On Sophocles' "Ajax"

Fair Salamis, the billows’ roar,
Wander around thee yet,
And sailors gaze upon thy shore
Firm in the Ocean set.
Thy son is in a foreign clime
Where Ida feeds her countless flocks,
Far from thy dear, remembered rocks,
Worn by the waste of time–
Comfortless, nameless, hopeless save
In the dark prospect of the yawning grave....
Woe to the mother in her close of day,
Woe to her desolate heart and temples gray,
When she shall hear
Her loved one’s story whispered in her ear!
"Woe, woe!’ will be the cry–
No quiet murmur like the tremulous wail
Of the lone bird, the querulous nightingale–
--Sophocles’ "Ajax"

This year, when a couple of young men who were training to box in the Golden Gloves asked me a question about the proper way to respond to a purposeful foul, it got me thinking back to when I used to fight. I told them that I would wait to see if the referee addressed any purposeful foul. I considered the referee handling it the best outcome. If the referee failed to address it, I did.

As an old man, I have mixed feelings about how people respond to the low blows and other dirty tactics that the republicans use in the political arena. I felt, for example, that John Kerry should have responded more forcefully to the Rovian swift-boat tactics in 2004. I have a lot of respect for Senator Kerry as a statesman – but I had hoped to see a little more of John Kerry as a young warrior.

Likewise, I can understand the contempt that people feel for Larry Craig for his behavior in both the House and Senate. He seems to be a bitter, judgmental fellow. I also think he should be held responsible for attempting to use his senate ID in order to "pull rank" with a police officer.
Yet it strikes me as wrong that Americans seem to be more focused on Larry Craig’s behavior, than on Alberto Gonzales. I know that others feel the same way. In fact, on a good thread earlier today, I took part in a discussion about this. I mentioned the incident involving Walter Jenkins, and thought it might be of interest to others.

In 1964, the RNC wanted to use dirty tactics against the democrats, and to aim them at LBJ in particular. They had recognized the power of television, from the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960, and wanted to exploit the power of this media. The RNC planned to run a ½ hour "documentary" titled "Choice." It had film clips of things such as urban riots, a lady wearing a topless bathing suit, and a Lincoln Continental racing down a dirt road, with beer cans being thrown from the windows. (The Spot: The Rise of Politican Advertising on Television; Diamond & Bates; Cambridge; 1984; pages 144-45)

Barry Goldwater ordered the RNC to not show the film. He said he did not want to resort to appeals to racism to win an election. Goldwater would also hold to his principles in October, when Walter Jenkins was arrested on charges not entirely different that what Larry Craig was accused of.

Kenny O’Donnell found out that the RNC had made repeated calls to the police, requesting that they share the report of Jenkins’ arrest with the media. The RNC had found out that Jenkins was charged with a similar offense in 1959; O’Donnell discovered that the RNC had been calling journalists to spread this information.

When reporters attempted to ask questions about the incident, Barry Goldwater refused to make any comment. (Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and his times 1961-1973; Robert Dallek; Oxford; 1998; chapter 3)

The pressure on Walter Jenkins was intense. He became suicidal, and his doctors had him hospitalized. Homosexuality and a psychiatric hospitalization, and the arrest, ended Jenkins association with the administration. While he was not one of the people associated with LBJ who I admired, I remember my father saying the incident destroyed a good man, and did more damage to Johnson’s administration than anyone knew.

I also found myself thinking of James Forrestal, and the description in James Carroll’s "House of War;" many believed that Forrestal’s psychosis was rooted "in his failed Catholicism. Indeed, he was reported to have confessed near the end that he was being punished for being ‘a bad Catholic’." (page 151)

In 2004, the Department of the Navy revealed that Forrestal’s suicide note was the verse of Sophocles’ tragic "Ajax," quoted above.

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land …" -- Article VI of the Constitution of the United States

Alberto Gonzales is a thief. In fact, he is one of the worst thieves in this nation’s history. He was among the gang of criminals who has been seeking to steal the United States Constitution from you and me. Thus, while it was good to see him resign in disgrace today, it is extremely important that the Congress not allow this to be the end of their investigations of his abuses of the office of Attorney General.

The US Attorney General’s office was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789. This was one of the most significant actions taken by Congress. Along with the creation of one of the earliest and most important cabinet positions, the act defined the federal judicial system. Until then, there were questions about how the federal court system would work. These questions involved issues such as the idea of a unified federal court system (the British model was divided in three parts), and about if federal courts could impose dictatorial control similar to what the 13 Colonies had fought against.

The 1789 Act brought about the Supreme Court’s famous Marbury v. Madison decision in 1803. Through one of the most intense periods of our nation’s history, some of the most gifted leaders struggled to find the correct balance of powers for the country to transform from a republic to the promise of a Constitutional democracy. "I have never been able to see," James Madison noted in 1832, on the 1789 Judiciary Act, how "the Constitution itself could have been the supreme law of the land; or that the uniformity of Federal authority throughout the parts to it could be preserved; or that without the uniformity, anarchy and disunion could be prevented."

The Department of Justice was tasked with representing the federal government in all of the federal courts; with prosecuting those who violated federal law; with protecting the nation from internal subversion; and with providing legal advice for the executive branch, including the White House.

For much of its early history, the Department of Justice concentrated on issues such as tax evasion and antitrust cases. In 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was created, to serve as the primary investigative tool for monitoring the threats posed by subversive elements in the US.

In 1940, Congress gave the Department of Justice control of the Immigration and Naturalization Services. This was as a result of the "Red Scare," from the WW1 to Eisenhower years. James Carroll’s "House of War" provides a fascinating review of this period in our nation’s history.

Starting in 1961, the Department of Justice began a dramatic transformation. Starting with President John Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the department expanded its mission when it became invested in civil rights reforms. President Lyndon Johnson continued the progressive themes of the DoJ Civil Rights Division, when he pressed to have violations of the 1964 Voting Rights Act prosecuted. The 1968 Fair Housing Act, the 1974 Equal Educational Opportunities Act, and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act all continued to make the Department of Justice represent the needs of all Americans, no matter which political party was in office at the time.

Certainly, the Department of Justice has never been perfect. There were gross violations of the law during the J. Edgar Hoover years. The problems were as real as the other scandals that threatened our form of government. There was John Mitchell in the Nixon/Watergate era. There was Ed Meese in the Reagan/ Iran-Contra era.

Even in those dangerous times, the Department of Justice was recognized as having the authority to name special prosecutors to investigate cases involving suspected crimes by members of the executive branch. The 1978 Ethics in Government Act was in recognition of the need for an office of independent counsel, and to outline the steps the Attorney General should take in cases of suspected executive branch malfeasance.

As the nation discovered during the Plame scandal investigation, the more recent congressional reauthorization destroyed the concept of an independent counsel with broad discretion to protect the interests of citizens such as you and I. Yet the errors and the purposeful abuses from the pre-2001 years pale in comparison to what has taken place under the Bush-Cheney administration.

Alberto Gonzales has participated in some of the most serious crimes against the United States Constitution, actions that threaten our form of government. His resigning in disgrace is not enough. If a banker embezzled a million dollars, his simply resigning his position would not be considered the end of the problem. The police would continue to investigate; the DA would prosecute; and the court would sentence him. In this case, Alberto has done things far, far worse than embezzling a small fortune. He has attempted to steal our national treasure.

A Preview of September Lies

Did you find yourself wondering why the media pretended that President Bush was making a rational point with his attempts to justify the US war of occupation in Iraq by comparing it to what didn’t happen in Vietnam? Did you wonder why Ari Fleischer’s commercial that used images of 9-11 to justify the continued war of occupation in Iraq went largely unchallenged?

Do journalists believe that honest men rely upon outright lies in a search for truth? Or is it possible that many journalists are willing participants in the swift-boating of the truth? Let’s take a look back at the historic example of a man named Bob Novak, and see if we can find any evidence of how some journalists assist in "perception management," which is a fancy term for manipulating the news.

Perhaps we should start with a memorandum authored by Bob Haldeman on February 10, 1973. Bob outlined his thoughts on trying to connect "Communist money that was used in support of demonstrations against the President in 1972" to the democratic party. He advocated saying it "leads directly to McGovern and Teddy Kennedy. This is a good counter offensive to be developed …."

But the honorable Bob Haldeman wasn’t about to stop with a lie alone. He wanted to include a smear against a democratic public official in Fort Wayne, who was rumored to have fathered an illegitimate child: "There’s also the question of whether we should let out the Fort Wayne story now – that we ran a clean campaign compared to theirs of libel and slander and such against Rebozo, etc. We could let Evans and Novak put it out and then be asked about it to make the point that we knew and the President said it was not to be used under any circumstance."

Why did the Nixon administration think that esteemed journalists like Evans and Novak would cooperate in such dishonest activities? Perhaps the answer is found on page 287 of the Senate Watergate Report: "In December 1971, (Herbert) Porter sent a transcript of one of the filmed documents from Muskie headquarters to Magruder. ….Magruder asked Porter to have the transcript retyped on plain bond stationary and sent to Evans and Novak. Porter did so. Evans and Novak printed it, and the hearings were never held."

Or, we might want to consider page 667 of the Senate Watergate Report: "Nevertheless, Buchanan concluded that the Ellsberg issue would not ‘be turned around in the public mind by a few well-placed leaks.’ Lest there be any doubt about his position, he then stated, ‘This is not to argue that the effort is not worthwhile – but that simply we ought not now to start investing major personnel resources in the kind of covert operation not likely to yield any major political dividends to the President.’

"No legal or moral problems for Buchanan; just an objection to the management end of it.

"Mr. Buchanan also testified, as to documents surrepititiously taken from the Muskie campaign and photographed by ‘Fat Jack.’ Buchanan testified that he ‘did get the material on two occasions, and (he) did recommend that it be sent to columnists Evans and Novak. Evans and Novak did print, on two occasions, I believe, material from Muskie’s campaign.’ Here again was a high official, using the credibility of the White House, to peddle wrongfully obtained confidential information."

Hard to believe, isn’t it? Is this the same Bob Novak that we know and love? Are there two Patrick Buchanans? Sad to say, there are more than two Pat Buchanans and Bob Novaks engaged in perception management today. And they are increasing the efforts to mislead the American public about the state of affairs in Iraq.

Will the democrats in Washington DC confront these lies?

Thank You, Senator Clinton

In the past couple of months, I have posted essays on a few of the candidates in the democratic primaries. My goal is to try to focus on some of the strengths that each of our candidates has. It is important to me to consider what each of the democrats who wants to be president has to offer those of us at the grass roots level. If we are being asked to invest our time and money in the primaries – and eventually in the 2008 elections – then I think that we need to look at each candidate.

In this weekend’s edition of The Daily Star (Oneonta, NY), there is an interesting article titled "Senators take aim at NYRI: Schumer, Clinton introduce bill to block power-line plants." The article explains how Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton introduced a bill in the senate that would "restrict private power companies from using federal eminent-domain to acquire property …. (and) also block companies from seeking federal approval for their projects" when state officials are attempting to exercise control over them.

The two democratic senators are enjoying the strong support of grass-roots activists throughout up upstate region. The NYRI project involves a proposed 200-mile long 400-kilovolt transmission line, which would be on 100-foot tall steel towers placed every 800 feet along the 200-mile route. The plan is to deliver cheaper electricity to the lower Hudson River Valley, which the private corporation admits will cause an increase in price for upstate residents.

The plan involved an Otsego County businessman, who by no small coincidence was a personal friend of Karl Rove. In recent years, a Rove visit to Otsego County caused a small group of democrats, greens, and other progressives to protest his fouling the atmosphere. The NYRI (New York Regional Interconnect, Inc.) has created a far larger group of people to organize to resist this modern attempt to impose a feudal system in our state.

I note that local US Representative Michael Arcuri (D-Utica) has been an active supporter of the progressive, grass-roots movement, as well. The work that these democrats are doing will benefit not only New Yorkers, but also those who may be subjected to efforts by energy interests to establish "energy corridors" in other parts of the US (including one being considered by the federal Energy Department for the western US).

One of the major concerns that I have as we enter the 2008 election season, is that too many candidates for office in the House, Senate, and the White House are too responsive to corporate interests, and deaf to the needs of human beings. Too often, immediate financial gain for the friends of the Karl Roves is considered more valuable than the natural resources and historic sites that once destroyed can never be replaced.

Those concerns are raised when we discuss many of the democratic candidates, including Senator Clinton. In fact, I raise those questions myself from time to time. I say that to say this: as a progressive grass-roots activist, I know it is important to give credit where credit is due.
And in this case, Senator Clinton deserves our respect and our thanks.

For more information on the STOP NYRI, go to:

www.nyri.info

also see:

www.thedailystar.com

Incarcerated Youth

"We are faced with evil. I feel rather like Augustine did before becoming a Christian when he said, ‘I tried to find the source of evil and I got nowhere. But it is also true that I and a few others knew what must be done if not to reduce evil at least not to add to it.’ Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you believers don’t help us, who else in the world can help us do this?" – Albert Camus

My younger son recently started a job in a "youth facility" that houses about 150 young men, ages 12 to 18. It is a challenging job, and he is finding the nothing from a class room or text book fully prepared him for what he is encountering inside the institution. My son is intelligent, compassionate, and focused on doing his job in such a way that he helps those who he works with; those same qualities, of course, can make his line of work an eye-opening experience.

As his father, and as a retired social worker, I’m confident that my son is the type of person who will do very well at his job. But I did like when he called me one day to discuss some of the concerns he has, not so much about his particular job, but rather, about the "system." He noted, for example, that a some of the young people who have been sentenced to spend their teen-aged years in the institution probably would not have been there, had they come from a family that provided any type of support for them.

For longer than my son has been alive, the number one growth industry in New York has been its prison system. I tell him that the connections he sees between the culture’s family systems, it’s penal institutions, and the economy is not that long arm of coincidence, wrenching itself of of socket, but is the hard, cold reality of a system that for a variety of reasons, requires a growing number of human beings to spend much of their lives incarcerated.

Part of the reasons that we have arrived at this point, can be viewed as we travel on the roads between our house and that institution where my son is employed. My driveway is part of an old Revolutionary War era turnpike, that led from what was the "western front" of the 13 Colonies to Ithaca. The first place it went through was one of the hamlets made up largely from an extended family. The name of this type of farming community is usually based on the family name; hence we find that around the late 1700s and early 1800s, there are places with names like Smithsville and Knapps’ Settlent.

When you drive by the oldest farm houses, they usually will have additions built on. That is because they housed extended families. When the children grew up, one would get married and remain in the central house. The parents (now grandparents) would live in the addition. Other adult siblings would build houses close-by. This provided a strong support system for each child growing up in the community. They had not only their parents and siblings, but also grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a network based upon the extended family to provide support for them.

A little further away, we come to where there was a canal in the early 1800s. The canal system opened the upstate to a level of economic influences that the turnpikes had not. Some of the young adults from the farming hamlets began to move to the villages along the canal’s path, in order to find employment. Their children would still be attending small neighborhood schools, and were in close contact with their extended families. The village was a network of extended families, and it provided a strong support system for the young people within it.

Soon we cross an old railroad track, built shortly after the Civil War. The railroads ushered in a new era. Farms went from being largely self-sufficient, where a small amount of a surplus of beef , garden produce, or fruit was used to trade for the few things the extended family required, to part of a larger economic unit that was focused primarily on producing milk products for distant cities. Because dairy farms required more land but less workers, more of the young adults left the hamlets and moved to towns that grew along the railroad tacks. The extended family was transitioning into the nuclear family. They got together for holdiays and other events, but the primary influences in the children’s lives was shifted to first the parents, and then the community. Schools were growing, and the young people were seeing options other than farming or the trades of their parents.

After crossing the railroad tracks, we come to a highway. It was built after WW1, and it allowed the towns with greater access to the distant cities. This opened the era of the suburbs and nuclear families. It was still common to pack the car and drive out to see the extended family in Hooterville on the holidays, but the kids were in less contact with the grandparents and aunts and uncles. But for most of the year, it was a very different lifestyle, with dad in an office or in a factory from 9 to 5, mom at the white picket-fenced home, and 3.5 children going to larger schools that prepared them to be office workers, cogs in a factory, or good housewives.

Although real life after WW2 was not a series of episodes of "Father Knows Best," the majority of middle class Americans had little idea of what Daniel Patrick Moynihan was speaking of when he warned about the problems that were associated with single-parent families. But they were soon to find out. As the industrial age gave way to high-tech society, business needed workers who were not shackled to annoying things like family commitments. They needed workers who were ready and willing to spend long hours at work, and who put their "careers" first.

The nuclear family was shattered, and single-parent families became far more frequent. For many of the parents who headed these families, that house with the white picket fence was not an option. They could only afford an apartment in a town or city, often in a building that had previously housed one family, but which had been converted into numerous apartments. The children from single parent families often miss out on healthy relationships with the non-custodial parent, and on the stability that half of their extended family might provide.

This is not intended to "point fingers" at single parents. Indeed, for several years, I was a single parent with two little boys. It is a difficult circumstance to be in. However, statistically, the children from single parent families are at increased risk of experiencing difficulties at home, in school, and in their communities.

One option our society has is to build more prisons for adults. And that requires that there be more youth facilities built as a sort of prep school for future prison inmates. It is a big business nation-wide.

Another option is to address the issues that are at the root of the problem. I am not suggesting that we do away with individual responsibility – quite the opposite, we need to not only hold "criminals" responsible for their action, we need to become a more responsible society.

One political party believes that we are our brother’s keeper. And I’m not talking about keeping your brother in behind bars. One political party recognizes that single parents need and deserve the support of their community when they try to raise their sons and daughters. One party believes that our society is enriched when it invests in education, and in providing each child with a quality education. It is the party that believes that it takes a village to raise a child.

The other party doesn’t share these extended family values. Too often, they are only concerned with the lives of their own children or grandchildren, and do not appreciate the connection to others in the larger community. And their leaders view other people’s children as mere cogs in the money-making machine. There are examples other than the institutions that house the hundreds of 12 to 18 year olds: each day, we hear about more American youth, ages 18 to 25, dying in Iraq in what can only be viewed as a republican business investment.

The 2008 elections will have consequences for every family in America. We do not have the option of going back in time – but we can learn from the past, and apply those lessons to our current conditions. I do not think that we can afford to continue down the path that we are on now. I am intent on doing my best to be sure that we elect the officials who can begin to institute real change, so that fewer kids get caught up in a penal system that capitalizes on man’s inhumanity to man.

Grass Roots Soliloquy

ACT I

"In the beginning, seeing, they saw amiss,
and hearing, heard not, but like phantoms huddled
In dreams, the perplexed story of their days
Confounded."
-- Aeschylus; Prometheus Bound

What is congress? Is the House of Representatives a collection of individuals? Individuals advocating for their constituents? Upholding that Constitution? Or is it the bee-hive, an entity that transcends the individual representative, with a life of its own?

Is the Senate like a brain, with two separate, conflicting hemispheres? Are conservative republicans other than the reptilian complex that inspire the darker impulses of our society? Was there a lobotomy that disconnected our senators’ awareness of the Constitution?

Is this a bad dream? Is congress asleep on the job? Or is it as Erich Fromm noted, that a lack of sleep has resulted in their temporary regress into "a primitive animal-like unreasonable state of mind?"

Would the current congress be cause for Carl Sagan to add another chapter to "The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence"?

ACT II

"The royal palace of Belgium is still what it has been for fourteen years, the den of a wild beast, King Leopold II, who for money’s sake mutilates, murders and starves half a million of friendless and helpless poor natives in the Congo State every year, and does it by the silent consent of all the Christian powers except England, none of them lifting a hand or a voice to stop these atrocities …. In fourteen years Leopold has deliberately destroyed more lives than have suffered death on all the battlefields of this planet for the past thousand years. …. It is curious that the most advanced and most enlightened century of all centuries the sun has looked upon should have the ghastly distinction of having produced this moldy and piety-mouthing hypocrite, this bloody monster whose mate is not findable in human history anywhere, and whose personality will surely shame hell itself when he arrives there ….."
--Mark Twain; Mark Twain Himself; page 256

Oh, that Mark Twain. When I think of him, I am reminded of his speaking of "the Gilded Age." This followed the Golden Age of the US Senate, when there were outstanding leaders. Those leaders were human, and had warts and other imperfections, but they tried to honor the US Constitution.

After the Civil War, things changed. Rather than honoring the Constitution, many elected leaders went whoring after other gods. Many of them would betray the Constitution for 30 pieces of silver. Some were willing to sell their souls.

Are we entering another Golden Age? A Gilded Age paid for by increasing the national debt? Or has the congress paying for previous greed, by being reduced to something akin to a high school student council? Is it possible that we are watching High School Musical III ? How will the student council deal with King Leopold?

Act III

"A military station in the desert.
Can we resolve the past.
Lurking jaws, joints of time?
To come of age in a dry place,
Holes and caves."
--Jim Morrison; To Come of Age

The Cheney administration is a tumor on our body politic. It is threatening the life of the Bill of Rights today. The best medical text book that we have recommends removing such tumors by an operation known as "impeachment." But some of our family is too upset by the reality of the tumor. They begin to recite the reasons to avoid the unpleasant surgery.

"Doesn’t the medical text merely list surgery as an option? What if we don’t get the whole tumor? Isn’t it better to wait, and see if the tumor just disappears in 2008? And what will the tobacco industry say? It’s not that we’re against surgery; we just want more tests."

There are reasons that many of us are convinced that we do not have the luxury of dilly-dallying.

Act IV

"I remember sitting down to Christmas dinner eighteen years ago in a communal house in Portland, Oregon, with about twelve others my own age, all of whom had no place they wished to go home to. That house was my first discovery of harmony and community with fellow beings. This has been the experience of hundreds of thousands of men and women since the end of World War II …. Hence the talk about the growth of a ‘new society’."
--Gary Snyder; Earth House Hold

About a month ago, watching a documentary ("Commune") on the Sundance Channel, I couldn’t help but think of progressive internet communities. The film was about a commune of hippies, called the Black Bear Ranch, in California. In the turmoil of the 1960s, there were many similar communities across the country. They were trying to create that "new society."

The people at Black Bear Ranch were doing pretty well, until a quasi-cult came to visit. These were a group of people who called themselves the Shiva Lila. The Shiva Lila were not cops or narcs or Young Republicans. Rather, they were intelligent people, who wanted to be hippies, but who had such severe personality pathology that they disrupted the commune. The good folks at the Black Bear Ranch eventually found it necessary to ask the Shiva Lila to pack their bags.

Within the progressive communes on the internet today, there are similar things taking place. This is related to, but yet distinct, from the normal give-and-take that can and should be found on sites that feature discussions about progressive political/social issues. Debate is good; disruptions are not.

The internet allows people, including those that Gary Snyder spoke of, to sit down together in another type of communal house. It presents the opportunity to discuss and debate important issues, to harness our energies and coordinate our efforts to create that new society. An electronic neocortex of sorts.