CatherineRhodes.com

This generation's JFK moment

News this morning of bin Laden’s capture reminds me of that intense day in September a decade ago. I was living in the house on Van Ness with my ex-husband Rick, and the kids were still in elementary school. We were asleep when the phone rang — Rick’s sister in New York on a production job, who said, “go turn on your TV.” He went down to the TV room for awhile, then called for me, you gotta come see this. I settled into the room just in time to see the second tower hit. We started calling everyone we knew — can you believe it? The horror of it all, seeing those skyscrapers collapse, and people jumping to their death. The kids woke up and eventually we got dressed and went to school late. At the Oaks, parents and teachers were knotted in groups in the hallways and classrooms talking. The rumors were flying: there was another plane headed for Los Angeles to attack the twin towers in Century City — it was built by the same architect you know.

Around 10:30 we left for the office. A couple of our employees didn’t come to work. They felt too jittery to be in an office building, even a benign 20-story structure in Mid-Wilshire inhabited by Koreans. We worked mindlessly for a couple of hours then went home to watch TV, that’s all we wanted to do. Watch the news and collectively absorb the shock.

Soon after Obama was elected, David Alexrod went on Jon Stewart where he was asked whether POTUS is a Zen Master with a secret plan for the country. Axelrod laughed. The people who elected him hoped for a new era, but during the past few years the “professional left” has become disillusioned. As Matt Taibbi, doing the brilliant reporting on the financial meltdown for Rolling Stone, wrote in his blog:

As for Obama, I just disagree that he did all he could, in health care or elsewhere. I just don’t fall for the storyline that deep down inside he wants to do all these wonderful progressive things, but is halted by political circumstance….I’ve given up the idea that he could be a champion for any kind of real reform of anything.

My opinion isn’t quite that sharp, but it does seem that he’s thrown Czechoslovakia to the Republicans — caving on the public option, not launching healthcare until 1914, signing an anemic financial reform bill — almost as if he wanted to be accepted by the Republicans. They like me, they really like me.

Then I went to dinner with some of my smart GFs, who suggested that Obama has been laying the groundwork during his first term, being conciliatory enough to get a second term where the real magic can happen without worry of re-election. This is the “Zen Master” school.

Then the hot mic moment happened, where it all became clear that he gets it, that he is not being duped by the Right, giving hope that his public persona is a measured performance designed to move onto Term 2: The Revenge of the Progressives.

I used to beg my dad to take me off his email blast, but now I see it for what it is — a window to the worldview of the extreme right. How else would I know about Rand Paul’s email newsletter where he points out that one million rifles were “banned by a stroke of Obama’s pen” — which my dad forwarded to his vast list of like-minded buddies, adding:

Friends and fellow Patriots:
Any bill sponsored to ban this gun and taking a law abiding citizen’s right to bear arms is legislation that has fallen into the wrong hands, not guns. “Outlaw guns and only criminals will have guns.”   I guess if all our guns are taken away then we will be forced to make a run on government with pitchforks.  Bruce

THE STATS DON’T LIE

I went back and forth with my dad on the issue of gun control. The reality is that it’s too late to control guns in America, that horse left the barn long ago. Even if the so-called”government” wanted to go door-to-door and collect them up it would be impossible. So my take is not about limiting firearms within society, but rather on the individual level — just because you can own a gun legally doesn’t mean you should.

From the completely non-political American Academy of Pediatrics, whose slogan is “dedicated to the health of all children,” come these facts:

More than 44 million Americans own firearms. Of the 192 million firearms owned in the United States, 65 million are handguns. Research shows guns in homes are a serious risk to families. A gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill someone known to the family than to kill someone in self-defense.

43 times, people. 43 times. A gun owner is 43 times more likely to use his gun on a family member, a neighbor or himself than against an intruder. Better to get the iPhone Gun App. Completely safe and free to download.

People forget that the top tax rate during the 1950s was 91 percent

Howard Stern (of all people) had a terrific insight. He was on Jon Stewart and said, “you’re like a voice of reason.” Indeed. Especially regarding a segment Jon did this past week comparing the Fox News coverage of the millionaire tax cuts vs. the greed of the unionized teachers. It’s shocking how manipulated Fox’s viewers are by the powerful elite that controls the broadcast. Sad. VERY sad. Anyway, Jon Stewart observed that their intention is to create class warfare — with the middle class pitted against each other.

It’s all summed up in this joke:

A Wall Street CEO, a tea party member, and a union worker are all sitting at a table when a plate with a dozen cookies arrives. Before anyone else can make a move, the Wall Streeter reaches out to rake in 11 of the cookies. When the other two look at him in surprise, the CEO locks eyes with the tea party member. “You better watch him,” the executive says with a nod toward the union worker. “He wants a piece of your cookie.”

It’s one of those depressing stories over at Kos today shows in a microcosm exactly what is wrong with our value structure in this country.

The story is how scientists doing cutting-edge research in particle physics are abandoning the effort because they cannot find the $35 million to keep their telescope operating. By contrast, this is where the money is spent:

In the first three months of this fiscal year, the war in Afghanistan alone cost $4.3 billion a month. Which comes out to nearly $139 million a day. Which comes out to over $5.75 million an hour. Which means we’ve been spending more on the war in Afghanistan just over every six hours than is needed to continue searching for the most coveted particle in high-energy physics. For a year. Does this sound like a nation looking toward the future, or a nation in decline?

I’m loving Jon Stewart these days even more than my usual adoration for him which knows no bounds. The joker-philosopher, such a strange concept, although my dad used to say, many a truth spoken in jest.

After Tucson, he did a long serious monologue on the shootings, not blaming Sarah Palin and her bullseye targets or even the so-called contentious political environment. Rather, holding strong with the belief that ultimately people are responsible for their own actions.

He said “we live in a complex ecosystem of influences and motivations, and I wouldn’t blame our political rhetoric any more than I would blame heavy metal music for Columbine.”

His political philosophy is very consistent. A libertarian veering towards being a true existentialist. You ask what is the difference between the two schools of thought — nuance, dear reader, nuance. They are working the same material but a few notches apart on the continuum.

LIBERTARIAN

Turning to my hero Jimmy Wales over at Wikipedia: “Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.”

It’s Ayn Rand and the cult of the individual defending against the encroachment of government. There’s an important property rights component to it. The extreme position is anarchy.

EXISTENTIALIST

Defining existentialism, Jimmy Wales again: “…maintained that the individual is solely responsible for giving his or her own life meaning and for living that life passionately and sincerely.”

Existentialism is more in the realm of the spirit rather than focusing on property. The responsibility component is heavy, leading towards emphasis on community. Because there is no one to blame for failure or a shooting spree, the extreme position is dread.

Bottomline: libertarians are hostile and existentialists are morose. This is what makes Jon Stewart so amazing. He’s a libertarian-existentialist who seems authentically happy, generous and who operates with humor.

Lipstick on a pig?

When the Wall Street Journal was purchased by Rupert Murdoch years ago, faithful readers were afraid it would lose cred by too heavily reflecting the biases of its owner. The beauty of the WSJ historically is that it reflected “Conservative” opinion, in the classic sense of the word, not necessarily partisan politics. However, apparently this beacon of journalistic integrity has become a media outlet for the Republican wing — Fox News in print.

Consider this from the New York Times by way of Kos:

The editorial page of the Journal recently praised Palin for her transparently ghost-written critique of the Federal Reserve’s use of quantitative easing. “Mrs. Palin is way ahead of her potential presidential competitors on this policy point,” The Journal wrote, and “shows a talent for putting a technical subject in language that average Americans can understand.”

Gimme a break.

The Big Chief says "let them serve"

Looks like the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” will be a casualty of right-wing vindictiveness. Unless the lame duck session wants to take it on, the bill is headed for the slow death of a thousand studies.

While the Repubs are playing politics, uber-General Petraeus told Congress “the time has come” to change policy barring gays from serving. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullens agrees with the study validating that 70 percent of the military believes openly gay troops will have a positive effect or “no negative effect.”

The Admiral takes it one step further for repeal of DADT on moral grounds. Asking soldiers to lie each day about who they are is counter to the military ethos of being honorable and honest.

Meanwhile, Cher’s daughter Chastity became Cher’s son Chaz when her gender was reassigned. Guess he could now sign up for the military. Or marry his girlfriend. Isn’t that so odd, that post-surgery Chaz now has more opportunities. I believe that as a society we should decide that all human beings are entitled to the same package of civil rights, unrelated to gender or orientation.

Next step: Lap band

Patriotism belongs to all of us

I watched every minute of the rally as it streamed live in HD onto my laptop, the next best thing to being there. Those guys know how to put on a show. It was funny, entertaining, thought-provoking, I laughed I cried I swooned… Seriously, Jon Stewart is a genius and he pulled off a terrific event that hit just the right note. In fact, I found myself being more reasonable than normal while stuck in a parking garage later that night, so perhaps it had an effect.

My one teeny grievance is that there wasn’t more of a call to action, a “sanity manifesto” of sorts. There was one point in the show where it would have been appropriate, right after a powerful montage on the news media. He was holding his remote and giving the message to turn off the news when it gets stupid. People, you have the power! Instead, he did a comedy bit about the germiness of the remote, and lost the moment. It was a joke too far.

Also, could we agree to lay off  Zuckerberg? Sure he has Aspberger’s and he’s a backstabber, but he created something cool and useful (that ironically helped to organize the Stewart Rally). If we have to hate on someone, let it be those responsible for crashing the economy. Goldman Sachs & Co. have earned our scorn but seem to be getting a free pass.

The smartest guys in the room

Much has been made about JS calling the leader of the free world “Dude,” but the truth is that these two men are peers and the casual reference did not seem inappropriate. They’re 47 and 48-years-old and each is operating at the top of his game. Interesting that they both from groups that historically have been discriminated against. Sure, BO has the edge being POTUS, but a recent survey of 500,000 on Askmen.com ranked Jon Stewart as the Number 1 most influential man in America. (Mr. Obama came in at 21.) During the interview on his show, Stewart articulated precisely the question so many true believers want to ask — Namely, was the hope and change platform a sham? IMHO, Jon Stewart put himself on the map with the Jim Cramer interview, and the show just keeps getting better.