A few days ago a "journalist" on a FOX news program commenting about the public's revulsion with the actions of Tiger Woods, said something very seriously along these lines:

"I understand that Tiger is a Buddhist or something.  There is not the forgiveness in Buddhism that there is in Chrisitianity.  I would suggest that he convert to Christianity and receive forgiveness for his actions."

That is what passes for objective journalism by a journalist on FOX.  However there has not been a resounding criticism from the public.  What is further disturbing is that some people amazingly look to FOX News for their main source of news.  What in the world has happened to journalism in the U.S.?  In fact, what has happened to the United States?  This is an extremely disturbing development.

If Americans look past this serious development then we can be assured that what we were founded upon as a nation has disappeared.  The objective of a democratic society and government is to protect the rights of the minority.  If that is not done, the rest is silly rhetoric.

What would have happened if a journalist had said on U.S.  network television that Tiger Woods should dump Buddhism and turn to the Moslem faith?   Not only would the American public be up in arms, the entire journalism community would rally in revolt to that suggestion.  But we seem to accept it when it is a positive Christian reference?  Or is it that true professional journalists and people who understand what  objective journalism is have come to accept such democratic distortions and unmitigated opinion for what passes for journalism in today's media market when it is on FOX?  Do we now accept such low standards because it is FOX doing it?  Don't we know the impact of such closemindedness and ignorance?  Can't we see the extreme erosion of democracy in such a development?

In my blogs here and throughout my career I have shown by quotes from our Founding Fathers that the government of the United States is in no way based on the Christian religion.  In fact, that is an almost direct quote from John Adams.  Thomas Paine, who captured the essence of the Founding Fathers in his writings, went so far as to criticize Christianity openly.  But because the majority of Americans have always been Christians, Judaic-Christians,  or nominal Christians, we seem to think it is OK to distort democracy to accommodate it.  But a democracy must protect the minorities, whether it be atheism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, or others groups.  That is the essence of democracy.

If you want to read about someone who characterizes perfectly this broad public claim of being of the Judaic-Christian philosophy and acting very un-Christian, check out the life of Rupert Murdoch who owns FOX News.  He has money stashed away everywhere to avoid taxes, including in Cuba!  He encouraged our war in Iraq because it made money for him and his enterprises.  He hides information from his workers and tries at all times to cheat them.  He never saw a money-making scheme that he couldn't rationalize, no matter how immoral, unethical, illegal, or repulsive.

For your winter reading, I suggest you read some of the objective and honest criticism of Rupert Murdoch.  You will then realize why FOX is so dishonest in presenting the "news."  You will then realize why this Australian manipulates the U.S. government and its domestic and foreign policies to put money in his pocket.  He is a despicable man.  And FOX is part of his legacy.

As we watch and experience the death of American capitalism, there is a general finger-pointing exercise that aims at creeping socialism.  But the U.S. is much farther from socialism than ever, and there is no remnant of it if there ever was one.  In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt instituted some economic plans that put the brakes on run-away capitalistic greed in order to save the United States from total disaster.  Since then there has been a steady march toward greed capitalism.

Greed capitalism is not really capitalism at all.  It has been a carefully crafted scheme to bilk Americans into thinking they were engaged in a never-ending economic spiral upward.  We were made into spending and buying robots.  We became such good puppets that we never blinked when the American dream cost us two, instead of one, adult workers in each family unit in order to afford to make ends meet.  That meant doubling the work force in order to meet mediocrity in America.

Hints of danger in the future began to appear when corporate greed was not satisfied with immoral profits and organized to kill labor unions and big labor contracts.  Among the many schemes to do this was to ship good paying jobs overseas to underdeveloped nations where labor was grateful and grossly underpaid.  Slave shops that were outlawed in the U.S. became commonplace for U.S. companies in Asia, South America, Mexico, and elsewhere.  The U.S. economic engine kept going as citizens continued to spend, send even their children out to work just to stay even, and were told the future was rosy because home prices would escalate forever.  Everybody would have a bundle in later life.

The ship was kept afloat by social laws that were passed in the 1930s and 1940s, and more and more people who had lived high off the hog then were now struggling with menial jobs and took on second jobs just to stay afloat.  Corporate profits in America went through the roof.  The biggest (and most immoral) profits were protected in health care, pharmaceuticals, and especially war-related industries.  The "protection money" was what was purchased in Washington, DC where both Democrats and Republicans were in the hip-pockets of these industrial behemoths.  The huge corporate benefactors saw to it that they were needed in the political life of each elected politician because election campaigns became more and more expensive.  Therefore more and more "protection money" was handed out for favors to big corporations.

This meant sweeter and sweeter deals for health and war-related industries.  To hell with those corporations that weren't in on the deal!  We needed war and sweetheart deals to keep us going.  And so the U.S., wanted or not, became the policeman to the world...even where we weren't wanted.  And more and more the health-related industries fixed the system so they had exclusive monopolies with no-compete clauses to escape free-market competition in drugs and services.  Health costs everywhere else in the world were far, far cheaper than the U.S.  We no longer had a capitalistic system, we had corporate socialism guaranteed by the federal government.

That was not enough.  There is no end to corporate greed.  It will always seek more.  And so the straw that broke the camel's back was the gross economic greed of the financial industry along with other industries.  And when the entire house of corporate socialism came tumbling down and there was loathing to blame any right-winger, enter a black man who runs for president against a campaigner [McCain], already discredited by then-current President George W. Bush when he lied and lambasted John McCain in a South Carolina primary.  Throw this black man to the wolves.  Get McCain to select without proper inspection a dizzy Governor of Alaska as his running mate.  That should guaranty the election of a black Democrat to blame when the house of cards comes tumbling down.

That's still not enough.  The financial industries and banking giants had so mismanaged their money that they began collapsing from sheer greed and ignorance.  Save these immense, mismanaged giants and throw a trillion federal dollars at them.  Why not?  In corpoate socialism the federal government has a role to play [for greed capitalists, not the majority of Americans].  This now means that it would be like you or I going to Las Vegas with a plan to score big.  We gamble, and when we lose all of our money [as U.S. corporations and financial institutions did], the federal government simply gives us more to play with.  Eventually we might hit a jackpot.  But instead of quiting gambling, we give ourself a huge bonus.

So we have experienced the death of American capitalism, once the envy of the world.  It has been replaced by corporate socialism here.  Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for the U.S.  Meanwhile the social democracies of Western Europe have removed the fear of getting sick with universal health care, and have lessened the fear of job loss with guarantees for all citizens, and have not had to ship their industrial labor jobs to underdeveloped nations as the U.S. has done.  Time will tell if Europe can survive the death of American capitalism.  China is rising with a different economic plan.

Say goodbye to American capitalism.  It was a good run.  Hello corporate socialism, and the death of the American middle-class.

Both right-wing evangelist Pat Robertson and equally right-wing radio squawker Rush Limbaugh have openly shared their similar opinion about the earthquake that ravaged Haiti.   They both have been critical of the  people of  Haiti and in a real sense blame the people of  that long-suffering nation themselves for much of  their misery.   Pat Robertson, receiving a backlash from the general American public, has tried to gloss over his insensitive statements, but remains critical of Haitians for their "deal with the devil," a total distortion of historical facts.  Rush Limbaugh is proudly holding fast to his boasting and insensitivity.

These political bed partners share more than just their inhuman reaction to a catastrophe of monumental proportions.  They are prototypes of the crude, cruel, inhuman, and unholy alliance that has been formed between the political right-wing and the fundamental religious pentecostals.  Each group was out of power, on the fringe of American political and religious society.  They parlayed their out-of-the-mainstream rants into a force to be reckoned with.  In fact, they helped in forming a coalition of those two fringe groups and took control of the Republican Party.  Not long ago, even the staunchest right-winger would have been embarrassed to be identified with either Limbaugh or Robertson.  Today, their power-grab in American conservative politics has elevated them to center court.

Sure, Robertson's influence has waned since he ran for President of the United States on a right-wing ticket.  Sure, his amazing charges and opinions have rendered him a somewhat old and out of touch hack.  He has, for example, charged that the CIA should be used to "take out" the democratically-elected leader of Venezuela. That alone should have uncovered him as a wacko with no credibility.  But he survives and still has quite a television ministry.  And his ilk still holds power in the right wing of American politics.

Limbaugh, on the other hand, has  used a different medium, radio, to garner a large following as he increases the craziness of the right-wing to new heights.  His rants are never wacky enough to shake his ardent followers.   Not even being caught at the Mexican border with illegal drugs lost him any of his legions.  Limbaugh has a voice in both the Republican Party and the right-wing, and he struts it regularly.

As the craziness has grown, the rich tradition of conservative leadership has been turned on its head.  Captured by this growing extremism, this power is growing, growing ominously.  This is not the conservative party of Robert Taft or William F. Buckley.  Those two gentlemen would find it an abomination if they were alive to watch this trashing of American politics.

The Democratic Party has chosen to react with too much of their own chicanery.  In need of big money to run their political campaigns, Democrats have succumbed to some of the same craziness.  Lacking moral and ethical backbone, Democrats have joined, rather than fought, the extreme right-wing game plans.

The result is that the two parties do not communicate with each other as conservatives and liberals did in the past.  They see each other as enemies, void of any compromising value.  They compete for too much of the same "protection money" of the extreme Mafia-like kingpins.  They do their talking in private enclaves, in private rooms, away from scrutiny. 

So, Limbaugh and Robertson, two wild and crazy guys, get way more attention than their immoral positions deserve.  And you and I, liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, are forced to play our insignificant roles and try to remain faithful to some legitimate ideology we used to call American politics.  Those days are over.  We are in a new place, and it continues to look more and more like a moral sewer every single day.  Watch Robertson, listen to Limbaugh, the stench is overwhelming.

Watching "Meet the Press" on NBC-TV, with the moderator sitting between former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton was a change in the environment.  I personally did not like either of their administrations or either of them personally.  But there they were, exchanging cooperative comments about joining them in support of Haiti following that horrible earthquake there.  Though differing in their political perspectives, they were able to put that aside for the good of humanity and for the good will of the American people.  How absolutely appropriate and examplery was this action.  In today's overheated political climate, with political wars swirling all around us, and every single thing dividing Americans in polarizing hatred, one could ponder for one brief moment the possibilities inherent in cooperation.  Could it possibly become a catalyst to return to the sanity of politics and government in the U.S.?

On another front, I reminisce about Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in America.  I knew him.  I knew his father, "Daddy King," better.  I met his mother also.  In fact, I was asked by Daddy King to speak at their church, Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta.  I sat on Daddy King's front lawn with him one night as he spoke of his son's murder exactly one year ago on that evening.  He told me, "I thought that after one year the pain would begin to ease.  It hasn't."  I had no words.  I was emotionally blown away.  Someday some author will write a book about the impact of Daddy King on his son's life.  It was profound.  Someday, perhaps, a movie will be made about the largely untold story of Daddy King, the pastor with the worn-smooth dark blue suit, the humble man, the man of principle, the man of God.  His story and influence must be told!

NBC's reporter and sometimes news anchor, Lester Holt, is reporting from Haiti.  His reports are very good.  He captures the essence of the tragedy and the spirit of the Haitian people.  He spoke of sleeping outside one night and surrounded by all the hungry, thirsty, and ravaged people who began to sing in their suffering.  Mr. Holt was inspired, but he didn't overplay it.  But he did capture the special characteristics of the people of Haiti.  The long-suffering people of Haiti, taken advantage of by colonial France and then a succession of cultural rapes by other nations, and also the devious leaders that ruled them.  Yet, after a devastating earthquake, here they were tired and hungry and feeling personal tragedy, singing through the night.  Those of us who have so much by comparison could learn from those people  I hope we do.

Today marked the demise of Air America, the predominently liberal radio system.  I have been searching to remember if I ever listened to it.  I don't believe I ever did.  No matter.  I do not like stilted political radio.

Most disturbing to me are the sweeping conclusions drawn about its demise.  Right-wing extremists see in its death the pending death knell for all of liberal thought and action.  They see it as proof that liberalism is a failure.  That's pretty drastic and over-reaching in opinion.  No similar conclusions were drawn by liberals about the bankruptcy of major American corporations that generously supported right-wing agendas.  Corporations that almost exclusively heralded conservative programs have died.  So?

While I find the broadcasts of Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh offensive and very low-level, I have never advocated for them to leave the air.  I suppose there is a place for such anti-intellectual, biased, and often bigoted radio programs.  What may disturb me is the fact that many Americans do not see those crude broadcasters for what they are.  They represent America at its worse.

This brings us to an interesting development.  Perhaps two of the most successful private corporations in the U.S. today are Halliburton and Blackwater.  Is this the America we want to be in front, leading the U.S. parade?  Are we to celebrate two corporations that see a marvelous bottom-line from killing other humans?  Not only has success almost exclusively been cascading on corporations in the military industrial marketplace in the U.S., we seem to blindly accept and celebrate it.  Is this really the America we want as our best example of private, corporate success?

Among the myriad things we have forgotten about the horrid two terms of George W. Bush, the Iraqi mistake hangs over us.  It will haunt us for a long, long time.  Anyone with any historical and current understanding of the Iraq "nation" knew what a terrible mistake was made invading that sovereign nation.  Yes, Saddam was a horrible leader, but no nation, including the U.S., has the right to trump up false charges to justify such an invasion.  And have the ongoing ignorance and bravado to celebrate our "victory" there with a broad "Mission Accomplished" sign as President Bush had one shaky hand on the steering wheel of the plane that landed on a aircraft carrier with him in full military gear.  Shades of the AWOL military reservist Bush.

While Bush slinked out of the White House, conservatives, wishing to cover-up the Iraqi mistake, celebrated the new direction taken by General Petraeus.   That new direction shook out this way in Iraq.  To quell the Sunni insurgency, the U.S. under the new general's leadership, secretly put the Sunni military on the payroll of the United States.  The cost: $30 million a month.  And it was done without the knowledge of the Shiite government in Baghdad.  Who knows what else they were promised?  But this much I know.  The Sunni leaders thought they would get autonomy in their western province, a share in Iraqi oil revenue, and a voice in the national government in Iraq.  It does not look as though the central, Shiite-led government in Baghdad is prepared to grant those wishes.  And that government hated the deal the Americans cut wth the Sunnis.

As President Obama guides the pull-out in Iraq next summer, the real battle for Iraq will take place.  The inevitable civil war will wage on fiercely.  The mess we caused will begin to explode openly.  The Sunnis and the Kurds will blame the Shiite-led government, the Arab Iraqis will blame the United States, the American conservatives will blame Obama, the liberals will blame the conservatives, and so forth.  The mess will be the inevitable outcome that was to come about from the day we illegally invaded that sovereign nation.

Iraq never was a nation, in the truest sense of the word.  It was cobbled together primarily by the British Empire.  It always took a strong, military power to hold it together.  When the European colonialists lost control of Iraq, it was confused and lacked strong leadership until Saddam took control and brought a Sunni government to rule the Shiite-majority nation.  Hatred continued to simmer as Saddam ruled with a ruthless iron hand.  The Sunnis were given special considerations.  The Shiites and Kurds waited their chance.  Shiite Iran fought a bitter war with Sunni-led Iraq.  Saddam gassed the Kurds.  When we invaded, the bitterness that was divided among the Moslems in the area, solidified in their new hatred of the United States.  A mess was created for America throughout the Middle East.  It was inevitable.  Anyone with any insight into the area realized this.  The absolute ignorance of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al did not see it, and in their ignorant bliss they celebrated and then trumped up excuses for their horrible failure.  The Middle East was thrown into a worse cauldron than before.  Crazy!

Now it is time to pay the piper in Iraq.  Even with all their oil revenue, they cannot survive the divisionary rumble that we helped create.  As we pull out and problems arise, the U.S. will be blamed for it all.  It will be our sad legacy in the Middle East.