Sticks and Stones Can Break Your Bones--But Words Can Get You Killed

We all grew up being told to be very fearful of sticks, stones, and other threats to our physical safety but not so much of words which we were assured could never hurt us.

Like many childhood sayings, this one was never true. As my dear friend and teacher Rabbi Joseph Telushkin points out in his wonderful book Words That Hurt, Words That Heal, the greatest pain most of us suffer in our lives comes from mean and inconsiderate words--not from physical injury.

But there's a big difference between mean and hateful. Mean words can hurt your feelings. Hatespeech can get you killed.

As I recently wrote, most criticism is not hatespeech. In all healthy, vibrant democracies it is essential that good people feel free to openly criticize decisions made by political leaders. But there are lines of civility, honesty, and decency that shouldn't and can't be crossed without turning healthy dissent into something very toxic and potentially deadly.

Reports from both the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (prepared during the Bush administration) and the Southern Poverty Law Center have indicated a startling rise in both the number and activity level of Right wing militias and groups promoting domestic terrorism in the name of Conservative values.

As hatespeech, lies, and racism have become the dominant language of the Right wing in our country, it is depressingly reminiscent of what happened in Israel 15 years ago. The comparisons are becoming more frightening all the time.

In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords. He agreed to turn parts of Gaza and the West Bank over to the Palestinians and freeze the growth of Israeli settlements in exchange for Yasir Arafat's pledge to renounce violence and recognize the right of Israel to exist.

The move was hailed as a major breakthrough in much of Israel and around the world. Rabin. a former general and war hero, was hailed as a visionary who allowed hope to supersede his military past and his first-hand knowledge of Arafat's legacy of terror and broken promises. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award in 1994.

But not all Jews were happy. The ultra-orthodox leadership in Israel and Brooklyn were outraged. Just as Obama has been branded by the Right wing as a racist, a terrorist, and a Nazi who wants to destroy the American way of life, Rabin was demonized by the religious Right in Israel and America as a traitor who was destroying the Jewish state by ceding holy land to Palestinians.

As is the case in America today, lies and hatespeech took over the conversation and squeezed out reason and truth. Rabbis in America and Israel put a death curse on Rabin invoking the long obsolete notion of din rodef--a religious death sentence placed on the head of one who hands over his people or their land to the enemy.

Anti-Rabin rallies (town hall meetings? tea parties?) were held outside his residence and in Right wing strongholds including Jerusalem. Most Israelis dismissed these frightening activities as the actions of a handful of kooks, crazies and whack jobs. Sound familiar?

Not wanting to waste a political opportunity, Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu spoke at a major anti-Rabin rally in Jerusalem in October, 1995 where he was cheered by a mob screaming "death to Rabin" and carrying posters showing Rabin dressed as Hitler, and Rabin wearing a Nazi SS uniform.

As Bibi slammed Rabin for "giving away parts of our homeland." Housing Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer reportedly pleaded with Netanyahu to "restrain your people. Settlers have gone crazy. Someone will get murdered--if not today then soon."

Rabin was angered by the tactics but apparently not that concerned about his safety. He refused to wear a bullet-proof vest at a peace rally in Tel Aviv weeks later when a Right wing Jewish rabbinic student--a follower of the rabbis who had called for Rabin's assassination--murdered him with two gunshots fired at point blank range.

The murderer Yigal Amir was about as far away from Rabin as Scott Roeder was from Dr. George Tiller when he walked up to him in his Kansas church in May and murdered him at point blank range.

Dr. Tiller had been vilified by Fox News host Bill O'Reilly dozens of times over a period of years. O'Reilly repeatedly referred to him as "Tiller the Baby Killer" and "a man with blood on his hands" since Tiller had a long history of performing controversial (but legal) late-term abortions in his Wichita clinic.

Today, 14 years after Rabin's murder, Amir remains unrepentant and is considered a hero by a large segment of Israel's religious community, many of whom still hold rallies in his honor. He was allowed to marry and father a child in prison and polls show that his eventual pardon is supported by 30 percent of all Israelis and more than half of those who describe themselves as "religious."

Today, months after Tiller's murder, his assassin remains unrepentant and is considered a hero by a large segment of America's pro-life community. Leaders of the pro-life movement reportedly communicate with and visit him in prison on a regular basis.

In each case, hatespeech-inspired murder seems to have accomplished its goals. Tiller's clinic was permanently closed a few weeks after his killing and there is no plan to reopen in Kansas or anywhere else. Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister of Israel less than a year after Rabin's murder and the peace process was dealt a blow from which it has yet to recover.

Like O'Reilly, Netanyahu insists to this day that his demonization of the ultimate murder victim had nothing to do with the way things played out.

When I met with Leah Rabin, the prime minister's widow, in her Tel Aviv apartment one year after his death, she made it clear that she personally blamed Netanyahu for the role she felt he played in whipping up angry mobs who had vowed to kill her husband.

"He incited them against my husband," she said. "I will never forgive him."

Mrs. Rabin was also critical of the majority of Israelis who stood by and did nothing as the hatespeech grew in volume. "They were too silent when the handwriting was on the wall," she said. "We now know it is no longer possible to remain silent."

Today, as then, we are too anxious to call these people crazy and say they are kooks but they are neither. They are evil and they are very focused.

When Glenn Beck calls Barack Obama a racist who hates white people or a Nazi who wants to destroy American way of life, he is either lying or he should hail as a hero anyone who would take the initiative to go after our President. Rush Limbaugh compares Obama to Hitler. Is there any Jew or patriotic American who wouldn't have taken Hitler out before he had the chance to murder millions of innocent people?

This is hatespeech pure and simple crafted to encourage true believers--an American version of Yigal Amir to do the right thing--the patriotic thing--and remove this liberal, socialist, death panel forming, terrorist, Nazi cancer from our midst.

In recent weeks, the hatred and threats against Obama have become less subtle. When a town hall audience member in California proudly declared himself to be "a proud Right wing terrorist," Republican Congressman Wally Herger said "Amen. God Bless You. There's a great American." When an Iowa town hall audience member said Obama is "acting like a little Hitler" and stated he would "take a gun to Washington if enough of you would go with me, Republican Senator Charles Grassley said nothing to discourage him. Kansas Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins said last week that what the Republican party needs most is "a Great White Hope"--a phrase first used by racists 100 years ago referring to their desire to find a white man to unseat Black boxing champion Jack Johnson.

Could the message be any clearer? What a disturbing and growing number of people on the Right wing want is some patriot with the courage to step up and do what needs to be done to restore control of our country to it's rightful owners. A Black president from Kenya? A Puerto Rican woman as a Supreme Court justice? What the hell has happened to our country? We need to take it back!

Sticks and stones? That's child's play. We're talking about toxic words--potentially fatal hatespeech--being invoked by people who claim to be true patriots but who are in reality potential accomplices to the unwinding of our democracy.

The only question is if and when the rest of us will stop calling these evil people "crazy" and start fighting back.

We live in a free country. People are entitled to their opinions. But they do not have a constitutional right to air them on television and radio channels that claim to be reporting news. And the sponsors of those programs certainly don't have the right to be exempt from blame for making that possible.

Those of us who still care about decency and healthy debate need to exercise our right to take our country back from the lying, angry haters who seem determined to pollute and distort public dialogue.

Some of them would clearly like nothing better than to see our duly elected leader meet the same fate as the late Israeli leader--a man who symbolized hope and "change you could believe in" to so many but who made the mistake of assuming those who despised him were a crazy fringe group of harmless lunatics.

It Was Never Fair and Balanced--Now It's Not Even News

We are all painfully familiar with the many casualties of the deep economic decline that has ravaged the value of our homes, businesses, and investment accounts.

Another less obvious victim of the economic crisis has been the truth. Hatespeech and lies have been on the rise in politics and the media while fact checking has almost disappeared. The actions of those with a political agenda are reprehensible but at least easy to understand.

But I have always assumed that the real journalists would step in at some point and refuse to cover the rantings of crazy people, fanatics and liars as though they were actually news. For decades these types have stood on street corners handing out pamphlets and screaming about the coming end of the American way of life but none of them ever showed up on the national news or was written up in real newspapers.

But that has all changed in a big time hurry. Forget about "Fair and Balanced" or "News You Can Believe In." What we now see on cable TV is nothing resembling news. The entertainers who pose as newsmen now routinely spew lies, distortions, and biased opinions or provide a platforms of legitimacy to the sociopaths who do.

It's all right to have personal opinions expressed on television or the radio. Just label them appropriately.

There is a guy who sits near me at the University of Arizona games who starts screaming at the referees at the opening jump ball and never stops for a minute throughout the game. He and the other fans don't want the game called fairly--they just want their team to win. You certainly wouldn't ask the president of the Booster Club to be the referee. He would have no interest in being fair and balanced and could never be objective.

But that's what we now have on cable news. People who are on the payrolls of or involved with partisan groups or political parties are introduced as "analysts" with no disclosure of their obvious conflicts of interest.

For years Fox News has been the unofficial network of the Right wing and Republican party while hilariously calling it's coverage "fair and balanced." If Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity were actually fair and balanced then none of the Fox viewers would watch them--and they know it.

But during the last year, Glenn Beck has taken hatred, bias, and unabashed lying and demonization to a level that Hannity and O'Reilly could only dream about.

Last month, Beck went on the air and called President Obama "a racist--who hates white people" without giving any support or documentation for his claim. He also did not explain if Obama's hatred of white people extended to his own mother and white family members of the hundreds of white people he has chosen to advise and represent our country in his administration.

Just a few days ago, Beck came up with a blatant lie claiming that Mark Lloyd, the newly appointed FCC Diversity Chief will levy exorbitant taxes against Right wing radio stations with the proceeds slated to go to public radio, The fact is that Lloyd has neither the plans nor the authority to do any such thing. Non-Beck watchers should view this link as Beck and his guest talk in very specific terms about a complete falsehood.

When this happened, I was at the Aspen Institute FOCAS conference with 40 media leaders from around the U.S.

When the News Corp (the parent company of Fox) people at the Aspen conference were asked about how Beck could keep his job given his record of blatant fabrications and racist rants they admitted that they were personally embarrassed by his behavior. But they confessed that Fox has made so much money by pandering to the hateful Right wing that nothing is going to change in the foreseeable future. Maybe the fact that many of Beck's sponsors have recently cancelled their advertising on his show will make a difference.

The unfair and unbalanced hatemeisters of Fox have been recently joined by Lou Dobbs of CNN ("The Most Trusted Name in News") who for years has railed on a daily basis about how Americans are being victimized by foreign countries and undocumented immigrants who come here in search of a better life. In recent weeks, Dobbs became of hero of the Right wing with his endorsement of the Birther movement.

Apparently Dobbs and a many Republicans believe that Americans should not have had the right to vote for the man they wanted to be their next president because he was born in Kenya. The Birther movement is a thinly veiled racist effort to undo the will of the American people that has been promoted by a depressingly large group of people who simply can't deal with the notion that we have elected a Black president by an overwhelming margin.

The management of CNN, like the leaders of Fox, have not been able to turn their backs on the revenues that have accompanied the journalistic malpractice that in the past would have caused Dobbs to be fired. Today, the truth is apparently just a matter of opinion and it's just fine for a newsman to call the President of the United States a traitor, socialist, Nazi, Kenyan, and such with no evidence or supporting facts.

Chris Matthews of MSNBC provides a more troubling case study. Matthews has repeatedly questioned the sincerity and "grass roots" credentials of protesters at the health care town meetings and the sanity of the Birthers accurately claiming that they are either paid or political stooges or well meaning real people who have fallen under the influence of the political operatives who are trying to bring Obama down.

He has referred to the Birthers and the anti-health care reform mercenaries and liars as "whack-jobs, crazies, and nut cases." But then he invites these very people to be guests on his show to state their cases.

He does not seem to understand that once you provide liars, haters and people who bring loaded guns to presidential meetings with a platform, you have already lost the battle. If a person is crazy or hateful, they should get no platform at all. Once you start presenting "both sides" of an issue where one side feels free to rant and lie you have already lost.

There was a time when we could have expected our most respected journalists and news reporters to be an effective filter and only present us with issues and stories that had real merit. But the economic crisis facing all types of journalism have put us in a different place.

During the three days I spent with a broad range of print, internet, and media managers and contributors in Aspen, most of the conversation focused on financial survival and ways to monetize the variety of information services being provided and how to keep from going broke in a very challenging environment. Many were mourning the imminent loss of print journalism. Few were grieving over the ongoing loss of journalism itself.

I came away from this experience with a better understanding of what is going on and why. It didn't make me happier. Even in a tough environment, there is no way to excuse the blatant lying, distortion, and almost complete absence of fact-checking that is now business as usual at media organizations that claim to be reporting news.

It's just plain wrong to call it "Fair and Balanced" or "News You Can Believe In" and it has been for quite a while.

Now there's no way to justify calling it "news" at all.

The Difference Between Criticism and Hatespeech

A number of friends and readers have called me to task in recent weeks claiming that I have been unfair to Republicans or that I have been giving the "crazies" way too much attention and actually helping their cause by getting so upset. Others have said that my strong level of disgust with the migration of the Right to hate, lies, and slander that I have become every bit as much a hater as those I have criticized.

But I got an email from my friend Ricky today that turned on a light bulb and brought the difference between criticism into clear focus.

It was a link to an article in Harper's by Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz entitled The $10 Trillion Hangover. It explains--using real facts, charts and figures--just how badly the Bush administration's policies--or lack thereof--damaged our society, our economy, and exploded our national debt. I urge you to click on the link and read it.

It documents how during eight years of Bush, every aspect of government spending exploded, our national debt doubled from $5 trillion to $10 trillion, and how 95 percent of all income growth went to the richest 10 percent of Americans due to fiscal and tax policies designed to produce that result. Despite the huge government deficits and stimulus, at the end of Bush's eight years virtually every aspect of our economy had collapsed.

It was a critical piece but unlike most of what we read today, it dealt with established facts and used footnotes to back it's conclusions. There was nothing hateful about it. Bush wasn't called names or demonized. He was criticized for things he actually did.

It stands in sharp contrast to what is flowing more and more freely from the Right wing and the Republicans every day. I know I have written about this before, but it's getting worse and squeezing what's left of truth and logic out and replacing it with hatred, anger, and lies.

In a recent piece, "business columnist" (actually no more since he was just fired by the New York Times for being a shill for a credit reporting agency that exploits poor people) Ben Stein gave his most recent toxic assessment of our president, Barack Obama.

During one short piece, he referred to Obama as "cunning, anti-American, anti-white, ultra-left with a total zero academic record, completely lacking in scholarship, not a fan of this country, way too cozy with terrorists in the Middle East, someone who gave Iran a complete go-ahead to have nuclear weapons--complete betrayer of our country, and a man dedicated to taking away all our freedoms."

The piece was long on frightening and demonizing adjectives and completely devoid of facts, links to source materials, and examples.

The same was true of popular Right wing Fox News personality Glenn Beck who recently called Obama "a racist--a man who hates white people." while again failing to cite a single example or fact to back this slur.

The same was true of self-proclaimed super-Republican Rush Limbaugh who joined the chorus of those on the Right who have compared Obama to Adolf Hitler but, again, have provided all heat and no light.

The same is true of Congresswoman Virginia Foxx and others in Congress who have announced on the floor of the House that they are opposed to Obama's health care reform because they are "pro-life and refuse to support a plan that would put our senior citizens to death." Ms. Foxx then sat down without giving anyone a clue regarding what facts she had to support that claim. That's because there are none.

The same is true of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (recently critical the media for "makin' things up") who said she fears the "Obama death panels" that would have the power to kill her parents and son Trig (who has Down Syndrome) if the president's health care plan passes.

The same is true of the "grass roots protesters" who are really well-funded and organized Right Wing shock troops that announced weeks ago that they had a game plan to disrupt town hall meetings in Congressional districts to make sure nothing could be discussed and no questions could be asked or answered.

The same is true regarding the leaders of the "birther" movement who claim that Obama was born in Kenya and is therefore not qualified to be president. Buoyed by support from Republican members of Congress and CNN "newsman" Lou Dobbs, radio hatemonger Mark Levin, these liars now have a majority of Republicans nationwide doubting Obama's citizenship and a large majority of all Southern Whites saying they're either certain or doubtful that Obama was not born in this country.

If these racists, bigots, liars, and nut jobs were truly part of some lunatic fringe as some of my friends have suggested, I would probably comply with their requests that I just back off the whole subject of hatespeech and media irresponsibility and move on. But the problem is getting worse, not better, and it's becoming clear that these people are no longer on the fringe.

They are whack jobs or hard-wired haters, but their influence and numbers are growing among what's left of the Republican party, the news media, and the former Confederacy. More important, there is an increased reluctance among "good" Republicans to publicly distance themselves from these people--to tell them that they bring discredit to and are killing the party with their hatred, bigotry, and lies.

Meanwhile, the GOP is cultivating the future by electing a Louisiana woman chairman of the Young Republicans after she supported a man who called Obama "a commie and a coon" on her webpage. After the incident, she won 60 percent of the vote on the first ballot and is now setting the tone and running the show for future Republican leaders.

It's the people who want to have a fact-based discussion regarding what's best for our country that are now on the fringe. And those who don't realize it are the true lunatics.

Punching the Tar Baby

Last week I suggested that the Republican party was at a crossroads of sorts. They could continue down the road of hatespeech, fear, anger, and thinly-veiled racism or they could take a cue from Conservatives like David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, Colin Powell, David Frum, and many others and engage in dignified, constructive, fact-based criticism of policies and statements with which they disagreed.

Now, just a few days later, the "dignity" option seems to have been taken off the table. The Republican chosen and designated leaders just can't seem to help themselves. They just keep flailing away at the tar baby (a term I use deliberately) so vigorously that they don't realize that they are caught in a trap of their own making that is leading to both their unmasking and their undoing.

A few days ago, the national Young Republicans elected 38-year old Audra Shay as their new chair. As I wrote last week, Ms. Shay is an Arkansas native who now lives in Louisiana and was endorsed for the position by her governor, Bobby Jindal.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, she gained some unwelcome notoriety during the week prior to her election for cheering on a participant in a conversation on her Facebook page who referred to President Obama as "a commie and a coon." Participants in the conversation who criticized her response were immediately defriended and blocked from the website. Eric, the commie and coon guy, was not.

This and other arguably racist comments she has made caused a number of Young Republicans, including John McCain's daughter Meghan, to encourage her to drop out of the race. Instead she won election by a comfortable margin after scrubbing her Facebook page in an effort to destroy the evidence of her past remarks.

The next day marked the beginning of the confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a 17-year Federal court veteran who has been nominated by Obama for the Supreme Court.

From the moment Judge Sotomayor was nominated to the court, the Right wing made it clear that they were going to play the only card left in the Republican deck--the race card. The water carriers of the Right immediately launched into racist attacks against her on the radio with Limbaugh, Levin, and others branding her a "bigot" and Glenn Beck calling her "Hispanic Chick Lady" in their dignified and nuanced commentaries on her qualifications.

Despite the fact that Sotomayor's confirmation should be a formality--she has extensive experience on the bench and has been given the highest rating for her qualifications by the American and New York Bar Association--the focus on her race and ethnicity continued.

Ranking Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama--who himself was rejected for a Federal judgeship by a GOP controlled Senate committee years ago based on his numerous apparently racist comments--humiliated himself with his line of questioning expressing his surprise and disappointment that Sotamayor didn't vote along with her fellow Puerto Rican in the Ricci case. His clear implication was that it is surprising that all judges of Puerto Rican descent don't think and vote alike.

Can you imagine a Senator expressing surprise that Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Breyer don't vote alike because they are both white males? Can you imagine repeatedly citing a line about "wise Latina women" that Sotomayor used in speeches eight years ago as a reason to repeatedly express concerns that she would be biased in favor of minorities who claim they have been victims of discrimination?

Maybe. If it weren't for the FACT that in the 90 cases Sotomayor has heard from people alleging discrimination, she has ruled AGAINST the plaintiffs in 80 of them. And in all but one of the cases where she determined discrimination took place, she was part of a unanimous decision.

The next day, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma)--who you may remember as Senator John Ensign's spiritual advisor and marriage counselor--did his best Ricky Ricardo imitation in a response to a Sotomayor answer telling her that "she had a lot of 'splainin' to do."

After three days of hearings, the Republicans on the committee have revealed themselves to be so obsessed with race and bias that their efforts to transfer their own bigotry and "concerns" to Sotomayor has come across as childish, transparent, dishonest, and scary.

But the way things are playing out with the entire party and its chosen leaders and spokesmen, that puts them right in sync with the program. The only question remaining is where independents like me will find the next legitimate and credible alternative to the weak and frightening Democratic leadership in Congress in the future.

The Republicans are a decade late and a trillion dollars short. There just aren't enough racists and bigots still around to give them a base on which to build. Instead of opting for facts, reason, and dignity they continue to flail away at those pesky Black and Hispanic tar babies. The harder they punch, the more ensnared they become in the sticky, unyielding mess.

That may play well in the former Confederate states that voted against Obama and with a smattering of proud and closet racists here and there.

But we all heard those Uncle Remus stories growing up.

And we all know how they end.

Hatespeech or Dignity--Republicans at the Crossroads

I want to make something perfectly clear. I have supported many Republicans in recent years including my current senators John Kyl and John McCain. I have held fundraisers in my home for Tommy Thompson when he was the Republican governor of Wisconsin. I have supported Democrats as well. I am a true independent.

Many of my good Republican friends have come away with a much different impression based on recent articles I have written that are critical of the thinly-veiled racism and vicious attacks that seem to be emanating more and more from the very top circles of the GOP.

Several of those friends complain that I am applying a double standard here citing the numerous criticisms of President Bush and, more recently Sarah Palin that have filled the blogosphere and the mainstream media for some time.

In fact we are talking about an apples to oranges comparison on a number of levels. Many people, myself included, were outraged by the arrogance, incompetence, and deception that became the hallmark of the Bush administration over a number of years. I am truly sad that he turned out to be such a terrible president but that is not hatespeech.

Sarah Palin is much more of a victim than a villain. I was strongly critical of John McCain for selecting her to be his running mate because she was completely unqualified for the job. That lapse in judgement more than anything caused an election that would have been a narrow victory for Obama to become a landslide.

She is Eliza Doolittle saying yes to Henry Higgins. For whatever reason, he made her an offer she couldn't refuse. She is what she is. Just as Palin was unable to resist the opportunity to run for national office, the media has been unable to resist the temptation of ridiculing her. It is a sad for everyone involved.

She has been called greedy, ignorant, overly ambitious, unethical, self-centered and a lot of other nasty things. She is now in a death spiral of self-destruction where she goes out of her way to put herself and her family in the public eye and then gets whiny when the coverage doesn't go her way. She is the subject of predictable ridicule from a media that can't seem to help itself either. But none of that is hatespeech.

Hatespeech is different. It's when you accuse the President of the United States of being a socialist, a terrorist, a Muslim, an anti-Semite, or a traitor based on lies and distortions. And it becomes particularly meaningful when the venom comes not from the radical fringe--as it often does from the Left--but from the heart of the party leadership--as it often does from the Right.

This weekend, the Young Republicans will meet to elect their national chair. Audra Shay, a 38 year old military veteran and mother from Louisiana is considered one of the front-runners for the job. A few days ago, she moderated a session on her Facebook page where a participant called Obama "a commie and a mad coon." Shay's response to the young man was to urge him on. "You tell em Eric" she said.

When a number of participants criticized her for not condemning the racist statement, Shay responded by "defriending" all of those who were critical which blocked them from further participation in the conversation. That is hatespeech being endorsed from the highest levels of the party.

It is eerily reminiscent of Huckabee campaign manager Chip Saltsman sending a CD including the cute song "Barack the Magic Negro" as a Christmas gift to the members of the Republican National Committee last year. That clever song had been played repeatedly by Rush Limbaugh for much of the prior year. Limbaugh was picked in a recent Gallup Poll of Republicans as the person who best represents the party--a title he also claims for himself.

At the time, Saltsman was a front-runner in the race for Chairman of the Republican National Committee--grownup version. He was edged out by Michael Steele at the end but this is another example of stupidity, racism and hatespeech coming from the top.

Just today, I heard my Senator John Kyl tell Bill Bennett that Obama is more interested in cutting an arms reduction deal with the Russians that he is in protecting the country. That is accusing the President of the United States of being a traitor with no facts at all to back it up. That is hatespeech.

Some of my favorite people are Republicans. I got to spend some time with New York Times columnist David Brooks here in Aspen last week. He is a great writer and a solid Republican who is critical of several of the decisions that the president has made and is supportive of others. But, at the end of the day, he seems to be more worried about what is happening to the dignity of his party. Be sure to check this column written by a solid dignified Republican.

There is nothing wrong with criticizing people in power. It is essential in a democracy and our ability to do so has helped make our country great. But there are ways to do it hatefully and ways to do it with dignity. It is the hatred and anger that seem to ooze so effortlessly from the leaders of the Republican Party that are so disconcerting.

It is up to all of us who believe that our country needs a dignified and credible Conservative voice to seize control back from the slimers. If we can't, then the Libertarians should be viewed as the credible alternative to Liberal Democrats. They actually believe in small government and fiscal responsibility.

Republican keaders used to carry that banner before they got so caught up in issues surrounding gender, reproductive choice, and race that they lost their way. Hopefully they can regain the high ground and again become a productive part of the political dialogue.

In Dependence Day 2009

For the last several years I have spent the Fourth of July here at the Aspen Ideas Festival which has always ushered me into the holiday with a new perspective on democracy and the freedoms that have always been unique to our great country.

Last year, a session on "Patriotism" prompted one of my first posts since it made me realize how Geroge W, Bush's most toxic legacy was the way he completely eliminated the notion of shared sacrifice from that noble concept.

This year, it became increasingly clear that the damage was far more severe. (As an aside, the former president--who shamelessly announced last year that he hoped to parley his status into "a little coin" from high paying speaking engagements when he left office--spoke at the newly-renovated Woodward, OK rodeo grounds as part of a Fourth of July celebration featuring Tanya Tucker, Asleep at the Wheel, and Sawyer Brown. Bush was paid for his appearance but I'm sure it wasn't the major coin he had in mind. It was apparently the only offer he got.

This year's Aspen Ideas Festival had no sessions on patriotism. In one way or another, it was mainly about the economy and how in eight short years we went from being the only super power in the world to a bankrupt nation that now is forced to go hopelessly in debt to keep our banks and the world financial system from total collapse.

We have gone from being the most independent country in the world to one that is now largely dependent on foreign lenders and government bailouts and stimulus using trillions of dollars that we don't have.

The irony, of course, is the the Republican Party that controlled everything for six of those years campaigned on its commitment to family values and fiscal responsibility.

We've all seen the true story on the family values part. Enough said there. And we've all seen the true story on the financial responsibility part. Enough said there as well.

The many economists and and financial historians I heard during the last week fell into two camps: Those who believe that we are now forced to take on unconscionable amounts of debt right now to keep the world financial system from collapsing but there are still places to make money in the world--like China--and those who agree with the first part and believe that there is no place to hide anywhere.

They all dismissed the notion that President Obama had anything to do with the underlying problem. They disagreed about the wisdom of what Obama is doing to deal with the economic crisis but they all praised him for putting together the best, smartest team we have seen in Washington in quite a while. When confronted with a situation in which there are no good options, it is easy to find fault with whatever course of action is taken. Some choose to be critical and others don't.

But at the end of the day, most experts seemed to agree that any recovery that is on the way will be slow in coming and very shallow. Americans are deleveraging out of both choice and necessity and that means we will be saving more and spending less.
That is a formula for slow growth and a long painful period during which we continue to define what the new normal will look like.

But none of the presenters seemed to address the bigger issue that I wrote about last year--the terrible toll that the last eight years have taken on our national character. As I said then, under Bush and Cheney we went through the biggest redistribution of wealth in at least a century--all of it moving from the bottom and middle to to top.

We engaged in a war of choice in which none of us was required (or even encouraged) to fight. Instead our military offered six-figure signing bonuses to new recruits and the promise of fast-track citizenship to others. Just as we are now dependent on foreign lenders to keep us afloat financially we have become overly dependent on poor, rural, foreign-born soldiers who have no other economic prospects for our national defense.

Don't get me wrong. These are brave people and we should all be grateful for their sacrifice. It is a commentary on the rest of us who have been told for eight years that we can be true patriots by simply never questioning the president and putting an "I Support the Troops" decal on our cars. No other sacrifice or payment has been required. Those Americans who have come to believe this can be heard daily on Fox News and Right wing radio--talking very tough while their kids are sitting safely at home and not paying a penny to the wars they so vocally support.

For years I have been checking the the names and hometowns of those killed in action. They seem to be disproportionately Hispanic and most of them come from cities and towns I have never heard of. Very few are from major metropolitan areas. When was the last time you heard a young man or woman say they had just been accepted to college or had a great job offer but they had decided to first serve their country by enlisting in the military?

While we increasingly complain about the quality of our representatives in Washington, we continue to elect and re-elect people who treat us like children that just can't handle the news that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy don't exist. Tens of millions of Americans have come to feel entitled to and dependent upon an ever-growing list of programs like Social Security and Medicare--programs we can't afford at today's tax rates and which will become increasingly untenable as more and more of us live longer and longer.

Republicans in and out of Congress have no solutions. All they do is continuously criticize President Obama and say we should lower taxes which would, of course, make the problem ever worse. Democrats have not been much better and lately they have just been so happy to watch the parade of Republican "leaders" who are quitting their jobs or acknowledging sexual indiscretions that they aren't doing much either.

One thing seems certain. Until further notice, the Fourth of July should be renamed "In Dependence Day" because we have never been more reliant on the generosity of others and less able to act like grown-ups and fend for ourselves than any time since the Revolution. It won't be as much fun, but it would be a far more useful reminder of what we need to do going forward.

It's heart warming but a little hollow to celebrate the independence we won from the British more than 225 years ago at a time when we have so abused the responsibilities of democracy that we now face a seemingly endless period of dependence on foreign money and unfunded government programs to sustain us financially and the patriotism and financial desperation of a relative handful of our poorest citizens to protect us.

Maybe it's time for a little less bravado and triumphalism and a little more focus on personal responsibility. Then and only then will we able to truly celebrate Independence Day in a meaningful way again.

The Numbing Code of Hatespeech

In a recent post (I Just Don't Get It), I wondered out loud why so much of the criticism of President Obama is on the one hand so vicious and hateful and on the other hand seems to make so little sense. My article clearly struck a nerve with many people on both sides of the issue as it generated more than 110 strong comments.

It's sad but expected to see these types of over-the-top distortions during election campaigns--and we did. But once the country has made its choice and a four-year, no-cut contract is given to a new president, it is normal and logical for everyone to come together for at least a while to see how the new guy does.

But we are seeing the exact opposite. Since Obama took office six months ago, the hate, anger, distortions, and demonization has only picked up in volume and intensity--even as he has attacked head-on the numerous disasters and challenges he inherited.

I talked about this in my last article and was still left scratching my head. I just didn't get it.

Then Bill Maher came here to Aspen. He seemed to get it perfectly and gave us his version of the answer. "You know why all these Republicans and Right wingers are calling Obama a socialist, and a Nazi, and a terrorist, and a secret Muslim? Because they can't call him the word they really want to use. Nigger."

That sounded a little harsh to me but his audience--the average age was well above 60--all seemed to be nodding their heads and sending knowing glances back and forth.

The N-word is a little jarring for my taste but it got me thinking--and doing a little research. First I Googled "obama nigger" and came up with half a million links. . That seemed like a lot.

So I went further and checked a few of them out. Not pretty.

But aren't these racists really part of the radical fringe? Certainly most of them are. But all those liberals who were nodding their heads at Bill Maher's comments were saying something as well. As I've said repeatedly, I just don't get it. So let's dig deeper.

Townhall.com is arguably the New York Times of Conservative websites. All of the top Right wing commentators post there. So when I get an email from Townhall offering me 50 percent off on their latest bumper sticker, that's pretty Republican mainstream. And what is that sticker? It is a clever jab stating "Somewhere In Kenya, A Village Is Missing It's Idiot." The promotion goes on to point out that it is a well-known fact that President Obama was born in Kenya--not in Hawaii as his birth certificate says--so not only is he an idiot, he is a Black African idiot.

I then hear about the Missouri state legislator Cynthia Davis--the chair of the House Standing Committee on Families and Children--who has stated her strong opposition to continuing the government meal programs that provide free lunches to poor children through the summer. Ms. Davis points out that the program ignores the value of hunger as a motivational tool and she goes on to point out that giving hungry kids free meals in a group setting undermines family bonding. Her amazing and outrageous position (which she repeated several times during her week of notoriety) received national attention and now is yesterday's news.

But as someone who was born and raised in Missouri, I heard the Republican legislator and mother of seven from O'Fallon loud and clear. In Missouri, when you talk about programs for the poor, you mean handouts to black, neglected children from St. Louis and Kansas City whose irresponsible families are being supported by the good American (white) citizens of the rural counties who have the right values and raise their children properly. You just have to know the code.

And then there are the upscale Republican Women of Anne Arundel County (MD) who came out on their website last week encouraging all their members to wear something patriotic (and comfortable shoes) to the Annapolis Fourth of July parade. That was right above the paragraph in which their president wrote a piece comparing Obama to Hitler. Like Rep. Davis of Missouri, the suburban Washington D.C. ladies were upbraided on national television and eventually removed the attack from their site claiming it was the opinion of one person--not the organization. No apology from the group--but then again they only compared the new president of United States to a genocidal murderer. No big deal.

Yet another example comes from Republican strategist Frank Gaffney who declared after our president's amazing speech to the Muslim world in Cairo that Obama may "still" be a Muslim--our first Black Muslim terrorist president. He cites numerous code phrases used by Obama during his Cairo speech that gave him away. In his Washington Times column Gaffney goes on to say Obama might not be a Muslim but he is certainly like Hitler.

There's that Hitler thing again. Is it only crazy radicals who would make such an outrageous connection? Apparently not. A Google check of "Obama Hitler" yielded almost 7 MILLION links. The "Obama Hitler Similarities" check came up with only 1.6 million. As with "Obama Nigger" it makes for some pretty shocking reading and viewing.

So what's going on here? I have said that I just don't get it and even after Bill Maher's epiphany it is still somewhat confusing. Maybe it's that vicious spurious attacks have become so numbingly common that they're just part of the background noise. But I'm paying more attention to the code of hatespeech and things are becoming a little clearer. And a lot more depressing.