Random thoughts on why I’m a liberal:

Crime -- A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

Bush administration -- Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

Why the government should help the unemployed -- Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Why school taxes aren’t bad -- I am a part of everything that I have read.

Wall Street investors -- I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.

Bush administration (2) -- I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

Corporate tax breaks -- It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.

Unions -- It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.

Bush’s background -- Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.

Terrorists’ Constitutional rights -- No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.

Terrorists’ Constitutional rights (2) -- No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.

On the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Elections -- No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

Bush administration (3) (Scooter Libby’s commutation) -- Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.

Terrorists’ Constitutional rights (3) (Patriot Act) -- Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.

Bush administration (4) -- People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

Bush administration (5) -- Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.

Bush accepting responsibility for mistakes -- The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.

Terrorists’ Constitutional rights (4) -- The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Bush administration (6) (Katrina relief failure) -- The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.

Terrorists’ Constitutional rights (5) -- The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

Bush administration (7) -- To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.

Now that I've got it down, I have to admit.

There's an irony to all this.

I stole the thoughts from a Republican leader:

Teddy Roosevelt!

Take care,

jim

Journalism

I am a journalist.

I was trained how to find information, how to balance that information when portraying it, and how to craft the message portrayed to get the “hard news” across to a reading public.

The foundation of every hard news story was answering “who,” “what,” “why,” “when,” “where,” and “how” – summarized the “5 Ws” (somehow that “H” in there wasn’t counted, but a part of those “Ws”).

My university studies involved exploring the principles of journalism and writing in search for style to make reading information more interesting.

The creative part of journalism was how to use language – creating “the style” which separated one writer from another -- not creating the facts.

Journalists dealt in “fair and balanced” presentations out of respect for the reader and “style” to catch the reader’s attention.

Balanced meant a person wanted to say someone thinks “black,” that someone was offered the chance to say why he thought “white.”

If someone responded the person had an ulterior motive for painting someone’s position black, the person was asked to comment on the statement.

That’s the minimum effort for “fair and balanced” -- at LEAST a binary “yin and yang” sought out on every new topic. The better journalist explored the space between the binary thinking – potentially finding the consensus position most readers accepted.

Looking for consensus was the interesting part of the work, because it addressed the core question print journalists addressed in behalf of their readers – “what does it mean?”

It dealt with Jefferson’s concept of a free press – the service the media provided the American citizenry the information they needed to understand and run their government. Government, by the way, is that thing theoretically owned by “We the People” in the United States.

Journalists didn’t dictate what readers should think – they offered a range of what others who had opinions were thinking.

Back when I practiced professionally, being proven “biased” by mistakes in handling the facts was a failing grade. It meant there wasn’t enough exploration of the range – at least the extremities – of facts before the information was printed.

But those who wanted to control opinion threw the term out at a reporter when their viewpoint wasn’t aired to the exclusion of all other opinion. “Fair and balanced” goes out the window when the ego, rather than logic and fact, controls thinking.

It’s something a journalist was trained to understand.

I was reasonably successful as a practicing journalist – able to raise some critical issues in the community where I reported, with sufficient skill that the community was able to reach some consensus decisions.

It was a happy, exciting time in my working life because I got paid for something I enjoyed.

Like most careers, however, the happiness perspective was changed as I learned more about the business end of earning a salary.

My pay wasn’t in exchange for service, but to address a necessary part of marketing a business.

It started with reporting on those seeking votes in elections – the ones among them who wanted to control opinion rather than explore it.

They used the “bias” accusation to get their story aired to the exclusion of their opponent’s story.

It was a shock the first time the advertising manager – a guy who was friendly with me because he’d occasionally ask for a story in the on one of his accounts for the business section of the newspaper– started talking to me about local politics.

He didn’t live in the community, and appeared to be apolitical based on not taking sides in discussions of national politics.

But somehow he had an interest in a new city council candidate who was running a loud campaign in behalf of a yin perspective to the greater community’s yang. The campaign made a “good” story because proposing yin resulted in more in depth discussion of yin, yang, and ranges in between.

I didn’t realize the “yin” included some regular newspaper advertisers until inquiries about the loud candidate became more frequent and directive in nature.

“I don’t want to tell you what to do, but . . .”

Before too long, the question was asked by my editor -- an ambitious but introverted woman way in over her head in terms of managing what she perceived as discord. The advertising manager, while remaining friendly to my face (I suspect because of the business section bits) had raised the issue with the editor.

In time, the matter moved to the general manager’s office, where I was informed how the newspaper needed its business base, and the complaint was harming it.

My first response was to discuss “fair and balanced.”

My second was silence.

It became obvious that the news writers were viewed as people who filled the space between the ads – a space which grew as ads waned.

Ads waned because circulation dropped. Circulation dropped because stories were more and more truncated to avoid upsetting advertisers.

One which hurt was a ban on any about some workers picketing in front of a local dry cleaning establishment. A demonstration on the most travelled road in the community. The editor killed the stories on it because the dry cleaner advertised.

Acquaintances from the area would ask if I’d noticed the ruckus along the main drag. I couldn’t miss it, because it was on my way to and from work.

But, I could only tell them what I knew verbally – my stories didn’t make print.

In time, I found another career, and moved along. The adversiting manager left for a better commission, the news editor had resigned, and the general manager was fired.

I left between the time the editor resigned and the manager was fired.

I’d learned something about “the business of news.”

That lesson is reinforced by actions in the media today.

Take care,

jim

Ugly Americans

In case anyone wonders why Americans may end up hated throughout the world, here's a perspective:

Blackwater

In case anyone wonders why American's should care, here's a perspective:

Haliburton -- Kellogg, Brown, and Root

There is a solution, the United States has to make contractors operating in its behalf overseas responsible to some authority for action:

Corporate Immunity

If not, here's the result:

Post WWI Italy

United States citizens ought to think about it the next time they hear their President say he's supporting platitudes as "freedom" (except Iraqis under rule of United States contractors), security (except for employees working outside the country for those contractors), and a war against terrorism (wherever President Bush says it exists and needs contractors to support it).

Remember, terrorism lies in the eye of the beholder:

Britain's view of American Revolutionaries

Take care,

jim

Totalitarian State

The so-called “War on Terrorism” appears to be making more headway with its efforts to control ordinary citizens than it is with the ephemeral “terrorist groups” those citizens are supposed to fear.

Garry Kasparov has been sentenced to five days in jail to allow for “free elections” in Russia. Kasparov is charged with organizing a protest against the government of Vladimir Putin, the person who George W Bush “was able to get a sense of his soul.”

It follows the jailing of thousands of supporters of a political opponent of Pakistani President and Bush ally, President Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf has declared a state of emergency in his country to dismiss “independent-minded judges” and control dissent from his citizens prior to a “free” election. It was the second time a political opponent of Musharraf returned to the country from exile to find supporters jailed.

While formal arrests and police control of protesters seem extreme in what could be considered the backwaters of democracies, the activities are paralleled in this nation with the creation of the so-called “free speech zones” where dissent is handled at the end of a police baton and temporary prisons.

Criticized across the extremes of political perspective, the “zones” take on the air of benign legitimacy based on the name coined for them, while effectively preventing dissenters from airing their concerns directly to their leaders. In the United States it creates a "boy in the bubble" zone for the nation's leaders roughly outlined by the DC beltway.

The name of "free speech zones" continues the misdirection aimed at American people, where a “war on terror” to protect our freedom as a country is used as justification to eliminate defined civil liberties contained in the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights and common law values dating back to the Magna Carta which helped dissolve the divine right to rule and place control of a nation in the hands of the subjects.

What is lost on those who back “law and order” as it relates to controlling “terrorism” is the fact that “terrorism” is defined as anything that opposes a ruler, and worse, in a constitutionally-defined government, the rule is by law passed with the consent of the citizens rather than the decree of the leader.

In a society where citizens treat politics as sport and political information is gathered as though watching a play-by-play broadcast during that sporting event, the basis under which this nation has been founded is lost because fewer and fewer really understand the rules by which the game is supposed to be played.

Take care,

jim

Political Perspective Challenge

I'll make the assumption that whoever happens on this blog understands my perception of the capabilities of the person I lovingly call "The Imbecile in Chief" to handle the affairs of state in these United States.

Ignoring aspersions to the legality of the vote count which put him in office, I'm stuck with him, and assume, there are some who are content to follow him to the end of his term, and some who would like him removed, and some who are ambivalent for some pragmatic reason.

Since this blog is aimed at exchanging ideas, I'm interested in hearing why those who may read these notes either believe the current leader is worthy of continuing service, or as a contrary opinion, why he shouldn't remain in office.

Since I don't believe there is binary logic (the concept there is "only" yes-no; right-wrong; black-white; moral-immoral in all decisions), I'd be interested in hearing any pragmatic discussion on the nuances which may tilt the scale nearer one of the polar opposites I posit above, yet not to the opposite as a final solution (a "moderate" position for those who are in tune with the differences between polarity and gradual leanings toward decisions).

Please offer some logical ideas here!

Offer some!

Take care,

jim

A Veteran’s Day

The veteran I knew best was my father – a World War II era draftee who served from mid-1941 until late 1945, including more than three years overseas.

He served in the Army Air Corps as a medical technician at an Army Air Corps fighter base in England. Most of the action he saw was in post mission clean up, when he joined the crews which would rescue the injured or retrieve the bodies of pilots whose planes made it to England, but crashed before reaching the airfield.

His memorable brush with danger came late in the war, when the Germans were indiscriminately launching V-1 “buzz bombs” at the cities and bases along the English coast. He was riding a bicycle along an country road when he heard a noise to his side, and looked to see a bomb skimming the earth toward him. He dove from the bike into a ditch as the bomb stuttered overhead.

My father wasn’t a loud patriot, shouting his support for the government in the “my country right or wrong” tenor that many of today’s “patriots” support their government.

He showed his patriotism by example rather than by talk, offering his neighbors the dignity and respect of being equal citizens in an equal society. His most overt acts were standing at attention facing the flag with his hand over his heart during public ceremonies where the National Anthem played, flying a flag on holidays, and later in life, raising at dawn and lowering at dusk the banner of his country on a pole installed in his front yard. One of the more memorable pictures of him was raising the flag one morning with two of his grandchildren standing at attention and saluting as he performed the ceremony.

He would talk in general terms about the freedoms – upholding the principle of freedom of thought and freedom of expression even if he didn’t agree with the ideas expressed.

About the only time I heard him talk publicly about his service was during one “father-son” baseball game where, following the national anthem, my brother-in-law, who had served in Vietnam, taunted the younger males of the family by saying loudly, “I note that I’m the only veteran standing during the national anthem.”

Dad quietly said that he believed four year’s service in World War II qualified him for the distinction as well. My brother-in-law admitted that World War II was indeed a war and apologized in his grudging way.

Ironically, it was during that Vietnam War that I learned my father’s dedication to the country.

I was a college student in the late 60s, and being strapped for funds, often used my father’s services as a barber at the times I chose to have my hair cut. It was one of those jobs he did to save money, investing in a barber kit when I was a pre-teen with three brothers to trim our hair. Eventually, when the sons were ranging in age from one to 18, he cut all seven sons' hair on a regular basis.

During my college days, when I was living at home and commuting to classes, I’d catch about every other session until I decided to let my hair grow after I’d moved out of the house.

During those sessions, he’d talk with his boys about what concerned them, and after awhile, the boys would bring their concerns to him for advice.

It was one session a couple of years after I’d graduated from high school that I brought my greatest problem to him.

I’d become engulfed in campus activism starting in late 1968, the year after I started my studies in communications arts with a focus on print journalism. After taking a few classes, I got the itch to write, and offered to become a reporter on the school newspaper.

The task was decentralized, in that, there was no strong “newsroom” focus. Assignments were casually offered out based on students calling for publicity and new journalism students seeking some advice on stories they could write. But, for the most part, with a volunteer writing staff and only a few who would work on every issue, the news editor and the managing editor used whatever stories the unpaid reporters brought back, focusing their time on insuring some fairness and double checking accuracy.

It meant that a reporter with some ambition, and an ability to write well was pretty free to pick his / her topics so long as they related back to the campus.

My hot topic was the war and what was going on with students at our campus to address it.

The war had seemed like game playing to me at first. In my pre-high school days, I thought it was “cool” that I could watch this war in the same manner I’d watched the Korean conflict play on my family’s black and white Motorola screen in my first memories.

As I got older, I'd found my father's "Time - Life Pictures of World War II" volume, and would regularly leaf through it looking at the soldiers and the mighty equipment which was used when my father served.

It wasn’t until 1967 that it hit me as “real” when I went with some ex-athletes from my high school to the funeral of the guy I’d known as a coach in my senior year, and the others had known as their quarterback in their earlier playing years.

He looked like the guy who had visited school in his uniform the spring following my first, and last, football season. He was proud of his graduation from infantry school then and happy to be with his friends. This time he wasn’t joking with the guys – he was resting in his casket.

I was in my first year in college when the call came that Carl had been killed.

Standing at the casket, it struck me that the scenes I watched on our family’s color TV weren’t the “games” I’d envisioned when I watched the conflict in Korea, and later played “war” with my friends using little rubber soldiers and off-sized military equipment to set up "battles" in neighborhood sandboxes, and still later with mimic guns running around “the woods” a half mile from my suburban home.

Unlike our games of “war” where the rubber soldiers were “dead” if knocked over by a tossed dirt clod, or "battles" were won in the woods based on how many times someone got the drop on you and “shot” you, Carl wasn’t going to play again.

So, I looked into what was the basis for the fighting, and then saw one friend join the Marines, and another get drafted into the Army after he’d dropped out of school to earn some cash to pay for tuition.

The first friend eventually was wounded, and, I learned later, deserted from the military rather than return. After he dropped from sight, I learned that his cousin was on the newspaper with me. I mentioned we were friends, but I hadn't talked to him in years. His cousin said, "Didn't you know he deserted? He's avoiding everyone!"

The second and I stayed in touch, and corresponded regularly – me offering him a view of “home” and he offering me a view of “war.”

I recall one letter which said, “Don’t come over here if you can avoid it. We’re only over here for Michelin rubber” after my writing changed from news of home to sharing (and seeking some common ground on) my observations of the dysfunction of the politics which got us into the war.

Wrestling with it, I decided that to honor my friend who was there, I wouldn’t avoid service, but I didn’t want to learn how to kill another man simply because some politician forced me to carry a gun.

It was during one of those haircuts when my father and I were talking about politics, and Vietnam. I was scared, but thought I should tell him what I was thinking about.

“Dad,” I said. “I know you are a veteran, but I’m checking into fighting the draft. I’m looking into being a conscientious objector. I’m not going to run away, but I’m not going to let them make me carry a gun and kill people.”

There was a long pause, which made me more nervous. Finally Dad said, “I brought you guys up to make your own decisions.

“I served, but it was to make sure that we had the freedom to make those decisions.

“I support whatever you’re comfortable with.”

Take care,

jim

"Liberal"; "Neocon"; "Right"; "Left"; "Democrat"; "Republican"; "Christian"; "Muslim"; "Jew"; "Commie"; "Islamo-Fascist" -- on Being Played for Saps

My first encounter with the talk radio phenomena was in 1996 while taking a cross country automobile trip with my favorite companion -- my wife.

Our idea was to merge a first visit to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for either of us with a search for the "real" America by staying away from the interstates on a trip to the Pacific Northwest.

Driving along US 2 in a family van equipped with an AM / FM receiver, it became tough to stay in touch with the outside world as the highway left the last “big” city in upper Michigan and wound toward Duluth.

As the population density shrank, the towns got farther and farther apart, and my wife’s search of the dial looking for any news from the path ahead, would catch the edge of a 1000-watt AM station offering a selection among a preachy woman's voice talking about morality and responsibility, or a loud man's lofty language expressing what was causing "the problems" in our society, or an atonal preacher urging us to follow the Bible, or country music.

Since I’m not fond of country music, and can only take the preacher until he tells me he's the only one who knows how Jesus wants me to live my life, the option was to hear out the preachy woman and the loud man while waiting for news and weather at the next time check or travel in silence without the outside information we sought.

It turned out to be a daily dose of Dr. Laura and then Rush, or Rush and then Dr. Laura marching one behind the other on a schedule between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays. The only variety was as one station faded and a new one encountered, we may get an instant rerun of the broadcast from the last zone.

It seemed as though every station manager used Rush and Dr. Laura interchangeably to fill those six hours regardless of the time zone.

As we focused more on the background sound while we drove across the sameness of North Dakota’s prairie farms and found fewer "new" things to point out to each other while we rode, I discovered that the tone of the message was "liberal influence is ruining our lives."

Fancying myself one during the Vietnam era, at first I was offended until I realized that what was purported to be "liberal" didn't match what beliefs I held.

"Liberal" was "duped by the media" (I could separate information from manipulation), pro-homosexual (I was ambivalent as long as I wasn't invited to participate), pro-government (not during Vietnam anyway), anti-gun (I'm not fond, but see a use in some instances particularly as we traversed the outback of Montana), anti-individual (I felt free and easy and didn't really care about another being such so long as they didn't interfere with my freeness and easiness), against religion (I thought myself religious), pro-abortion (I wasn't), anti-family (I was taking a trip with my wife because we enjoyed each other's company), unwilling to take responsibility for mistakes (well, I knew we were on our own if something went wrong during the trip), and generally anti-American (I was looking for a broader perspective of the real America!).

How could the speakers get it so wrong?

Having been trained in communications and the media, I guessed the region’s demographics along the Canadian border was pretty much people seeking reinforcement of their isolated beliefs.

Logic didn't matter so long as they were convinced the speaker was "with" them.

It drew listeners to justify ad time on the prairies, the "business" behind commercial radio no matter where broadcast.

So, what became more interesting than the lecturing was the types of callers who would show up on the airwaves to be abused by the hosts. I couldn't figure whether they were seeing their 15-minutes of fame, or were so removed from reality that they didn't realize they were being used. The debate was authoritarian – you’re either with me or wrong.

And, for the most part, the callers left the impression they’d join up with the radio voiced “debater.”

It was then I began to question the crutch – the shortened description of the “problem” which always seemed to creep into the answer. Dr. Laura’s “liberal” was different from Rush’s, but in either instance, its application was ruining whatever semblance of order the microphone owners urged on their listeners between commercial breaks.

Were we children, the “logic” associated with using the term was the same which kept us from looking beneath the bed for fear of finding the “boogie man.”

Having been born and raised and largely oriented to a bigger metropolitan region than I encountered around Grand Forks, Glasgow, Kalispell, Sandpoint, Coeur d’ Alene and Spokane, I thought the phenomena unique to relatively small towns – until we hit Seattle, where we’d still encounter the voices while surfing through the (thankfully) broader variety of entertainment and information (KIRO -- 710 became the regional favorite).

The “boogie man” shtick was a staple no matter what the demographic.

But wait, before those who don’t like a Rush, or a Dr. Laura, or an O'Reilly begin nodding wisely about those talkers' flaccid logic, apply the same “boogie man” definition to the terms in the title used by lesser known radio harranguers who justify their ad time with a "different" perspective.

The single word philosophies are staples in discussion whether you live where the vote was red or blue or the philosophy tends toward right of left.

Many live in a sound bite society where taking the time to think about the ideas behind the terms isn’t as easy as latching on emotionally to a term and following where the pundits who throw it out lead us. We don’t have time to discuss, so, instead, we shout terms at each other in “debate.”

And, every time we shout one of those terms we’re asserting “my boogie man is scarier than your boogie man” and limiting debate to how frequently and loudly we can shout our selected boogie man name.

All it does is herd us behind the few who coin the terms – the one’s who we allow to play us for saps.

Take care,

jim