (!) house buffoonery (accounts of your extra-galaxy trip appreciated), a few leads:

Media Matters
Olbermann
Frank Rich at NYT: "The White House Stages Its 'Daily Show'"

Okay. I don't know about you, but with this sort of late-1930's-austria zaniness in play, I seek reassurance that there still be Heroes. I'm not interested so much in close-fitting primary-colored tights or deus-ex-machina trickery. But some magic in the way of courage and that shibboleth of talking truth to power would be nice. For starters, the aforementioned Ritter seems a good one to put up in a joust with the pathetic little talonless G-man.

Dahr Jamail appears to be another remarkable soul, somehow performing acts of independent non-embedded journalism inside Iraq. It's easy to understand how he might be more concerned about the risk from our military than the Iraqi resistance. But forget the subtleties - ponder for a mo what it would take to get you on a plane to Baghdad next week.

I am also nominating for the Hero category oneWard Churchill. This guy has stuck his finger in a lot of eyes recently. Clearly he is not one to fret over being pc, and as one genetically prone to overdo pc-ness, that is refreshing. Some of Churchill's hyperbole and rhetorical flourishes disturb and offend me of course, but a truly moral, ethical person cannot imho simply discount the unpleasant truth and reality behind his words. Our nation has commonly pursued policies amounting to terrorism and war-crimes against countless smaller nations for decades. Most recently our unprovoked invasion of Iraq has involved routine, cavalier use of monstrously destructive munitions in situations where extensive civilian casualties are inevitable and the strategic goal is marginal at best. We can mourn the results of retribution, but we dare not pretend it is unprovoked. The downtrodden inevitably produce Heroes too.

Stand or fall I know there
Shall be peace in the valley
And it’s all an affair
Of my life with the heroes and villains

Waxing Patriotic

I'm enjoying a refresher courtesy of Scott Ritter's "Frontier Justice," from preliminary reading well worth the time of anyone interested in what patriotism might mean and what the role of a loyal involved citizen of an effective working democracy might be.

Here's the oath taken by every US Armed Forces member (and actually everyone in government service, military or civilian):

To uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

You knew that, right? The oath does not involve defense of the President, Congress, Pentagon, or any flag, political party, institution, or symbol. The Constitution. The one that says in Article 6 that "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land," thus including the UN Charter to which we are a signatory. The Charter that puts some serious restrictions on making war, as in only in self-defense in case of attack.

"and domestic"

Now why would those wily Constitution-crafters have said that? Ritter, a former US Marine and UN weapons inspector, is here to suggest that besides the patriots risking their lives in military service on behalf of the Constitution's principles, that classic parchment calls all of us to another sort of patriotism. He reminds us that the old platitude of citizens being the "watchdogs of democracy" is not a job for a couch-potato. Ritter speaks of the other class of patriot, the one who maintains their obligation as a citizen to "continuously hold those they elect to represent them accountable for the decisions made in their name."

Ritter elaborates on this second type of patriot:

Thus the other face of patriotism - the voice of public dissent provided by the antiwar protester and the practitioner of civil disobedience, the moral compass borne by the civil liberties watchdog, the academic intellectual critic, and the various (and diverse) religious communities throughout the country, and the common citizen, quietly going about his or her daily business with one eye focused on those whom they elected to higher office and the duties they perform. These, and others - all Americans, all those dedicated to defending the same values and ideals as those who wear the uniform of the armed forces. To criticize these "other" American patriots for their service to country is to ignore the fact that the distance between totalitarian rule and democratic rule is measured by the number of citizens who actively invest themselves in participatory, versus passive, democracy. As former president Theodore Roosevelt - a man who was not noted for his temerity - once wrote, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." Lest it be forgotten, these words were penned in 1918, while the United States was fighting in World War I.

Thanks, Scott. I'm looking forward to some more inspiration.