John McCain's Big Lies

by Janet Ritz

Published on Reuters, Chicago Sun-Times, The Huffington Post, Palm Beach Post

The disregard for the truth by the McCain campaign has produced lies so big that even those that support Senator McCain are hard-pressed to deny that they're lies.

So why the recent flood of such big lies?

While they may be meant to reach undecided voters (they'd be happy to pick them up), it seems rather a tactic to engender an angry response from Senator Obama that they can then point to and say -- see, he's angry, ergo, ipso facto, he's dangerous, different, not like you and me.

Senator Obama seems unlikely to fall into that trap. He knows how to be angry and cool at the same time and both are needed now (along with more passion, please). Not that he doesn't have a right to be angry and hot, and not just for himself, but for all of us. Because, make no mistake, it is the American people upon which this tactical fraud is being perpetrated.

And not just tactical fraud. Orwellian fraud. A hallmark of the Bush years (see: Clear Skies Act). Strong is good, weak is bad (four legs bad, two legs good...); pull up your bootstraps (unless, as Senator Obama correctly points out, you don't have boots).

An example of where Obama has condensed his message, those missing boots, because the simple and direct thought is something the American people in this world of television, Internet(s) and immediate gratification seem to require. It is a message he will have to reinforce along with finding a way to relay the passion he feels for our country to those who yearn to support him.

But that's a different and far more honorable path than McCain's choice to plow the lowest road of big lies. Which makes me question what kind of country this would be with John McCain in charge, considering those running his campaign, should he win, would likely be the same people running the government.

And yet, we are told, John McCain is a maverick.

The distortions coming from the campaign make it impossible to determine who John McCain is beyond the noise, the distractions, the decision of his campaign to present him as the alpha male in the hope that fear and uncertainty will lead a majority to identify with the aggressor rather than one they try to make out as a victim or, if he fights back, as the outsider who cannot be trusted.

Psychology. Not truth.

History can be helpful in understanding the dangers of propaganda in a time of uncertainty, war, bank failures, foreclosures, stagflation, propaganda... What would be equally helpful is the moment of reflection that every American should allow themselves, in lieu of propaganda, to ask this question:

What will my life be like four years from now?

Chris Matthews addressed that question in a recent comment:

"Suppose the energy crunch has grown to cripple the economy, we're moving products, twenty years from now, on old railroads and gas guzzling trucks. The air becomes clogged with pollution again from fossil fuels because they're all we have. India, China, Russia and Brazil are, by then, grabbing and outbidding us for resources. Our failed education system has cost us our innovative edge. We can't compete. We might even have fallen back to a second rate power, we Americans. And the young people twenty years from now and the older folks who can remember it, will look back on the fall election of 2008 that set the course for this century and see videotapes of us arguing about lipstick...lipstick.

This game that's being played is not an insult to a candidate, it's an insult to the intelligence of our democracy, which is really all we have, each of us, to decide and build a future. Our only escape from all this is to force ourselves, against all the distractions, to think through the hearts and minds of those young people who will have to live in the world we are now deciding who's to build, who's to lead us to." Continued...

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Pat Buchanan: 6,000 Future Voters versus a Dinosaur of the Past

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted on The Huffington Post

Pat Buchanan faced off against Energy Action Coalition youth leader, Jessy Tolkan, on Hardball Monday, with a gentlemanly, albeit condescending, smile, which accompanied his insistence that global warming, while possibly real, is not as serious as she believed.

Ms. Tolkan, the Challenge Campaign Director for the Energy Action Coalition, a 'Youth United for Clean Energy" group, listened patiently while Buchanan went on to say that "global warming, if it happens, would not be "all that bad."

Ms. Tolkan's response: "Pat, with all due respect, I think you're living in the past."

This Hardball 'debate' was prompted by a session of Rep. Edward j. Markey's (D-MA) Select Committe on Energy Independence and Global Warming entitled: "Youth Leadership for Clean Energy and Healthy Climate." with testimony from several youth environmental groups (video), including Energy Action Coalition's co-Founder, Billy Parish, the youth leaders of Environmental Justice, Alaskan Youth, various student representatives and California's Public Interest Research Group. The committee members then moved to the West Lawn of the Capitol where they were greeted by ~6,000 young people who'd traveled to call for new energy legislation.

Later, on Hardball, Mr. Buchanan countered their enthusiasm by pointing out that the inaction vis-à-vis Kyoto implied a consensus lack of belief in the urgency of global warming and that Ms. Tolkan's 6,000 young people versus the 500,000 outside the Nixon White House protesting the Vietnam War, showed a lack of serious concern by her peers and by the world. He then referred to Al Gore's "little badge" (Nobel Peace Prize) and "awards" (Oscar) as something given while others do nothing (he may have something there on the 'others doing nothing' part).

Ms. Tolkan's response: "Pat's living in the past and I'm here to represent the future." She added: "It is my future."

Granted, 6,000 is a small number of protesters, especially when compared to the millions expected to be displaced by climate change in the future. But then, the environment has never been as emotionally charged an issue as war.

However, despite the relatively small number of protesters this week, it may be increasingly difficult to ignore the millions impacted by the many climate and energy warning signs of late. These include the reports on the increasing inability for the oceans to absorb C02 (carbon sinks), impending $100 oil, the underreported floods in Mexico, the wildfires in the West, the over forty percent of our country currently experiencing severe to extreme drought, the calls to arms by the world's religous leaders, and this report on how climate change threatens our national security.

So, while 6,000 youth voters may not compare to the half-million Pat Buchanan remembers descending upon the Nixon White House while he worked there, it could not have been, as Chris Matthews mentioned, an easy task for Ms. Tolkan and her colleagues to get that many of today's young people to drop what they were doing and come together in Washington for an environmental rally, and even Pat Buchanan had to acknowledge that.