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By Gary Corseri

9/5/07

“Politics is the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its opposite halves - sometimes split into quarters - which grind on each other.”

–Henry David Thoreau

“It is better to be almost right than precisely wrong.”

–Warren Buffet

“Can we all just get along?”

–Rodney King

How well Thoreau, our best philosopher and political thinker, would have “gotten along” with Buffet, our Empire’s investor-sans pareil, is a matter for speculative fiction, but I suspect the open-minded Naturalist would have endorsed the financier’s caveat against overweening pride in one’s own judgment. Not only must we look before we leap, but, once sure-footed on the other side, we must also look behind to inspect the ground we’ve covered, and to assure ourselves we’re not about to topple backwards.

We are fast approaching one of those “benchmark” moments of back-looking which are becoming noisome, ritualistic affairs of hearty self-congratulation, vacuous critiques, and paralytic inaction. The Empire has lost its rudder in the quicksand of Iraq, and neither General Petraeus’s upcoming, indubitably rosy, assessments nor the General Accounting Office’s countervailing grade of “F” will extricate that rudder any time soon. Congress will balk, Cheney will snarl, and the “dogs of war” we unleashed nearly five years ago will continue to ravage that once-prosperous land that had the misfortune to fall for a dictator we supported.

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BY CHIP BERLET

Originally at The Public Eye - Vol. 18, No. 3

John Calvin (Jean Cauvin), the main architect of one of protestantism’s most severe sects, and moral inspiration for New England’s Puritans. The curious thing is that while Calvinism, in general, provided a big legitimacy boost to capitalism, the Puritans hewed to a doctrine that had much more in common with old Catholic doctrine in regard to commerce.

Why are increased sentences and the severe punishment of those convicted of crimes so popular and prevalent in U.S. culture? Since the late 1970s our society has accepted increasingly rigid and vengeful ways of punishing those convicted of crimes. Behind this trend is the momentum of 250 years of a strain of religious philosophies brought to our shores by Pilgrims, Puritans, and other colonial settlers influenced by a Protestant theology called Calvinism. Today, many ideas, concepts, and frames of reference in modern American society are legacies of the history of Protestantism as it divided and morphed through Calvinism, revivalist evangelicalism, and fundamentalism. Even people who see themselves as secular and not religious often unconsciously adopt many of these historic cultural legacies while thinking of their ideas as simply common sense.

What is “common sense” for one group, however, is foolish belief for another. According to author George Lakoff, a linguist who studies the linkage between rhetoric and ideas, there is a tremendous gulf between what conservatives and liberals think of as common sense, especially when it comes to issues of moral values. In his recent book Moral Politics, which has gained attention in both media and public debates, Lakoff argues that conservatives base their moral views of social policy on a “Strict Father” model, while liberals base their views on a “Nurturant Parent” model.1

Other scholars have looked at these issues and found similar patterns. According to Axel R. Schaefer, there are three main ideological tendencies in U.S. social reform:

Liberal/Progressive: based on changing systems and institutions to change individual behavior on a collective basis over time.

Calvinist/Free Market: based on changing individual social behavior through punishment.

Evangelical/Revivalist: based on born again conversion to change individual behavior, but still linked to some Calvinist ideas of punishment.2

Coalition Politics

Republicans have forged a broad coalition of two of the three tendencies that involves moderately conservative Protestants who nonetheless hold some traditional Calvinist ideas; Free Market advocates ranging from multinational executives to economic conservatives to libertarian ideologues; and conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists with a core mission of converting people to their particular brand of Christianity. This is a coalition with many fracture points and disagreements. The Calvinist/Free Market sector is already a coalition based on shared ideas about individual responsibility and successes in Free Market or Laissez Faire capitalism- sometimes called neoliberalism to trace it back to an earlier use of the term “liberal” by philosophers who opposed stringent government regulation of the economy.

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“…Or did the $80 million Framework Agreement — a US reward to Abbas for following the American script to the letter — set aside a tiny amount for milk, fuel and perhaps couple of dialysis machines for those suffering in Gaza?”

By Ramzy Baroud

8/13/07

Since the foundation of the United Nations’ Security Council, the Palestinians did not manage to have any kind of sway that would allow them to block or amend a proposed resolution in any meaningful way.

But miracles do indeed happen, as, for the first time, and after days of intense lobbying, a Palestinian delegation recently killed a draft resolution. Not only this, it also managed to block a presidential statement which is usually made when a resolution is buried, by way of explaining the circumstances behind its rejection.

But this ‘miracle’ has a bizarre twist. The resolution, drafted by Qatar and seconded by Indonesia, was merely expressing concern over the humanitarian disaster intensifying in the Gaza Strip and the deteriorating plight of one and a half million Palestinians dwelling, or more accurately, imprisoned there, lacking all imaginable necessities — electricity, fuel, clean water, food and medicine.

One would typically expect it to be Israel dispatching its delegations to the UN, armed with every possible pretext to deny Palestinians even the smallest window of opportunity to argue for their concerns — such as protection for refugees, humanitarian aid, or investigations into massacres.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to  

by Adam Engel

8/9/07

Maybe we’ve never been lied to at all. It’s in the constitution’s
deceptively democratic language and supporting literature such as the
Federalist papers and “oppositional” writings by Madison and Jefferson
and the gang. They all wanted to keep their property, they just couldn’t
agree on the most subtle, persuasive, game plan.

The country IS and has always been a democracy for Our Masters — rich,
propertied, white men. It is a democracy for THEM to this day,
regardless of what BuschCo, hired out by the real owners of America,
does to the rest of us. Our Masters will vote democratically on
corporate boards. Our Masters’ “public” servants will vote
democratically in Congress, each representative voting in accordance
with his/her affiliated corporate interest whose board democratically
selected him or her for office.

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By Vi Ransel

8/5/07

Ancient genetic signals can be resurrected after lying
dormant for millions of years, awaiting only the right
trigger to release them.

In the early Carboniferous there arose an organism
with, for the very first time,
more information in its brain than in its genes,
and the brain grew more dominant over time.

The modern brain’s blueprint is a story
of successive accretion and specialization,
which freed us from the hardwired tyranny
of DNA’s monopoly on total information.

The three interconnected parts of the modern brain
correspond to the evolutionary emergence
of reptiles, mammals, primates
- especially humans -
and represent a major burst forward

in overall brain development,
each step adding a new function and a new layer.
And since these were laid down over existing systems,
the preexisting systems had to be accommodated

because making basic change deep within the fabric of life
very frequently turns out to be fatal.
Adding new layers while retaining the old ones
allows major change consistent with survival.

Today’s triune, or three-part brain
consists of the R-complex at its core,
surrounded and surmounted by the limbic system,
which is enveloped by the massive neo-cortex.

The R-complex is the most ancient part,
the dinosaur component of human nature,
seat of reptilian ritual and aggression,
territorial and hierarchical behavior.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

By Horace Coleman

8/5/07

When a most famous warrior leaves
the playing field for the slaying field,
it’s not “wise” when his demise is by
the hand of one in the same command.

When friendly fire tears friendly flesh,
war’s haze can fill a maze of lies.
It began with those who chose
to burn the slain man’s bloody clothes.
By unwritten regulation
(and with no hesitation)
those higher up tried to bury the blame
before the man to avoid the shame, overly
praising his already glittering name.

As usual, it was the stupid lie,
as much as the anxious deed,
that made a brave man die
and announced fate’s crime
with a loud cracked chime.

Nothing pat about that.

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to  

By Ramzy Baroud

8/4/7

The name of Alberto Gonzales is rapidly becoming synonymous with all that has gone wrong under the Bush administration. Repeated media discussions of the US Secretary of State in the most contentious tones have served to lay the blame for all the ailments that infected American democracy under Bush squarely on one man’s shoulders.

President Bush himself, Gonzales’ loyal boss, friend and the hand behind all the stunts and tricks that Gonzales so indefatigably performed to defend and justify the unjustifiable, remains immune to any meaningful criticism.

Bush is well known for his habit of awarding sensitive posts to old friends, as if the prime objective of the president of the United States is to protect the administration’s secrets and rubber stamp whatever compulsive policies he and his self-serving neoconservative associates concoct. Although appointed to the post in February 2005, Gonzales has been a member of Bush’s team for years; he served as Bush’s General Counsel from 1994 to 1997, when the president was governor of Texas. Then, he served as Secretary of State for Texas for two years, before going on to join the state’s Supreme Court. Finally he worked with Bush again for five consecutive years as White House Counsel. Considering the president’s reputation of favouritism and staunch loyalty to those faithful to him, Gonzales’ ascension to the 80th Attorney General of the United States, replacing John Ashcroft, only seemed a natural progression.

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by Stephen Lendman

8/1/07

Linda McQuaig is a prominent, admired, and award-winning Canadian journalist writing about vital issues of concern to everyone. She was a national reporter for the Toronto Globe and Mail before joining the Toronto Star where she now covers Canadian politics with her trademark combination of solid research, keen analysis, irreverence, passion and wit. She’s easy to read, never boring, and fearless. The National Post called her “Canada’s Michael Moore.”

McQuaig is also a prolific author with a well-deserved reputation for taking on the establishment. In her previous seven books, she challenged Canada’s deficit reduction scheme to gut essential social services. She explained how the rich used the country’s tax system to get richer the way it’s worked in the US since Ronald Reagan and then exploded under George Bush. She exposed the fraud of “free trade” (never called fair because it isn’t) empowering giant corporations over sovereign states while exploiting working people everywhere.

She also showed how successive Canadian governments waged war on equality since the 1980s, and in her latest book, “Holding the Bully’s Coat - Canada and the US Empire,” she takes aim at the conservative Stephen Harper administration’s allying with George Bush’s belligerent lawlessness and phony “war on terrorism.” Canada chose not to be part of Washington’s concocted “coalition of the willing” in Iraq but partnered in its war of aggression and illegal occupation of Afghanistan.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

By Steve Jonas

7/31/07

Peggy Noonan was perhaps the paramount hagiographer of Ronald Reagan, perhaps the most influential creator of the Reagan Myth. Peggy Noonan is currently a Contributing Editor for The Wall Street Journal. In a column entitled “American Grit” posted on the OpinionJournal.com on Friday, July 13, 2007 (that tells you something), Noonan had this to say, in part, about George Bush: “I found myself Thursday watching President Bush’s news conference and thinking about what it is about him, real or perceived, that makes people who used to smile at the mention of his name now grit their teeth. . . . I received an email before the news conference from as rock-ribbed a Republican as you can find, a Georgia woman (middle-aged, entrepreneurial) who’d previously supported him. She said she’d had it . . . . Americans have always been somewhat romantic about the meaning of our country . . . . But they like the president to be the cool-eyed realist, the tough customer who understands harsh realities. With Mr. Bush it is the people who are forced to be cool-eyed and realistic. He’s the one who goes off on the toots.”

He’s the one who goes off on the toots?!? This is Peggy Noonan speaking, folks. He must be deranged or delusional, according to her. That’s the only possible explanation of what Noonan describes as his “seemingly effortless high spirits. . . . [His] certain steely good cheer. . . .” Isn’t it? But hold on. We’ve got the alternative view of The New York Times columnist David Brooks, who seems to be vying for the position of paramount hagiographer of George W. Bush. In his column of July 17, 2007, “Heroes and History,” he tells us that in an interview at the White House “Bush was assertive and good-humored. . . . His self-confidence is the most remarkable feature of his presidency. . . . [Far from being delusional, he has an] unconquerable faith in the rightness of his Big Idea. Bush is convinced that history is moving in the direction of democracy, or as he said Friday: ‘I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn’t exist.’ [And so], Bush remains energized by the power of the presidency.”

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“BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq - The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It’s outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.

The Reaper is loaded, but there’s no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.

The arrival of these outsize U.S. “hunter-killer” drones, in aviation history’s first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.” — Associated Press, July 16, 2007.

(http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,142437,00.html?ESRC=dod.nl)

By Adam Engel

7/25/07

So BushCo solved the PR problem that might possibly have grown into a credible anti-war movement by alleging to guarantee less American casualties which, let’s face it, is all Americans really care about anyway. Otherwise, we would have protested the massacre of the first “Gulf War” in which Iraqi soldiers and civilians were slaughtered in their cars while trying to escape Baghdad. Forget all that “military honor” nonsense. What kind of monsters fire on retreating troops AND fleeing civilians? Despite all the movies and TV shows referring to “American casualties” in 1991, including that movie with Meg Ryan, only about 200 Americans died in that war as opposed to 150,000+ Iraqis, mostly civilian. The movie, JARHEAD, unique among Gulf I movies, depicts burnt corpses on a highway crammed with cars and trucks bombed fleeing American air power and “smart bombs.”

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