Political commentary

Dead or Alive

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A friend of mine wrote a short story a few weeks after September 11, 2001. In the story, Osama bin Laden is about to go on trial–a civilian trial, by the way, since the whole military tribunal mess hadn’t yet occurred–but his attorney argues successfully that bin Laden can’t get a fair trial in America. The fictional judge reluctantly agrees and releases bin Laden into the streets of New York City then sits in his chambers and listens to the people exact their revenge.

An insightful and thoughtful story, but one that was fiction. The reality we know now is that had we captured bin Laden alive, we would have remitted him somewhere and eventually tried him before a secret military tribunal. There is no doubt what the outcome of that trial would have been. In the meantime, however, no American would have been safe anywhere in the world. An exaggeration? Remember when the United States admitted the exiled Shah of Iran for cancer treatment? Employees of our embassy in Tehran became pawns in that clash of wills for more than a year. Remember, too, the failed hostage rescue attempt that left U.S. aircraft in a hostile country to provide intelligence to the Iranians on who inside their country had helped the U.S. More than anything else, the failed Operation Eagle Claw assured Jimmy Carter wouldn’t get re-elected.

The reality is, as much as I believe in justice and rule of law, neither of those mattered to Osama bin Laden. We were the “other,” the non-believers, unworthy in his eyes. He gave no quarter, and, I suspect, he would have wanted none. Though I would have preferred we had afforded him that, he died as he lived, and he can no longer be the monster under the bed, the boogeyman in the closet, that Republicans have held up as an excuse for suborning our Constitution in the near decade since September 11, 2001. In some aspects, this was the only way to take the burden of his actions off America’s back. They have weighed us down far too long.

We will find the closure temporary and fleeting, but some closure is better than living with the mythos of bin Laden indefinitely. It is disturbing, though, that while they had the White House, the Republicans invoked bin Laden’s name to justify all sorts of sordid acts; yet, they were the ones who stopped the operation in Tora Bora that would have captured him in 2001. There were tastier fish to fry in Iraq. The President who initially explained his feelings about bin Laden by alluding to Old West Wanted: Dead or Alive posters, soon moved on and didn’t think too much about the man who approved a “martyr operation” that cost the lives of 3,000+ Americans on a bright, beautiful September day.

In the year of the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001, we have a President thought by some to be unseasoned, too soft on terrorism, too equivocating. Despite that, he asked for options, received three, and picked the most risky. It’s failure would have been his own Operation Eagle Claw, and he could have kissed any hope of re-election goodbye. But the execution was nearly flawless, and I think that for a nanosecond as bin Laden looked on the Navy Seal who put two bullets in him, he knew an American had put him to death, as he had put Americans to death. There is satisfaction in that coming full circle. There is closure in that.

As the daughter of a re-conn soldier from World War II and the cousin of one of the first Green Berets, I acknowledge our Special Forces as some of the best military in the world. I doubt any other special forces could have accomplished what Seal Team 6 did. Behind them they had good intelligence, obtained in an “old-fashioned” manner by time-honored tradecraft, not the torture so gleefully discussed in the previous Administration. And though we didn’t know about it until after the fact, they carried the hopes of the American people with them. Now, we can finally say, to some extent, and not be laughed at, Mission Accomplished.

And yet, I do not rejoice in Osama bin Laden’s death. Am I glad he’s gone? Yes. By not rejoicing, I’m one-up on him because he undoubtedly rejoiced in any American’s death at the hands of an Afghan or Iraqi or any other member of the religion he subverted for his own ends. I’m not so naive to think his death is the end of al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is a concept, not something tangible we can destroy irrevocably. We have, however, diminished its importance and standing. Coupled with the Arab Spring, we are moving toward reducing al Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden, to a footnote in history.

Let’s not forget, however, who created Osama bin Laden. In the 1980’s, so deep in our Cold War paranoia, we moved heaven and earth to deal a defeat to the Soviet Union. We armed an insurgency, used their religion to unite and motivate them, to make them zealots, encouraged young Arab men from other countries to go to Afghanistan to fight the godless Soviets. We promoted jihad. We created our own mercenary army of religious fanatics, and Osama bin Laden was among the ranks. So, why were we surprised when our creation turned against us?

What Really Motivates the Birthers?

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Just coincidentally a week or so ago, I was looking for something in my desk and came across an envelope with my mother’s handwriting on it. Just one word–“Important.” I had a vague memory of seeing it when I was going through papers after her death, so I decided to open it. Guess what I discovered? A Certificate of Live Birth.

For some reason I needed a copy of my certificate of live birth in 1990 and sent for it. The certificate itself is a Xerox on elaborately bordered, special paper (manufactured by the American Bank Note Company, no less), which bears the words, “Certification of Vital Record.” It was produced by the Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Health, Division of Vital Records. At the bottom right is the seal of the Virginia Department of Health. At the bottom left is a raised version of that same seal. In tiny print at the bottom, it reads, “This is to certify that this is a true and correct reproduction or abstract of the official record filed with the Virginia Department of Health, Richmond, Virginia.” That’s followed by the photocopied signature of the then State Registrar.

It has a birth number and all sorts of interesting statistical information. Of particular note is box 15 “Birthplace (State or foreign country)”. Typed in is the word, “Virginia.” Not, Virginia, USA; just Virginia. As certified by the doctor attending, a Dr. Jones–hmm, that sounds like a made-up name, doesn’t it–it even includes the time of birth: 2:20 a.m.

All of this bureaucratic information, the birth number, the raised seal, even the facsimile of the original record, etc., is reminiscent of the Certificate of Live Birth for Barack Hussein Obama, which I’ve viewed at Politifact.com, a 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner, by the way. However, according to Donald Trump and other birthers, there is a question as to whether I was really born in Virginia, because for them, a certificate of live birth doesn’t cut it.

I guess my mother and father conspired before my birth to make me a bureaucrat in a Federal agency, so they submitted false information to the Commonwealth of Virginia so it would appear I was born there. How devious is that?

Then, deeper in the envelope, I found a 1976 version of my certificate of live birth. Though the middle portion of this version is the exact same record as the 1990 version, the whole certificate is a Xerox. Uh, oh. I now have two versions of my certificate of live birth. Highly questionable. The information on both versions match to every letter and comma, but two versions? I better not run for office–I have my own conspiracy in the making.

Then, there’s the whole matter of one citizen verbally abusing another citizen over the production of a “long form” birth certificate. I went to Virginia’s state government Web site and searched for “long form birth certificate.” No hits. Apparently, either of my two versions of my certificate of live birth is a long form birth certificate because it’s the only birth certificate Virginia issues.

I am still amazed that we’re discussing this in America. I’ve written before about how my mother and her family came to America when she was very young and how a town in Virginia “adopted” them, got them SSN’s, and any other government form a citizen would need. So, yes, I’m an anchor baby, apparently. The fact that my mother wasn’t a citizen didn’t come to light until the late 1970’s when she and my father were supposed to go to the Soviet Union at the request of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for an agricultural expo. She simply refused to apply for a passport, and my father finally figured it out and decided it would be way too complicated to get her “established” as a citizen. They didn’t go. Several flags got raised, but my mother was never investigated. She even served several times on juries. The difference, of course, was my mother looked like the majority of people in the country at the time she immigrated. She was European and white, not of African descent and dark, like our President.

And that, my dear Watson, is the crux of the matter and the answer to the question I posed in the title of this post. Would anyone be questioning the validity of President Obama’s certificate of live birth if he were as white as Sen. John McCain? Of course not. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone when his father, on active duty in the military, was stationed there. That should hold the same concern for the ignorant Tea Baggers who raise the issue of the President’s birth, but it doesn’t. (By the way, children born overseas to American citizens, whether on active duty in the military or not, are U.S. citizens, but you have to dig into the law to know that, and we all know the Tea Baggers only go for the superficial.)

Most people and the media, as usual, have tried to overlook the overt racism in Trump’s and the other birthers’ claims, saying it’s just politics as usual. No, it’s not. Every time Trump or Bachmann or the half-governor of Alaska or any of the other self-aggrandizing publicity hogs mentions that the President may not have been born here or questions why he doesn’t produce that elusive long form birth certificate, call them on their racism. Point out exactly what they are–so insecure we have a President who doesn’t look like them that they have to resort to childish finger-pointing and bullying. They are racists, plain and simple. That, not patriotism, is their sole motivation.

Not Intended to be Factual Statements

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Imagine what life would be like if, every time we say something stupid, we could just shrug and say, “I didn’t intend that to be a factual statement.” Then, everyone who heard the stupidity would just smile and say, “Sure, no problem. Of course you didn’t intend that to be a factual statement.”

That begs the question, what is a non-factual statement? Why, I think everyone from my grandmother to my old English teacher to a priest or two I had respect for would say, “It’s a lie.”

Those of us on the left–excuse me, we liberals–have been the only ones up in arms about Sen. John Kyl’s  (R.-AZ) pontificating on the floor of the Senate about how 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortions. Once Planned Parenthood pointed out to the media that the percentage was more like three, Kyl’s spokesperson indicated to the media that Kyl hadn’t intended that to be a “factual statement.”

Oh, I see. Even if you accept that politicians lie–and they do–that admission by Kyl’s spokesperson, the glibness of it, is disgusting. Set aside the disrespect against an organization which has done more for women’s health than the nail on John Kyl’s pinky. I knew and know women–myself included before I joined up with Uncle Sam and got health insurance–who went to Planned Parenthood for medical examinations and tests exclusive to women. I know women who went to Planned Parenthood to be diagnosed and treated for sexually transmitted diseases because if they went to their hometown doctors it would be too embarrassing. And yes, I know a few women who went to Planned Parenthood to get a referral for an abortion because that was the only way they could afford it.

Planned Parenthood doesn’t push abortion, but if a woman asks for one, Planned Parenthood makes no judgements but does make certain she gets a safe procedure. And everything else you go to Planned Parenthood for–routine medical screenings and cancer tests–you get treated like a human being, a person, not just a group health plan number.

Kyl was pontificating to make a political point and to advance his and the Republicans’ social agenda. (Mr. Boehner, where are those jobs y’all ran on and promised?) But, apparently, he also has sway with the Congressional Record. When the edition came out reflecting the Senate proceedings on the day Mr. Kyl made his unintended factual statement, the transcript didn’t reflect the 90% figure. The entire statement was edited to make it almost innocuous. Well, thank goodness for C-SPAN. We can still view the video, unless Kyl somehow manages a judicious edit of that, too.

So, what’s my long-winded point?

Politicians lie, but lately Republican politicians and potential Republican Presidential candidates have dropped some whoppers on us. We shouldn’t shrug this off as more of the same. We should be worried.

I could say, “I didn’t intend any of the above to be a factual statement,” but that would be a lie.

P.S. Something I thought I’d never say–way to go, Gov. Jan Brewer. She of the draconian and unconstitutional immigration bill showed amazing good sense in vetoing Arizona’s birther legislation. Will wonders never cease?
_____________________

And this post’s homage to National Poetry Month acknowledges the other half of my heritage. Last post I printed a Seamus Heaney poem (and managed, with my bad typing to misspell his last name). Here then, enjoy Robert Burns’ “Lament for Culloden.”

The lovely lass o’ Inverness,
    Nae joy nor pleasure can she see;
For e’en and morn, she cries, “Alas!”
    And aye the saut tear blin’s her e’e:
“Drumossie moor, Drumossie day,
    A waefu’ day it was to me!
For there I lost my father dear,
    My father dear and brethren three.


“Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay,
    Their graves are growing green to see;
And by them lies the dearest lad
    That ever blest a woman’s e’e!
Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,
    A bluidy man I trow thou be;
For monie a heart thou hast made sair,
    That ne’er did wrang to thine or thee.”

A Woman for all Seasons

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I had to take time to process that we lost Geraldine Ferraro, and I still find it hard to believe that the vibrant, active woman who stood toe-to-toe with George H. W. Bush in the Vice Presidential debate (She belonged there, and she knew it.), who sparred brilliantly with the idiots at Fox News, who told multiple generations of women that a woman as President was achievable, is gone.

The utter excitement I felt when Walter Mondale selected her as his running mate was beyond words for me. Yet, it’s still amazing to me that even in 1984–that infamous year–having a woman running mate wasn’t just a novelty, it was a first. She maintained her dignity through all the sexist hoopla, the nasty political cartoons that lampooned her gender, the bogus campaign slogan “Fritz and Tits,” and she was an excellent campaigner. I wasn’t as excited about Mondale as I was about Ferraro, but I thought at last we have our foot in the door at the highest levels of politics.

I was furious with Barbara Bush–frankly, I’ve never been an admirer–during her interview with Connie Chung. The whole tenor of the interview was an unspoken “how dare this woman challenge my husband.” When asked what she thought of Ferraro, the first woman on a Presidential slate, Bush could have, should have said, “What a tremendous step forward for women!” What she actually said was, “I can’t say it, but it rhymes with rich.” Bush insisted she meant witch, not bitch, but I think we know exactly which she meant. To her credit Bush indicated years later that she had apologized to Ferraro about the remark.

Ferraro had a life of public service, starting as a teacher. After becoming a lawyer, she was an assistant District Attorney in New York. She created a special victims unit that handled cases involving crimes against children and the elderly as well as sexual abuse and domestic violence cases. First elected to Congress in 1978, she rose quickly in the Democratic party and earned the reputation of being an outspoken critic of Reagonomics. Passage of the Equal Rights Amendment was something for which she fought tirelessly, even in the face of obvious defeat. She had hope before it became pop culture.

Ferraro brought energy to that 1984 campaign, but she and Mondale were up against the incumbents Reagan and Bush. However, she treated every speech and every event as if she and Fritz Mondale had a chance. In probably the sleaziest act in that campaign, when her opponents’ party didn’t want to attack her head on and appear sexist, they went at her through her husband’s financial affairs. (It turns out he did have some shady business dealings, namely fraudulently obtaining financing for a real estate venture. He pled guilty and served 150 hours of community service. A later indictment and trial for bribery resulted in acquittal.)

After that campaign Ferraro brought her energy and drive to journalism and other issues, especially human rights. She tried twice to become a senator from New York. One race was dogged again by questions about her husband’s finances, and she lost by a narrow margin. On another occasion she lost in the primaries for the nomination. Speculation was that she had stayed away from politics too long, but that was when politics in this country started to become particularly nasty. I think she was too good a person to lower herself to that kind of mud. In 2008, she was a Hillary Clinton supporter and advisor, but when she pointed out that America could accept an African-American President more than a woman President, charges of racism arose. As with many things, her remarks were taken out of context, but it cost her a place in Clinton’s campaign and the vast contributions she could have made to the Obama Administration.

Geraldine Ferraro was intelligent, dedicated, and did not suffer fools lightly. She was a woman I admired greatly, and I had the privilege of attending several functions where she was the speaker. I will never forget her sense of humor, her outrage at injustice, and her steadfast support of her ideals. This is a loss to all Americans, but especially to us “first generation” of political feminists who saw in her possible election such hope for the future, a future not yet fulfilled.

And a note to the half-governor of Alaska: You did not stand on her shoulders. She wouldn’t have let you. She would have taken you aside and pointed out just what your failings are; namely, you’re no Geraldine Ferraro and never will be.

Comments and Such

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On the proposed bill in the Georgia legislature which would make it a crime to have an abortion or a miscarriage, either of which would be punishable by life in prison or the death penalty–Really? Are you nuts? Aren’t you the same rightwingnut jobs who are worried about Sharia law taking over the U.S.? If you want to get a glimpse of a world amid such laws as this, read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

On Karl Rove wanting to hold the Obama Administration accountable for FOIA responses: During the eight years when Rove was whatever he was in the White House, government agencies were told that FOIA responses were not a priority. When 9/11 happened that gave them justification. Almost anything was classified as “national security” and didn’t have to be answered. Before the Bush 2 Administration, we were held accountable up the line to the agency Administrator for timely FOIA responses. This is the height of hypocrisy and, well, craven.

On Donald Trump going “birther”: I’ve never had any admiration whatsoever for this particular capitalist, but after his questioning whether Obama was really born here just shows that he’s nuts and anyone who votes for him is likewise.

On bombing the crap out of Libya: I still don’t know how I feel about this. I don’t want to knee-jerk to the usual progressive position because bombing the crap out of Milosevic’s army got the point across about ethnic cleansing. However, cruise missiles are expensive, especially when you think about how many teachers that money could hire.

On Ann “Give Me a Radiation Vaccine” Coulter and Andrew “Selective Video Editing” Breitbart indicating that the Presidency is “beneath” She Who Shall Not Be Named: Am I in Superman’s Bizarro World? I can’t think of anyone who would diminish the institution of the Presidency more than the Half Governor of Alaska, and I thought Bush 2 did a good job of it.

On Ron and/or Rand Paul running for President: Welcome to the fascist Ayn Rand-verse and returning high-volume flush toilets to the market. No, Ayn Rand’s books are not great literature. They’re fascist trash, and I’m not waiting for John Galt.

On the first anniversary of the passage of health care reform: Thanks for removing the pre-existing condition block, thanks for letting kids stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26, thanks for making certain insurance companies can’t drop kids who get sick, and all the other positive aspects contained in the law. Now, let’s work on improving it by passing single-payer health insurance.

On Congress’ record of job production since the Repubs took over: Mr. Boehner, where are the effing jobs? Get your heads out of culture warfare and do the people’s business.

On “unaffiliated” being the fastest-growing religious group: Thank God! (That was a joke.)

On pictures of U.S. soldiers posing with the bodies of dead civilians: Gentlemen–and I use that term loosely–you disgrace your uniform and your country with these juvenile stunts, though I understand you’ve been conditioned not to think of the enemy as human beings. They are, and think how your mother would feel if a Talib posed with your body as if it were a trophy, because idiotic stunts like yours will only affect your fellow soldiers. I have a few more words for you: dishonorable discharge and Levinworth.

On the death of Elizabeth Taylor: Seventy-nine was too young, and she’ll always be timeless to me as Velvet Brown in National Velvet. She was, as some have said, the last Star, and her talent and her humanity were immeasurable. If I believed in heaven, I’d say she and Richard Burton were having a longed for, grand reunion about now.

Pretty Little Boxes

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From the 1964 Presidential race, I remember the anti-Goldwater commercial of the cute, little blonde girl singing sweetly and plucking petals from a flower, then the blossoming nuclear mushroom cloud obliterated her–or so we were supposed to think. For the 1960’s it was pretty graphic and controversial, but it got the point across about the differences between Goldwater and LBJ.

You could say I’m a child of the nuclear age. Born seven years after my country used nukes on Japan, I grew up with talk of bomb shelters, mutually assured destruction, and the nuclear arms race. Those of us born in the 1950’s just assumed we’d all eventually die in a nuclear holocaust because everywhere we turned people in authority were telling us just that. (Probably why some of my favorite science fiction is post-apocalyptic.) In first or second grade we had to bring a shoe box to school. The teacher let us decorate it however we wanted (mine had horses, of course) and put our names on it. Then, a list went home to our parents–things we had to bring in to put in the box. I can remember a bar of soap, a washcloth and small towel, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a deck of cards. I’m sure there were other items that have faded from memory. After we put our items in our pretty little boxes, we lined up to place them on a shelf in the storage cabinet in our classroom.

Then came the drills. The school bell would ring in a way different from recess or end of the day. We would practice getting up from our desks then crouching under them, our arms over our heads–duck and cover. After a few minutes of that, we lined up to take our boxes from the cabinet, then we filed, with the rest of the classes, down the hallway to the door that led to the school’s basement. I remember a dark, cramped place, but, damn, the teachers made it out to be lots of fun. They’d even continue with classes to a degree, then an hour or so later, another bell would sound, and we’d march back up to our classes, tuck our boxes away, and proceed as normal until the next drill. The teacher taught us about fallout and how practicing going to the basement would help us not be “affected” by fallout and how we’d have so much fun spending all our time in the basement–like a camping trip! Woo hoo! I’d never been camping at that point, so it all seemed so exciting.

In a way only a six or seven year old can, I told my Dad all about it the next time he came home on a pass. I suppose because he so often got sent to West Berlin where he had to sit in his tank in gear supposedly to keep radiation from affecting him, he wasn’t terribly impressed. Even though we were nearly 60 miles away from Washington, DC, “a probable target,” he explained, there would be no time to get to shelter. Fallout, he explained, was the least of our worries since the heat blast would flash-burn us before we could get out of our chairs to duck and cover.

Scared the crap out of me, but my Dad never sugar-coated anything.

As the years passed and we began to rely on the concept of a “nuclear standoff”–meaning neither side wanted to destroy the earth–those Civil Defense drills grew fewer and fewer in number. School basement fallout shelters went over to storage space, and a whole generation of children grew up wondering what a fallout shelter was. Eventually, after I became a science geek, I fell for the idea that we could put nukes to “peaceful uses,” like power plants that produced electricity without polluting the air. And what about “spent fuel rods” and “nuclear waste?” Well, we’re a brilliant country; we’ll figure something out, like making the moon a nuclear garbage dump or some such. No need to worry.

Except that I wasn’t yet a government employee and had no idea about the concept of “lowest bidder” in government (local or federal) contracting. When the “partial meltdown” at Three Mile Island occurred a month before my 27th birthday, the nuclear fear returned. If Three Mile Island didn’t turn me completely away from the nuclear alternative for energy, Chernobyl did. Where TMI was human error overcoming a safe design, Chernobyl was poor design to cut corners and save money in a failing Soviet economy. TMI was the “what if.” Chernobyl was the reality of an out of control nuclear pile meltdown, the effects of which Ukraine will experience for generations to come.

One of my increasing number of disappointments with President Obama was his focus on nuclear as a “clean” energy option. How something whose “waste” has a half-life of 500,000 years is clean is beyond me. Now, I’m no Luddite. I don’t want the ones in use to be shut down immediately; we’ve become dependent on that electricity production. I would like to see no new nuclear power plants built and increased inspections of those near fault lines. (Amazing how Repubs like to cut funds for all sorts of safety inspections.) I would like to see them phased out as we find alternatives we know won’t cause a different kind of nuclear apocalypse, the kind facing Japan right now. And frankly, as long as we dabble with nuclear plant generated electricity, we have no incentive to either acknowledge we’re past the peak of oil availability or to explore safer alternative energy sources.

A before picture of the reactors at Fukushima shows us pretty little, high tech boxes lined up on a shelf near a seashore. The after picture is from one of my post-apocalyptic nightmares. Find that picture, print it, pin it on your wall. And remember.