Fast Food vs Health Food

I’d like to take a moment to talk about two books that I got for birthday presents yesterday. I’d like to talk about them, not simply because they are nice presents, but because together they can provide a greater understanding of the nature of the problems that we, as progressives and liberals at the grass roots level, face today. Together, these books can even help us define the roots of some of the very real points of contention regarding the level of satisfaction – or dissatisfaction – that members of this internet community are experiencing in relationship to the Obama administration. (I am not, of course, including some DU participants who I am convinced would disapprove of anything Obama does, nor those who approve of everything he does.)

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{1} Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put it in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America; Russ Baker; Bloomsberry Press; 2009.

"Meanwhile, oblivious to the most basic questions about Woodward, everyone continued the parlor game of guessing the ‘true identity’ of Deep Throat. Most folks missed the statement of Woodward and Bernstein’s former literary agent David Obst to the New York Times that Deep Throat, as such, was a fiction, concocted for purposes of making All the President’s Men a snappier read. ….Indeed, the vast majority of Americans never learned either the key facts about Woodward or of these statements from insiders about the fictitious or composite nature of Deep Throat." – pages 246-247

Russ Baker’s book is a "Must Read" for liberal and progressive democrats, and for their natural allies to the left. He provides extensive and well-documented information on how industries, banks, and the corporate media are closely connected to US intelligence agencies – including, but not limited to, the CIA.

I included the above quote, because it should serve to remind long-time DUers of one of the key points that myself and some other DUers made during the days of the "Plame Threads," about Deep Throat being a group of intelligence operatives with a specific goal in mind, regarding who would occupy the Oval Office.

{2} The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America; James Bamford; Doubleday; 2008.

"Years later Lamberth would harshly criticize the program. ‘We have to understand you can fight the war (on terrorism) and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the war’." – page 117

Any time James Bamford publishes a book or an article, they too should be considered "Must Reads." In this case, his book provides extraordinary information on how the Bush-Cheney administration changed the form of our federal government. We are not in the same situation we were at any time before 2001.

One of the things that stands out to me when I read this book is that much of what Bamford documents in this book is proof of exactly what many DUers theorized was taking place at the time. More, many of these facts were, at the time when DUers were correctly pointing them out, the very things that moderate and conservative democrats were claiming to be the products of paranoid minds. In a sense, of course, they were correct – but the paranoid minds were those inside republican’s heads, while those moderate and conservative democrats had theirs’ buried in the sand.

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Part of the reasons why we are not living in the Constitution democracy we once enjoyed, flawed as it was, is because of what James Carroll so accurately describes as the growth of the non-human, inhumane machine, in "House of War." Since the end of WW2, even those sincerely decent individuals who sought to humanize Washington, DC, found it was almost impossible. These same circumstances allowed those who had/have an undeveloped humanity – including many members of the Bush family – to use the combined "machine" of industry, banks, the corporate media, and the intelligence community, for non-democratic purposes.

Another part has to do with the "general public." The citizens of this nation allowed the muscles of our democracy – specifically, those defined by the Bill of Rights – to grow flabby. This is, of course, related to the culture that the enemies of democracy have created. We tend, as a nation, to consume the unhealthy "fast food" of 24-hour cable news, rather than ingesting the nutrition found in books like the two mentioned above.

The potential to get our democratic muscles back into proper condition became evident during the 2006 and especially the 2008 elections. But, clearly, even with a democratic majority in the Congress and a democratic administration in the Executive Office, we face a crisis situation that spans a wide range of inter-related issues.

On DU, there are often OPs/threads that debate the actions and inactions of the administration. Often, these include discussions on if Barack Obama is, or ever was, a progressive or liberal. Reading these, I am reminded of an article that was published in the Village Voice in February of 1965. At the time, Malcolm X was advocating the idea of having a number of militant black citizens run for public office. The author of the article, Marlene Nadle, asked if Malcolm himself would consider running for office?

"I don’t know at this point," he said. "I think I am more effective attacking the establishment. You can’t do that as well once you’re inside it."

It would be pointless to question if Malcolm’s answer indicates that he wasn’t progressive in his social and political views. He was, but he understood the machine. And what he said in 1965 holds just as true today. We do need liberals, progressives, and yes, militants, to run for office. But we also need people to be active on the outside. At the grass roots level. Pressuring elected officials to do the correct things for strengthening our Constitutional democracy.

Thank you for reading this.
H2O Man