Uncategorized – Page 7 – Hopeful Romantics

The Myriad Possibility Puzzles of Intelligence Disinformation After the Osama Bin Laden Raid

Before we wear out are hands patting ourselves on the back for the success of the Osama Bin Laden mission, there are a few things to consider in the aftermath. While on one note the raid was a true success, and we did kill Osama Bin Laden, I am compelled to critically review the story of his discovery and demise. Frankly, some of the official explanation, sounds a bit like a legend, meaning a mixture of truth and fiction. As one who has enjoyed, if that is the term, a brush with this kind of thing, I find the explanation detailing our discovery of the terrorist’s whereabouts a little sketchy.

The article, among other things, by Jonah Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times only piques some of my suspicion. In his article entitled, Why the Hurry to Gloat About Bin Laden, Goldberg wonders why this administration raced to announce they found a treasure trove of intelligence. He writes…”It’s a bit like racing to the microphones to announce you’ve stolen the other team’s playbook even before you’ve had a chance to use the information in the big game.”

Indeed. Goldberg astutely writes that any World War Two buff knows the shelf life of this sort of intelligence is actionable for a brief period. Assets scramble and go to ground. Terror cells reconstitute. Evidence is destroyed. Trails grow cold pretty quickly. So as Goldberg writes, when the administration did announce to the world the Bin Laden killing mission produced a treasure trove of intelligence they were essentially giving up the goose who laid the proverbial golden egg. They would have sent Al Qaeda running for cover. It doesn’t make sense that the administration would employ such a tactic. Or does it?

Having spent a number of years working with a certain gentleman who specialized in this kind of thing, I well know the value of disinformation. Sometimes I even helped him with the story. But on his own this man I worked for was a consummate professional, a Good Shepard from the OSS onward through a number of agencies, chairman here, co-chairman there, who among other things specialized in advanced communications. He was an expert in radio, meaning microwave technology and extreme low frequency radiation. And as an information expert, he could tell a whopper of a tale and make it believable. In the intelligence business you are supposed to lie. You are supposed to be good at it. Lying in the right places is perceived as an asset and not a character flaw. He would also tell the truth at times, or enough of it to lead certain media people to places he wanted them to visit. But that’s another matter. For now, and for the purpose of this little tome, we will stay on disinformation. Basically, you bullshit your way to success.

I remember being squeamish at times, thinking his alchemical mixtures of fact, fiction, and post-modern mythology would never have any currency. No one would believe it. Not the adversaries. Not the media. But I was wrong. He would smile at me. Tell them with conviction, and they will believe it, he would say. This was in the eighties and nineties. Times when there actually was some statistical relevance. And here we are today where even the most batshit theory gets its due, has a few rounds with the muddleheaded who would rather believe anything but the obvious.

I recall stories that were in the best of instances partly true and were bought hook, line, and microphone. Just make the story plausible. Give it some depth, some value. Supply a few details. Make it satisfactory, a nice arch without any glitches or holes in the fabrication that may come unraveled before the bleary eyes of a persistently gullible and oversaturated media who in the main knows as much about the relevance of history as I do about the mating habits of mollusks. The media who in turn serves up its half-baked fare to what is largely a population of lockstep, sieve-brained electron dependents, posing as intellectuals. So in essence, when you are spreading disinformation, save for a diminished and discerning few who would rather employ critical thinking than fall for the okey doke, you have a win-win situation. You disseminate the bullshit as source information, and they buy it as gospel. They buy it in books from talking heads that are getting paid as fill for the real truth in advertising, the commercials.

So here were are with the administration announcing that they have a treasure trove of information. From past experience, as Jonah Goldberg considers, you shouldn’t announce what you have and by consequence blow your opportunities. Keep it to yourself, right? Use this highly valued information taken from the cold, dead hands of Osama Bin Laden and cowboy time chase down the badly shaken and destabilized Al Qaeda.

That would make sense. If you had this treasure trove of intelligence. But suppose you don’t have the treasure trove of intelligence. Suppose you have instead a bunch of old papers from an old man who long ago had been marginalized and had in a word bupkes in terms of current intelligence. Well now.

Then you would tell the world you had the treasure trove of intelligence. In fact you would announce it every chance you had. As I learned during my stint doing what I was doing, you give them believable bullshit about what you have on them and then watch them run around from one to the other. You watch where they go who they see, listen to what they say. You roll out big time the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Communications Intelligence (COMINT), and the Electronics Intelligence (ELINT) and of course where you can Human Intelligence (HUNINT). You watch, you listen, you eavesdrop on every fart from every terrorist you confirm or suspect. You watch where they run and you see who they talk to. You listen in. And from that you can determine the big stuff–how they have reorganized, their communications flow, methods of operations. You can learn of their banking and financing, their weapons purchases. It’s the proverbial stone in the proverbial pond. You watch and see how the ripples spread.

Perhaps this is your real treasure trove of intelligence. This is how you stir the pot, as my associate used to say, rattle their cage, he would say that too, and see what happens. This is the good stuff. This justifies you telling the world that you have garnered all this valuable information as a result of the raid. It’s good provided you don’t do it too often and press it too hard. Otherwise, the other side gets suspicious and starts to regard it as possible disinformation. And then your legend is blown.
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So that’s one aspect. A possibility among the myriad possibilities where the ever mutating news story festooned with hyperbole, congratulatory confetti, and too much celebration. Among other things, I wonder what forces were on alert in case the mission went all wrong and it was necessary for more than a couple dozen SEALS to confront the Pakistani Army, lest they be taken prisoners. Failure and embarrassment, which no right think minded President, certainly not this one, would ever allow. But I digress.

Here is the thrust of what I am driving at. Mind you this is speculation. As all things in this arena, speculation is healthy. We are not talking about conspiracy here. We are talking about reassembling the same facts in different logical patterns to see what other conclusions can be reached. It is called in some circles Alternate Analysis or, better still, Analysis of Competing Hypotheses. It is healthy. It is respected. But most often, out of convenience, it is ignored. Anyway, here we go.

Suppose Al Qaeda considered Osama Bin Laden a burden. A fossil. A figurehead that was great for the recruitment posters, but otherwise an expense they could no longer afford. Rumor has it he was running out of bucks. Not a good place to be when you are a man on the run. So now here he is, a pain in the ass. Like old gangsters and others who have outlived their reign, others in Al Qaeda decided Osama has to go. I mean we have all seen the video of him slumped, grayed, and channel surfing. A potential embarrassment to any respectable terrorist thug.

So what to do? Well the West wants him more than that twelve minute special on the Home Shopping Network. He is a symbol. He is the figurehead who killed thousands, ruined lives, helped to ruin an economy, and changed the way we lead our lives. He is the asshole responsible for our having to take off our shoes and wait in long lines at the airport. He is the dark shadow over our lives. We tell our kids, forget about the bogeyman. If you aren’t good, Osama Bin Laden is coming to take you back to his cave.

So what to do? Well…how about allow the West to get wind of his whereabouts. Use your communications channels. Drop a few hints. A tip here and there. Lead them to where you want to go. As it has been a thousand times before. Make sure the courier is followed. And while you are at it serve Bin Laden a bunch of outdated or phony information. Disinformation. Give the great man a lot of bullshit intelligence to make him think he is still in the loop. And when the West finally decides to move on him, what will they find? The bullshit information you have been feeding him for the past six months. Information that says a lot and reveals enough to make it plausible, but ultimately leads to a dark, dead end. Meanwhile, Obama is dead and out of the way. He is a martyr and will live forever in the minds of all who follow.

And this crappy information you provided. This spurious bunch of nonsense, interspersed with enough fact to make it plausible but in the end hardly actionable. This may well be the “treasure trove” of information. Maybe not. But then again…maybe so. This is part of that world. And nobody is really saying.

In fact, at the end of the day, the real treasure trove of intelligence that may be had is not necessarily all the documents. Instead it may well be the crashed helicopter that we left in the compound. The same helicopter that, as reported in ABC News, the Pakistanis, for a price of course, may show to their good buddies, the Chinese. The same Chinese from whom the Pakistanis just purchased advanced fighter jets. Oh, that didn’t make much noises in the news cycle? What a coincidence.

So in the end the Chinese may end up with our advanced technology. We may have in exchange a dead old man who I personally am happy to see has gone off to harass his 72 virgins instead of American citizens.

Or…the helicopter that “crashed” was not operational. And we left it there for the Pakistanis to give to Chinese so they can reverse engineer it, only to discover up the road it was just a plant. A typical helicopter with trimmings and nothing more. One more piece of disinformation.

Had to say. It always is. That’s is but one reason the intelligence game is not for the literal minded.

The New Boomer Commune, a Television Pitch That Became a Harsh Reality

A couple of years ago, I wrote on this blog about the need for the new commune. The original article was entitled, Boomers New Commune for Retirement Post-Recession. My first posting came on the heels of the economic meltdown. I could see where the economic downturn, in fact the major disaster cost Boomers, their houses, their savings, their jobs, and dignity. People who had saved short money who depending on their pensions, found their savings wiped out, their pensions in ruins. Things did not look good then, and now, several years, later, the largest segment of the unemployed are those who are fifty-years-old and up. Boomers.

As a generation, most Boomers lack enough financial security to retire as it is. Few have put even a scant $100 Thousand away for the golden years. And now, a few years later, public service programs and entitlement programs are under attack. While governments, federal and state kick back to the wealthy by allowing major tax breaks for the “job creators,” not jobs are really being created. Not on the scale that is necessary. It’s like the country is being sold off one piece at a time, and those who worked for thirty, forty, fifty years, find themselves confused, caught in a device of their own making…in big trouble.

Back in the beginning of the twenty-first century, all right, seven years ago, Marcia and I pitched to the television networks a dramatic series about Boomers finding themselves confronting the realities of not a brave but dumb new world. As Marcia had developed such hits as Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, and oversaw Dynasty, we figured pitching a night time soap opera wasn’t that big of a stretch. At the pitch meetings, we pointed out that what services that were taken for granted would be diminished or rescinded entirely. The proverbial carpet was pulled out from under, and now it was time for innovation.

We detailed how social services would fade into history and the aged and the middle income people would have less access to adequate medical care, food, and shelter. You know, the basics. I pointed out how instead of needing midwives, there would be a demand for hospice workers, nurses, and medical technicians who could administer to the commune at large. While there would still be a need to grow crops and work the land, there would also be the need for advanced technology. In the old communes technology was feared and rejected. In the commune of the aging Boomer, technology is necessary for communication, access to information, and in some cases a means for some to continue to make a living well into their senior years.

The new commune would be very different from the communes of the sixties, even though the point of common ground is that on both occasions they were established by the same generation.Young Boomers back then, people in their twenties, rebelling against the system, living sex, drugs, rock and roll. Now it would be older Boomers, just living, trying to survive. Back to the garden. The commune. The commune with computers. The commune with more companionship than sexual experimentation, where the commune dwellers had matured enough so they didn’t have to take a vote on who would wash the dishes and who would walk the chickens. The drugs were of the prescription variety and the minding expanding process was relegated to things like scanning in photos of the grandchildren or organizing reading and education programs for the local schools and nearby communities.

You know, useful stuff. Of course there would be comedy and drama, an audience keyed in to character interaction in this ensemble cast for a television series. We pitched this idea to every network and some of the cable companies. We told them that Boomers and such were a major audience and as their tastes and buying patterns were way different than the old elderly. Boomers, unlike their parents, weren’t stuck on brands and were open to new products and services. They were technologically oriented. They had money. some of them, anyway.
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We described in marketing terms how sponsors would flock to but air time. Here was a culturally rich platform to sell their, designer jeans, pharmaceuticals, magical yogurts, nutritional health bars, and luxury cars…the Valhalla of marketing platforms for the Lexus, Mercedes, BMW…and let’s not forget Viagra.

However, the networks were not run by Boomers. The networks were run by people barely out of their fetal stage. Little embryos and often with brains to match. Network executives were largely people of privilege who had been largely insulated from the harsh realities of the world. These are people who are largely not overly imbued with a sense of social empathy and as a group their historical understanding ranges all the way from Happy Days to Happy Hour. This was a new marketing segment, an emerging marketing segment that had yet to be tested. As someone who has worked in marketing, as yet to be tested, means that fifty people above and below have nary a clue of the issue and its potential before you. As iconic screenwriter William Goldman has said about Hollywood, “No one knows nothing.” And his sage-like statement is no truer than when essentially spoiled, self-absorbed and insecure people are confronted with a new idea. Even it the idea sounds plausible, it can’t be because no one has proposed it before. The system shuts down. To the shock of no one, we were told no.

Okay, so now here we are. We have politicians wanting to do away with social security and deny a fair amount of social services. On one hand you have Wall Street, like Sirens of the Cosmic Peep Show promising that if you just give them your money, lush retirement awaits you…you aging fool. You can have a new career, another business, a chance to do all the things and have all the experiences you should have had the first place instead of saddling yourself with a thankless job where you worked for trinkets and baubles until they finally fired your sorry ass during the latest Recession.

Out of work, unemployed, not a lot of bread in the bread box, you have according to the actuaries another twenty to forty years of life on this planet, and the question is how the hell are you going to make it?

How indeed? Well, there are all these blighted towns out there they could be restored and turned back into communities. Abandoned urban areas that could be reclaimed. Communities where there is close proximity to the shops and services. Where as a commune or compound you can actually function and live your life. The modern commune. Maybe there are jobs and maybe the jobs are created from within the commune. Internet commerce or whatever. In any event, most commune members would have some Social Security income, some kind of pension. Maybe it’s not necessarily stuck out in the middle of some boondocks paradise where you are a million miles from the hospital, should your heart act up or your hemorrhoids start to bother you.

Places that are reclaimed. Where you can be cared for by people just like yourself. Everything from retired healthcare workers to IT folk, chefs, and crafts workers. Other Boomers pitching in, long evolved from the concerns or post-adolescence and focused on the ardors of survival in a world that may yet reject them. It ain’t the Garden, but then it aint’ the Grave Yard either. And it sure beats the hell out of Leisure World.

Evergreen Review Publishes Book Review for The Guys Who Spied for China

The Evergreen Review holds a special place in my heart. Along with its book publishing division, Grove Press, from the mid-century on, intrepid visionary, alias the publisher, Barney Rosset, brought forth to this nation a tremendous selection of cutting edge literature. This was literature that few back then would dare publish. Even today many of these remarkable contemporary writers would still be wanting a publisher had it not been for Rossett.

The Evergreen Review and Grove Press publication list, first introduced Americans to Samuel Beckett and William Burroughs. Grove published the unexpurgated version of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, among other of the author’s works, and the unabridged work of Marquis De Sade. Grove and Evergreen published international authors, some of whom would go on to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Like Japanese novelist Kenzaburo Oe and Per Lagerkvist in Literature.

Evergreen Review published Jean Paul Sartre, John Rechy, Octavio Paz, Malcolm X, John Rechy, Jakov Lind, Jack Kerouac, Jean Genet, and Allen Ginsburg. There are so many that it is almost senseless to name them all. You can find a list of authors at the Evergreen Review website, which I have linked to here…Evergreen Review.

Back in the Paleolithic Era when we were supposed to be good children reading Silas Marner, I was visiting the long defunct Marlborough Bookstore in New York. The Marlboro Bookstore was a local chain and was unique as it put on its remainder shelf copies of Grove Press publications. They sold them at a bargain off of list price. Just a buck. For one dollar, not the smallest amount of money for a high school kid in search of something a little more a little more relevant than the classics, I could rummage Marlboro on the cheap and find in Grove and Evergreen this marvelous new world of writers. These were writers who had not been sanitized with century’s worth of time time and that incumbent respectability. These were flawed individuals, exploring the world around us, offering us at times often gritty and surreal insights.

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This is where I cut my teeth. These were the writers who worked to define modern times and now and then offer illumination and poetic transcendence to a world that was getting crazier by the moment. Some of these writer had been published elsewhere. Some had not been published at all. But here in a changing America, Barney Rosset made sure their voices were heard.

I write this because Evergreen Review was kind enough to review The Guys Who Spied for China. While I make no points of comparison to others who have graced its pages, my literary exposure started with Evergreen Review, so it’s like a full cycle. I am delighted. It means a lot to me. Live long, Barney, and publish for another dozen centuries. Given what the publishing world is today, it truly needs guys like you.

Here is the link to Kevin Riordan’s review of The Guys Who Spied for China.

Minstrel’s Alley to Expand Its Book List Despite a Shaky Book Market

(Los Angeles) Minstrel’s Alley, an independent publishing and media group, has announced its intention to expand its book publishing efforts in the forthcoming year. The Los Angeles based company has scheduled three books for publication in 2011. The books will be published as trade paperbacks as well as in the EBook format.

“The success of our initial book publishing efforts has enabled us to publish three books in the forthcoming years, ” said M.J. Hammond, Publisher and President of Minstrel’s Alley. For the year 2011 we will add to our book list with The Blood Orange, a romantic mystery thriller by Gordon Basichis. The novel is set in contemporary Los Angeles but harkens back to the days of old, Spanish California. The story is one of corporate and government intrigue.

We will also be publishing Ghosts of Havana, by Cameron Lee, and a non-fiction work, tentatively entitled, The Sorority Letters. Ghosts of Havana, is a romantic mystery thriller with an international scope,” said Hammond. “The novel begins in pre-Castro Cuba and reaches its climax in the North Sea.

“The Sorority Letters is a multi-decade spanning compilation of actual correspondence among different sisters who lived together in a Tri-Delta Sorority back in the sixties. This is an exciting project, and we have high hopes for its commercial potential.”

Hammond points to the success of its three previous book publications, all written by author, Gordon Basichis. The Guys Who Spied for China was a roman a clef based on the author’s real life experiences uncovering Chinese Espionage Networks operating in the United States. It was a quarter finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novels Competition, as was published as a trade paperbacks as well as on Kindle, Apple iPad, Sony Reader, and other Ebook formats

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Minstrel’s Alley also published in EBook format, The Constant Travellers. “The quirky western fantasy was first published in hardback by G.P. Putnam’s, and its film rights were optioned by Twentieth Century Fox and MGM. It was later published as a trade paperback when Basichis and iUniverse published it as part of the Author’s Guild “Back in Print” program.

“The Constant Travellers, is an unsung classic, a story set in the old West but told in the modern idiom,” says Hammond. “The novel is fresh and relevant and never received its due. It appeals especially to a younger audience as well as the Boomer set.”

Hammond remarked that Minstrel’s Alley is a small company on a limited budget that has grown cautiously in spite of the tentative nature of the book publishing industry. “We believe we can find our way in what is a shaky market. By specializing in quality books with a strong commercial value we believe we can bring together the best of both worlds.”

Background: Minstrel’s Alley is a Los Angeles based independent publisher that seeks to bring adventure back into the publishing industry by publishing books that have popular appeal but with more complexity than the standard mainstream fare. The new publishing group distributes its books through Amazon, Kindle, and assorted Internet outlets as well as through bookstores around the country. You can view Minstrel’s Alley at www.minstrelsalley.com

When the Big Speech is Over: The Post Mid-Term Elections and a Brand New Round of Truth Speak

I have long been suspicious about the adamancy of true believers. It’s not nice at times, and it definitely reveals my own impatience and in fact even snobbery, but nevertheless, when I hear people utter parroted news speak I realize sooner or later they will issue a new incantation explaining away either the limitations of their previous thoughts, or why they collectively or individually failed at their objectives. To me, those who believe something so piously have elected to wear on their psyche Kevlar blinders to block out the occasional sliver of critical thinking. Few realize the more obvious limitations and vulnerabilities of any dogma. Which often dooms them from the get-go.

The irony of most true believers is that they believe themselves to be open thinkers. They are open to any new thoughts as long as they can perceive them as far inferior to the their own. Should those posing alternate perspectives not acknowledge their insufficiencies, the true believer launches into a flurry of clichéd diatribes. Or, if faced with the plausibility of alternate reality they may withdraw entirely from the confrontation, pulling in their heads like turtles in a shell. So much for quality discourse.

In the world of the true believer, his ideology is never suspect and no matter what results are achieved, there exists no such thing as failure. Failure, the true believer contends, should be deemed as relative. It is not failure that his party or group has acquired, it is in his eyes a limited victory. Those who set out to run the twenty six mile marathon and struggle to make it past ten city blocks might deem it a victory of sorts. But for the rest of the world, this is failure, not achievement. Which leaves the true believer to issue his fall back position, they “tried, and did the best they could.”

What is then confusing to the true believer is that not everyone is buying it. Not everyone is a lifetime subscriber to the nauseatingly pervasive “everyone gets a trophy” mentality. I know I am far too results oriented for that. My own fault, maybe. My own impatience. But like a fair amount of the world, I believe this very attitude severely limits innovation and performance. I believe it dresses the stage for reduced expectation. Rather than set new standards of performance, our reflexive readiness to resort to the “we did the best we could syndrome” let’s us beg off and otherwise rationalize our collective sloth and personal limitations. We do this nationally, and we do this as individuals. We have forgotten that success doesn’t really need to be explained. Failure requires a million excuses.

A perfect example is the recent mid-term election. I cite this not just to pick on the Democrats, but to also take note of the cycle of apology and explanation that ensues after such an event, all as a substitute for relative lack of action. As we all know, the Democrats were soundly beaten. For mid-term elections, the incumbent party losing twenty to thirty seats in the House is considered acceptable. The Democrats lost more than sixty three seats in the House and six seats in the Senate. Let’s face it, nobody likes to get his ass kicked. Or let’s say, unless you are a masochist, you don’t like getting beaten to a pulp. However, that’s what happened in the recent mid-term elections.

While it was clear to some, in my opinion the more astute, the Democrats were failing at their message, Democratic pundits went on TV and instead of reaching out and communicating gave some rambling examples of their accomplishments. These virtues were garnished with laments that the average American just didn’t understand all the good that was done for them. In essence, the party of the people was claiming before the cameras that the party of the people no longer knew how to communicate with the people. Which is true. It seems that every rambling utterance that emanates from the Democratic Party elicits more confusion than resonance. The messages are obscure, tangential, and without any emotional focus.

Coming from an age when Democrats were roll up your sleeves and bang it out in the gutter types, we now see a Party that is either so diverse its objectives are diluted, and with all its education and high minded ideas out of touch with much of the American middle class. Why? Because if you are alleged intellectuals, academics, media people, or other members of the Democratic Leadership who are driving its train, chances are you don’t come into contact with the average American Joe. Democratic leaders and supports really don’t talk to the guy running the tire shop, the small business manufacturer, the owner of a modest IT company. Middle management and even the majority of senior executives. You may believe they do, but they don’t. Okay, maybe during election time. There is no personal contact, and there is no political contact. Once upon a time when diverse types actually lived in the same communities this was the backbone of the Democratic Party. This and labor.

Well, labor has been diminished and the true middle class, the small business owners and technocrats, the truckers and healthcare workers, are largely being ignored. Big news here, organizations like the Teachers’ Union are not the middle class. The underclass worker is just that, underclass. The poor are the poor. None of them, despite all rhetoric to the contrary are middle class. If you are out to save the middle class, then it would be helpful to know who and what the middle class actually is.

The person running a business or holding onto a job at some local business with a house, two cars, two kids, and the bills to pay for all of it, this is the middle class. This is not the poor or the underclass. This is the middle class. This is the pissed off segment that doesn’t really want to hear some weak rhetoric about “sacrifice” and that it takes a village. What they need to know if if they can get credit for their business or if their jobs won’t be shipped off to Timbuktu. Before they want to hear about contributing to the well being of others, they want to know how they will pay for their mortgage or put shoes on their kids’ feet. They want to know how they can care for their own family members, whether it means putting their kids through college or caring for an aging or dying parent. They want to know now and not with some promissory rhetoric posed by a bevy of politicians and academics who have never run a business in their lives. They don’t want to hear how the government will take care of them but rather how they can take care of themselves.

The middle class is complex. In the modern age, it is difficult to pinpoint. It may be dissected economically but as never before social and cultural tastes will differ. There may be the same salary levels, but this is a segmented market with its different tastes and different priorities. The advertising industry knows this. Politicians do not. The person making fifty grand in Topeka is probably more drawn to lawn care and less drawn to Broadway Theater then the person making fifty grand in an emerging neighborhood in Brooklyn. Each to his own. The middle class covers a broad spectrum and to attract that spectrum to your way of thinking you have to find some common ground. You have to be direct and not ramble in the abstract. In short, you have to know who they are and what they are.

Other than the buzzword, the Democrats have little idea about the broader spectrum of the middle class. They sort of have a vague notion of the urban middle class and they certainly devote their focus on the poor. Not to besmirch the poor, but let’s face it in a global economy in a time of economic crisis, it would be a damn sight smarter to focus on those who can pull you out of the crisis and set you back on a path of global competition. When it comes to restoring jobs and global competition, all hand wringing and obligatory rhetoric aside, for sure as hell the poor ain’t driving that bus. I don’t want to sound cruel here, but it’s is relatively easy to figure out what the poor need and want. Simply put, the socially marginalized want to be included. Not an easy task, but that directive is a lot simpler to figure out than the needs and wants of a very segmented and therefore complex middle class.
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The Republicans figured it out. The have done a far better job at communication than the Democrats. Strategically speaking, they have out messaged and for the most part outsmarted the Democrats in strategic terms. Mind you, this is a case of style over substance, and by no means do I believe the Republicans have the right idea. The previous eight years offer bitter testimony that they, too, don’t have a clue. But they do have a better line of bullshit. They are better organized and there is no mistaking their message, no matter how spurious that message is. They are masters at taking Democratic niceties and twisting them to the Republican advantage. They show the Democrats to be weak and tentative and they run through those whole like like a Mack Truck through Paper Mache.

As for truth speak and the party line, prior to the elections I watched one Democratic pundit after another cite Democratic accomplishments, mostly followed by the deep chagrin that much of the nation wasn’t embracing these accomplishments. President Obama, they contended, had done so much and was so under appreciated for all he has wrought under much resistance and great duress. Some alluded to his weaknesses, but most held the party truth speak talking about his character and great strength. How much he cared and what a fighter he was. In all, before the election, the Democratic position was we have done so much for so many; it is their fault that they are such idiots that they don’t understand our political largess. Reality didn’t seem to be a factor, even in the face of overwhelming samples that the Democrats were heading for disaster. Democratic supporters, rather than confront the situation head on and examine why they were not reaching the public with their message, preferred instead to cling to their rhetoric and take up residence in that turtle’s shell of denial. This may offer temporary comfort, but it is not very strategic. Nor is it particularly intelligent as more often than not it will only exacerbate the negatives.

What was missing of course, was the reality. Case in point, and I know some have argued vehemently otherwise, that the president blew opportunity big time with the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf. The resulting catastrophe severely damaged what amounts to the 29th strongest economy in the world, the Gulf Region. Forgetting the fact that Energy Secretary Salazar, an oil guy, was warned that the necessary drilling protections were not in place, this was President Obama’s version of “you are doing a Heck of a Job, Brownie.” I know all the lamentations that the President was doing the best he could and that he had no magic wand to wave and the other horse shit that was offered up as lockstep and lame excuses. But the fact is, in seeing British Petroleum as a partner, rather than demanding they seal the well, billions of dollars were lost to that economy. Tens of Thousands of people lost their livelihoods. A culture that had existed for centuries was devastated.

Of course once the President did lean on BP, the leak was sealed. After a hundred and something days, miracle of miracles, they found a way to seal it in less than a weak. According to the news media and most Democratic pundits, mistakenly believe the crisis was all over. All’s well that ends well Everything was fine. No, it was not fine. People were outraged. Maybe those who lived elsewhere and perhaps didn’t really care about what they deemed a bunch of Cajuns and Southern Crackers, thought that after a brief time out everything was back to normal. But the Democratic politicians and their supporters knew damn well, in a literal sense the Party was over. The Democrats had just lost what little they had initially retained of the Gulf Region. With the exception of Democrats like Mary Landrieu and her brother Mitch, icons and real supporters of their native state, you can kiss it goodbye for many other Democrats.

Of course, I can’t think of any Democratic pundits who diverted from truth speak and pointed out on the cable shows that you can forget about gleaning votes form the Gulf Region. Not a mention as it would not fit into the lockstep dogma that the public just doesn’t understand us. No one pointed this dreadful inaction in time of crisis as Presidential failure to step up to the plate. No one pointed it out that this may be endemic of a behavior pattern few could discern amid the impassioned speeches from an inexperienced politician who was never forced to confront adversity of this magnitude. No, not a peep about indecision or possible behavior flaws. Nobody was saying, despite all the time constraints and opposition, the President wanted the job, and this is the job. Again for the cheap seats…this was the job he signed on for.

Instead just prior to the election, we heard the party line about the encroachment of the Tea Party. Oh the Tea Party, a bunch of racists who were determined to undermine the Democratic efforts in spite of their own self interests. And, sure, it’s true. Big news there are racists living in the United States. And being bigoted assholes, there is no doubt racists will be emboldened under times of economic weakness and national indecision. The worst part of this country will emerge for sure. All this seething and underlying bigotry, be it racism, sexism, or Antisemitism that seethes beneath the surface will pop up like so many oil blisters in the La Brea Tar Pits.

But did that throw the mid-terms to the Republicans? Doubtful. First off, what of the 53% of the voters who voted in Presidential Election? It would seem there were not enough voting racists then to really move 63 Democrats out of office. That would mean the majority of the country is not just biased but vehemently racist. Some would say so. I wouldn’t.

Did a commanding majority suddenly transform itself into racists and vote out Democrats on order to get back at their President? Maybe. Makes sense if you stick to the party line. One of them, anyway. But the thing is as it the final results have established, with the exception of the Latino vote, just about every demographic group moved some of its voters from the Democratic to the Republican column Even African American voters pulled the Republican lever more than they had a couple of years ago. In the 2008 Presidential election, Bush and company garnered a meager 4% of the African American Vote. But in the 2010 midterm elections, of the African Americans who voted, nine percent voted Republican. More than double. So then with every demographic but the Latino voters switching in varying degrees in favor of the Republicans, either every hidden racist decided to expose himself or many truly believe the not only the President but the Democratic Party had not fulfilled his promises. I don’t know the answer here. I really don’t. Nor do I fully understand how many voters in need of Democratic policy bought into the Republican rhetoric. Maybe they sold it better. But the results are what they are. So before I assign the explanation of the Democratic debacle to the Tea Party, Racism or to other simplistic rhetroic, I would review more thoroughly the bigger picture. But then that’s me.

Look, while I write this for a broader audience, a mixed bag of conservatives and progressives, and whatever else who read my blog, I realize much of this would fall on deaf ears. And like I said, I don’t by any means have all the answers. I realize, too, that recalcitrance and vilification is an essential part of rhetorical lockstep and the blind faith in the party line, so I don’t harbor much expectation. Although, now that the ass kicking is over and we see a few pundits coming to their senses. Increasingly, there is growing concern by various columnists and politicians that our President may not indeed be all that he can be. There is increased frustration with him within his own base and among the media folk who drive it. We are not talking about the Republican flacks here, but writers and personalities who tend to lean toward the Democratic view of things. They have been watching now for a couple of years, and now, all apologies and excuses notwithstanding, they don’t like what they see. They realize that exhortations about what do you expect the President to do, and he has had so little time, is falling on increasingly deaf ears. And as a party, the Democratic Party, if you are getting your ass kicked, lame excuses for indecision just won’t cut it anymore.

Perhaps it becomes apparent when you put in an inexperienced politician to handle one of our worst national crises, despite his great speech making, he is just not up to the job. Perhaps when President Obama consistently negotiates prematurely against his own best interests, he fails to understand the principles of negotiation. Perhaps, despite what all have said to the contrary, his team of advisors and cabinet, with some exception, are second stringers who have no real political leverage, except they are great political campaigners or that they got really good grades in school. Perhaps the excuse that he hasn’t had time is insufficient, as the country was promised one thing and got another. Perhaps the few band aids that helped shore the dikes against the economic flood placated the true believers but not the rest. Perhaps claiming that the mean ol’ nasty Republicans beat up on the heartfelt, well intended but ultimately incompetent Democrats has any real currency to the family trying to pay its mortgage.

Perhaps it is time to stop with the convenient but ultiamtely unproductive rhetoric and lame excuses. Perhaps it is time to do the smart thing, the adult thing, and try to understand in often painful but realistic terms why the Democrats screwed it up so badly. Our adversaries and global competitors could care less for our lame excuses. Our global competitors and our professional sports teams are well aware that not everyone gets a trophy. Our global competitors and our sports franchises are well aware that those who do get the trophy are the ones who are able to pull it off in spite of the adversity, the obstacles, and the biases against them. Perhaps it is time to cool all the jargon and like the sports teams, review the playing films. Analyze things carefully and without prejudice. See what you did wrong and where you messed up. Make the rewarding distinction between catering to the the middle class and having your head up your ass. And then, cut out the crap and try to get it right.