Men fear thought more than they fear anything else on earth — more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages … But if thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear that holds men back — fear lest their cherished beliefs should prove delusions, fear lest the institutions by which they live should prove harmful, fear lest they themselves should prove less worthy of respect than they have supposed themselves to be.

-Bertrand Russell

Perhaps our current day exploration of this can best be found in  the comedy of Stephen Colbert, especially in his performance at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner where he satirized the Presidents reliance on “gut instincts” and included the memorable line: “reality has a well-know liberal bias.”

In a couple of weeks, we’ll mark the sixth year anniversary of the death of Paul and Sheila Wellstone.

I get emotional every year at this time…missing them and the way they fought for us with such integrity. This year is no different.

But yesterday I learned something that makes those memories all the more poignant for me. Buried in the midst of the bailout package, was final passage of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.

One of the series we used to have here at Docudharma was plf515’s What are you reading? To be real honest with you, I usually found his selections a bit intimidating. But that says way more about me than it does him.

I am a member of a book group that meets monthly. In September every year, we choose the books we are going to read for the coming year. I was not able to attend the meeting where this happened last month, but I found some of the selections very interesting and am looking forward to reading them this year. So I thought I’d share them here.

As a bit of background…the book group is all women who are mostly in their 50’s and 60’s. We are all professional women (one is recently retired) working mostly in the non-profit and health care sectors.

With that said, here are some of the selections for the coming year:

Listening to the lead-up to the debate tonight, it seems that Palin’s strategy will be to avoid issues and try to convince us voters that she’s “one of us.” Magnifico posted an amazing quote from a piece written by Andrew Halcro, who debated Palin more than two dozen times, in an essay by A Siegel.

“Andrew, I watch you at these debates with no notes, no papers, and yet when asked questions, you spout off facts, figures, and policies, and I’m amazed. But then I look out into the audience and I ask myself, ‘Does any of this really matter?'” Palin said.

So just as a reminder as to why Palin is likely to avoid those pesky little things like facts, figures and policies…here’s “Sarah’s Greatest Hits” from Josh Marshall at TPM.

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

My first job out of college over 30 years ago was as a counselor in a residential program for chemically addicted teenagers. I had lived an extremely sheltered life as a “good girl” and trained to be a teacher. When I graduated, there were no teaching jobs available. This one came along, so I took it. I didn’t have to wait very long to learn I was in way over my head.

The kids in the program lived there for 6 months. During the first few weeks, we didn’t see their families at all. After that, they joined us once a week for family therapy groups.  I still remember one young man in the program who told me his story during those first few weeks. The abuse he had suffered at the hands of his mother was horrific. In some ways I dreaded meeting her. In other ways, I was anxious to do so and give her a piece of my mind.

I’ll never forget what happened when I finally got that opportunity. I interviewed her privately before the group session and heard her story. The terrible things she had done to her son paled in comparison to what had been done to her as a child. My heart broke as she cried with me and I realized that she had actually come a long way in her life and was trying to do her best as a mother.

Lets gather and talk.

A warning…I’m not good at this. Never got that walking and chewing gum at the same time. So I hope some of you will fill in as we go along.

As I expressed in an essay earlier this week, I continue to try to understand the risk our economy is facing that has led to all the focus on whether or not to support a bailout plan. I don’t think that anyone has yet made a clear case to the American people about what’s at stake here. I must admit that I didn’t listen to the President last night and haven’t really read much about what he said. But I think that, like most Americans, I wouldn’t believe what he had to say anyway.

So I continue to try to read and learn what I can in order to better understand what’s happening. The reality I’m finding is that predictions are pretty garbled in econospeak and tend to be focused on what will happen to corporate America. But there are some themes that are getting through this non-economist’s brain that have me asking some questions.

Here’s an example from Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics column in the NYT.

The concern for the man on Main Street is…the collective inability of major financial institutions to find funding.

As their own funding dries up, the remaining financial firms will be much more cautious in extending credit to normal firms and individuals. So even for people whose own circumstances have not much changed, the cost of the credit is going to rise. For an individual or business that falls behind on payments or needs an increase in short-term credit because of the slowing economy, credit will be much harder to obtain than in recent years.

This is going to slow growth. We have not seen this much stress in the financial system since the Great Depression, so we do not have any recent history to rely upon in quantifying the magnitude of the slowdown.

Remember back in 2004 when Ron Suskind wrote about this conversation with a White House staffer?

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

I know there have been parallels drawn between the push to pass this Paulson bailout and the same kind of fear-mongering that brought us the Patriot Act and the invasion of Iraq. And I think those comparisons are spot on.

But I also think that in focusing completely on the absurdity of the bailout plan, we are once again letting folks like Bush (and this time Paulson) be the ones to create reality. All of our energies are going into stopping what they’re trying to do – which is important. But how much are we balancing that with an attempt to understand what is happening in our economy right now? Are we creating a narrative that can help people understand what is going on? And finally, are we crafting solutions that can at least minimize the pain and suffering that real people are going to feel as a result of the mess we’re in?

From The Field Negro this week, we learn the story of Fatimah Ali, a writer with the Philadelphia Daily News.

On September 2nd, Ms. Ali wrote a column titled We need Obama, not 4 more years of George Bush. In it she laid out the case that McCain and the Republicans will continue to deepen the divide between the haves and the have-nots in this country.

AMERICA is on the brink of a long, harsh and bitterly cold winter, with a looming recession that the GOP won’t even admit to.

The policies of the current White House have brutalized our economy, yet the wealthiest think that everything is fine.

Rich Republicans just don’t understand that millions are suffering. But many of their working class do, and they’re beginning to abandon their own party.

I’ve been reading alot today trying to understand the proposed bailout. And I have to admit that I still don’t know what to think about it all.

I don’t really give a shit if these individual companies fail or even if the stock market fails. But if we’re talking about a global economic collapse, that’s not something I think we can risk.

What I can say with confidence is that, once again, this country has waited until the peak of crisis to take action. We seem to not have the capacity to evaluate risk and take preventative action…no matter what the issue.

I’ve been reading most of the day trying to learn what I can about this bailout deal that’s in the works. And to tell you the truth, I still don’t know how I feel about it.

I don’t give a shit if these companies fail or even if the stock market fails. But if what we are facing is a world economic collapse, that’s nothing to risk.

What I feel like I can say with confidence is that once again, this country has waited until crisis mode to take action. We don’t seem to have the capacity in our systems to recognize risk and take preventative action.  

OK, so its not quite hump day, but it sure feels like it to me. I’m needing a break from all the doom and gloom in the financial world and the endless campaign. So I thought it may be time for a little fun.

Did anyone else notice the names of Sarah Palin’s children? Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper Indy, and Trig Paxon. Over at Mudflats, we learn how Todd and Sarah came up with these names.

We know that Sarah and Todd Palin like to name their children with sports/Alaskan theme names.

Track, who was born in Track and Field season.

Bristol, after Bristol Bay.

Willow, after the town north of Wasilla, or the Willow Ptarmigan (Alaska State Bird).

Piper Indy, after the Piper Cub airplane, and the Polaris Indy snowmachine (snowmobile for you ‘outsiders’). And an interesting quote from Palin has her saying Indy could also refer to “Independence”…. Hmmm.

Trig Paxson, after the town of Paxson, north of Wasilla.