An Independent Liberal Columnist

As I have been wont to do on this date for the past 5 years, I have spent most of the day in somber remembrance of that day 6 years ago. I listened to some tributes, read a few articles and watched a special on PBS about the vulnerabilities of large buildings to catastrophic failure, what engineers learned from the destructive forces that hit the Twin Towers and what technologies architects will incorporate into new buildings to better withstand such attacks. It dawned on me that that was probably the most constructive thing we have learned from those attacks.

Soon after the towers fell, I was so moved by the unity of the country and the sympathies of other nations that I naively thought that a silver lining of global unity would, ironically, be a lasting legacy to that most horrific of clouds. Years later (speaking of irony) it occurs to me that just one man, a foreigner, Osama bin Laden, was capable of bringing this whole nation together as it had never been before and seems may ever be again while yet another singular man, an American president, was equally capable of tearing that newly spun fabric of national and global unity to complete shreds in just a few diabolical strokes of his political narcissism. To think of that, the immense power of the individual to change history and the lives of us all, took my breath away.

As that breathlessness gave way, I found myself in tears yet again, remembering vividly that moment as I watched the Twin Towers come crashing down. I thought then of what surely must be tens of thousands of innocent people surely dead. Did I know anyone in those buildings? Surely so, though I would learn later that I did not. I watched, through tears, the rest of the day unfold as an entire nation, my beloved country, the most blessed and prosperous nation in the history of the world, wretching in grief and agony at our unspeakable collective loss.

I grievingly remembered back to that most romantic and love filled night I had ever experienced in my life with a girl I had been in love with for years. The sheer bliss of that night on the town with the love of my life capped off by a long and dreamy conversation about our future over Frangelico coffees and dessert at the Top O' The World, the restaurant at the very top of the World Trade Center is burned into my mind forever. We sat for hours right next to the glass with what must surely have been the most breathtaking view in the world and basked in what was, for me, an immortal moment of bliss. The WTC ever after represented everything that was good and right in the world to me...America, prosperity, and, most especially, the triumph of love and patience over adversity and  distance.  Yet there it was, crashing down into itself and plummeting into the bowels of the Earth, taking life and love and everything precious down to hell with it. Transformed in an instant from a beacon of hope and symbol of love into a smoldering disaster representative of everything evil, vile and remorseful in the world. How could this be? How will I ever recover? How will the city rebuild? How will my country heal?

As has been my tradition in years past, I will leave it there. An open question and an open sore of grief and pain and hostility. There is no salve, no silver lining, no answers and, most certainly, no triumph of good over evil...at least not yet. I am now wretching again in anger and pain and my most violent and ugly personnas are worn right here on my sleeve for all to see.

And the biggest irony of all?

While we Americans seem to live with a sense of perpetual fear amid greatly diminished civil liberties and freedoms, the man who caused all this mayhem and grief still walks freely in the mountains, sipping tea with his friends in complete privacy and security.

God, help us.

Even I am amazed at the depth and breadth of the collapse of the Republican party. It is so utterly destroyed that what we are seeing now is like the death of a star. The GOP is totally collapsing in on itself at a rate and magnitude that is exponential and almost incomprehensible, and that is just the beginning. Much like a dying star, the best is yet to come. After the collapse comes the big bang...the explosion that will tear apart the party in a way never before seen in American politics...and then a big, Black political Hole.

The collapsing phase, which we see the beginning phases of now, is represented by the heretofore unheard of representations by intelligent members of the right-wing media. They are starting to say that the party is...well...in a state of collapse. Even George Will stated as much this morning in his weekly appearance on ABC's This Week. It is in a state of collapse because everything the party was built on has either been proven horribly wrong or totally betrayed by core members who were entrusted with their perpetuance.

Fiscal responsibility has been shattered by runaway government spending. Conservative foreign policy pillars have been torn asunder by neo-con fantasy conjured up in a cognitive vacuum for historical and common sense perspective.  Good stewardship of taxpayer interests have been run through the garbage disposal of blatant corruption. The role of government in balancing the interests of corporate America with that of all its citizens has been dead for so long now that the stench rivals that of the mass graves in Iraq. Christian principles have been sacrificed on the altar of blood lust for Muslims. Common sense has been replaced by ignorance and truthfulness with deceit. To top it all off, any American citizen who has had the courage to stand up and challenge the controversial "war" in Iraq has been branded as no less than a traitor. In fact, the Republicans have so casually thrown that once brutally meaningful term around so much lately that it has lost all of its meaning.

All these issues, and more, are coming into the light of American consciousness, but ownership of the disaster by conservatives has not yet begun. The first rumblings are being heard, but they are nothing more than buck passing at this point. "Bush really screwed this up" is the mantra. They have yet to own up to the fact that they applauded and supported, with all their considerable might, every single step he took except the one GOOD thing he tried to do with comprehensive immigration reform. They were the ones calling their fellow Americans TRAITORS and COWARDS for questiong the judgement and timing of the Iraqi occupation. They are the ones that would rather see more American kids die in Iraq than have to face up to their liberal friends and family members, apologize to them for getting caught up in nationalistic group think and calling them TRAITORS, admit they were wrong, and demand a change of course in Iraq. How cowardly and pathetic is that?

And that, my friends, is why we have seen only the beginning of this collapse. They betrayed themselves, they betrayed their principles, they betrayed their friends and families, they betrayed  our troops and they betrayed our country. There is nothing for them to build on at this point. And there will be nothing for them to build on until each and every one of them apologizes to their countrymen for their corruption and exceptionally poor stewardship of our country. They cannot sweep this entire era with all of its unimaginable tragedy and incompetence under the rug and just say, "oh well, that was then, this now...lets talk about the way forward". There will be no way forward with them until they fess up to what a national tragedy they've been.

We will all know that critical mass has been met and the horrible explosion that will scatter the party to the far corners of the political universe is imminent when President Obama or President Clinton goes on national television to announce to the world that we (DEMOCRATS) have killed Osama bin Laden. The euphoria of that moment will ignite a moment of national cognizance not seen in a century or more. On top of all the corruption, incompetence and bigotry, the reality that the Republicans traded Osama bin Laden's life for those of the nearly 4,000 American soldier's needlessly sacrificed in Iraq will finally sink in. At that point, their national security credentials will be utterly destroyed. Then to what issues will they turn for votes? Fiscal responsibility? Family values? Integrity? Competence? And to whom? UFOlogists?

That, my fellow Americans, will be the big bang and the political Black Hole that they will not recover from for a long, long time will follow. Libertarians, get ready to make your move. The door is WIDE open.

I'm wondering if anyone else is taking notice of just who is "cutting and running" from Iraq now and why the press (eternal scapegoats of all who have a political gripe), or at least the pundits, haven't picked up and communicated the irony in watching the Republicans head for the door on Iraq. This is a humiliation of a major political party of historic proportions, not because they (conservatives) have gone through any difficult process of analysis and reached a logical conclusion...no...its because they are the very same crowd that had the shameful audacity to call fellow Americans who have called this war for what it is from the very beginning "cowards" and "traitors". Can you imagine the arrogance, the stupidity, the cult-like adherence to a failed ideology that would cause any American to call any other citizen a "traitor" just because he/she holds a different opinion on something as serious as sending our young men and women to die in a war? I'm sorry...I just find them to be a scurrilous, despicable lot. They, each and every one of them, encouraged and enabled an administration, indeed an entire political party, to undertake a political war using propaganda and obvious, outright lies. What a shameful and hypocritical lot those Republicans are. The self-proclaimed party of "God and Country" used God as a tool to convince the gullible to sign up for fratricide and genocide and waved the Red, White and Blue the whole time. When the light of Truth was shined upon their evil ways after Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame rightfully demonstrated to all Americans that Bush/Cheney knowingly and purposefully used forged documents to promote their political war in a State of the Union address, Republicans turned once again to the dark side and villified the messengers of truth. Then, on cue, they failed to hold those responsible accountable so that Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby all got off scot-free. Now they are a cuttin' and a runnin' like scalded dogs  just to save their political skins...and with nary an apology from a single one of 'em. Now THAT'S the definition of the word "coward". If anyone else out there gets it, raise your voices to the highest levels so that this outrage of calling a fellow American a "traitor" while simultaneously usurping the Constitution, sacrificing American blood and promoting obstruction of justice in order to wage a political war WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN! The best way to do that is to stay motivated, never forget what those people did to our beloved country, give money...lots of it...to your favorite Democrats and STEAMROLL those dirtbags in the next election.

Well, AG Gonzalez made his much anticipated appearance in front of Congress and no one was suprised by the outcome. There is a reason that cronyism has such bad connotations. Like nepotism, it denotes a lack of management skills and a certain paranoia. Why in God's name would someone appoint/hire a friend or relative to a tough job when there must be countless others more qualified? I'll tell you why...ignorance. GW, as I have previously discussed, was a total failure at everything he ever did because his father did not allow him the opportunity to pay the consequences for his failures. Every drunk driving conviction, every coke bust, going AWOL, every bad wildcatter venture, every bad business venture was "fixed" by GHWB. Thats why he has proven to be such a poor manager and a "miserable failure" at hiring the right people for the the jobs, starting with Dick Cheney, Brownie, Harriet, Tommy Franks, Bremer, Gonzalez, etc. and why his administration will certainly be remembered as possibly the worst in American history. I have taken some flak from "the cult" (see first journal entry) for proclaiming confidently that GW will go down in history as the worst president ever. Their logical fall back position is that no one knows how history will be written so close to the fact, that it will be 25 years before we even have an inkling of how GW will be remembered in the high school textbooks of the future. I understand the logic, but GW has introduced a factor not yet seen in that equation for hundreds of years...utter and total incompetence. There is no way to spin out of the incompetence cage. One cannot realistically presume that what passes for gross incompetence today is, somehow, going to be miraculously transformed into an asset down the road. Policies, strategies and manuevers can look brilliant today and moronic tomorrow, and vice-versa, but managerial incompetence is written in stone forever. Even if things turn out OK in the long run, those events will be seen as more having dodged bullets or that God or lady luck or whoever kept the corrosive effects of incompetence from having had a ruinous effect on our beloved democracy. The bungling and mismanagement on the part of this administration will, in my opinion, always be incorporated into the reading of the historical significance of his presidency, regardless of the outcome in Iraq and/or New Orleans or attorney firings. That is never going to go away, my fellow Americans. It will be as much a part of the remembering of the man as honesty was to Abe Lincoln. In fact, it has already become the legacy of this president even before he has left the office. Just yesterday, we got to see a great example of a premiere bungler in action in AG Gonzalez and it just has to make one wonder. Can this country and its citizenry, already suffering from a hopefully temporary blow to its reputation in the world community, overcome the image of the stupid, ugly American, even to ourselves? Not until we get someone with good management skills, be they Democrat or Republican, to get to work to fix things and to be blunt and tell it like it is...GW was the worst, most divisive president in American history.

Listen up, liberals. This is a crucial time in the history of our country and if we don't do a little soul-searching now and re-invent ourselves somewhat, we are doomed to repeat the cycles of boom and bust of past years. The ugly head of "tax-and-spend" caricatures are already popping up, justifiably, in the pork laden compromise known as the war spending bill. I am going to tear my guts out and spread the stinking feces of recrimination all over the walls of the DNC if my party begins considering the results of the last election as affirmation that we have always been right in our approach to government. That might hurt a little bit to hear, but think about it...wouldn't it be an incredible experience if in 5 or 10 or 50 years from now, you heard your heretofore brainwashed Republican friends say the same thing and actually embrace a position that is actually progressive? Well, the mirror is unforgiving and harsh at times, but I pray that we have the inner strength not to look away.

One of the most crucial  issues we will face as a party, a nation and as individuals is how we approach taxation. Its a complicated issue not conducive to casual thought, and certainly not intellectually stimulating on the surface, but it is an issue that strikes at the core principles of all Americans...equality. We all know the fundamentals of how we went from a relatively simple progressive tax system to the monstrous financial tumor in the heart of the electorate that we have now. Pardon my French, but what a fucking joke our tax system is today. Everything about it is absurd, yet we all, liberals and conservatives, tip-toe around that 10,000 lb. gorilla in the middle of the room like a Boston bishop turns a blind eye to priest sex abuse . The current tax system has single-handedly created the tragic chasm between progressives and conservatives that exists today and everything else is just a diversion. As I mentioned in my previous piece, the glue that holds the modern Republican party together is tax-cuts, and that reason alone should stimulate liberals into searching for a way out of this mess...it will completely and utterly de-base the opposition. Republicans are hypocrites when it comes to everything else they ostensibly stand for. Family values (read; Newt Gingrichs' family values), smaller government (smaller than what? The sun?), the sanctity of life (except for the death penalty and invading weak nations in order to wreak carnage), etc. But they really believe, to a man, in tax-cuts. And you know what? They might have won that argument, intellectually speaking, if you believe that what really counts is bringing in the most amount of money possible into the government coffers while simultaneously causing as little pain as possible. In fact, that theory, proved right, may have contributed to giving them credibility on other more asinine topics like the war in Iraq that most Democrat politicians voted for. Heresy, you say? Look at receipts. Since what's his name's tax cuts, money coming into the nations coffers has risen, even in spite of rich people's abilities to circumvent the system with tax lawyers. It sounds counter-intuitive to liberals, but its true. You can crow all you want about the budget deficit, etc. but the fact remains that when you tweak the current system like a carburetor and make the system run leaner, it runs better and brings in more dough. So does that mean they were right...that decreasing taxes spurs entrepreneurial growth and consumer spending... and we were wrong...that the rich should be in the 70% tax bracket like they were in the 70's? As stated, the answer must be "yes". But has it also fueled a destructive class warfare in this country and helped to divide us as a nation? You bet. Is that good? No...faster than anything else, it will destroy us as a nation. A house divided against itself will surely fall eventually, and we are starting to stumble even as we speak.

The answer to this vexing problem is one that's been floating around for a long time...the flat tax. I'm not going to explain it all here, but the crux of it is that we all, businesses and individuals, pay the exact same percentage of our income to the government to run our country. I don't usually link to or talk much about the Heritage foundation, but their description is the most concise yet readable treatise on the topic that I could find. Read it here. Much like the current system, it can be tweaked slightly by raising or lowering the tax, to pay for wars or other priorities, but the burden would be shared equally. Income taxes would be simple forms the size of a post card for everyone and every corporation. No IRS agents poring over your tax returns, no sense of being unfairly burdened and the resultant sense of entitlement in how the money is spent, and no big loopholes for the wealthy. The most beautiful thing of all, perhaps, is that, just like "one man-one vote", we all share equally in the political outcomes of our battles over national priorities. We are, truly, equals.

Now that I have expounded on and extolled the virtues of such a system, allow me the privilege of telling you how we could also solve one of the nation's most pressing problems all in one fell swoop, but it involves adding one single deduction that could be considered "progressive" in the fiscal sense. The flat tax for everyone and every corporation, with one single deduction...health insurance (with no co-pays or big deductibles)...and GREAT health insurance at that. Corporations could deduct the entirety of the health insurance costs of their employees, or people could fund it themselves, and write off a percentage (the flat tax rate would be a great place to start) against earnings. It could be capped at a high level...say $20,000/year per person, hence the progressive nature of it since a 20 grand deduction will mean more to a 30 grand per year wage earner than a multi-million dollar a year corporation, but tough beans and I don't think the vast majority of wealthy people would object to it. High income people could have incredible health insurance that covers everything from air ambulances to daily mental health counselling if they want while lower wage earners would be geared to more affordable PPO-like plans, which would lower their deduction but affect their quality of care only slightly.

If we did this, we would not only bring an end to class warfare, but we would do away entirely with Medicare and Medicaid which will go bankrupt or bankrupt the country in the next 30 years anyway. Take the money we save on Medicare and put it into Social Security and we now have a system that is viable for a long, long time. It would also stimulate competition amongst both insurance companies and healthcare providers. How incredible would that be? A system like that would have plenty of room for the government to cover all/part of the premiums of the poor, thereby eliminating the hidden tax that is already present in premiums today that goes to pay for the huge costs of indigent care. And again...it bears repeating...it completely re-shuffles the political deck and allows pro-environment or pro-choice or otherwise semi-intelligent Republicans to break with their party's historical idiocy on these issues and still call themselves "conservative", and rightly so. That will usher in a new period of bipartisanship and sanity into the current political maelstrom, and we all agree that that is necessary, we just can't figure out how to reach out to each other because the tax issues keep us so far apart. I see no downside to a flat tax.

So there you go, libs. That is why we are called progressives. Not because we cling to proven losers, but because we THINK and plan and strategise to solve the worlds problems and the burdens of life, country and planet. I urge you to throw the book away, think about this idea, embrace it. If we put this proposal on the agenda and get anything like it someday, it will be a stake in the heart of the exclusive claim to fiscal responsibility that conservatives have floated for decades and future generations will look at our generation as visionaries, not war-mongering, class-warfare mercenaries.