Judge Moore Suspended

This just in: Alabama's (clueless) chief justice was suspended Friday for his refusal to obey a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of his courthouse. I say here, here! It is comforting to know that Judge (and I use the term loosely) Moore is alone in his elementary interpretation and understanding of our federal constitution.

The Roadmap Takes a Very Wrong Turn

Who could have predicted this?

The Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have called off their ceasefire after an Israeli missile strike killed a Hamas leader in Gaza City. This after a Palestine suicide bomber killed scores of Israelis (and others) in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the attack did not mean the end of the roadmap, but doesn’t it? With neither side willing to truly compromise, the Roadmap to Peace(?) really never had a chance to succeed, and now it is just another in a long line of failed proposals. And the Bush Administration seems ambivalent, at best, to the entire situation, unwilling or unable to make the really hard decisions that would move the process forward and put an end, once and for all, to the bloodshed. Action on the part of the U.S. needs to go beyond mere rhetoric to a solid plan of action that draws the surrounding countries into roadmap.

Syria for instance must be persuaded, or pressured, into ending its support of the militant Islamic factions now at work in The West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Lebanon. And Lebanon must be persuaded to finally crack down on Hezbollah and expel them from the country. Peace, I submit, cannot move forward without an end to the bloodshed fostered by militant Islamic groups who claim to have to best interests of the Palestinian people at heart. Failure of leadership from the Bush Administration? I say yes, what say you?

Who is Arianna Huffington

Who is Arianna Huffington, the woman who would be governor of California? Herein lies (almost) all you ever wanted to know about the articulate flip-flopping handsome woman with the Greek accent who lives in an estimated 7 million estate in Brentwood California. Would she make a better governor then the current embattled Gray Davis? I certainly think she would make a better governor then the (overly) popular Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has yet to spell out in any significant way his position on the problems vexing the state.

Huffington sponsored Websites:

* Arianna Online
* Arianna Huffington for Governor of California

LATimes Feature Articles:

* Candidate Profile: Arianna Huffington
* Huffington Manager Also Works as a Lobbyist
* Huffington Can’t Dodge Tax Questions
* Huffington Calls Schwarzenegger GOP Insider
* Huffington Paid Little Income Tax
* Camejo, Huffington Form Unorthodox Alliance

Bush is Looking Through a Glass Darkly...

The Accidental President is looking through a glass darkly if he sincerely believes that Iraq is more secure now than the day the 3rd Infantry Division’s mechanized juggernaut first rolled through the shattered Baghdad streets. Safely ensconced in Crawford TX, with the “good old boys” of his administration, Bush, when asked about American progress toward quelling the violence in Iraq and returning the country to a sense of normalcy offered only this,

"This is our 100th day since the major military operations have ended… [a]nd since then, we've made good progress. Iraq is more secure. The economy of Iraq is beginning to improve.

Really Mr. Accidental President? On the way to work this morning I heard a rather lengthy report on National Public Radio about the continuing problems with the Iraqi electrical grid. Looting and sabotage continue to fester as an issue. And so much copper is being smuggled out of Iraq and onto the world copper market, that it is beginning to effect world copper prices. Is this what Bush means by improvement? How then can the economy of Iraq be improving without a reliable electrical source(s)? And this is only one of the problems vexing American administrators fighting to bring Iraq under control.

Where is the end game; where is the exit strategy; when are the national elections; where is Saddam; when are American troops coming home? None of these questions, nor many others, will be answered by the Crawford tumbleweed trio (Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld), because none of them have the answers. Leadership, I say, at its very best; America’s finest hour!

The Terminator Seeks to Erase Davis

Okay, now that Arnold S. is in, this could very well turn into a popularity contest where the real issues facing the state no longer matter. I have listened to, and read about Ms. Huffington’s views on the issues (local and national) and she makes sense where it counts. Can the same be said about Arnold S.? What are his views?

Arnold said on the Jay Leno show, to air tonight: “[t]he politicians are fiddling, fumbling and failing… [t]he man that is failing the people more than anyone is Gray Davis. He is failing them terribly, and this is why he needs to be recalled and this is why I am going to run for governor."

The big question is, however does Arnold S. have a keen enough grasp of the issues, and more importantly California politics to make a real difference, or like Bush—the Accidental President—will he come with strings attached to his extremities?

Huffington in, Springer out, Schwarzenegger: who really cares!

Its official, Arianna Hunffington, the virtual co-host of satirist Bill Maher’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO, is running for governor of the embattled state of California. Speaking in Los Angeles this morning, Huffington stated,

I'm not, to say the least, a conventional candidate…[i]f we keep electing the same kind of politicians, we'll never get out of this mess.

Meanwhile, Jerry Springer has decided not to run for Senator from the State of Ohio. Citing concerns about his image stemming from his less then upstanding talk show, Springer stated “I can’t do it at this time.” Pity for those of us who wanted to see American politics sink even lower into the pit of mediocrity!

One more tidbit of note: it is now an open secret that Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to bow out (today as a matter of fact) of the governor’s race in California. Too bad, I was looking forward to hearing what the bodybuilder turned action hero, turned political wannabe had to say about the mess brewing in the nation most populace state.

More on Clarence Thomas...

As the debate rages on in the Senate concerning the fitness of certain neo-conservative Bush nominations to serve on various federal District Courts and or Courts’ of Appeal, one that got by in the eighties, quietly serves. The Washington Post recently ran an involved article on Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, which shed new and disturbing light on the man, who according to some, might well become the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The article only served to solidify my opinion of the man as out of touch with most of Americans in general and Black Americans in particular.

Gov. Davis Endorses Illegal Immigrants Driver’s License Issuance

Does anyone but me think that it is batty and just down right bad public policy (not to mention a violation of U.S. law) to pander to illegal immigrants? Should they for instance be allowed to apply for and carry valid state driver’s licenses? I say no, but the governor of California in an obvious bid to keep his seat, says yes. Should the top law enforcement officer in the state, in effect, sanction lawlessness in search of a vote? The answer to the reasoned man is clear, but it appears as though reason, the rule of law, and common sense have all taken a back seat while democracy in its purest form runs amok to the point of subversion, in the nations most populace state. It’s a great day to be an American!

Who Are They Kidding!?!?

So now that the Vatican, that bastion of moral, upright, uptight, sexually immature, red robed chumps have decided to launch a war against homosexual marriages. Umm, shouldn’t they be launching a worldwide campaign against child sexual assault and abuse within the church by priests? So let me get this straight, homosexuality is a sin, but sodomizing young boys and raping young girls is okay? Hello!!

New School, New Beginning?

I’ve been accepted to DePaul University’s School of Computer Science, Telecommunications, & Information Systems as a Graduate student pursuing a Masters in Computer Science. I received the acceptance letter in the mail on Saturday. I should be high on the news, but strangely enough I am not. Perhaps it’s because there was no mystery here, I mean since I am a DePaul Alum, I figured I would be accepted. So, now I embark on yet another education adventure and spend more money I will eventually have to pay back, yippee!

Don’t get me wrong, I am somewhat excited about pursuing my Masters, but a very large part of me just want to be done with school; when will it ever be enough? Seems every time you achieve one milestone, they (whomever they is) pushes the bar higher, so that even more skills are needed to land a decent job!

The Shine is Starting to Dull on Ms. Rice' Crown

The Iraqi Intelligence Debacle continues to churn out victims, next up Connie Rice(?) I have never quite trusted Ms. Rice’s, judgment, or analysis because she is an academic with no “real-world" experience to draw upon. Theory alone should never be used to make decision about foreign policy, especially if the person theorizing has never put his/hers theories to the test. And her public statements have always been a little too smug, and “on-point” to merit much regard.

In Search Democratic Party Leadership

I have been stymied by the Democratic Party’s lack of leadership and coherent platform. And as Bush’s “war-chest” grows daily, time marches on, and the Presidential election draws ever closer, there is still no clear democratic front-runner. It would seem I am not alone in my dismay over the Democrat’s disarray. If they do not get it together soon, they will have no one the blame—this time—for their failure to retake the White House, but the Party membership. Indeed the only embarrassment this election cycle is the Party itself.

GOP's Nasty Undemocratic Power Play

A decade after winning back the House of Representatives under the first Clinton Administration by promising brighter tomorrows and a “Contract with America,” the GOP has failed to deliver promised reforms. Is anyone surprised? Now that they are in power in the House, they seemed to have torn up the contract, (I wonder if we the American people, can sue them from breech of same?), and taken on decidedly unsavory tactics in a bid to exclude Democrats from all crucial decisions.

The GOP is fast becoming the party which represents a fringe of the American population, a party where neo-conservatism seems to flourish under the light the new American Imperialism, and where minorities (but only the darker ones), middle-class, and lower class Americans need not apply.

Ambush's on American Forces Continue Apace...

It would seem that the Iraqi resistance didn’t receive the fax, or email from Rumsfeld stating that they were suppose to stop ambushing American soldiers now that Uday and Qusay Hussein have been terminated with extreme prejudice. Three more American soldiers from 101st Airborne Division, died overnight in an attack on their convoy at approximately 2:30am (I thought we owned the night). Hopefully, the next week will see the cessation of attacks upon our soldiers as the fax lines are restored and emails finally get through!

A Modicum of Sanity Returns to the House

Could sanity be returning to the House? Say it isn’t so; the interest of the American people put before those of special interests? The House voted 400 to 21 yesterday to block earlier imposed rules from the FCC that would have allowed the countries largest broadcasting concerns to snap up more television stations, setting up a potential showdown with the White House.

Law School Byebye

Well, I have been thinking about it for most of the summer and today I made up my mind and did it, I quit law school, it was proving to difficult to keep all of the ball rolling in the same direction. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made, but I felt I had to for the good of the family.

On an up note I registered for entry into the Masters program at DePauls’ College of Computer Science, Telecommunications, and Information Services. I hope to gain entrance into the Distance Learning Computer Science Program. This will allow me take classes at home and hopefully finish my Masters by the end of 2005(?).

What Form Reparations?

I have given considerable thought to the subject of reparations for slavery and its legacy of late, a lot of thought. I have tried to wrap my mind around that which is fast becoming a flash point of both personal and political debate; not only across the country, but in Hollywood as well. A recent episode of the West Wing (a very fine show) addressed the issue and touched upon some of its complexities. And complexities there are.

But let’s leave that aside for now and address the broader issue; should the nation’s Black American population be given monetary compensation in order to atone for the forced labor of their ancestors? My short answer would have to be no! Now ask the same question another way; should the nation’s Black American population be given monetary compensation in order to atone for the forced labor of their ancestors and the resulting legacy of inequality that prevented many Black Americans from achieving even the basic tenets of the American Dream? My short answer is a hedged no, leaning towards a, “let’s see what we can do” refrain! All of which of course brings us back to the complexities of the situation.

The tide of support for reparations is rising all across the nation as the issue comes once more out of the doldrums of back room chats over poker and angry dinner table discussions, into the mainstream of American politics. Former President Clinton went on record as saying that he is against both an apology for slavery and reparations for slavery (http://cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/06/17/clinton.race/). Bush predictably has not mentioned either the apology or reparations issue. Blackvoices.com, a premiere web site dedicated to Black American issues conducted a poll on the issue, in which overwhelming support was given to the idea of reparations. The results of the poll can be viewed here (http://www.blackvoices.com/feature/reparations/main.html). And the old forty acres and mule argument is resurfacing as H.R. 29 introduced by Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, on March 11, 1867, makes its voice heard once again. The complete text of the bill can be read here (http://www.directblackaction.com/rep_bills/hr29_1867.txt).

But what form should reparations take? Except for the Thaddeus Stevens bill, that question has never been intelligently addressed. Should the reparations take the form of cash, real estate, or a college/technical school endowment, or voucher program? And how do we pay for them; through a special tax on just White people? Hardly fair. A one-time tax deduction, or some other tax relief for Black Americans? Again, hardly fair from a number of perspectives. And most importantly, how to craft the reparations so that they will be easy for all American to swallow (no mean feat I assure you!), or at least come to terms with?

And how does the government insure that only those directly descended from slavery receive reparations? Aside from the question addressed in the previous paragraph, this is undeniably the most vexing to answer.

Here are some thoughts. First, what form should reparations take? I think the reparations, if given, should take the form of educational vouchers to the school or technical institute of their choice for those Black Americans seeking a Technical, Vocational, Associates, Bachelor’s, Masters, or PhD degree. This not only helps Black Americans (especially Black American males) lift themselves out of poverty, but also helps the country as a whole. How you might ask? By assuring that a steady stream of highly educated and motivated individuals will join the work force well into this century as America continues to shift its economy away from heavy industry into high tech and the service industry. Any Black American alive when the bill is passed would be eligible and assured at least four years of study at an institution of higher learning, or technical program. And for those who have already completed their degrees, any and all outstanding student loans would be forgiven. The aforementioned would be the sole form(s) of reparations offered: no money, no cars, no land, and no houses.

Eligibility would be determined using census data from the latest census to determine heritage. Those Black Americans, who turned in their census forms and identified themselves, as Black Americans no matter what age, or social status, would be eligible for reparations. Census data currently on hand would be verified by home visits by census officials.

The only question left is funding. I am no economist, or self proclaimed expert on government funding, but I think a .5% to 1% hike in the corporate tax rate, along with a .25% tax on luxury items costing over $300,000 should be enough to fund the program, given the current state of the U.S. economy. In this way corporate America and the richest 1% of Americans give back to the country that gave them so much!

Good idea, or is there room for improvement? Or am I totally out to lunch? I don’t think so! The writing is on the wall; this issue will not go away and will no long stay under the rug where it has been brushed lo these past 135 years. If we are going to do justice to the past by addressing reparations for slavery and its legacy, why not do so with an eye on the future of our nation as a whole? An educated person is one of hope in the future and its promise of a brighter tomorrow. Education is now and will forever be the slayer of ignorance and the harbinger of hope. Let’s not waste yet another opportunity to enrich our nation and secure her future status by yet again turning our collective backs on her Black citizens.

Apology for the Legacy of Slavery

Apology: an expression of regret for an offense or fault.

On May 17th 2000, the mayor of the America’s third largest city, Chicago, made a public apology to the Black Americans in his city for slavery.

After tiptoeing around the issue for weeks, Mayor Richard Daley on Wednesday came out squarely in favor of reparations for the descendants of African slaves and asserted it is only right for America to say it is sorry for what it did. "You apologize for a wrong," Daley declared. "Slavery was wrong. ... Slavery has had an enormous effect on generation after generation." The mayor's comments came as the City Council voted overwhelmingly to urge Congress to consider reparations. - Chicago Tribune, May 17, 2000, Chicago Illinois

Chicago is just the latest city in a growing list of cities across the nation that has joined the cry for Congress to address the issue of an apology and reparations (the question of reparations will be addressed next month in another article), for slavery. Most White Americans—and quite a few non-white American’s, chief among them, Native Americans—have opposed the call for an apology, asserting that it was not they who were responsible for slavery. Or they assert their forefathers were immigrants, or migrant workers, or indentured servants, and therefore not responsible for slavery and all of it well documented ills.

Let’s leave aside for a moment those individual arguments and address the larger issue: should the United States Government apology for slavery? I say no, not for slavery alone. It should instead apologize for the legacy that slavery left in its wake; a legacy I hasten to point out that the U.S. government helped endow, and fed through its own well documented institutionalized brand of discrimination, bigotry, and racism. It is the legacy of slavery that has haunted every Black American—man, woman, and child—for the last 135 years, and the haunting continues to this day!

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws-14th Amendment to The Constitution of the United States of America, ratified July 9th 1868.

Citizens yes, equal under the law; in theory yes, but in reality, NO. For some 100 years after the end of slavery, the federal government was a co-equal partner in the systematic denial of Black American’s equal treatment under the law. There has been case after case, after case in which Black Americans were humiliated before the eyes of the world, denied, disrespected, set upon. And they were murdered by gun and rope, raped, blown up, and treated like second class citizens under the watchful eye of all three branches of the federal government. A federal government, which gave its support to this vile treatment by either doing nothing to stop it, or acted in concert with those who would seek to promote and champion racism and discrimination.

This against the backdrop of The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution, the very words of which speak like no other document, before or since, to the human need to be free of the shackles of oppression, tyranny, and injustice! I have often wondered how forward thinking classically, or liberally educated persons who claim the word of God as their own, can come to terms in their minds, hearts, and souls with the very obvious contradictions and ethical, moral, and spiritual dilemma’s this paradox creates.

If, and I say again, if the federal government had upheld the Constitution and believed in the spirit and the letter of the Declaration of Independence and in so doing vigorously enforced the law from the outset (end of the Civil War), how different today would America be?

Would Jim Crow laws have been enacted and enforced in the south for close to 100 years? Would the KKK have ever become the force for evil, hatred, intolerance, and bigotry it became? Would Black family’s be torn asunder and Black children—especially Black boys—feel hopeless and rudderless, finding no cause in America to call their own? Would the American dream remain but a dream for so many disenfranchised Black Americans? Would the Black Panthers ever have been born? Would the race riots of the sixties have ever flared? Would Martin Luther King Jr. and countless other Blacks and Whites have lost their lives in a struggle to bring equality to a people who should have already been enjoying its fruits? Would the deep biting pain of school desegregation and forced busing have been necessary to enrich young Black minds that heretofore had gone undernourished by the blatant indifference of the many states? Would the Voting Rights Act or Civil Rights Act have been necessary? Would affirmative action and the entire ugly debate it invites have been necessary in our nation’s corporations and schools of higher learning? Would we today be talking of reparations and apology’s if the federal government had lived up to it obligation and responsibility’s to uphold the law fairly and equally for all its citizens? And in so doing binding the many States to their collective and individual obligations and responsibility’s to do the same? I think the answer to all of those questions is a resounding NO!

Apologize for slavery in and of itself, NO, because the federal government, indeed the country was not even in existence when slavery was introduced to the thirteen colonies. Apologize for allowing slavery’s legacy, a legacy born of hatred, racism, and intolerance, which it helped, foster, YES! An apology for that and the incalculable pain and emotional scaring it caused is in order and dually demanded! A nation of the people, by the people and for the people, should not tolerate the continued subjugation and unequal treatment of ANY of the people!

In A Quest for National Identity

There can be no denying that since Black Tuesday our country has changed in ways we never would have imagined on September 10, 2001. Before September 11th, an attack on U.S. soil in which thousands of innocent people lost their lives in 30 minutes of stupefying evil was unthinkable to the average and above average American; it simply was not on our radar screens. And yet life hasn’t changed in America in some very important and costly respects. We still as society cling to the notion that we can have safety without giving up even a modicum of personal privacy or freedom.

I have read about and listened with consternation to the debates swirling around even the suggestion of a national identification card. For the record I see nothing wrong with a national I.D. card, one which has embossed upon its surface a picture of each citizen and embedded in its plastic sheathing a microchip with your current address, phone number, date of birth, blood type, drivers license number, SSN, and any police record. In other words nothing that is not already a matter of public record! All of this information would be part of a federal database and could be used by law enforcement officials to spot-check the collective identity. The card would be the size of a drivers license and clearly state that it was a federal I.D. card. Measures would taken to ensure that the card could not be counterfeited in much the same was our currency is now protected.

Much of the negative debate surrounding this issued has centered on issues of privacy and the right to be anonymous, to blend into the crowd, to go un-noticed by the various state and federal authorities. But haven’t we as a society already given up much of we seek to protect? Every baby born in the U.S. is now issued a Social Security Number before (s)he leaves the hospital; in order to dive a car you have to have a drivers license, with your picture, current name, address, birth-date, sex, and physical characteristics emblazoned across the front; colleges and universities issue student I.D.’s with the students picture on the front; and many companies require some sort of picture I.D. Credit card companies and other financial institutions routinely collect various types of personal information from us, and insurance companies delve into our personal medical histories with our consent. And yet we readily accept these intrusions into our lives, why, because it benefits us directly? Since when has public safety not been in our collective interests’?

For the record, there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to anonymity, nor is there a stated right to privacy. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights, or the other Amendments to the federal constitution, does it say that Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the citizen to remain anonymous, nor shall Congress institute any law, which encroaches upon the citizen’s right to privacy. In the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court implied the right to privacy citing historical court precedent and the 14th Amendments guarantee to due process under law. However, constitutional scholars still debates the merits of the Courts decision, and point out again that nowhere in the Constitution does it state that the citizenry have a right to privacy!

I personally believe that every citizen has a right to privacy within the confines of his or her home, or other private dwelling. That “right” sharply drops off once a citizen enters into the public domain, wherein he/she interacts with other citizens. In this domain the, the public domain, the overall safety of society must outweigh—to a degree—the right of the citizen to privacy. If this means that we have to carry national identification cards in order to differentiate between U.S. and non-U.S. citizens, then so be it. Will the card in-and-of itself make the U.S. a safer country? Of course not, but it could be part of a whole range of steps we can take to ensure our national safety. Am I afraid the government will misuse the information gathered? No, not really, not any more than it already does, or has. Do state governments routinely misuse the information it gathers on its citizens as part of the many drivers’ license programs? I have yet to hear, or read about any wide spread abuse. Has the federal government used the vast amounts of personal information it stores about every service member and veteran that is servicing or has served in the U.S. Armed Forces to evil ends? I don’t think so. I have been retired from the Navy since 1995 and a have heard nary a peep from the government; they have not come knocking at my door, nor have they intercepted my mail, or in anyway interfered with my comings and goings from the country.

To me a national identification card is a small price to pay for putting into place another small piece of the home security puzzle. Perhaps instead of fighting the proposal, the civil libertarians could form a partnership with the government and come up with a system that protects the citizenry without compromising those rights we as a nation have come to embrace.

The Long, Slow, Painful Decline…

“WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation…” Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence 1776.

There was a time in American public discourse when words of eloquence and principle were the norm; when our political and spiritual leaders, intelligent, well-read, and grounded in philosophical astuteness were undeterred in their speech, and with words painted a vision for the nation. They are words from the minds of men (and women) percolating with intellect and wisdom and speak to a mastery of the English language seldom heard, spoken, or written in these modern times. From the quills of these great orators dripped words, phrases, principles, and ideas which launched a nation that would arguably become one of the greatest mankind had ever envisioned. Their words nurtured by lofty ideas with notable philosophical underpinnings, sprang forth with impassioned vigor, giving birth to speeches that moved the human spirit, and captured the imagination. They were (and are) words that inspired, that motivated, that warmed to such a degree, that men and women would die to see their edict carried to fruition.

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”…Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, 1863

Fast forward to the here and now and wonder in the age of the sound bite and “Axis of Evil” speeches, where have all our great political leaders gone? Where are the great intellectuals and orators of our age? Our politicians today remind one not of the inspired brilliance and vision that fashioned a nation of principles, and ideas that fueled the imagination of the world, but of insipid, naughty, elementary school children vying for a piece of turf on the playground. Their words do not inspire, they do not motivate, they do not move the soul or swell the heart; they in short leave me wanting and waiting for greatness.

Nothing illustrates this shortcoming more than the recent one year anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, which felled the World Trade Center. The nation’s political leaders so void of intellectual capital and inspired vision, so mired by the quicksand of modern American politics with it’s increasingly shallow center, could not produce one original or memorable speech for the day; NY Governor George Pataki recited the Gettysburg Address, while NJ Governor Jim McGreevey recited from the Declaration of Independence! As for Mr. Bush, well, no memorable words left his sneering lips that day.

We elected a President whose words tumble from a mouth fed by a befuddled brain, which doesn’t reason, a soul which has no vision, and a heart devoid of meaningful passion. We accept, and in some cases, celebrate the limitations of our Accidental President, while the world looks on in wonder at this sad spectacle we have spawned. How could a nation that bequeathed to the world wondrous institutions of higher learning such as DePaul, UIC, Northwestern, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Grambling and MIT, long suffer the unfocused ramblings of a dullard? How could a society which crafted the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, documents hailed around the globe as enlightened, visionary, and worthy of emulation, suffer long the indignity of a body politic whose intellectual discourse is little above adolescent squabbling.

“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”…Martin Luther King Jr., Letter From A Birmingham Jail, 1963

It is said that a nation receives the leadership it deserves. Is that true in our case? Have we started the long slow road to intellectual, moral and ideological decline that has marked the passing of so many great human civilizations? Does our current state of public intellectual malaise signal the closing curtain on the grand experiment that is American (flavored) democracy? Will this nation with its government so ineptly led; this nation founded on the principle of governance of the people, by the people, and for the people, perish from this earth, because the principles that form the foundation of its society, its government, its very way of live, no longer have an inspired voice in its public, private and political discourse? When did idealism and praiseworthy intellect, eloquent prose, and impassioned speech, become character flaws in a nation founded by men who wore all in unapologetically abundance?