More appalling than the plan, however, was reporting on the boot stomping atmosphere surrounding the press conference. At least 20 NRA security men, some with visible guns in holsters, patrolled the room, ordering photographers not to take pictures, and reporters to get out into the lobby. They inspected reporters’ brief cases. Clearly the gun friendly medium was the message.

When asked about common ground with gun control advocates, Hutchinson said his plan was it. If so, columnist Dana Milbank said, “American school children may grow accustomed to the sort of scene Hutchinson caused Tuesday protected by more armed guards than a Third World dictator (WP op-ed, 4/2).”

We must think about what the school environment Hutchinson wants means concretely. What kind of a “scene” are our children going to get accustomed to? Picture kids talking about the latest variety of assault weapon as “cool”. Look to social pressure on kids to join gun clubs. Assume kids will be afraid to take unpopular positions. Assume a world where critical thinking is dangerous.

A gun culture, which we already have, implies you can only get your way if you back it up with lethal power, and must have the lethal power to protect yourselves. You are a target of disrespect otherwise. People, in this worldview, who say they admire the tradition of non violent protest must be weaklings.

We must fight back against pro gun plans, not only to stop our horrific gun homicide rates, but in order to live in a society based on ethical principles and in a democracy.

The Kansas Methodist, Rev. Adam Hamilton, chosen to preach at the National Cathedral Inaugural service, lauded the president for “a gift unlike any other President we have ever had” to cast a vision. However, Hamilton’s real message to Obama seemed to be when he told PBS news hour audiences that working across the partisan aisle should be Obama’s vision. Find issues, he counseled him, where you can work together and then build on that step by step to overcome the bitter partisan divide.

What does Hamilton’s vision mean in practice? All say Republicans and Democrats may be able to come together on an immigration policy. But then, why would anyone think they could move on to cure America’s partisan divide, or even reach agreement on any other issue. Is immigration reform the vision we are looking for? Do we just drop climate change, investing in education, gun control, equal opportunity economy, among other elements of Obama’s vision?

Finding common ground with Republicans should not be the centerpiece of Obama’s vision. As Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein told us a year ago in “It’s Even Worse Than it Looks,” America’s problem isn’t political polarization, it is the takeover of one party, the Republicans, by extremists. Those who are pushing to find consensus at all costs are elevating partisan rancor to the vision level and dignifying and validating extremism. To comment on the President’s Inaugural address, as Speaker Boehner did, that the President’s goal is to “annihilate” Republicans was a completely commonplace Republican statement―but extreme nonetheless.

Obama should not see his goal as finding common ground with extremists. Obama’s aggressive promotion of his vision is just that. If Republicans want to take it as aggression against them, they are wrong. He cares about his vision―not about annihilating Republicans. Republicans hate big government; they must hate politicians whose profession is mastering the art of governing. They are the last to say Obama should care more about placating partisan enemies than he does about succeeding in implementing his vision. He is prepared to leave all calls for nonpartisanship aside and go talk to the American people and get their direct support for his vision. What could be more American, more democratic?

Obama’s vision, in its whole and in its parts, should be what we are all talking about and not debating whether he has crossed some red line of the Republicans, who are so leaderless they don’t even have anyone to draw the red lines.

We must clearly separate America’s political dysfunction from a vision for America. Political dysfunction will get cured when the debate is on the vision. Honest disagreements on elements in a vision are welcomed. However, we should reject those who tell us that the President is aggressive and partisan and that his vision should placate the most extremely disaffected among us. That is not a recipe for success. Moving only where there is common ground is a recipe for disaster.
– Elizabeth Spiro Clark

But is it? Is there any middle ground between the NRA and advocates for the regulation of firearms, for example? Where is the conversation when, following the Newtown massacre,  NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre stated that getting more guns in the hands of individuals was the solution to gun violence.

Where is the middle ground when Larry Pratt, head of Gun Owners of America, says that the main reason for owning guns is to defend ourselves against the government.  In this thinking, the American government is not America. For Representative Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) the US doesn’t  have a gun problem, it has a people problem.  Anyone who disagrees (in this “debate”) is pushing a political agenda. Huelskamp says he doesn’t exactly approve of children playing video games, but “I am not saying to pass a  single law about that because it would be politicizing the issue.”

It is unacceptable to say that passing laws is “politicizing” an issue.  “Passing laws” is why our founding fathers created an elected legislative body. That is democracy.  At its heart Republican extremism is an authoritarian movement. It is no accident that neither Wayne LaPierre nor the NRA President David Keene would take  questions at their press conferences. Accountability is a core value of democracy, not authoritarianism. A debate shouldn’t be about whether we want to be a democracy.

For the media endless talk about “debate” it is a way to cover themselves. They don’t have to expose that one side, and one side only, is incapable of moving off an extreme agenda.  We shouldn’t, however, avert our eyes from the clear meaning of what is being said just because it exposes the limits of “conversation” and “debate”.

“Having the debate” also means getting out of calling the facts.  The Violence Policy Center conducts research that finds “states with low gun ownership rates and strong gun laws have the lowest rates of gun deaths”: The NRA says that “gun free zones” have higher gun death rates. For the NRA, gun free zones are the problem.  It’s presented as a debate, except it isn’t.

It is important to follow other stories that just follow the facts. For example, the profit gun manufacturers (and hedge fund mangers) make off weapons sales.  LaPierre, in effect, opened a new business opportunity when he said the NRA would finance and fund a program called the “National Model School Shield Program” to train school guards.  This at a time when the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms has no workable data base of gun owners and registered guns because NRA will not let Congress pass the necessary appropriations.  The NRA doesn’t want to make Americans safer, it wants to make them less safe – for profit.

We don’t need a “conversation” with far right extremists, we need to talk about what they are saying.  What does it mean to say you need guns to defend yourself against (your) government? What is sedition? What constitutes incitement to violence? What is treason? And finally, what about exposing a right wing conspiracy to change America through cover organizations, funded by right wing billionaires, that push anti democracy laws in state legislatures and gett them passed. The American Legislative Exchange Council may drop pushing “Stand Your Ground” legislation after the killing of Trayyvon Martin last year and Stephen Feinberg of Cerberus hedge fund may drop Freedom Group Inc. gun manufacturers after Newtown.  But how many more are still out there pulling strings? We need information, not “debate”.

The “makers” obviously don’t see it this way. They may think they didn’t get a gift from the government, but rather as good businessmen incurred a business expense, buying this, that, or the other lawmaker. They paid for their tax gifts. They also paid for state legislators to redistrict their states or to pass voter suppression laws to artificially raise the number of Republicans in Congress.

Despite the dismal return on their money in November’s election, Republicans don’t appear to be giving these ideas up. So rather than turning our heads in embarrassment, we need to chase these ideas down every drain pipe until they are flushed out of our system.

We could start with the drains in Sea Gate, a gated community on Coney Island.  The community is asking for government help to rebuild after super storm Sandy.  Sea Gate started out as a retreat for Vanderbilts and Morgans in the 19^th century. Current residents are described as middle class. According to a NYT report (11/27/12), whether middle class or super rich, they have chosen to live apart from their neighbor communities―with a vengeance.  They have ringed themselves with barbed wire and armed security check points. Sea Gate and other private communities can apply to get their streets taken off city maps (demapping), at which point such streets become privately owned, the communities assuming responsibilities for infrastructure, including roads, sewers, parks, and even policing.  This is the price for being left alone. Post-Sandy, however, Sea Gate has decided it cannot afford the infrastructure rebuilding costs, so it is asking for city, state, and federal assistance.

Sea Gate should get the help it is asking for. NYC’s deputy for operations is probably correct to say, “It’s in everyone’s interest to get these communities back.  If they’re successful, the city is successful.” Maybe some members of Sea Gate are embarrassed they are letting the Romney/Ryan team down by accepting government gifts.  If I were them, I would be more embarrassed by the barbed wire.

As Obama said in his victory speech last night:   “I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.

I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.”   — President Obama, Victory Speech

November 7, 2012

If you go online to FiveThirtyEight, the most detailed and authoritative analysis of election polling, you would have to ask what equal “shares of hope and fear” are they talking about? Of the argument the election is “too close to call,” Silver says:  “It isn’t. If the state polls are right, then Mr. Obama will win the Electoral College. If you can’t acknowledge that after a day when Mr. Obama leads 19 out of 20 swing-state polls, then you should abandon the pretense that your goal is to inform rather than entertain the public.”

Of the Post’s seven “tossup” states, Silver lists only one – Florida – as a “tossup”.  In addition, Silver has Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Wisconsin as not just “leaning” Obama, but  as “likely” Obama (i.e. 80-90%).  Silver gives Obama an 85.1% of winning the Electoral vote.

The Post rather gives away its game with a chart where Obama needs from the “tossup” column only Ohio plus either Wisconsin or Colorado (or Ohio plus “likelies” Iowa and NH). The Post ignored its own giveaway sentence – buried in the text on ‘tossup” Ohio – that “virtually every public poll in the last 10 days shows Obama with an advantage.” But then, the Post needs its “tossup” states to make its story “entertainment”.

Is there a reason why the Post and the Times took this “dead heat” approach? Suspense  sells, but is it also that an entrenched “balanced reporting” imperative  trumps any objective analysis, just when objective reporting counts the most? (Note: to see what objective analysis means go to http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/nov-2-for-romney-to-win-state-polls-must-be-statistically-biased/#more-37099).

Writing off the 47%: Unpatriotic
Appearing on the David Letterman show, Obama accused Romney of “writing off a big chunk of the country” and that Romney was wrong to suggest that “because someone doesn’t agree with me that they’re victims or unpatriotic.” “The one thing I have learnt as President is that you represent the entire country.” What is patriotic about Romney writing off the 47% and claiming he won’t be President of all Americans?

Quite apart from Romney’s clear contempt for 47% of Americans, he doubled down yet again on his contempt for facts by saying “they don’t pay taxes.” Well, for one, all those seniors getting social security and Medicare he hopes will vote for him paid payroll taxes while they were working.

And what is this whole “dependency-is-bad” screed? We are all dependent on each other. As Americans we create through our elected representatives public service institutions set up to benefit us all. Romney doesn’t want any institution that benefits Americans equally (except maybe a flat tax rate, that of course wildly benefits the very rich). In Romney world there is no sense we are in this together as Americans.

It is unpatriotic to divide America, discarding lower-income Americans as less worthy as individuals. When the sense of community is broken America is weakened.

The 47%: Disenfranchise Them!
In Romney’s view if you don’t pay taxes you don’t deserve a say in government. There is nothing in his worldview that wouldn’t fit a policy of returning to 18th century property qualifications for voting. In fact the Romney dismissal of 47% of Americans, fits perfectly with the actual drive of Republicans to disenfranchise Americans in the 2012 elections on the transparently dishonest grounds that they are safeguarding Americans from voter fraud.

In the most exhaustive study to date of voter fraud the non partisan News 21 found in its Who Votes Project that from the years 2000 to the present in the United States there were 2000 cases of voter fraud. Of that 2000 there were only 10 cases of voter impersonation- the only type of fraud photo ID requirements would catch. Given this research it is clear that the motive behind the Voter ID laws is to reduce the number of American citizens who vote, largely, if not solely, because they are assumed to vote for the Democratic Party. The disenfranchised are part of the 47% of Americans Mitt Romney feels aren’t real Americans, so why not disenfranchise them? On this theory, Democrats aren’t real Americans

You aren’t for America if you are Romney; you are for your part of America. Being patriotic means supporting American democracy. Passing laws meant to selectively disenfranchise American citizens for partisan gain weakens American democracy. It is unpatriotic.

The 47%: Is Obama one of them?
Republicans do not accept Barack Obama as their President, as American. The Senate minority leader has said the top priority of the Republican Party is to destroy and defeat the American President. That is unpatriotic.

Being patriotic means supporting American democracy. That means accepting the results of elections, participating in our democratic system of separation of powers, negotiating solutions in the necessary work of government. It means not taking pledges not to negotiate with the other party and owing fealty to non-elected political figures. Vowing obedience to a Grover Norquist no-tax-raise pledge is anti democratic. It is an insult to America. It is unpatriotic.

It deliberately weakens America in the world if the nation is urged not to stand behind its President and if policies are pursued internationally, not to strengthen America but to weaken the President. That is unpatriotic.

*Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81312.html#ixzz26pZDxvJI

Dragas was appointed by a Democrat and has given money to Democratic politicians, so her action cannot be ascribed to a Republican Party agenda. However, it is hard not to see in this university leadership crisis the same downsides of a business background and culture at play that would be at play if Mitt Romney, touting his business credentials for the job, became President. It is hard to translate the goal of making money off of building and selling houses to nurturing the values of a great institution of higher learning. It is hard to translate buying up distressed companies, making money, often, off of their destruction rather than their improved operations, to guiding a nation to greater security and well-being for its citizens.

Autocratic decision-making style is not appropriate in either case. The Sullivan firing followed a secretive and abbreviated process that might be termed “model” CEO decision making. The firing immediately led to the resignation of one of UVA’s star academics, who clearly did not see his role as a division chief in a construction firm following orders. Romney has been noted for his secretive style as governor of Massachusetts.

Accountability for the Dragas decision and the swift reinstatement of President Sullivan came partly as a result of outraged student demonstrations in support of Sullivan. The chief mechanism for keeping a President of the United States democratically accountable are elections. If Romney is elected and doesn’t do well, then he can be “fired” at the next election. However, that scenario assumes that after four years of a Romney presidency, the lines of accountability will remain clear after outsourcing of government functions to corporate supporters and unlimited political money channeled from the top 1 percent to political campaigns. The chorus of students, professors, and graduates cannot turn around a national election. The answer is clear: we must work to re-elect President Obama.

One way to look at the Citizens United Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited political donations by corporations, defined as “persons” with rights of free speech, is to see it as a license for corporations to “inflict” their views on others. Freedom of speech as defined in the Republican lexicon is the freedom to win and then inflict an absence of freedom on others. When Republicans use the word “freedom” think of them as saying “freedom to inflict.” Certainly that is a fair read on what another powerful institution, the current Catholic Bishops hierarchy wants to do to Obama’s Health Care Act. Its position is that religiously-affiliated hospitals or universities are legal persons whose religious freedom would be denied if they were forced to offer contraception in their health care plans. The Bishops continued their war against Obama (and women) even when Obama, seeking a principled compromise, shifted the mandate for contraception coverage to insurance companies. If the hierarchy eventually wins against Obama its “institution as person” can effectively “inflict” its views on non-Catholics, denying them contraception coverage.

In the Citizens United view of corporate personhood Catholic-affiliated hospitals and universities are defined as persons whose freedom to insist on adherence to doctrinal purity must be guaranteed, whether or not they serve non-Catholics. In the debate over contraception coverage, no real individual Catholic is being denied any freedom of choice or speech. An editorial in the New York Times (5/27/12) says it best: “The First Amendment is not a license for religious entities to impose their dogma on society through the law… The First Amendment also does not exempt religious entities or individuals claiming a sincere religious objection from neutral laws of general applicability, a category the new contraception rule plainly fits… This is a clear partisan play. The real threat to religious liberty comes from the effort to impose one church’s doctrine on everyone.”