Powell v. Palin: The People's Court

[H2O Man]

In the past week, I have posted a couple of essays that addressed issues including how information is spread by each campaign; the tactics that Obama would use in the third debate; and how General Powell would include information on the dangerous tactics of Sarah Palin in his endorsement of Barack Obama. Today, I’d like to submit a brief review of how these are significant in the context of the reporting in the corporate media, and to explain one of the significant points the corporate media will not touch. As frequently happens, the internet – including DU – provides more valuable information than is found in the newspapers, magazines, and network/cable news shows.

Information tends to be spread more easily in general elections, than in the primaries, because there are "professional" campaigners who trade in information. The Obama campaign, as Rolling Stone reported in the late summer, has an unusually tight inner-circle. That has made it harder to know, for example, exactly what he had planned for that third debate – not only for the general public, but more importantly, for the McCain campaign. On the other hand, the Obama campaign had far more information about not only what approaches McCain would take in the campaign, but about the inner divisions within the republican party. Information is power.

An example of how information allows greater insight can be found in a simple example. Those who were aware that General Powell had informed the McCain campaign that he was preparing to endorse Obama this weekend, had an advantage in interpreting McCain’s behavior at the Alfred Smith Memorial Dinner later that day. Some of the "experts" on the cable news show spoke about how McCain seemed rather relaxed at that event, and complimented him on how well he did. But his entire presentation takes on a very different meaning, when one adds in the fact that he knew that General Powell was about to endorse Obama, and address concerns about the behaviors of Palin & Co.

Yesterday, I noted that General Powell was, in part, making his endorsement as a strong rejection of the fear and hatred being stirred up by the Cheney branch of the republican party. This includes the neoconservatives, and their tactics involve appealing to the delusional religious right.

There has been an increase in DU threads in the past day or so, which focus on Obama and Biden’s speaking of McCain and Palin as "good people." Although we all recognize that this style of campaigning is working, some are frustrated that there hasn’t been a stronger response that identifies the republican campaign’s gutter tactics. A couple things are important to remember: first, that the republicans want Obama and Biden to go ugly; and second, that the public has a very negative view of the republican tactics.

Now, as I’ve said, I do not like or respect Colin Powell. I am able to document what I believe to be his moral cowardice and betrayal of the public trust. Still, I recognize that he has higher "favorable" ratings than most, if not all, other political figure – at least, he did before today. His endorsement is important, for not only the reasons I detailed yesterday, but more, because from this point until election day, the Cheney-Palin-neoconservative-religious right attacks on Obama are shifted: the general public will view them through a lens that shows them to be attacks on General Powell, as well. I assume the bitter, ugly attacks will still take place, for as Sarah Palin said last week, "What do I have to lose?" But they have been put into check.

The last point: yesterday, I spoke about the Cheney group’s fear of losing control of the Office of the Vice President, as well as their concern that both houses of Congress will have significant democratic gains. One reason for this, which will not be reported in the corporate media, is their fear of the Department of Justice and the Congress investigating the crimes committed by the Bush administration. Of course, I would have preferred that the democrats in Congress had done more in the past two years. I was not pleased by some of the responses, which were generally along the lines of "we do not have the power to do so at this time." But come January, they will have the power.

Knowing this serves to motivate this old man. I am tired, but I’ll get some rest today, and tomorrow, I’m scheduled to be investing a few more hours at the Democratic Campaign Headquarters. I’ll be doing a lot of phone calls, and I am confident that the topic of General Powell’s endorsement will be among the issues being discussed

[Me.]

1. Yesterday I Would've Bet Money

On Powell not doing a full out endorsement, I really didn't think he had it in him. It was interesting to note how once he made it clear where he stood Brokaw came at him saying, but won't some people say you're doing this because you're black (paraphrasing). I thought it was reprehensible, though not unsurprising coming from the man who has lobbied to get KO off the NBC payroll. This was added to a statement about Powell's influence in getting us into the war. Immediately Brokaw thought to discredit him because of his race and past mistakes. However, had he endorsed McShame, I can guarantee you that the slant would've been, look, he's for John and, he's black too.

I did a thread earlier (sank faster than a stone) where I said bear in mind that it is in the media's best interest to keep this a horse race and they will do that with every inch of their being for it means more viewers and advertising dollars for them. Now they're talking about legal challenges if BO wins popular vote and the other guy wins electoral. Well just like the HRC 50/50 horserace was a myth after Feb., this is a myth too. Quite a while back I read an assessment that said for the CON campaign to win they had to take Mi, Wi, Penn. & Ohio. All four while BO only had to take one of them. So what, truly are the chances and why aren't we calling them pout on these myths?

Also, it seems we're back to the 'some people' stage.

[puebloknot]

2. I often think of the disdain I felt for Arianna Huffington, back in the day ...

... when she was in the Repub camp and participating forcefully in skewering Bill Clinton at every opportunity. But she changed, and now she's an eloquent voice for progressive values.

I once heard Dennis Kucinich say that in the future, we're going to have to be prepared to do a lot of forgiving of people we know who wholeheartedly have supported the Bush agenda, in order to put the country back together in some form. Love Dennis, bristled at the idea. I thought he might be prepared to just brush all the crimes under the rug. But he has become a strong voice for impeachment. I always have to tell myself that forgiveness does not mean that we condone less-than-noble behavior. It means a willingness to move into a new arena, as Nelson Mandela did, in which accountability and forgiveness are all part of a piece.

I share your feeling about Powell and his failure to show courage for a long time now. But his endorsement today caused me just to drop my feelings for a time, and savor the matter of the integrity inherent in the words he spoke today. If they're not really *his* words, but they were fashioned by someone else, I'll take what I can get from him in service of seeing Obama in office.

Addendum: I believe Powell spoke his own intentions and feelings with integrity today, not that he was serving as an unwilling tool. He made it clear that he has given much critical thought to his decision.

[Gregorian]

4. You have just spoken what I could not.

Thank you so much. I've been wanting to have a discussion on forgiveness. I want to clarify something that is anything but clear. My thoughts seem so contradicting. I would forgive Powell, but I would also not resist seeing him before a court of law for his act in paving the way to war. So then what is forgiveness but something which just frees my own self?

This thread is wonderful. I'm hoping we can all take a new direction with Obama's higher road technique.

And H2Oman has painted a political picture which I am finally beginning to understand. I so appreciate this. Chess, war, society, freedom, love.

Thank you for helping me see.

[puebloknot]

9. Hello, Gregorian. Let me not come across to you as too much of a saint.

I must tell you that I have spent a lot of time in my life pondering the meaning of the word "forgiveness." I see the right-wing "Christians" who have taken over this country just breaking their necks in their rush to forgiveness -- read that "Let's "forgive" so we don't have to talk about it, and so we can move on to the next outrage without any accountability for our crimes." The word "forgiveness" carries religious overtones which are offensive to me, but the word "pardon" gets bandied about as though it's a more clinical and acceptable term in the political arena. I think of Gerald Ford and his pardon of Nixon, and I consider that act a high crime and misdemeanor, an opportunistic act in service of putting the lid on the whole criminal enterprise that Nixon headed up.

I grew up with Christian fundamentalists, and I am estranged from my own mother as we speak because I cannot and will not give one more moment of my life to defending who and what I am. I think I probably err too much in the direction of accountability, slightly tinged with revenge, when I consider Mandela's truth commissions as they might be applied to what has happened here. I often think of Gandhi and his struggle, and I always point out to people that Gandhi's remarkable spiritual journey started with *anger*. He did a much better job of channeling his anger into productive channels than I am able to do. This whole right-wing takeover has been very personal for me, because I grew up (with revolt in my heart and soul) among the same Christians that Kenneth Starr grew up (did he?) with. And I am sometimes so taken over with rage that I have to struggle to bring myself back to center.

It's an irony (to me, anyway) that I ended up in my mid-twenties talking all this over with a Freudian analyst, and after spending a considerable length of time with him, he pointed out to me that -- I'll quote him here: "You are not off the hook until you let your mother off the hook." (Thank you, Dr. Freeman -- and his name is another irony, I think). His message was not that anything she ever did was acceptable under any moral code, but that my own path to freedom had to do with drawing a line in the sand and saying "No more," and attempting (realizing that the attempt might fail) to find compassion for her in my heart. I have tried, truly, but compassion is not a very effective weapon against the conditioning of hellfire that my mother grew up with, and attempted to pass on to me. I have often said that for some cosmic reason, I was born with a teflon coating that saved me from that Hell. Dr. Freeman simply said that I had too much intelligence for the life I was born into!

Because of what I know intimately about the religious right, I have been very disturbed at Obama's own discussions of "post-partisan politics." I *want* him and his administration to be *very* partisan in pursuit of justice for the last eight years, and in support of the Constitution. I would like to be able to trace the origins of the word "forgiveness," because I cannot think that its intention was to simply whitewash unacceptable behavior. Jesus is rumored to have driven the moneychangers out of the temple. We could use that kind of righteous anger now, and I hope that Obama, et al. are going to find it in themselves to take legal and moral action against the Bush cabal, in service of announcing to the world, and those in this country who have tried to subvert the rule of law, that a new day has arrived, and no criminals need apply.

I recall the gloating that took place in 2000 in a venue I participate in because of my profession. I am a trainer in the court reporting field, and belonged to a court reporting forum where there were, to my surprise, a large number of right-wingers who showed clearly that they didn't give a damn about the rule of law (which they all claimed to support through what they do), but rather were very pleased that they had managed to pull off a smart one (a coup), a la Bush v. Gore. I observe that the court reporting community is deeply divided, a small microcosm that reflects the views of the rest of the country. Just as, out in the wide world, right-wingers in that group beat their breasts over their religion, and warn solemnly about the expected arrival of first, socialism, and then communism. Thankfully, there are progressives who push back in that community.

So, the question that keeps coming to me is whether it is a moral stance to give a wave of the hand and a pardon for wrongs when hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died for this brazen right-wing experiment in totalitarianism. It isn't much of a question. I think we need to reconvene Nuremberg and purge the country, and the world, of the poison that has crept into our politics.

There is a scene in "Judgment at Nuremberg" in which a judge, having been found guilty of crimes against humanity, seeks some kind of solace in telling the Prosecutor, Jackson, that what had just happened to him, and what was said in that tribunal, needed to be said. It was his mea culpa moment, and I rather think that that is what Colin Powell has just come to. What he has just said, in endorsing Obama, needed to be said, and I must personally leave it to a higher power (maybe just a court of law in America) to decide where his culpability lies, and what degrees of guilt he carries.

Abraham Lincoln said that the nation was engaged in a great struggle to determine whether we would remain half slave and half free. I think that same ethic is at play now, but with less obvious connotations. Will we remain a nation that is half-enslaved to the tyranny of religious idolatry and cultural bigotry, and an intention to dominate the whole nation, or will the half of the nation that is free in their thinking, and progressive in their worldview, win the day? I don't want to say "win the war," even though it does seem that we are engaged in a war of the mind, a perceptual battle whose end result will determine how, and if, life will go on with soul and grace on Planet Earth, or whether we will descend to a dark place, pulled into the abyss, metaphorically, in the way that slaves, chained together, were thrown off of slave ships to lighten the cargo load.

Who errs? Who forgives?

[Gregorian]

12. The money changers.

It could take me days before my sluggish brain fully digests your wonderful post. But I would like to splurt out two or three immediate thoughts.

I think the money changer example reveals a side of Jesus that meant business. What I do to myself is one thing. But what I do that crosses boundaries and affects others in a direct way, is yet another thing altogether. Your relationship. You are you. Your mother is herself. What she does is her thing. What you do when she does it, is also your thing. It's quite simple. And an analyst isn't really needed. When you allow your mother to be who she is, and you are you, then she can go about what she does, and you'll just witness her. But it's not very easy. We react.

I don't think we know why Powell did what he did. And until then we can only assume. But we as a nation we crossed a very serious line. Obviously. I find that I can accept someone who has changed. Like someone posted today, Senator Byrd. Or even Wallace after he had been shot in an attempt at his life. He changed. I forgive. But I don't think the rules of law allow forgiveness. Pardons are only for unjust punishment, as I understand. And many pardons have been malicious acts. Perhaps forgiveness is only for the victims. It could be our way of breaking a sort of bondage to unrealistic anger. Anger that was justified, but then ceases to be. Powell is no longer holding that vile of Anthrax. But he did hold it. And I support war crime trials. We may learn that he was more than just coerced.

The only thing worth pursuing is the truth. It takes honesty and a clear mind to even begin that search. Many people are content to just relax with what they feel is the truth. Sometimes we must reexamine what we believe to see if it is indeed the truth. But I know that's all obvious.


There is one other thing I want to say. Aside from forgiving, we can go the other direction. One where we demonize. You mentioned Huffington in your post. We could continue our anger for her having been a monster, and look what that would gain us. Without some form of forgiveness, then we ourselves become monsters.

[H2O Man]

18. Three things:

{1} Years ago -- May 15, 1978 at 11:40 pm est, to be exact -- a fellow who was angry over a card game in a local bar fetched his shotgun, and executed the guy he caught cheating, and also his brother and a friend who were not involved in the game. The brothers were friends of my family, and I remember the next morning, when my father said something to their Dad about how he must hate the guy who murdered his sons. Their father said that no, he didn't hate him, or seek revenge. He said it would be hard enough to live his life with the burden of his loss, and did not need to add hate to that. He did want justice, to protect society from a cold-blooded killer.

{2} One of the most interesting things I did at the mental health clinic was to work with an outstanding forensic team. A big part of our duties included evaluating people convicted of crimes, and to make recommendations to the courts, and probation office, regarding the likelihood of the person benefitting from various options -- probation, court-ordered treatment in forensic groups and/or individual therapy, and/or incarceration. It wasn't a matter of judging them based solely on their offenses, but focusing more on how much responsibilty they were taking, and their potential to make meaningful changes in their lives. It had to do with public safety.

General Powell participated in a high-stakes card game in which he supported the Bush-Cheney plan. He knew better. He lied to the UN and to the American people, and as a result, this card game has resulted in the deaths of a lot more people than died that night in May of '78. I'm not looking for revenge, but I do think that we need to be aware that General Powell has not taken full responsibility for his actions, and poses some risk to the world community. Of course, that is just my opinion, and I recognize that others are just as entitled to their opinion as I am to mine.

{3} In our personal lives, there is a great power in forgiveness and acceptance. This is particularly true in regard to our parents, because no matter how difficult it is for us to see, we all will have incidents when as adults, we witness some of the same words and actions we despised in our parents, coming from ourselves. The combination of genetics and environment, like yellow and blue, always add up to some shade of green. If we cannot forgive our parents, and therefore cannot move past accepting our DNA heirlooms, then it becomes impossible to forgive ourselves in life. In this context, it is part of integrating all the aspects of our being, and achieving a healthy wholeness.

[Me.]

19. I Noticed On MTP

That he still couldn't take responsibility. I'm not thrilled with the idea of him being in an Obama admin

[puebloknot]

20. Three responses

1) I often hear of people who have been wounded by the acts of others, in one way or the other, immediately claiming to have forgiveness in their hearts for the perpetrator. I think many people are conditioned early in their lives that they must forgive, and so that becomes a knee-jerk reaction. Not to acknowledge the pain and anger inherent in such a situation, and to immediately move to the socially/religiously accepted response is in my view admirable, if it is actually valid. I think that forgiveness is a thing that takes time and consideration. I do not suggest that there are not some people who are able to go through that organic process faster than others, but I am suspicious of instant forgiveness. Justice, by definition, is not fueled by revenge. The image of blind justice comes to mind, as the blindfolded woman holding the scales of justice.

Many people have expressed praise for the willingness of the Amish to forgive the killer of their daughters. Their outward actions were quite inspiring. But I've always felt that in the darkness of the nights that followed those killings, the humanity of those people very likely took over, and that united front of forgiveness might have its cracks in the facade of the one face representing all that was shown to the world.

2) I fully agree about your assessment of Colin Powell, and was disturbed today to hear that Obama is considering him for his administration. I saw a video posted here at DU yesterday in which Powell claimed that he was fed false intelligence before he made his statement before the UN which supported the intent to go to war against Iraq. My feeling was that I knew, my daughter knew, my friends and associates knew that an administration that had just stolen an election could not be counted on for honesty, and that Powell had to know, in his gut, that he was supporting a flawed and criminal march to war. He should not be rewarded for his flawed judgment (at the least) by a position in the Obama administration, in my opinion.

His words in yesterday's statement were profound, and stirred in me the fact that I've been waiting so long to hear someone address the issues he touched on. In his case, though, I think we may need to, metaphorically, kill the messenger. Many of us have known it all along, so Powell was in a sense borrowing from us when he made his declaration on Meet the Press.

3) Your comment about "DNA heirlooms" (very clever :)) is well taken. I have often had to wrestle with the thought that I feel I'm turning into the things I so despised in my mother. In my life, that is compounded by the fact that I not only look like her, I was born on her 21st birthday and I was always given to understand, in growing up, that I was a carbon copy of her.

Just as I argue in my first paragraph that "forgiveness" is a little too much of a cliche, I continue that argument here. Perhaps we are only dealing with semantics here, but a decision to "pardon" past offenses committed by my mother is not the end of the game. My mother is a fanatical, wounded right-wing Christian whose narrowness was never touched by her visits to Korea and Europe (thanks to the U.S. army). I have often laughed at a memory of our being on vacation in Europe when I was 14, driving in silence through beautiful St. Gotthard Pass in Switzerland, when suddenly my mother became very animated, and shouted at my father to pull the car to the edge of the road. The reason for this excitement? A bus loaded with the acappela choir from a Christian college in the small town in Texas that my mother grew up in was parked at the side of the road. My mother was never touched by anything in Europe as she was by that connection with those who were like her! :) It was almost as though God had arranged that short reunion to reassure my mother that her fear and loathing of all those Catholic and Lutheran historical monuments and writings we were encountering was justified, and that the prairie evangelism she held so closely and so obnoxiously (in the company of heathens) was, as she had always been taught, The One Truth!

Built in to the guiding philosophy of my mother's religion is the assumption of absolute truth and righteousness -- the same assumptions we've seen in Bush, et al. over the last eight years -- and you can forgive all day long, but the principle of shunning those who dare to move beyond that narrowness makes it impossible to have any sort of relationship. And in a personal and narrower way, the need for assessment of personal characteristics and future intentions becomes necessary, just as you outline in your work in the legal arena. I have found it necessary in my life to determine how much verbal assault I am willing to endure for myself, and certainly for my daughter, from a mother who is determined to, as my father used to say, "Rule or ruin."

I insist that we humans were given the ability to reason ... for a reason. There are millions of scenarios in which parents and children become estranged over politics or religion or some other matter, and I cannot think that there will ever be an end to that kind of difficulty. Just as I believe that we, as a nation, must stand up to right-wing bigotry, there is a need to do that at the micro level, with our own families. It is from that small laboratory that great "oaks" from small ideological "acorns" grow.

You are guided in your life by your own experience and whatever philosophy or training has impacted you. I have fashioned my responses to family members in the best way I have been able to. Finally, I have come to a place of some degree of certainty with regard to trying to co-exist with those whose life view is foreign to me, though they have the same bloodlines flowing in their veins: Like Chief Joseph, I will fight no more forever.

[myrna minx]

3. Do you think that if we win a sizable Congressional majority, there will be any accountability

for the crimes that Bush/Cheney inc have committed? Do you think the Dems will pursue any indictments, or will it all "go away" for the "good of the nation"?

[bleever]

5. I'll offer my guess:

The Justice Department's internal gears and wheels have always been the career employees, the non-political types whose allegiance is to the law, to the administration.

Different administrations have exerted untoward influence on the department before, but the Bush Jr. administration went further, throwing sand and various wrenches into the gears at at all levels. Even then, they couldn't save Libby, Abramoff, and others.

When Obama and Biden are in office, the gears will again move as they used to, and the sheer gravity of the crimes, and the vigor of American justice, will result in the investigation and prosecution of crimes we thought we'd never see brought to justice, and without any kind of public pronouncements or retributive agenda from Obama's administration. It will just happen, as a natural consequence of having a normal Justice Department again.

That's why, as H2O Man says, the Cheney wing is so worried, despite the fact that Obama has never made any kind of definitive statement about prosecuting Bush era criminality.

[myrna minx]

7. I hope you are correct, but I have a cynicism, that these people are never held to account

for their crimes, thus they are never really discredited. I truly hope we will finally receive some justice when the DOJ is finally allowed to do it's true job and not political mandates from the GOP.

[CitizenPatriot]

14. I hope so

but my concern is the many unpolitical appointees, the interns, who were illegally appointed based on being fundy christians and leaning to the far right. They have lifetime appointments. When Inspector Fine's report came out, finding that indeed, they had been appointed illegally based on partisan views, the follow up was unclear. They are there for life...what now? Of course, when Obama takes office, he can clean out the political appointees who have been responsible for the voter fraud investigations leaked to the press in direct violation of election codes and who have collectively turned their backs on investigating election fraud, have in fact, helped support election fraud....but we are still stuck with the interns who move up into the DoJ and infiltrate every department. Indeed, the woman who got left holding the bag, Monica Goodling, resigned...and so no action was taken against her. I found this outrageous that a person could violate the public trust, the laws, to the extent of stacking the DoJ with Fundy Christians - in direct violation of separation of church and state - and not be held accountable.

Obama being a constitutional lawyer gives me great hope, as does his promise to overturn any of Bush's signing statements that violate the constitution (that will be a great many of them).

The DoJ's influence in not supporting congress as it attempted to go after justice has been reprehensible.

Accountability is the law of our land -- and while I can forgive, I don't see how the law is served by not pursuing justice and accountability. What will prevent others from the same moves if these people are not brought to justice?

The WMD disaster is unfolding slowly but surely. Those who knew must be held accountable. The consequences of the choice to deceive the public were too horrific to not pursue this. That's my opinion, at any rate.

[H2O Man]

16. The only real chance

for a criminal prosecution of Bush, Cheney et al will be in the manner advocated by Vince Bugliosi. In such an attempt to prosecute, there would be a huge advantage in having a democrat in charge of the Department of Justice, in the context of cooperating in turning over the documents that a prosecutor would need.

Congress doesn't prosecute criminal matters per say, although they do have the ability to hear both criminal and non-criminal (abuse of the power of office) matters in impeachments, which are civil trials. Though people can be impeached after leaving office, there is no chance of that. However, Congress can appoint something similar to the committees that have investigated and documented both criminal and non-criminal issues.

[rosesaylavee]

6. Powell did the right thing today.

But, he will have to answer for his crimes against this country in the future.

I don't think it is up to me to personally forgive this man or the others involved in the deaths and maiming of countless thousands. It is our system of laws that will ultimately decide his innocence or guilt... hopefully if our elected officials remember their oaths of office come January.

My role as a citizen is not to forget, to remind my representatives that I voted for them because, among other things, I basically felt that they would uphold the Constitution. If we allow lies and corruption to become standard operating procedure, our country is lost.

[puebloknot]

10. True. Every word! nt

[Emit]

11. I love pie.

:)

[JeffR]

13. Deserves its own thread.

Very, very well said.

[rosesaylavee]

17. Maybe a thread after the election or come next January...

As stated elsewhere on this thread, this endorsement has been and will be useful in recruiting more votes for Senator Obama. A thread now would just be a drag on everyone's already frazzled nerves I think.

[Emit]

8. H2O Man, I used the Powell endorsement as a motivation tool today for the 70+ volunteers I had,

I've been launching Obama volunteers (We had 100 yesterday!!) from my home to do GOTV during Early Vote, and because we are knocking and walking, we have many voters who are kind of tired about being surveyed and door knocked. I gave the team a pep talk and suggested that they really talk up the Powell endorsement, despite their own personal thoughts and feelings about Powell, as we are still attempting to persuade undecided voters and even those who were leaning toward McCain.

Using Powell's endorsement, coupled with other factors (i.e., Brooks' comments after the last debate about Obama being a 'mountain', George Will's negative comments about McCain, and Christo Buckley's recent endorsement of Obama, etc. - not to mention McCain's shift to pander to the far right and religious right, his bizarre behavior during the debate, Sarah Palin's fear mongering, our local RNC's fear mongering mailers, etc.), will help us turn more voters our way. Many are expressing distaste for the negative attacks.

I am happy to report that it seemed many walkers came back feeling they had more tools to work with when encountering apathetic voters and voters who are feeling irritated with the door knocks. We still are getting complaints here in this battle ground state from these voters who are tired of the politics. So, of course, it helped too, now that we are officially into our first week of Early Vote, that our canvassers can tell these folks that if they just go vote, we'll drop their name from our list and stop bugging them. ("Just VOTE, will ya?!" :) )

It was a good weekend. I am exhausted, though, and just finished my first meal of the day, lol.

[H2O Man]

15. I'll be using it today.

We need to take advantage of every option and resource we have available to us.