Resisting a revolutionary power

A "revolutionary power." That's how Paul Krugman has described the radical right in America. And he has warned that "people who have been accustomed to stability can't bring themselves to believe what is happening when faced with a revolutionary power, and are therefore ineffective in opposing it."

Ironically enough, he cites Henry Kissinger's PhD dissertation which "describes the problems confronting a heretofore stable diplomatic system when it is faced with a 'revolutionary power'—a power that does not accept that system's legitimacy ... a movement whose leaders do not accept the legitimacy of our current political system."

Krugman argues that the radical right in America should be viewed as a revolutionary power which believes "that some long-established American political and social institutions should not, in principle, exist" and that does "not accept the rules that the rest of us have taken for granted."

All of this was in the introduction to Krugman's book The Great Unraveling which was published in 2003. Too bad we didn't pay attention then because now it just might be too late. The good news is Professor Krugman also provides the following five suggestions for dealing with a revolutionary power:

"1. Don’t assume that policy proposals make sense in terms of their stated goals.
When you're dealing with a revolutionary power, it's important to realize that it knows what it wants, and will make whatever argument advances that goal. So there should be no presumption that the claims it makes on behalf of its actions make any sense in their own terms. ... Journalists find it very hard to deal with blatantly false arguments; by inclination and training, they always try to see two sides to an issue, and find it hard even to conceive that a major political figure is simply lying about the content of his proposals. ... Revolutionary movements, which aren't concerned about the rules of the game, have no compunction about misrepresenting their goals."

"2. Do some homework to discover the real goals.
... This is a general principle for understanding what's happening: do some homework to find out what these people really want. I'm not talking about deeply hidden motives; usually the true goal is in the public domain. You just have to look at what the people pushing the policy said before they were trying to sell it to the broader public. ... Again, this is hard for journalists to deal with: they don't want to sound like crazy conspiracy theorists."

"3. Don’t assume that the usual rules of politics apply
... Why don’t the usual rules apply?  Because a revolutionary power, which does not regard the existing system as legitimate, doesn't feel obliged to play by the rules. Are there hints of scandal regarding administration personnel? No matter: Fox News, The Washington Times, and The New York Post won't follow up on the story—instead they'll harass other media outlets if they try to make it an issue. ... 'But they wouldn't do that!' protest reasonable people—and a normal regime wouldn't. But we're not dealing with a normal regime here, we’re dealing with a revolutionary power."

"4. Expect a revolutionary power to respond to criticism by attacking
A revolutionary power, which doesn't accept the legitimacy of the existing system, also doesn’t accept the right of others to criticize its actions.  Anyone who raises questions can expect a no-holds-barred counterattack. ...  Here’s a bit more from Kissinger: 'The distinguishing feature of a revolutionary power is not that it feels threatened, but that nothing can reassure it (Kissinger’s emphasis).  Only absolute security—the neutralization of the opponent—is considered a sufficient guarantee.”

"5. Don't think that there's a limit to a revolutionary power's objectives
There must be limits somewhere to what the right will actually attempt to accomplish. ... I don’t know where the right’s agenda stops, but I have learned never to assume that it can be appeased through limited concessions.  Kissinger again: 'It is the essence of a revolutionary power that it possesses the courage of its convictions, that it is willing, indeed eager, to push its principles to their ultimate conclusion.' ”

Krugman concludes on a hopeful note ... or he did in 2003. "To hope for a turnaround, you have to believe that most Americans don't really support the right’s agenda—that the country as a whole is more generous, more tolerant, and less militaristic than the people now running it. ... I have a vision—maybe just a hope—of a great revulsion: a moment in which the American people look at what is happening, realize how their good will and patriotism have been abused, and put a stop to this drive to destroy much of what is best in our country.  How and when this moment will come, I don't know.  But one thing is clear: it cannot happen unless we all make an effort to see and report the truth about what is happening.

The canary in the university

The whole episode at University of Missouri has been chilling for university leadership everywhere.  Who in the world will they find to lead that institution?

But Mizzou isn't the only canary in this particular coal mine.  There's the recent row at Yale over a couple of faculty members who suggested that maybe the administration's admonishment about Halloween costumes wouldn't be necessary if only students would talk to one another about issues:

The New Intolerance of Student Activism: A fight over Halloween costumes at Yale has devolved into an effort to censor dissenting views.

And the Yale incident is even more interesting in light of the Mizzou students' behavior toward the media, the involvement of faculty and staff, and the very swift fallout:

Mizzou protesters thwart media coverage

MU professor apologizes for bullying student journalist

"The call is coming from inside the house."

I was watching the continuing wall-to-wall coverage of Donald Trump on MSNBC and the Daily Show and wondering how it is that each time he says something even more outrageous than before, his support in the polls increases.  Last night Rachel Maddow had a package about a poll asking Republicans which is more important, having a candidate who can win or one who articulates your own views.  The results were two to one in favor of a candidate who articulates your own views.  Republican voters looking for love, not electability

I take away a couple of things from this.

First off, like the trope from so many horror movies, the Republican Party should be afraid, very afraid.  Donald Trump is not calling from somewhere else, he is in the house ... and Republicans who are appalled by him need to get out of the house now.  It started with the TEA Party madness after the '08 election, but it's becoming apparent that the Republican house is home to a good number of maniacs and slashers.

But perhaps this is just the beginning of a shift that can finally break down the tyranny of our two party system.  To the extent that Trump articulates the values of the far right of the Republican Party and Bernie Sanders the values of the far left of the Democratic party, maybe we have the makings of a four party Presidential choice.  How would it be if we could choose among Trump, Bush, Clinton, or Sanders?

Probably not for the 2016 election, but maybe in the future.

Summer Reruns

According to US Intelligence Services "we" now have proof positive that the Syrians gassed their own people.  As a result the President is forced to go to war.

Sound familiar?

No, not George W. Bush.  He wanted to go to war and was all to happy to have US Intelligence Services' "proof" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

No, I was thinking about Jack Kennedy who was pulling us out of Vietnam in 1963 when Buddhist protests in Saigon suddenly turned violent with a bombing.  As a result the President was forced to go to war.

But fifty some years later we learned that it was the US Intelligence Services that planted the bombs in Saigon in order to force the US into a war the President was trying to end.

I'm just sayin'

The Unspeakable

It's Memorial Day weekend and I am preparing for all of the flags and speeches and homilies to our brave warriors and those who served the cause of peace by going to war.  For the next few days there will be no escaping the drumbeat of patriotism, militarism and exceptionalism   Never has there been a nation like ours!  No sir!  Not ever in human history.

As I brace for the onslaught I've been thinking a lot lately about the dark side of human nature.  How is it that we convince ourselves to maim and kill one another?  Much of any military organization is focused on creating a reliance on one's fellow soldiers, a band of brothers, so that when the battle starts you won't have a second thought about attacking anyone who threatens your brothers.  And then there's the dehumanization of the enemy until the solider is convinced that those he is killing aren't even human beings.

Ever talked to an 80 something veteran of the Pacific campaigns in WWII?  To this day many of them cannot help but refer to Japanese in the most vile subhuman terms.  It's how they were able to survive for the reality is that each time they pulled the trigger all those many years ago they were making a moral judgement with a lasting consequence.

It is what Thomas Merton, the pacifist Catholic priest in the 1960s, called "the unspeakable," that ugly dark part of humans that allows us to hack to death a pedestrian in London, fly airliners into skyscrapers in New York, use a drone to assassinate a wedding in Afghanistan, explode nuclear bombs on top of human beings not once but twice, or, for that matter, willingly join the armed forces (of any nation).

I find myself wondering: Is the unspeakable is just an innate part of human nature?  If so, then there's not much we can do except to hunker down and do the best we can to try to protect ourselves.

But what if the unspeakable is an evolutionary trait, a vestigial strategy that no longer serves a useful purpose?  Then it might be possible to evolve beyond the unspeakable.

Three times in my years a leader has emerged to challenge the unspeakable in stirring speech that challenged us to change, to turn away from the unspeakable, with all too predictable results.

On June 10, 1963, John F. Kennedy in his commencement address to the American University announced a ban on nuclear testing, let it be known that he was in conversations with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and implied that we ought to figure out how to get along with our neighbors in Cuba. < A Strategy for Peace >

Scarcely three months later he was killed in a conspiracy -- whether it was a conspiracy of commission or one of omission is debatable, but a conspiracy nonetheless -- among the CIA, FBI, and the military industrial complex.  As a result we did not pull out of Vietnam, did not open relations with Cuba, and did not pursue peace with Russia as JFK had intended ... and the Cold War dragged on for another 25 years consuming trillions of dollars.

Five years later, on April 5, 1968 Robert F. Kennedy, speaking the morning after Martin Luther King was assassinated, warned of what he called the mindless menace of violence.  It is a simple, short, and clarion call to renounce violence in any form for the sake of the future of humanity. < Mindeless Menace of Violence >

Just two months later RFK was killed hours after cinching the Democratic presidential nomination which almost certainly would have made him President.  He was shot to death by a peculiar gunman who somehow managed to elude all of the FBI and Secret Service security assigned to protect him.  As a consequence, Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 and the Vietnam war instead of winding down escalated and lasted another seven years killing 4,000,000 human beings.  And it set the stage for the election of fellow Californian Ronald Reagan twelve years later who spent his years completing the corporate takeover of the government.

Yesterday Barack Obama delivered an address at National Defense University speech calling out U.S. war policy, naming the insanity that is the Global War on Terror, and curtailing the CIA's secret military operations.

He called upon us to renounce the unspeakable. 

I wonder how that will turn out.

Well I get up in the morning and I get my brief
I go out and stare at the world in complete disbelief
Its not righteous indignation that makes me complain
Its the fact that I always have to explain

They’re getting bolder. Aren’t they?

President Obama appointed his deficit commission, the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform,” to take a fresh look at long range plans to resolve the Federal budget deficit. The commission was supposed to be a bipartisan and objective group, empowered to think outside the box.

As it turns out, the commission was infested from the beginning by right-wing ideologues financed by corporations and the ultra wealthy who served a “volunteer staff.” What a terrific idea, saving the government all that money by volunteering you time and expertise.

It’s difficult to say which is more troubling:

• the fact that a number of commission staffers are paid by Peter Peterson the billionaire hedge fund manager who brought us the Blackstone Investment Group debacle a couple of years ago and is now financing “Fiscal Times” (Peterson’s lackeys are saying that his organization is misunderstood and that, besides, they’ve recused themselves of any connections for the time being.); or that
• last summer commission co-chair Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), complained that that the government is "like a milk cow with 310 million tits!" (He later apologized for the remark but refused demands for his resignation.).

Nevertheless, the week the commission released the draft of the outline of their report which is due out in December. The outline relies heavily on cuts to government programs like Social Security and reductions or eliminations of many middle class tax breaks like the mortgage interest deduction. And -- Surprise! -- there’s only passing mention of the possibility of increasing revenue through tax hikes on the wealthy!

Washington Post, 11/11/10: Many deficit commission staffers paid by outside groups

 

Meet the new boss

MUMBAI, India — President Obama, fresh off a stinging electoral defeat for Democrats, opened a 10-day tour of Asia on Saturday with a courtship of corporate America, including private meetings with American business executives who are here for his visit and an announcement that he will lift longstanding restrictions on exports of closely held technologies to India.

(New York Times, November 7, 2010)


Fascism: the organization of a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems.


Fascists believe:

• The nation requires strong leadership and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong
• Individual identity and pluralism are dysfunctional aspects of society and justify a totalitarian state as a means to maintain order
• Attempts to create autonomy are an affront to the nation and a threat to order

Fascists reject:

• The autonomy of cultural or ethnic groups who are not considered part of the nation and who refuse to assimilate or are unable to be assimilated
• Opposition to the fascist state and the fascist movement
• The concepts of egalitarianism, materialism, and rationalism in favor of action, discipline, hierarchy, spirit, and will

 

Massive dislocations

Good morning campers!

It's gonna be a lot of fun keeping our eyes out for the seemingly unrelated indicators of our slip into corporate fascism ... like this from today's newspapeer:

TCF suit warns of 'massive dislocation'

TCF (a corporation, by the way), is suing the Federal Reserve (its own government regulator) arguing that the corporation is being denied its constitutional rights because the new financial reform law (ObamaFinance?) limits the fees large banks can charge on debit card transactions. According to TCF, it's a violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution because it gives unfair advantage to the little banks. And, just for good measure, they want the Court to agree that the new fee limits are an unconstitutional "taking" of the corporation's private property.

Then, just to hammer home their point, TCF threatens that unless the new law is overturned, their "return on equity" (that's profit for the owners) will be harmed so much that they'll need a government bailout to stay in business.

Massive dislocations indeed.

Afterglow in Fallujah

Good morning campers!

Remember back in 2004? Way back then -- even before the iPhone -- the locals barbecued a few Blackwater mercenaries and hung them from a bridge. In order to show them who's who, the USA bombarded the city of Fallujah for a few weeks, and then subsequently pulled out.

Well it turns out that during the intervening six years -- while we've all been busy upgrading to HD -- some very strange things have been happening in Fallujah: babies with serious birth defects (including a girl born with two heads), paralysis of the lower limbs, a 38-fold increase in leukaemia, a ten-fold increase in female breast cancer and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults.

Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'

The study, Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009, was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health and seems to confirm the use of depleted uranium munitions.

Scientific study shows soaring cancer rates in Fallujah; DU suspected

At the time -- six years ago when US consumers were waiting a year to buy a new Prius -- right thinking Americans were incensed when the US military admitted that it was using white phosphorous bombs on the citizens of Fallujah.

It turns out a little burned flesh was the least of their worries.

"Is this land made for you and me?"

When Woody Guthrie finally got sick and tired of hearing Kate Smith on the radio during World War II singing Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" he sat down and wrote an alternative narrative that he called "God Blessed America for Me."

The song didn't catch on right away.  Folk singers weren't very much in vogue what with the war going on and all.  Besides, the lyrics were a little, well, seditious ... especially for a nation that fighting the good fight -- and with God on its side:

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I'd seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;

Sign was painted, it said private property;

But on the back side it didn't say nothing;

That side was made for you and me.

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

The song was finally published in 1951 under a new title, "This Land is Your Land."  But it was the McCarthy era and these three verses were omitted from the published version that was sung by generations of school children.

More than half a century later, 90 year-old Pete Seeger restored the progressive lyrics when he performed the song at the inauguration in 2008 ...

Spectator Sports

The story about the oil tank truck crash in the Congo was on page eleven of the morning paper, sandwiched between the Wal-Mart ad and a story about American teenage girls risking eye damage as they use imported contact lenses to make their eyes look bigger.

A tank truck carrying fuel oil crashed while trying to pass a minivan in a remote village in the Congo. As the tanker started leaking oil the villagers rushed in with buckets to scoop up the precious oil. In the Congo desperately poor people often descend upon disabled oil trucks and cart the fuel away. It’s hard to find firewood for cooking and heating following years of war in which more than five million people have been killed. Fuel oil is precious.

As I am reading about the tank truck crash the CBS Sunday Morning comes on with a feature story about “new American Hero” Joey Chestnut. I’m transfixed. I’ve never heard of this guy, but it happens that this Fourth of July he is defending his world record eating 68 hot dogs in ten minutes.

There’s Joey, holed up in his Manhattan hotel room talking strategy as he prepares for the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest today. He’s won the past four years in a row. Joey talks about standards for his sport. He won't eat just anything. Cow tongues are out. But he admits he might compete in a mayonnaise eating contest depending upon the prize money.

Apparently food eating has become a spectator sport. There are rules and a regular circuit of competitions throughout the year. And Joey Chestnut is the reigning champion. There’s even a sports book where you can bet on the outcome. Joey is favored.

Meanwhile, back at the village in the Congo it’s getting dark. A villager, hoping to scoop up some more fuel oil so she can cook a hot meal for her family approaches with a kerosene lantern. The spilled fuel catches fire and the tanker explodes burning at least 220 people to death.

The death toll, which includes 61 children, was particularly high because the village was unusually crowded yesterday. One of the few places in the region where there are televisions that can receive satellite signals, soccer fans had jammed into town to watch the World Cup.

Today, it's ready, set, eat for Joey Chestnut

220 die in Congo after wrecked tanker explodes

“The past didn’t go anywhere.”

Remember those FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina? You know, the ones built with cheap insulation that caused them to fill with poisonous formaldehyde gas making them dangerously toxic for use as long-term residences. I’d assumed they were all treated as hazardous waste and scrapped, but it turns out they are back and being pedaled to desperate workers forced to take jobs cleaning up the BP oil spill.

There’s a lesson in the power of the capitalism and the free markets here …

1. Over the course of a century or so we consistently select the lowest price bidder to build dykes in New Orleans that, it turns out can’t hold back the flood surge they were designed to prevent. As a consequence hundreds of thousands are left homeless, but generations of contractors profit from government contracts and politicians get re-elected based on their tight-fisted management of taxpayers’ money.

2. In order to provide shelter for those made homeless by Hurricane Katrina (A natural disaster, after all. Who could have anticipated such a thing?), we accept the lowest price bids to provide tens of thousands of trailers to house the homeless. It turns out that the trailers are designed for nothing more than a weekend camping trip and quite dangerous if you intend to stay in them for any length of time. Nevertheless, the manufacturers profit from the government's emergency contracts and politicians run on being both compassionate (providing housing) and conservative (tearing down the public housing that existed before the storm).

3. Not wanting to waste government money, the unusable trailers are not scrapped, but instead sold as government surplus with the buyers agreeing to maintain on each one a warning label saying it is one of those FEMA trailers and unfit for human habitation. Maybe you can use it for a storage shed or something, but don’t sleep, eat, or breathe while inside. Still, they’re a bargain, sold at a deep discount price since they’re not useful for much. And we can trust the purchaser to play by the rules and re-sell them only for their new purpose.

4. BP, seeking to keep cost down, accepts the lowest price bidders and cuts all manner of corners in order to save money, which leads to a runaway oil well that poisons the Gulf Coast putting tens of thousands out of work.

5. The out-of-work take jobs cleaning up the oil but need temporary housing near the spill sites. Next the new owners of the government surplus trailers step up and offer a selection of virtually unused trailers. Nice ones, if you ignore the glue smudge near the door where the FEMA safety warning was peeled off. Perfectly good trailers. “Why they’ve still got that ‘new car smell.’ ”

Utah Phillips was right when he said, “The past didn’t go anywhere.”

Will the circle be unbroken?

The British media reports that BP is preparing to suspend dividend payments to shareholders in order to placate U.S. public opinion:

BP plans to defer dividend after pressure from Obama

So let's see ...

Taking full advantage of U.S. de-regulation which began with Ronald Reagan and the Bush tradition of weak enforcement of the few rules that do exist, BP drills a high risk well without adequate safety preparation which blows up creating an extinction level ecological disaster that pisses off the normally complacent and anti-government U.S. citizenry who demand that their government do something which threatens to boil over into an international incident causing BP to eliminate its dividends so that the British pensioner whose retirement nest egg is mostly invested in blue chip BP stock winds up eating cat food three nights a week while U.S. citizens continue to drive their 6,000 pound S.U.V.s to tea party rallies where they wistfully recall the Reagan era and loudly complain that their taxes are too high and that the Obama administration is killing jobs.

Is that about right?

Is it any wonder these people hate us? Soon we're going to have to expand the Global War on Terror beyond just the little brown people in the middle east with funny names.

Hadrian's Wall

Every so often I think about getting it all together and finally making a trip to England for a couple of weeks to walk the "Hadrian’s Wall trail." But, in the end, there’s always some obstacle: job transitions, kids getting married, statin myopathy, you name it.

My fascination with this part of the world and its history goes back to high school when I first heard Roger Waters’ "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict" on the Pink Floyd album Ummagumma. Who knew what a “Pict” was?

Then, just a few years ago, there was Mel Gibson playing William Wallace in Braveheart noting that it was particularly good traveling weather because “The rain is falling straight down. Well, slightly to the side like.” Of course Wallace wound up painting his face blue and meeting a violent end.

Who wouldn’t want to visit such a place? And so, once again, I sat down to peruse Web sites and dream about the trip.

But enter “Hadrian’s Wall” and what do the Internets serve up this morning? The first listing is ”Hadrian Manufacturing" the foremost supplier of toilet wall partitions and lockers. (The current highlighted feature is their new high-tech powder coating that defies graffiti.)

And then, there it is, right on their “Our Story" page, a detailed homage to Emperor Hadrian explaining his attempt to wall off the barbarians and tracing the history right down through the centuries, a direct link to today’s public toilet stall.

What a relief! I need not travel all the way to England to experience Hadrian’s Wall, the trail is as close as the nearest Target store restroom. I may be able to make this trip before I die after all.

Sleep at last

Slept really well last night. Is it possible that something like this only costs you a couple of nights sleep? Then had breakfast this morning with a former colleague. We worked together ten years ago. She's still at the old place and has done very well for herself. And she's very affirming. With my reputation and name recognition she can't imagine I'll have any difficulty. I hope she's right, and I wish I was quite so optimistic.

She's also the first one I've told outside of the organization and my immediate family. But now there's no time to waste, so I start sending e-mails and leaving voice mails for people around the country. Almost nobody is available live when you call them anymore, and it's a blessing. Those few I do manage to talk to are disbelieving and generally critical of my employer for making such a huge mistake. It feels very good.

Peering round the corner

It's odd how you react. I haven't been to Starbucks in two days. In fact, I haven't spent a penny since Monday afternoon. I'm turning the lights off because I can't be sure how long I'll be able to pay the electric bill and I'm thinking two meals a day is doable several days a week. I know, as a rational matter, that these are obsessive reactions, but I think it must be a feeling that at least I'm doing something.

The organization is pissing me off now. It's sure seems like this decision was impulsive. HR has nothing and no one can tell me anything about details like possible severance arrangements, timing of transfers, nothing. If you're going to mess with someone's life like this, you damned well ought to have the details worked out in advance.

Late yesterday I sent an e-mail to our department reiterating what I'd told them at the meeting. As in all organizations, this departmental e-mail has now been circulated far and wide. A few people are calling and e-mailing. It's very nice and affirming. What's awkward are the ones who don't know what to say when they see me. I've taken to just naming the situation and then they're okay talking to me. This must be something like what happens when you've gotten a diagnosis of cancer or something.

This afternoon I'll start calling and e-mailing people on the outside. Sometime pretty quick here I've got to start looking for a job, and there's no sense what-so-ever in keeping this thing a secret.

Done.

Well that wasn't as hard as I'd feared ... that is if you don't mind out-of-body experiences.

My managers and I met this morning and quickly concluded that there was no reason to delay the announcement. Word spreads fast in this organization and rumours would be all over the place by the afternoon. Although I think we all were hoping that if we waited there would be some better reason or explanation, it was better to go with what we know: I'm leaving in a few weeks, most of them are staying for now.

So, we convened the group, three locations, two on conference call, and I just said it: "I met with the new CEO yesterday afternoon and he informed me that my position is being eliminated. March 6th will be my last day with you. The new CEO told me that he has great confidence in the work of our department and will look forward to meeting you as a group sometime next month."

Everyone was great. Most were sad, but they all were quietly relived. I surprised myself at how unemotional I felt.

Telling them the truth

I am ... or was ... or will be for a few weeks still ... responsible for a division with about two dozen employees at our organization. As recently as last summer there were more than thirty but in two rounds of last fall and winter I had to lay-off about ten people.

As hard as that was, each time it was a struggle to keep morale and spirits up for those who were continuing in their jobs. There was no hiding the fear in their faces as they filed in for a hastily called meeting. And then the strange conflicting relief and sadness as they realized it wasn't them but it was their friend in the next cubicle.

"There's nothing to be gained by worrying about what might happen. It's beyond any of our control. The best advice I can give you is to do what I'm trying to do: spend your time doing things to make yourself more valuable to the organization," I'd tell them. "And even that might not be enough."

I didn't realize how true that last part was.

This morning I'll meet with my managers group and we'll figure out what we want to say. Then we'll convene another of those hastily called meetings. And they'll leave with conflciting feelings again.

One of 50,000 laid off this week

Today it happened. To me. I should have known something was up when the Monday afternoon executive team meeting was cancelled with no reason offfered. I only began to get mildly anxious when three of the six Senior VPs, including me, had meetings scheduled one-hour apart in the afternoon with the new CEO. But honestly, I didn't really believe it when the first SVP came into my office with the news, "He's going to sack all three of us, March 6th is my last day."

But he did. Just like that. "I've decided to go forward without you. March sixth will be your last day. Please see HR for the details and let me know when you have." He said other stuff too, but the funny thing is, just like they tell you in manager training, I didn't hear a thing after the first sentence.

So, I've got a lot to do in the next couple of days. But I think I'll try to use this space to keep some sort of running commentary as this new adventure unfolds.

First is my wife of 30+ years. "He's decided to eliminate my position." It seems so matter of fact. I'm so fortunate. I can't imagine what it would be like to go through this alone.

Next a series of phone calls to my "direct reports." They're disbelieving. We make a plan to meet first thing tomorrow morning and decide how to tell the rest of the staff.

The tease for the late news is something about the number of unemployed. Yesterday those headlines were more hypothetical.

Articles of Impeachment

Yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives, Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced a 35-count impeachment resolution against President George W. Bush. The detailed indictment outlines a litany of high crimes and misdemeanors and shows why George W. Bush deserves to be impeached and removed from office for violating his oath of office and his Constitutional duty that the laws be "faithfully executed."

Kucinich's impeachment resolution comes after revelations contained in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report that confirmed, once and for all, (and with the vote of two Republican Senators), that President Bush lied the American people into war.

Big news, right?

Not according to this morning's newspaper where the front page featured: plans for a suburban minor league baseball stadium; flooding in Wisconsin; poisonous tomatoes (though no cases of illness have been reported ... yet); a continuing series on sexual offenders; and a little piece explaining that it stinks to live next to a cattle feedlot.

Nope. You had to go all the way to Russia to find coverage of the articles of impeachment against George Bush: U.S. congressman moves to impeach Bush - Novosti (Russian news Agency)

Who ya gonna trust?

The United States is holding hostage some $50 billion of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. We've refused to even consider giving them their money until they agree to three conditions:

1) more than fifty permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq;
2) allow American forces to continue to carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens and conduct military campaigns without consultation with the Iraqi government; and,
3) guarantee legal immunity for American soldiers and contractors.

The Federal Reserve holds Iraq’s financial reserves as result of the international sanctions against Saddam Hussein.

What is more, U.S. negotiators are threatening to permanently remove tens of billions of dollars of Iraq’s money as settlement of outstanding court judgments dating back to the 1980s unless Iraq immediately accepts the highly controversial military deal.

U.S. holding Iraqi funds for security deal - U.P.I.

100% Disabled

John McCain is 100% disabled, according to the U.S. Navy, and collected a U.S. government disability pension of $58,358 (tax free) last year. He's drawn that pension for more than 30 years even though his net worth is in excess of $150 million.

Last week the Presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee voted against veterans' benefits legislation explaining that, because a college tuition benefit would be available after three years of service, the legislation would "encourage more people to leave the military after they have completed one enlistment... at a time when the United States military is fighting in two wars."

Of course none of that was front page news. Instead the big news was the Obama's fist pound, headlined on Fox News as "A terrorist fist jab."

We're all 100% disabled.

I wonder

Like the unfolding of one of those spy thriller novels, I can't help wonder what form it will take.

A plane crash? Dramatic and, initially at least, no one to blame for the sad tragedy. Of course there would be an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board that could drag on for years.

An assassination? What it lacks in subtlety it more than makes up in efficiency and effectiveness. And heaven knows the American people are all too willing to accept lone gunman cover stories.

What about a suicide bomber? Now there's a nice current events twist.

A crazed Islamofascist brings down the young, attractive, and energetic best remaining hope for change in America.

Then there would be a period of unrest, rioting in the streets all across the country.

Strong leadership would be required to restore order, to protect the citizens.

Indeed, the Bush administration's maneuvering to suspend posse comitatus and allow the deployment of military forces in the streets of American cities would seem down right prescient.

And the foresight to contract Halliburton to build detention centers around the country? Sheer brilliance.

But it's only a novel. Thank goodness it can't happen here.