Month: January 2006

Ah, good morning! Good morning, and welcome to Sunday Griot! And Happy New Year! I’m glad to see so many of you up and around after what could have been a very late night last night. There’s bagels in the back, plus some crackers and cheese left over from the New Years’ party.

Oh yes, and strong black coffee if you need it.

Well, when you’re ready to settle in, grab a chair and I’ll tell you the story of The Chautauqua Speaker. And then, if you would, please stick around for just a moment.

As soon as it is dark, the fireworks begin. Pop! Pop! Pop! Neighbors run to their windows, their porches, to see. Several come out and add their own contributions, pyrotechnic or conversational. Eventually the groups move toward one of the larger houses, It is covered with colored lights, the lawn decked with lighted reindeer and a twelve foot inflated Santa. The smell of carne asada and the sound of punta fills the street.
It is a simple meal, thin pieces of beef, seasoned with secrets to melt in the mouth, tortillas, arroz, frijoles, chicken legs for those who don’t eat beef, hot dogs, said to be for the kids, but the kids are obliged to launch a rescue operation as so many of them are disappearing into the laughing mouths of the men at the grill. Neighbors bring their own contributions, the table fills up. Ladies, someone says, are always served first in this household, and indeed it is the ladies who are called first to “attack” the feast, but there is an element of polite fiction, as the men perform most of their attack under the pretense of “testing” the meat as it comes off the grill. We must make sure it is good enough for the ladies to eat, they explain. Looking in at the rainbow of ladies making quick work of batch after batch, it passes the test with flying colors.

When no one can eat or test another bite, it is time to prepare the toasts. Glasses are filled with twelve grapes each, which must be eaten in the first minute of the new year. Champagne is poured over them, just a splash for the youngsters, and there is sparkling grape juice for those who prefer no alcohol at all.

Just in time, the last glass is ready, and midnight is ushered in with a burst of activity. In addition to the toasts, to health, money, love, peace, and every country represented, everyone must be hugged and kissed, all done with mouths frantically disposing of grapes. Every glass must touch every glass. Someone informs me that they hope I remembered to wear red underpants. It is such an informal occasion that I was unaware of this interesting dress requirement, but I am informed that it is a custom, and those of us who were ignorant of it need not worry, we will have good luck anyway.

Before I can inquire further, the music comes up, and the room explodes into a frenzy of dancing, shouting, and tribal chants. Circles are formed, and individuals pulled into the center, to demonstrate their best steps. From youngest to oldest, everyone must dance! Punta, merengue, bhangra, dangdut, salsa, genres I don’t recognize but must be African as they take the center of the room. Then more punta, and even little girls and boys engage in dance moves that would give some school administrators apoplexy, but there is no lewdness about it, as they join their cousins and grandparents in a dance that has not changed for millennia. Rolandizate!

A tall man from Nigeria, dressed in a long robe resplendent with gold braid, informs me proudly, Garifuna people came from my country. He continues his explanation of the history, warring tribes on St. Vincente, Nigerians who escape the horrors of a slave ship, but the music is so loud I cannot quite make out the words. But I can see the present, and the future, as elders in African dress teach their Maya-mix grandchildren some of the more intricate (and to a rather staid English lady, shocking) movements.

Relax, Auntie, a young man from Pakistan gives her a jaleebi. They will teach us, too. Come on! And jaleebi, elegant handbag and all, she is swept off! Pleading my feet, I escape, but only temporarily, and as at Christmastime, my fumblings and stumblings inspire great mirth. The English matron, on the other hand, is becoming quite adept, and also developing a taste for jaleebis.

Through it all, the fireworks continue. In the street, in the yard ,BooM! Whiiiiiii-BANG! The youngsters wave sparklers and toss down little “cuetes” but the evening’s only burn injury involving fat little fingers is the result of grasping a hot dog too soon off the grill, even though his mother told him to wait. I plunge the singed digits into a small tomato and the howls cease, though whether that is due to the tomato or the sight of his sister with a large slice of chocolate cake will never be known. As he uses his good hand to apply it generously to his face and shirtfront, possibly consuming some of it, I notice that the CD controls have been seized by the New Orleans 9th Ward.

Wild Tchoupitoulas gonna stomp some romp!

Cross Posted at “Praxis for Progressives”

Since Bush will cravenly pull out of Iraq this year and claim victory with honor (yes, the stench of his hypocrisy will go this far) it’s not on this wish list for the Democratic Party.  

Read it below the fold.
2006 Democratic Party Resolutions

1. This year I will actually be a Democratic Party that represents the demos. In crusty times, the Greek word demos didn’t mean “the people” it meant the many poor.

From this one resolution, it follows that a Democratic Party will be a party that:

1. Calls for and creates conditions for full employment (in America, not China or India). If the private sector can’t create the jobs, the public sector will.
2. Calls for and creates a system of universal health care for every American. Why don’t we recognized that the rich will always take care of themselves, or they will buy someone else to take care of them. The government “of the people, by the people and for the people” needs to insure that all the rest of us can help take care of one another.
3. Calls for and creates a sustainable social security system. The rich will always take care of themselves or buy someone else to take care of them. Social Secutiry is for the rest of us. That said however, Social Security taxes should be colected on all income from the first to the last penny. Those who benefit the most from the American Way should pay the most to support it.
4. Calls for and creates a well-regulated infrastructure in order to maintain a diverse political and social community; namely, utilities of phone and electricity, and transportation. In other words, it’s time to recover from making the market a fetish, and worshipping it as the cure all for everything. The market only performs a limited task for a limited purpose.
5. Calls for and restores the legitimacy of our government as one that operates under the Constitution not in spite of it. The Democratic Party is the party of limited government intrusion into the private lives of Americans.
6. Call for and creates a strong military; this means a military with well trained and supplied troops, not a well-greased and corrupt “military industrial complex” warned against by outgoing President and Supreme Allied Commander during WWII Dwight Eisenhower.

It’s time for the Democratic Party to remember that is was and should become once again the Party of the New Deal. If the Robber Barons want to scream socialism, let them and gently remind them that if this was real socialism, the “demos’ would take all their stuff. This isn’t socialism, it’s the only way for capitalism to survive. The Democratic Party is the party of small business, of working people, of the middle class; it’s time for the party to remember that Wall Street is not Main Street, that money is not speech, and that politicians who lie down with the moneyed interest are whores. Whores may be good for some things, but do we really want the diseases they bring along with their supposed good times.

Will 2006 be more of 2005? More Bush administration scandals, more furious posting and commenting, more forays to occasional protests?
Perhaps the first part of 2006. But by spring, we’ll be looking ’round our own neighborhoods and states, concentrating more and more on the critical 2006 political races. Through our blogs — which are our bistros and bars (perhaps moreso our 21st century grange halls) where we can find others who inspire us and make us think — we’ll be looking at each other’s neighborhoods and states, reaching out to each other. We’ll be asking each other for help, ideas, publicity, networking aid, and donations.

If we can control (well, at least influence) the news cycle through 2006, here are a couple stories I hope we exploit to keep the heat on Bushco and to stamp the label of “guilt by association” on every Republican candidate:

Iraqi Civil War? “Some Experts Say It’s Arrived” … (We’ve known that for a while, but we can still use it as a frame, er, a hammer, along with no WMDs, and on and on.) …

Today’s Los Angeles Times today critiques the application of the term “civil war” to Iraq. One fascinating section:

James Fearon, a Stanford University political scientist and an authority on modern conflicts, believes that Iraq’s civil war began almost as soon as Hussein was ousted, and that it is now obscured and partly held back by the presence of foreign forces.

“I think there is definitely a civil war that has been going on since we finished the major combat operations,” Fearon said. He rejects the position of many observers that a civil war is still only a possibility for Iraq.

“When people talk about ‘Will there be a civil war?’ they are really talking about a different type of civil war,” he said.

Pat Lang has repeatedly said that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war:

… Lang has visited Iraq some 20 times over the years. Less than a year after the U.S. invasion, “it became clear,” Lang said in a recent interview, that a civil-war-like conflict was under way. …

… Lang says, pre-invasion Baathist Iraq [was] “a pressure-cooker approach to forming national identity,” … and “we interrupted this process of amalgamation [by] taking the lid off this pressure cooker, [allowing] these various elements to resolve themselves into their basic form.” (From Pat Lang’s story here, which quotes his interview in the December 2005 National Journal.)

One more reason to “heart” James Comey … His appointment of Patrick Fitzgerald being the first …

‘member Johnny Ashcroft’s serious pancreatitis and hospitalization in intensive care? “James B. Comey, who was acting as attorney general in [Ashcroft’s] absence,” was “unwilling to give his approval to certifying central aspects” to the “the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program and refused to sign on to its continued use amid concerns about its legality and oversight.” (“Justice Deputy Resisted Parts of Spy Program,” New York Times, Jan. 1, 2006)

Andy Card (Chief of Staff) and Alberto Gonzales (then WH counsel) dashed to Ashcroft’s bedside, in intensive care, and got on their hands and knees — begging Johnny, who was fightin’ for his life and in a world of hurt, to approve the program. Ashcroft, say some, expressed reluctance. (WTF was so urgent about getting the program going that Andy and Al invaded an intensive care unit?)

It is unclear whether the White House ultimately persuaded Mr. Ashcroft to give his approval to the program after the meeting or moved ahead without it.

Despite an enticingly cushy job offer at Lockheed Martin, I kinda wish that James Comey hadn’t cashed in just yet. I wish he’d stuck around Justice longer, to keep an eye on things, to say “Hell no!” to ‘berto once in a while, and to buffer Fitzgerald (if he needs it). During Comey’s DAG confirmation hearing in October 2003, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called Comey a “prosecutor’s prosecutor.” … continued below …

At its outset in 2002, the surveillance operation was so highly classified that even Larry Thompson, the deputy attorney general to Mr. Ashcroft, who was active in most of the government’s most classified counterterrorism operations, was not given access to the program.

That led to uncertainties about the chain of command in overseeing law enforcement activities connected to the program, officials said, and it appears to have spurred concerns within the Justice Department over its use. Mr. Thompson’s successor, Mr. Comey, was eventually authorized to take part in the program and to review intelligence material that grew out of it, and officials said he played a part in overseeing the reforms that were put in place in 2004. (NYT, Jan. 1, 2006)

At the outset of Comey’s DAG confirmation hearing in October 2003, Orrin Hatch lauded Bush’s choice of Comey as DAG.

The only two members of the Judiciary Committee to ask Comey about “civil rights” issues were senators Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold.

Even though this hearing took place in October 2003 — approximately two years after the NSA domestic surveillance program was authorized by Bush — I couldn’t find a single question of DAG nominee Comey about citizens’ rights to privacy or constraints on domestic surveillance. That’s because those senators did not know about the program, right?

++++++++++++

Adds Jane at FireDogLake blog:

Comey announced his resignation from the Justice Department in March 2005. And when BushCo. tried to appoint a Skull & Bones crony to oversee Fitzgerald, Comey did an end run around them and appointed the extremely ethical David Margolis to the task as his parting shot out the door.

++++++++++++

James Comey, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. You, not ‘berto, should have become AG. Maybe someday, some sensible, ethical president will appoint you to the nation’s top legal beagle post.

By the way, several bloggers — here and here — are writing rather assumptive titles, in my opinion. I don’t think the NYT piece gives us enough to declare, for example: “Even Bush’s Justice Dept. wouldn’t approve the spying program.” We don’t yet know enough about what went down inside Justice, or the White House.

Did Ashcroft stand up to Andy and Al? Jesus. The man was in intensive care, surely drugged heavily for his pain, and feeling incredibly weakened. It’s perhaps more likely that he didn’t want to override his stand-in, Comey.

++++++++++++

More on this, via Memeorandum:

WHEN JOHN ASHCROFT THINKS YOU HAVE A CIVIL LIBERTIES PROBLEM, you just might. — Amygdala blog

… I’m still thinking there’s at least a 2% chance of the I word coming into play, and I’m easily persuaded to go to 3%. I’m almost wondering if the WH has a taping system. They’ve been bound and determined to repeat almost every other criminally stupid thing their true previous White House incarnation did. (If they thought they could get away with “secret bombing” of Iran and Syria in this day and age, now, really, is there the faintest doubt that they’d have been doing it by 2004?)

If one prefers another lesson, and doesn’t remember it well, or wasn’t around, and you have a lot of reading time set aside, this [ED: Iran-Contra report], I’m sure, would be educational reading for many. Of course, that outcome remains, unfortunately, the most likely for this case, as well. But we shall see. I make no predictions as of yet. Things change, day by day, week by week, month by month, and events, as always, control. …

See also:
NSA Gave Other U.S. Agencies Information From Surveillance,” at the WaPo today — by Pincus

Yesterday I diaried a hopeful What If. Today we’ll whip out the post New Year’s party dusty computer screen and go for the What’s Next. Even in the midst of the widespread media manipulation and collusion more Americans are disenchanted with the most corrupt and sorry ass Presidency ever. That drumbeat is getting more persistent (and Rove’s efforts to cover it up have failed thus far). America will find its voice, but it is up to people like us. Like-minded people are flocking together for reinforcement and gathering their forces. Don’t get me wrong, there’s work to do but hope is alive and change is afoot. Below the fold are four reasons why (and what you can do to fan the embers):

1. Iraqi veterans running for Congress. This group will become the defacto voice of the troops and they are overwhelming Democratic voices. They cannot be ignored and they are running seemingly everywhere. If there is one in your district, Volunteer, now when early help counts. If there isn’t one in your district, find one that needs $ help and give. Someone here could start a candidate’s roll call, show us the way to the good ones and bring back the bats.
2. Local action will make the difference. Take the Dean model seriously. People getting involved locally make an incredible difference. By getting involved in the local Dem party we utilize an exisitng vehicle to victory in 2006. Have a vibrant local party: volunteer. Have a dormant, boring local party? volunteer and take it over. And yes, make it the Dem party. There’s no need to pick up a shovel and start on the pile of a shit when a steam shovel is right there waiting to be inspired.
3. The implosion of BushCo. Oh they are still riding high and pulling those media strings, they still hold the upper hand but if I were playing Texas Hold ‘Em with Karl, I’d go all in. They’re in deep doo-doo and the outlook does not look good. Indictments, investigations and Jackie A singing his final aria are but the continuation of the drumbeat of failure. What can we do besides chortle with glee? Write a LOE.
4. The Democratic Party is finding its Voice. Actually, it is finding its Voice of many Voices. Media pundits fault it for not being like the Republicans with its daily talking points pointy headed Coulter, Limbaugh Fox headed paid shills. With Dems, there’s actually discussion, disagreement, and eventually direction in the Dem party. It’s called democracy, it’s healthy, and it works.

What’s Next? A re-vitalized Democratic party that takes Congress with a genuine reform minded freshman class who will bring credibility and accountability to the Hill. Oh, and just in case you’ve forgotten, Rep. John Conyers is in line to Chair the Judiciary Committee. We’re talking real investigations and spies will come in from the Cold. 2006 looks very good to me thank you but it depends on me, on you, and many others. There’s a grass roots movement flaming, keep looking ahead and it will be a Year to Remember. 2006 will be the year America reclaims itself. Your thoughts?

This morning’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinal carries an article on the upcoming Senate race in Wisconsin, Kohl gears up for battle against unknown.

He’s starting 2006 with $4 million in his campaign account. His campaign is already well staffed. His people have put together a DVD touting his political virtues and plan to distribute up to 100,000 of copies of it across Wisconsin. They’re lining up endorsements from business owners, veterans, nurses, you name it. They’re planning to open campaign offices around the state.

then

Three people have notified the state election commission that they intend to be Republican candidates. They are Marc Gumz of Baraboo, Robert Gerald Lorge of Bear Creek and David Redick of Madison. None appears positioned to launch a major campaign.

No mention of my Primary challenge. I’m seeking letters to the JS, reminding them of the presence in the race of Kohl’s best known declared challenger, yours truly. Please include my email, bmasel@tds.net . The article’s author, Alan J. Borsuk: aborsuk@journalsentinel.com , and the letters to the editor page: jsedit@journalsentinel.com .

Of what has takin place In Our Names, and Continues, for We All Are Responsible!!

This is a Silent Honor Roll shown on the PBS ‘News Hour’, now Almost Daily, that was started at the Beginning!

As of the End of 2005, 12-31-05 there are 55 Pages with 5 ‘Honor Roll’ links per page!

If you take the Time to View ‘ALL’ the Pages/Photo’s and Information Instill This Thought Into Each American Military Face You See,‘Try and Picture 30, 40, 50, 60 or More Iraqi Faces, Children-Women-Men, Killed for Each Of These Faces You Are Looking At’!!

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U.S. CASUALTY MAP;click on map for interaction at site

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Peace Takes Courage: 2005: The Year in Review