A Real Socialist Speaks

In light of all the right-wing hoohah over President Obama being the socialist in chief taking us to where even Marx wouldn't dare go, I thought it was refreshing and educational to see Bill Moyers interview a real American socialist and get his imput on comrade Barack, on the economic crisis, on the role of the left in that crisis, and on passing the torch. The socialist in question teaches at our own University of California Riverside. He is Mike Davis, professor and prolific author. He even has words about the reactionary forces we face in the Inland Valley. Take the time to watch this March 20 interview via the PBS/Bill Moyers Journal website at: www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03202009/watch2.html
It will regenerate the brain cells lost in watching the Sunday Morning claptrap you may have stumbled into this rainy cold morning.

Warning: Veteran Gay Baiter on the Loose in the I.E.

Unreported so far in our local news-sources is the gay baiting history of Matt Schumsky, our newly named San Bernardino County Republican Executive Director. Indeed, nothing has been reported as to his past other than the credit attributed to him for the growth of the San Diego party.

Mr. Schumsky does have a history, and it is very typical of what a lot of our far right political wrecking crew devotees have. Rise up within the local GOP, farm oneself out to consult on projects and campaigns loved by the various fanatics in the party, and run as a stealth candidate for election to various non-partisan local boards. Boards such as the water board or school board. In Schumsky's case, he ran for his local school board by simultaneously portraying himself as a non-partisan ally of good classroom teaching in one media venue, and arguing in another that nobody can and should be truly non-partisan in a non-partisan office.

Indeed, Executive Director Matt Schumsky choose to run for election to the Alpine School District Board in nothern San Diego County in order push an anti-gay policy item. Schumsky ran to defeat and replace one of several incumbants who stood up for fairness in public school textbooks. Several years ago, these incumbants refused to join other board members in voting to condemn the state legislature for bringing to the governor's desk a bill that would mandate screening of state textbooks for unjustifiable statements about gay people. Their vote became the major campaign issue, and Schumsky led the charge. Fortunately for the children of the Alpine School District, our new Executive Director lost.

Unfortunately for the children of our state, our governor, in one of his periods of sucking up to the right, vetoed the bill.

We will soon see if Executive Director Schumsky will wish to inject anti-gay politics into the local GOP toolbox of divisive issues. So far, it hasn't been a prominent tool. Seeing that San Bernardino County represents the eastern end of Congressman's Dreier's district, it hasn't been a surprise. But if the Ken and John take-over of the County continues, Schumsky may not be able to help himself from returning to his old, gay-baiting ways.

The Daily Bulletin Hails the Lords of the Local GOP

Today's (Sunday, March 22, 2009) Inland Valley Daily Bulletin featured a front page story, with a splashy color photo included, on the unelected kingmakers and agenda-setters for our local Republican party: KFI-AM radio's own John and Ken. Far from being a news story, it was journalistic hero-worship and functioned as little else than a call to arms directed at local anti-tax zealots. Even the fig-leaf of stating that the duo lets the other side be heard on the tax issue, with quotes included, was transparent in its intention of further gilding the crowns on the pandering duos' heads.

What is up at the Daily Bulletin? Does the management think that they can save the conservative establishment in the west end of the Inland Valley from collapsing from its own hubris and corruption by conjuring up a rehash of the late 70s Howard Jarvis movement? Do they expect this blast from the past, which gave us schools near the national bottom and a near- annual state budget crisis, to merge with the pitchfork psuedo-populism of John and Ken, and form a movement that will bring back Reaganism?

We have only ourselves to blame if this farce is allowed to make us forget Commander Codpiece and thirty-eight years of consistent, intentional conservative governmental and fiscal misrule.

A News Story We Should Have Known More About

The following is an expanded version of a post I made today via email to members of the Inland Valley Democratic Club of Rancho Cucamonga, CA.
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Today, we have gotten the news that Charles Freeman, known to his friends as Chas Freeman, took his name out of consideration to join National Intelligence Director Admiral Dennis Blair's circle of advisors, the National Intelligence Council. This one piece of news, when expanded into its full significance, truly tells us everything we need to know about, and gives us every reason to loathe, the Main-Stream Media (MSM). I say this because I didn't know until today what had happened, and it thoroughly appalls me. I should have been tipped off to this story by simply following the MSM, and then been able to follow it up on my own by checking out my usual sources of REAL news. But I wasn't tipped off, and I am pissed!

The fact that some of you may be asking: "Who is Chas Freeman, and what is this story about? (More about this soon) gets to my point. The whole Chas Freeman affair should have been big news, and yet was almost entirely ignored by the MSM. Unless we are closely and regularly attuned to the opinion pages of the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, or to the major journals of opinion like the New Republic, or to blogs kike the Daily Dish by Andrew Sullivan, we just didn't know what going on with this story under our noses. Though I watched my news on TV and read my Daily Bulletin, not a word on what was brewing with Chas Freeman. To get this story, I needed to be diligent in checking out the former news sources, and I wasn't in the last few days.

So, who is Chas Freeman and what is this story about?

I know of Chas Freeman from hearing him as a somewhat frequent guest on the excellent local radio program, heard on Sundays 11 am to 1 pm on KPFK-FM (90.7), "Background Briefing/Live from the Left Coast," which is hosted by Ian Masters. Chas Freeman is a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and is a respected foreign policy expert on the Middle East. He is a relatively independent thinker on many issues dealing with that area, which is a rare thing in a practicing diplomat nowadays. Freeman is especially out of the box when compared to neo-con dogma on Israel and its Arab neighbors. And that is what cost him his nomination.

Admiral Blair wanted a full range of opinions to be heard on his National Intelligence Council, and chose Freeman to provide a diffeernt voice from what the old consensus on the Middle East would provide. This move provoked the Entrenched Empire of Tired and Failed Thinking on the Middle East to strike back. In a matter of a few days, a virtual hurricane of slanderous vitriol, organized by the neo-conservative spin machine, working with the usual old Israel hands, and pushed by reliable voices in the WaPo, the WSJ, The New Republic and other organs of neo-con spin, made Freeman's name and reputation toxic. His defenders rose up too late to save him, and he withdrew his name.

This episode should have gotten him more attention because it points out what is wrong with our foreign policy better than a thousand pages of commentary that no-one reads. If our foreign policy is informed by all the bright minds on the spectrum from point A to point................... B, and never beyond to point C, D, E, or on to Z, then it is bound to be ignorant and to fail, which it often has. Such ignorance is the fertile field on which neo-conservatism has thrived. Not only does such ignorance harm our interests as Americans, it does a vast disservice to both Israel and its Arab neighbors. It says alot that there is a broader range of opinion in Israeli media on matters relating to Israel and is neighbors than we find in our own, constipated media.

Having Chas Freeman as an advisor to Admiral Blair would have been a positive move toward unplugging Washington's constipated mind. He would have been a great addition to the needed laxative tht is the Obama administration.

Where is Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman, and his flamethrower? We desperately need both to be sic'ed on the neo-con cabal.