Yes, he was kind of dumb and fell down a lot, but what people don’t know about Gerry Ford is that in the very heart of the 70’s, just when we needed it, he ended Watergate, the Vietnam War and the recession. And he was a lot cooler than people realize.

Pardoning Nixon was at the time considered traitorous. But we now view this act as not so bad. Ford wasn’t so wrong that lynching Nixon, fun as it would have been, would have dragged all of us through the muck of retribution and it probably would have gotten out of hand. So good Ger, we did actually need a final cleansing to move past Watergate and heal. And history certainly judged Nixon as harshly as his critics would have wished.

Vietnam had dragged on for over a decade. But it was Ford’s seeing the writing on the wall, and using his leadership and time in the House that finally influenced Congress to sufficiently withhold funding to let the war end. In September 1974, just a month after Ford assumed the Presidency, Congress appropriated only $700 million for South Vietnam. This left the South Vietnamese under-funded and resulted in a rapid and steep decline of military readiness and morale. In December, when North Vietnam violated the Paris peace treaty by attacking Phuoc Long Province in South Vietnam, Ford responded with diplomatic protests but no military force. The end came soon thereafter.

And while Ford got a lot of crap for Nixon’s pardon, the flip side to that was a blanket pardon to over 100,000 draft evaders and military deserters. The amnesty offered was very far reaching, and covered convicted draft violators, convicted military deserters and AWOL’s, draft violators who had never been tried, and veterans with less than honorable discharges for absence offenses.

Ford did much to contribute to a stronger US economy. When Ford came into office inflation was over 12 percent. He came up with the WIN (Whip Inflation Now) program and those cute WIN buttons and by 1975 inflation had dropped to 7 percent and was down to 4.6 percent by mid ’76 when he was running for re-election. Unemployment dropped during his presidency as well. In March of ’75, a total of 84.1 million persons had jobs. In July, 1976, employment had risen to an all-time high of 87.9 million, an increase of 3.8 million jobs in a little over a year. Unemployment was 8.9 percent in May 1975, but by July 1976, it was down to 7.8 percent.

Ford accomplished this by tightly controlling spending. Despite being from the House, he vetoed more legislation – percentage-wise – than just about any president. He wielded the power of the Presidential veto 55 times, citing the need to battle inflation. The total dollar savings from his vetoes was about $10 billion, as Congress upheld 45 of the vetoes.

More than all this, he restored honesty and integrity to the executive branch. The guy really had no guile. I met him once, and I could see it right away. He was like my grandpa. He came from that last generation of Americans that could afford to be honest.

The sense of stability he transmitted was another reason the economy improved. But the other benefit from Ford’s nature was the era of Good Times that swept the land once Nixon left the stage. For Ford had that greatest of great presidential qualities. He was a hands off guy. He knew our country was enjoying the biggest party in the history of the world, and he let us get on with it. Once Nixon was gone, and Rock Music and disco and glam and popularization of the 60’s as the 70’s and everything that went with it had arrived, mid-70’s America became what we all now know it to have been: the zenith of Western civilization. Time will vindicate those who believe it that that was the peak. And Gerry was our absentee landlord. Thank you Gerry.

Of course, he was also a pretty tough dude. He survived 2 assassination attempts, as well as hitting his head and tripping a lot. LBJ once said, “That guy’s played too many football games without his helmet,” but 93 years old is a testament to some pretty healthy living. And let’s not forget the bravery of his wife Betty, who was the first first lady alcoholic in a long and tawdry history of several first lady alcoholics to admit it and go into rehab. But what we don’t normally appreciate is that Betty invented rehab. The Betty Ford Clinic formed the basis for the recovery movement that continues to this day.

A little known fact is that once Ford got into office, he did pretty good for the environment too. Though never ratified by congress, in 1975 he proposed an energy program that would have given the US energy independence by 1985. He did put the Energy Research and Development Administration into law which provided for the creation of alternative energy supplies such as solar and geothermal energy.
He also got passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which among other things set up the now well-known national gasoline emergency reserves system.

During his presidency, there were no Americans fighting other nation’s wars. Ford was the first President since Eisenhower who ran for election without a single American fighting overseas. And he gave us the first mini-military victory after a losing war, successfully sending Air Force and Marines to take back the freighter Mayaguez, seized by Cambodian Commies.

Crime was increasing at a rate of 18 percent a year when Ford took office. The rate of increase went down to 9 percent the following year, and in the first quarter of ’76 had dropped to 4 percent.

The thing that always nailed him, his infamous quote that “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration,” sounds less asinine when you read his follow up to the moderator’s request for clarification:

“I don’t believe, Mr. Frankel, that the Yugoslavians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don’t believe that the Romanians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don’t believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. Each of those countries is independent, autonomous: it has its own territorial integrity and the United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union. As a matter of fact, I visited Poland, Yugoslavia and Rumania to make certain that the people of those countries understood that the president of the United States and the people of the United States are dedicated to their independence, their autonomy and their freedom.”

I get and appreciate his point here. And it was proved true 12 years later. So thanks Gerry. You were a helluva guy. You stood up for what was right, and you did it with humility, and without a single vote being cast.

I really think John “I botched the joke” Kerry may be a robot programmed by Richard Nixon to destroy the Democratic party. Why on earth is he apologizing for trying to tell the truth? Everybody says that a politician can’t get elected if he or she speaks honestly about hard issues. But how can we know if no one ever tries it?

If I were John Kerry, I would fight back with the whole truth, and it would go something like this:

Former GOP congressman Mac Collins, who is trying to oust Democratic Rep. Jim Marshall, attacked what I said about how stupid we are to be in Iraq by saying: “The men and women who serve in our all-volunteer armed forces are plenty smart.” I have no problem with that. But I said if you don’t study and don’t do your homework, you end up in Iraq. And indeed, that is why we are there. This is a stupid war, and anyone responsible for getting us into it is stupid.

Now, Mr. Collins won’t admit it, but you and I know that joining the Army is pretty much the only way for the poor and uneducated to get out of poverty and get an education in our country anymore. But no one believes it was our troops’ decision. We are in Iraq because our government is stupid. And the rest of us are all just stupid for letting it happen.

Since we’re talking about stupidity, however, I would speculate that the average intelligence in the USA of people who support the war is far lower than those who don’t. And there’s a very interesting reason as to why this is. Because the war is stupid! For those who did not understand my comments the first time, let me elaborate. We are stupid to be in Iraq! Dumb. Not smart. Being stupid and being in Iraq are synonymous.

Simply stated, it is commonly recognized that favoring brute force versus attempting to use reason to work things out generally reveals a lack of intelligence. And yet, despite all our ideals and so-called values, our country, the one we’re supposed to believe in, the good ole USA, out of the blue, totally unprovoked, started bombing innocent people in Iraq. You can lay a story over it but the story doesn’t stick. You can say that it was because there was an immediate threat, but it’s been very clearly shown that that was a made up lie.

The reality is that a day came where we just started bombing and invading Iraq, causing a world of pain and suffering, and unleashing untold violence that did not exist until we forced ourselves upon them. And you are not smart, and you did not study or do your homework, if you can’t, don’t or won’t see that. By the way, a country is not just stupid if it denies or ignores this reality, it is in big trouble. So the real discussion to have here is how are we going to come to terms with the fact that our country has caused tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of innocent people to be killed and to suffer.

So when I say we are stupid to fight the way we are, I refer to the uneducated and thoroughly discredited opinion that the US can and should militarize its way out of the threats our country faces from the Muslim world. Even the US Army now admits that our policy has increased terrorism and hugely increased anti-US sentiment. Stupid is the old paradigm: “Arabs only understand violence.” The idea that Bush and his cronies continue to push, that our only hope is to crush them, is racist and dead wrong. It’s racist because it implies they can’t respond to anything short of the logic of being crushed, and it’s wrong because you can’t crush a billion people. You can only win them over. Once the USA realizes that our only hope for winning is to win people over, we will stop trying to hurt them and make them cry uncle. They’re not going to cry uncle. They’re going to get more angry and become more willing to resort to more extreme methods of self-expression that reach more and more into our own world.

So let’s take a lesson: If you don’t do your homework and you aren’t smart, you get stuck in Iraq! Really! Really stuck! Really really dumb. Thank you.

Sunday, December 25, 2005

US radiation snooping of Muslims called ‘disturbing’

WASHINGTON: The Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim rights organisation in the United States, has described the revelation that Muslim gatherings and homes around Washington have been electronically "sniffed" for radiation as "disturbing."

Read it all on the Daily Times website, front page with today’s date: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk

Well, I’m with Bill Maher on this one. It really is Muslims, so we really do have to focus on Muslims. Muslims after all did declare war on the US in the name of Islam. Polls indicate a huge percentage of Muslims, and a tiny percentage of any other group, agree with the stated aims of Al-Qaeda. If the folks getting searched at the airports don’t like it, they should write their own head office and complain, not ours.

My $0.02.
~ US

Sorry gang. After Bush won, I needed a year off. I escaped to Mexico, a little town named Yelapa where they treat even me with unconditional love. But a year drinking Ricea and moping have done little to counter the feelings of despair that engulfed me after I realized that it was finally, after so many years of rolling up my sleeves, too late.

But now I wonder. Upon my return, I decided to review the year’s events. I started with the Inaugural Address, and that is the subject of this posting. For as I reread it, it dawned on me that the problem was the solution, and our challenge was not to confront the tyrant in our own midst, but rather to use the Internet and its unprecedented ability to foster free speech to join forces with the loftiest claims made in the inaugural, and leave the hollowed out reality their claims are meant to justify on the trash heap of history it crawled out of.

Specifically, what I wish to say is that George W. Bush’s Second Inaugural Address may be the greatest speech I have ever read. Not heard of course, for reasons that anyone with ears would find obvious. But if you read the speech, it’s obvious that the America proposed in it is an America so far beyond and above what has ever been the case, so far removed and above what current administration policy creates, an America so good, so righteous, so complete, that it is actually an America I wish to live in.

Please read this speech as if you had no idea who wrote it. Read it as if it were not merely proscriptive, but descriptive, and decide for yourself if we have any other choice but force the man who wrote it, and those who would claim to be its co-authors, to live up to it. Imagine a world where our country actually was the force for freedom so eloquently painted by these words, and insodoing consider not just the hypocrisy of what passes for their enactment, but what a difference it would make if progressives and activists and the movement as a whole demanded not that the mission statement itself be revamped, but that it simply be lived up to.

Herewith, the speech in its entirety:

Vice President Cheney, Mr. Chief Justice, President Carter, President Bush, President Clinton, members of the United States Congress, reverend clergy, distinguished guests, fellow citizens:

On this day, prescribed by law and marked by ceremony, we celebrate the durable wisdom of our Constitution and recall the deep commitments that unite our country. I am grateful for the honor of this hour, mindful of the consequential times in which we live and determined to fulfill the oath that I have sworn and you have witnessed.

At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together. For a half-century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical — and then there came a day of fire.

We have seen our vulnerability, and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny — prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder — violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders and raise a mortal threat.

There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment and expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant. And that is the force of human freedom.

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this Earth has rights, and dignity and matchless value because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and Earth.

Across the generations, we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation’s security and the calling of our time.

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen and defended by citizens and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own.

America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way.

The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations. The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it. America’s influence is not unlimited, but fortunately for the oppressed, America’s influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom’s cause.

My most solemn duty is to protect this nation and its people from further attacks and emerging threats. Some have unwisely chosen to test America’s resolve and have found it firm.

We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation — the moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.

We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people. America’s belief in human dignity will guide our policies. Yet, rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed. In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.

Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty — though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt. Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery. Liberty will come to those who love it.

Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world:

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

Democratic reformers facing repression, prison or exile can know: America sees you for who you are — the future leaders of your free country.

The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.”

The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust them. Start on this journey of progress and justice, and America will walk at your side.

And all the allies of the United States can know: We honor your friendship, we rely on your counsel, and we depend on your help. Division among free nations is a primary goal of freedom’s enemies. The concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy is a prelude to our enemies’ defeat.

Today, I also speak anew to my fellow citizens:

From all of you, I have asked patience in the hard task of securing America, which you have granted in good measure. Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill and would be dishonorable to abandon. Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom.

And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well — a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.

A few Americans have accepted the hardest duties in this cause — in the quiet work of intelligence and diplomacy … the idealistic work of helping raise up free governments … the dangerous and necessary work of fighting our enemies. Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that honored their whole lives, and we will always honor their names and their sacrifice.

All Americans have witnessed this idealism and some for the first time. I ask our youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes. You have seen duty and allegiance in the determined faces of our soldiers. You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself, and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country but to its character.

America has need of idealism and courage because we have essential work at home — the unfinished work of American freedom. In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty.

In America’s ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act and the GI Bill of Rights. And now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time.

To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance — preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society.

By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.

In America’s ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character — on integrity and tolerance toward others and the rule of conscience in our own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self.

That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards,and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran and the varied faiths of our people. Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came before — ideals of justice and conduct that are the same yesterday, today and forever.

In America’s ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service and mercy and a heart for the weak. Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another. Our nation relies on men and women who look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love.

Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth. And our country must abandon all the habits of racism because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.

From the perspective of a single day, including this day of dedication, the issues and questions before our country are many. From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?

These questions that judge us also unite us, because Americans of every party and background, Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to one another in the cause of freedom. We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes — and I will strive in good faith to heal them.

Yet those divisions do not define America. We felt the unity and fellowship of our nation when freedom came under attack, and our response came like a single hand over a single heart. And we can feel that same unity and pride whenever America acts for good, and the victims of disaster are given hope, and the unjust encounter justice, and the captives are set free.

We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as he wills.

We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages, when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty, when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner “Freedom Now” — they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled.

History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction set by liberty and the author of liberty.

When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public and the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, a witness said, “It rang as if it meant something.” In our time it means something still.

America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world and to all the inhabitants thereof. Renewed in our strength — tested, but not weary — we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.

May God bless you, and may he watch over the United States of America.