Author Archives: deanwebb

A Very Bad Law

The Trayvon Martin shooting is, without a question in my mind, a terrible tragedy. It should never have happened. It is all the more tragic because of a very bad law. The “stand your ground” statute in Florida actually permits someone to provoke a violent reaction but, if the reaction is life threatening, to respond with deadly force. That means if two gunslingers meet in the middle of a Florida street, whoever kills first wins the justified homicide race. For proof that his life was in danger, he can point to his slain foe with a gun in his hand.

Yes, Mr. Martin was unarmed, but one eyewitness says he saw Mr. Martin beating Mr. Zimmerman, the shooter. Another eyewitness saw the opposite happening, so all we have left is Mr. Zimmerman’s testimony, and he did have injuries to his face and head consistent with his account of Mr. Martin attacking him. So why did Mr. Martin attack, if that’s what he did?

Maybe it was the same stupid law. The law allows for people to stand their ground, instead of requiring a duty to retreat. A duty to retreat means a person needs to get away from a confrontation and let police handle the situation. In a stand your ground law, one can stand and engage an opponent based upon one’s judgment.

In this case, imagine what has to be going through the mind of a 17-year old walking home in the dark on a rainy night when some strange guy in a truck pulls up beside you and demands that you come talk to him. That’s a terrifying situation, and I can understand why Mr. Martin would not want to give any information to or comply with Mr. Zimmerman’s commands. We tell our children that strangers could kill them – and that is exactly what happened here.

Had Mr. Martin killed Mr. Zimmerman, the same law would have justified the homicide. Without a duty to retreat and let potentially cooler heads prevail, or at least heads that can be identified as policemen – and I’m leaving the racial controversy with the local force aside – the Florida law as written allows any pair of individuals that doesn’t understand each other completely to open fire, rather than try to understand what’s really going on.

Bad laws make for bad situations. Not only has this law contributed to the Martin shooting case, it’s also used by criminals to justify murders of rivals. Is that really what Florida wants on its hands?

Individual Mandates and Constitutionality

Short version of the problem: Come 2014, I’m supposed to get insurance for my whole family. Looking at the government charts, I’ll have to spend at least $500 per month on a policy. Last policy I had didn’t pay for the square root of jack squat. Whatever policy I’ll have to get in 2014 probably will have the same huge deductible and no real benefits.

When a person in my family gets a major illness, I’ll have to cover that out of pocket. I make too much money to get free clinic stuff, but not enough to buy a policy that actually pays for hospital care. Being forced to buy insurance by the government does nothing for me, but everything for the insurance company whose lobbyist helped to write that part of the health care act.

Should I choose to do without, I can pay just shy of $2100 in a fine to some government agency. It won’t be a tax, technically, but it will go in to the USG’s coffers. So, come 2014, I can either pay $6200 per year for nothing or pay $2100 per year for nothing. Yeah… thanks for nothing, US Government!

This provision shows just how much control the lobbyists have over the President and Congress. They wrote a bill that doesn’t help poor or middle class people, it helps the interest groups that are already rich. I do hope the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate as unconstitutional. Congress should not have the power to require people to engage in acts of commerce, particularly when such acts are of no benefit to the purchaser.

By the way, this isn’t something that the Republicans are alone in hollering about. The liberal media is livid, as well. Michael Moore and Ralph Nader have both pooh-poohed this provision. While the left and the right may not agree on the solution for our health care problem, they can both agree that this ain’t it.

An Open Letter to Leon Panetta

Dear Mr. Panetta,
How are you? I am fine. I see there is a problem in Afghanistan right now. A soldier killed 16 civilians, including children. This is a terrible tragedy, and I’m sure you feel bad about that. I heard on the news that the soldier may have been drinking, which will contribute to bad decisions. But the soldier was also supposed to be home in the USA after three tours in Iraq and instead got sent to Afghanistan. That’s got to be what really messed him up.

The soldiers in the US military have been getting poor treatment on all accounts since 2001. They had to buy their own body armor, National Guardsmen would be denied VA benefits if their injuries could be reclassified, psychological health care was minimal at best, and they were put into situations they could not find any good way out of. This soldier has his own sins to bear, but the US armed forces have their hand in this situation, and that needs to be fixed.

The US Army can keep soldiers in combat, indefinitely, with the way they’ve written their regulations. While the regulations make everything legal, they don’t make it all right. The treatment our front-line soldiers has received has been abysmal, both “over there” and at home. These are the men and women that put their lives at risk for their nation, but who have been hired out to do the dirty, wet work for the big oil companies. And, like any other worker for corporate America, when they’re used up, they’re tossed aside. That is not right.

I hold that the wars should not have happened in the first place: I don’t care to win converts to that point of view, as I’d rather have agreement on a more basic issue. That soldier, and thousands others like him, don’t belong in war zones after multiple combat tours. Fix the rules so that what is done is also the right thing.

Thanks for your time, Mr. Panetta. While I have your attention, could you also make sure that we don’t use the US Army for political purposes? I don’t see any partisan political gain to be worth even one life of an American soldier. I have friends over there. Don’t use them like pawns in a game in which only the richest of the rich will win.

Sincerely,

Dean Webb

Milquetoast Fascism

Caspar Milquetoast was a cartoon character that lacked fortitude, assertiveness, and gumption. In short, he was a gutless, spineless, pliable person that bent to the wills around him. He’s the inspiration for the word “milquetoast.” He’s also the inspiration for the figureheads of the Republican Party.

The Democrats still elect leaders that can stand up for what they believe in. The last Republican that had a spine of his own was Richard Nixon, and he nearly wrecked the nation. Nixon was such a terrible president, Jimmy Carter was able to win the election after Nixon’s disastrous second term. Now, I like Carter, but Republicans hate him. So that goes to show just how bad the GOP had gotten with a willful leadership.

So who won the 1980 election? Ronald Reagan. Him? A milquetoast? Sure. His toughness was all scripted and Hollywood by-product. The guy rolled over on his fellow actors when he fingered anyone he suspected of Communist sympathies during the Red Scare of the 1950s. The guy was a mouthpiece. Remember Iran-Contra? Reagan was spineless enough that we could actually say he was dishonest if he knew and stupid if he didn’t. The secret bombing of Cambodia and Watergate, those we could lay right at Nixon’s feet. With Reagan, we could reasonably suspect someone was pulling his strings.

Since 1980, the GOP hasn’t campaigned on issues. It’s campaigned on buzzwords. God, guns, and gays. Family and prayer. Hard on crime. Liberal media. These strike a primal chord with anyone that hears them. The manipulation in GOP advertising and speechcrafting is powerful and undeniable. Find yourself weeping after Ollie North gives a stirring speech about how, in an effort to save American lives, he made some mistakes? Thank the speechwriter, not the mouthpiece. In reality, North was part of a murderous operation that fueled terrorism in the Mideast and Central America – and that also brought in a flood of cocaine to the USA. Mistakes? No. They were deliberate violations of the law, on the same level as organized criminals.

Dubya Bush was another Milquetoast Fascist. Everyone knew that Dick Cheney was working Bush like a sock puppet. When 9/11 happened, Cheney was rushed to safety. Bush was left in a pre-announced location where any terrorist with an RPG could brew up. Bush had been the target of an assassination attempt the night before from a team that used the same method that killed the leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, but somehow, was left out there vulnerable while the vice-president got rushed to safety? The man was expendable.

Now there are three Milquetoast Fascists running for the GOP nomination along with Ron Paul. Paul is constantly sidelined by the media because they’re connected to those that are pulling the strings for the other three, and Paul has a spine. I don’t agree with everything the guy says, but he’s a breath of fresh air. Why doesn’t he have more popularity? It’s because he’s making the same mistake the Democrats make: he’s talking about the issues. Herman Cain made huge progress in the polls just by repeating the number “NINE!” Maybe Paul should start chanting, “GOLD!”

By the way, NINE is a homophone for the German word for no, “nein.” “Nein! Nein! Nein!” makes for an interesting tax percentage of zero…

But none of the GOP guys on his own is going to win the nomination. All three are sock puppets. To me, Romney is the biggest disappointment because he could have been so much different from the panderer he’s become. Santorum is an old hand at saying whatever he needs to say in order to get elected. In 1993, Santorum voted with the Democrats on labor issues and NAFTA. Why? His home congressional district had a 3:1 Democrat:Republican ratio. The man wanted to stay in power, so he said what people wanted to hear. Santorum also tried to make the National Weather Service not release information if it would be in competition with a pay service. That’s criminally stupid, and obviously a ploy by commercial weather forecasters to make more cash with a little help from a Santorum sock puppet.

Gingrich is a crusty old man and most likely to grow a spine suddenly. That’s why he’s at the bottom of the three Milquetoast Fascists in the political running. His job is to win just enough votes to force a brokered convention that could allow a different Milquetoast Fascist to emerge as a compromise candidate. Then, unbesmirched by the tars and feathers of the primary season, this new GOP Boy Wonder could charge to the top and grab the brass ring… and then bring the USA that much closer to a republican fascism, smiling all the way.

Market Failure and Alexander Nevsky

In the classic Russian film, Alexander Nevsky, the merchant princes of Novgorod think they can buy their freedom by paying tribute to the advancing forces of the Teutonic Knights. Turns out, they can’t, and the rest of the film is about Alexander Nevsky leading the stout-hearted Russians in defense of what they held dear: land, family, and community.

In professional terms, that’s what economists call a market failure – and what free-market ideologues say can’t exist. That’s the problem with ideology: it blinds a person to the truth. This morning, I saw a news piece about how the military is finding it difficult to get enough healthy recruits. The blame for this national defense problem belongs to the unregulated markets that allow people to shove just about anything they’re addicted to into their bodies. Food, alcohol, tobacco: it’s all a mess.

I find it ironic that the biggest boosters for national defense are also the biggest proponents for not regulating diddly squat. Seems like you can’t have both. It’s further ironic that this lesson is brought home quite effectively in a 1938 Soviet Union propaganda piece. The problem with unregulated capitalism and free markets is that anything can be bought or sold, including poisons that destroy the youth of a nation and leave it unfit to defend itself.

Greed is not good: it undermines the soul of a nation. Forced collectivization is a horror, as well: nations must resist the extremes of any ideology if they wish to survive, let alone prosper. Markets have failed, are failing now, and will fail in the future. It is the role of a just government to address those failures with appropriate legislation.

An Open Letter to Rick Santorum

Dear Mr. Santorum,

How are you? I am fine. I see you lost the Michigan primary by a few percentage points. You seem to think that’s kind of a win. It’s not, really. A lot of Democrats showed up to vote for you. I think that’s mean. It’s like you were some kind of socially awkward person that became the target of a joke homecoming queen campaign. There are some people that voted for you because they like you, but also a lot of people that voted for you because they see you as an embarrassing joke in the GOP.

How they singled you out, I don’t know, since the whole primary has been one long embarrassing joke for the GOP. A lot of the other more embarrassing jokes have already left the race, so it’s not like you’re even the coolest embarrassment to the GOP. And if you really had something original to say, you’d be a victim of a media blackout like Ron Paul.

Don’t worry, Rick. Not enough people like any of the other candidates for them to win the nomination. Even Romney’s biggest backer hates him. Why do you think the Romney SuperPAC didn’t spend a nickel on mass media ads in Colorado? They wanted you to stay in the race as a spoiler so the convention would have to settle for a compromise candidate that didn’t get bruised up in the primary battles.

I don’t know how you plan to regain your dignity, Rick, but you’ve clearly lost it. Look at me, I’m not even calling you “Mr. Santorum.” You’ve fallen that low. You could pull a Jimmy Carter and do some charitable work, but then I think they’d kick you out of the GOP for something as hippie as that. Besides, since you only donated $4000 last year on a $900,000 income, I don’t think your system could take the shock of doing real charity. By the way, Rick, I earn about $50,000, and I donated north of $5000 last year. I know it’s only a grand more than you, but when you run the percentages, you can see how far short you’ve fallen of that mark.

I know you love Jesus, and I think that’s great. Jesus taught us all to be more charitable, so maybe you could make a start by donating 0.9% of your income and work your way up to 10% over the years. I would be happy for you. It’s not how long the change takes, it’s the fact that the change is happening that’s important. If you could help teach the so-called Christian Conservatives to also be more like Jesus, that would be great! Then, as a nation, we would be more compassionate, tolerant, charitable, and generally decent.

Why, just think of how much better the world would be if the major backers of the GOP weren’t making their money off of cheating Native Americans on their oil leases or from starving African children over unfair debt arrangements! It would be awesome if you could get those guys to be more like Jesus!

But I digress. Right now, Rick, you’re not really winning anything. People are laughing at you, not with you, and I think that is sad. Give me a call if you need someone to talk to, OK, bro?

Keep smiling,

Dean Webb

An Open Letter to Pat Buchanan

Dear Mr. Buchanan,

How are you? I am fine. I hope you’re coping with unemployment OK. Losing a job can be tough. I feel for ya, bro. Really. I do. Even though you earn more being unemployed than I do as a teacher, I can still have a little compassion for you. Of course, you should learn from your mistakes.

Making anti-Semitic comments is a no-no for most employers. Making homophobic comments are also not good. Racist comments have been known to get people in trouble with HR. Combining all three in a book titled The Suicide of a Superpower and having a chapter in it called “The End of White America” is generally a career-ender. And how do you put that on your resume? Who’s gonna hire you after writing the American version of Mein Kampf?

And it’s not that you’re not free to express those kinds of sentiments in the USA. You are. We’re also free to think they’re disgusting and that they have no place in our public dialogue. I’m a decent guy and I got nothing for it. Nobody’s offering me massive speaker fees or huge book advances. Yet, I also don’t get ejected from polite circles for being a horrifying racist. At the end of the day, my soul is intact, and I’m glad for that.

Yes, Pat, you’re free to be that guy. You’re also free to change your mind and learn to love and tolerate the way Jesus taught us all. Or Moses. Or Mohammed. Or Zoroaster. Or Buddha. Or Gandhi. Or Lao Tzu. Or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Do you see a pattern here, Pat? Or do you want your legacy lumped in with Goering, Goebbels, and Hitler? Because that’s where you’re sitting on the ideological bench right now, Pat. You’re free to choose, but we’re also free to not agree with your spew of hate.

Good luck in getting your soul back from Satan,

Dean Webb

Come and See (Иди и смотри)

This is one of those movies one only need see once, and the imprint is forever made. There is so much in the film, based on eyewitness experiences of the Byelorussian genocide during World War II, that one cannot approach it with a brief summary.

It’s not easy writing about this imposing film. It’s not something as simple as Saving Private Ryan or Apocalypse Now. It’s much, much more. Saving Private Ryan was pretty much soldiers storming Normandy and making their way into France to hold a bridge against all odds with a cameo by Ted Danson. Personally, I found the premise of the film insulting, as it basically created a situation in which the lives of one group of soldiers were considered to be worth less than the lives of the one Private Ryan. It’s one of the reasons why I cringe at the prospect of seeing another Spielberg movie. He’s got his moments, but his films overall leave me feeling manipulated.

Apocalypse Now is another overrated film. Better to see the documentary of how it was made… but the soundtrack in the main film makes no sense at all. The thick synthesizers sound more appropriate for a cartoon. Martin Sheen works out all right as the Marlowe figure, but Coppola should have gotten Klaus Kinski to be Kurtz. He should have also gotten Werner Herzog to direct. The fact that I can address both Apocalypse Now and Saving Private Ryan is testament to their accessibility and to the difficulty in confronting Come and See.

I cannot be dismissive of Come and See. I cannot find the adjectives to address it. It is more than a tale of a young man that joins partisans: in its two hours, it stands in stern judgment of offensive war and those who advocate it. It does not allow excuses, nor does it permit the so-called Nuremberg Defense: “We were only following orders.” The Russian auxiliaries, the SS, the regular Wehrmacht, all of the Nazi thrust to wipe out the Russians are there, and all are guilty. There are no beautiful cameo actors to stride across stolen scenes. It is as if the Russians rose from the earth and the Germans emerged from the mist to battle for their lives, and we are there to see it. There are no fancy special effects: the bullets are real, the bombs are real, and the toll on the actors is real.

The film was shot in chronological order, so one watches the aging effects of the war on the film’s main actor. When he appears greyed, shattered, wrinkled, and broken at the end, we do not see a Hollywood makeup job. We see an actor that lived as his character did for nine months – starving, marching, harrowed by the sights around him.

Much of the dialogue in the film is delivered head-on from actors confronting the camera, looking directly into our souls. The music aids the psychological heaviness and impact. The film is so involving, we don’t have time to think “my, what lovely cinematography!” It’s every bit as involving and demanding as Das Boot, but with the added burden of being a documentation of genocide.

Come and See is a film that demands to be seen and then reflected on. It is not entertainment. It is a conduit for pondering, questioning, and a search for answers.