Death scorecard: George W. Bush: 1,000,000+; Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl: 0

I never fault any soldier who walks away from a criminal war, whether a German leaving the Wehrmacht during WWII, or American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl taking a powder from our nasty and endless Afghan war. So I lament the cravenly political decision of Gen. Robert Abrams to ignore the recommendation of Lt. Col. Mark Visger to treat Bergdahl's hike as a misdemeanor, with a one year maximum sentence, and charge him with a felony that could end Bergdahl's walkin' around days for life. Abram's flinch was likely result of Congressional Chicken Hawks promising retribution should he opt for the more humane, lighter sentence. Then there is Agent Orange, a.k.a. The Donald, whose made Bergdahl's demonetization a signature applause point in his Xenophobic run for the presidency. Bergdahl didn't march out of camp to join the Taliban or hurt his squad. He simply had enough of criminal war and voted with his feet. Alas, the Taliban interrupted his march to sanity; imprisoning and torturing him for 5 years till the President traded him for five suspected bad guys and a future draft choice.

The destroy-Bergdahl claque continues the myth that the search for him got fellow soldiers killed. If they were really concerned about punishing those who take life unnecessarily, their venom would be better spent investigating and then prosecuting former president George W. Bush, whose criminal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have arguably got more than a million folks killed in the Middle East, including over 7,000 of Bergdahl's fellow soldiers.

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has suffered enough. Let him come before Congress and school the Chicken Hawks who spend our valuable trillions on endless criminal war, endless refugee creation and endless death. And let George W. Bush be moved out of his spacious mansion into a space about the size of one of his closets to ponder the carnage he unleashed in the Middle East that has turned that pitiful region into a cauldron of despair and death.

COD Board holdovers' false, specious charges must be addressed

The three COD Board holdovers who essentially and irresponsibly shut down governance at COD by boycotting last night's meeting are fond of blaming COD's entire woes on the three new members that took control in April with their organizer Kathy Hamilton, the sole Board member who exposed the Breuder Board malfeasance. Now that the Higher Learning Commission has placed COD on 2 years probation, blaming the entire action on the Bob Breuder administration and the old Board (including the 3 holdovers, minus Hamilton) one might expect the Boycott Three to look in the mirror to determine the source of this extraordinary punitive crisis facing COD. Sadly, they are redoubling their charges of new Board members' responsibility and throwing in COD Faculty Association president Glenn Hanson as well. They are promoting this deceitfulness on a rogue Facebook page filled with baseless, personal attacks against any and all who incur their wraith.

They are free to continue these false, specious changes till their terms are up or they are removed from the Board for malfeasance. But the Boycott Three (Erin Birt, Joe Wozniak and Dianne McGuire) blaming the new majority for COD going on Double Secret Probation is akin to President Nixon blaming the House Select Watergate Committee for the Watergate break-in.

College of DuPage Board holdovers' boycott irresponsible

The three College of DuPage Board members who boycotted the Board meeting last night, delaying critical action required to respond to the two year probation imposed on COD by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), hammered the final nail into their legacy of mis-governance at COD. The HLC, COD Faculty and a sizable majority of the COD community place the blame for COD's massive financial, governing and educational problems directly upon the Bob Breuder administration and the Board that enabled him for five sorrowful years. Less than 1% of schools audited by HLC are placed on probation and none approaches the size and prestige of COD. Yet three holderovers of the six enablers (one dropped her re-election bid; the two who ran were buried in the April election), who have voted as a block against every reform measure for eight months now, denied the Board a quorum with their stunning act to prevent any business whatsoever from taking place. Their main reason appears to be their refusal to work with Vice Chair Deanne Mozzochi who becomes Acting Chair till the mandatory April, 2016 re-organization meeting. Their boycott, preventing progress toward addressing the 'black veil' of probation and conducting day to day business at COD, reminds me of the mindless GOP Tea Party shutdown of the federal government, inflicting a $24 billion hit to our economy, inconveniencing scores of millions, and making our national governance a laughingstock. Several faculty and community members renewed their calls for the three - Joe Wozniak, Erin Birt and Dianne McGuire, to resign. My take is a bit more charitable. All three must stop their infantile tactics bringing them disgrace and do the job they were elected to do without further delay. They still have time to end their six year terms on a high note by doing the right thing. But time is running out.

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Book Pick: Nour Forties by Richard Lingeman

'Noir Forties' is a cultural history of the half decade between the end of WWII and the outbreak of the Korean War. The 1945 to 1950 period is a much neglected historical era and that oversight gets its full measure of recognition by Lingeman, an historian and senior editor at The Nation. Subtitled 'The American People from Victory to Cold War', a more apt one might be 'Death of the New Deal'. Three events coalesced in that sad development. First, the death of FDR which prevented his return to fulfilling the New Deal promise sidelined by WWII. Second was the explosion of the middle class under early New Deal reforms and war spending which dissipated widespread support for further reforms. Lastly, the rise of the Military Industrial Complex which needed a bogyman to keep the military contracts flowing. They found it in the form of Joe Stalin and the imaginary fear of a Russian Communist takeover, not just physically, but culturally, through progressive champions no longer protected by FDR's charisma. The thought police epitomized by the House Un-American Activities Committee and another Joe, as in McCarthy, used the Red Scare to demonize, even destroy the progressive New Deal movement. Many thousands were ousted from government, education, and most prominently, Hollywood. Films celebrating the common man like 'Grapes of Wrath' and 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' could no longer be made, considered Communist propaganda aimed at the young and naive. That is where the Noir in 'Forties Noir' comes into play. Lingeman uses the Film Noir wave of this exact period as a metaphor for the anxiety and ennui ignited by McCarthyism. Disaffected Hollywood intellectuals poured their angst into film noir instead of serious movies of social and political injustice.

FDR's successor Harry Truman had to purge his New Deal associates, institute repugnant loyalty oaths and declare cold war on Joe Stalin's Russia just to save his 1948 re-election campaign from defeat by the rising extreme right. Though safely re-elected, Truman relished the phony fight against world communism which made the WMD makers rich and the rest of the country poor, spiritually that is. The Noir Forties era officially ended on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded the South, sucking a delusional US governing elite into a failed and murderous war; ushering in the endless cycle of senseless wars that continues today in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Ukraine and now Syria.

Disastrously, the Noir Forties era never ended. We now living in the Noir Teens of the 21 century, bombarded relentlessly by Xenophobes, racists and war mongers, not crawling out of cracks in sewer, but mainstream charlatans financed by grotesque billionaires as they seek the presidency. Born just 33 days before FDR escaped the madness about to be unleashed upon the nation he sought to elevate, I've lived into eight decades now under the cloud given birth by the Noir Forties. But the heroes, epitomized by dead end New Dealer and 1948 Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace, offer a glimmer of hope that we of good will must never abandon. Wallace's legacy today resides in Bernie Sanders, whose idealism and fearlessness should guide us all.

'Noir Forties' Note: check out the related film 'Trumbo' which perfectly captures the fear and loathing of the 1947 Hollywood Ten witch hunt.

Cruz's 'festival of fraud' applies to entire GOP field

Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman took up almost a full page Sunday to deconstruct presidential candidate Ted Cruz's "cynical demagoguery" denying climate change in his quest for the presidency. 
Chapman was merciless in his Cruz criticism. He correctly pointed out Cruz's outright lying and hypocrisy in using denial of the undeniable, the inexorable march of climate change which puts mankind in great peril, to further his presidential ambitions. He calls Cruz's campaign a "traveling circus of fraud."
Yet, everything Chapman said of Cruz could be said about every single GOP presidential contender. Consider Mike Huckabee, a huckster par excel lance, who said "A beheading (from ISIS) is a far greater threat to an American that a sunburn". How bout Marco Rubio who says any efforts to halt climate change aren't worth all the jobs it will cost. Then there is Jeb!, a converted Catholic, who says Pope Francis is a great spiritual leader but should stay the Hell out of politics in promoting climate change urgency. Chris Christie's big gut tells him climate change isn't a big deal. The Donald may be the most delusional, claiming climate change is a hoax concocted by the Chinese to wreck our economy. 

Mother Earth just got a teensy-tiny reprieve from the great nations she spawned who finally concluded a climate change accord in Paris. Of the nine GOP pretenders who take the main stage tomorrow to out demagogue each other for the GOP brass ring, only one...that's right, only one, John Kasich, even acknowledged it! No he didn't support it; he said that "even the Obama administration knows it's gonna be a job killer."

Steve Chapman called out Ted Cruz for his NPR interview Chapman described as "six minutes of nonstop mendacity". What Chapmen should have spent nearly a page of valuable Tribune ink on is the entire GOP presidential field's two years of nonstop mendacity on climate change.

Trump, Cruz grab headlines; Rubio grabs neocon money, crazed ideas

Trump and Cruz may be getting the headlines and the pollsters top spots, but Marco Rubio is the one to really fear on foreign affairs. The leading duo are both outliers, besides being liars, from the Republican establishment, and wouldn't be the establishment's first choice. That's in part because neither is as focused on promoting the Military-Industrial Complex as Rubio, who pursues it with a war-monger's zeal. He parrots the Bush era neocons on virtually every one of their self destructive schemes such as overturning the Iran nuclear deal while re-imposing sanctions, rescinding rapprochement with Cuba, allowing Ukraine into NATO setting up renewed confrontation with Russia; even taking on China by engaging with dissidents, implying a regime change agenda. He loves the idea of fighting ISIS without a clue how to fight. Rubio is backed up many of the Bush administration advisors and media shills. His biggest catch is billionaire and military intervention fanatic Sheldon Adelson, who shelled out $100 million in the losing GOP 2012 presidential race and is prepared to drop another $100 mil to elect Rubio.

Most relatively normal Republicans I know back Rubio; they are embarrassed by Trump and can't relate to Cruz's evangelical zealousness. Rubio conveys that youthful, handsome, confident persona they idolize in promoting their conservative worldview. Of course, they don't do their homework regarding his recklessness, corruptibility and abject stupidity on foreign affairs. That mindset is almost as scary as a Rubio presidency.