Rush Limbaugh and the conservative hacks who savaged and defamed Sandra Fluke for urging Congress to protect contraception coverage in The Affordable Care Act, deserve our pity; just as any other bully does.

All the smoke and sparks about sponsors, free speech, and religious freedom veil what Rush and all other agents of torment are telling the world about themselves. As well, all the PSA talk about bullies as a social menace, how to survive them, or about how "it gets better" (though that's a crucial message)--misses the message conveyed by their acts of cruelty. What they illustrate are the lengths (or depths) bullies are willing to go to forget or smother the memory of their own suffering (always endured as children).

Most certainly not one member of Rush Limbaugh's radio audience (numbered in the tens of millions) was present at any moment of humiliation or deprivation he experienced as a child. Yet his massive appeal owes to the bond he shares with listeners as individuals who rile up over any reminder of their own pain or vulnerability; summoning a pox upon anyone who might dare let their difference from prevailing norms, show.

Anyone who might scoff at this reality have no other way to account for how a grown adult could recklessly and repeatedly speculate on the sexual habits of a woman he knows nothing about. Oh, but Rush is an entertainer--a provocateur--wanting to reach the widest audience possible, his defenders explain away.

Indeed, leave it to Rush and his drones to 'give away the goods' as it concerns their own sexual hangups or unexplored psyches: sexual pleasure and self-empowered women rank as intolerable aspects of our culture that must--must!--be ridiculed, debased, caricatured.

The struggle against bullies demands another, mostly unexplored front--that is the threshold of their psyches. All responses to hostility should point out that the bully is just as wounded as the victim he attempts to afflict. Instead of allowing the brute imagine his actions come from a place of strength, the social menace should endure a gauntlet of reminders that the victim's greatest offense was reminding the agressor of his own weakness.

Rush Limbaugh and petty tyrants of his ilk may not reform their behavior as a result of being thus confronted; this approach at the very least reframes the prevailing conversation about bullies--that they share a deep kinship with the victims they torment to forget.

Earl Shorris is dying. A cancer survivor, he endures the near failure of organs, shuffling among hospitals and a kaleidescope of attending doctors. All the while he muses about death and suffering, by turns elegaic and rhapsodic.

His essay, "American Vespers: The ebbing of the body politic", featured in Harper's Dec. 2011 issue, is a memoir in diptych; a view of terminal illness as an individual and as a metaphor for a waning nation. What a compelling read for the end of a troubled 2011.

The pivotal passage between both frames reads: "I lie alongside my country, patriot of my body and my home, dying from an enemy within. Everything had come for me as it had come for America. How similarly we failed!"

For Earl Shorris, Paul Valéry stands at the terminus of a string of writers known as "decadent"--those who criticized the French middle class for their materialism made possible by the output the Industrial Revolution. The decadents considered the national decline as a loss of vitality. Though Shorris does not state this specifically, their art making emphasized passion and beauty in abundance--proportional to the excess of accumilating products.

Because of the bourgeois fixation on accumilation, decadents saw a nation in decline; a loss of vitality. Though Shorris does not state this specifically, their art making emphasized passion and beauty in abundance--a revolt proportional to the excess of middle class materialism.

A nation endures only so much consumption before illness sets in. In Shorris's view, Ronald Reagan introduced the pathogen--a deficiency of ethics--that now afflicts the United States. To emphasize the point by contrast, Shorris refers to Scottish Enlightenment thinker Frances Hutcheson, who argued that the greatest good is the happiness of others. The heirs of Reagan's ethics legacy--Kristol, Cheney, Bush, Podhoretz, Falwell, Strauss and Bloom--said otherwise through their policy decisions.

The writer takes certain liberties interpreting the impact of Ronald Reagan's candidacy and presidency. There is the first speech Reagan gave after wrapping up the Republican presidential nomination in Aug. 1980. At a county fair in Mississippi, not far from where three civil rights workers were slain in 1964, Reagan asserted "states' rights" in an address to a Southern audience--considered at best an insensitive gesture toward the victims of intolerance. "States rights" is well known among Southerners as a polite reference to turning back the clock on civil rights and racial integration. Additionally, Shorris recalls the time Reagan met with the Republican black caucus and could not recall the name of a single member of the group.

The infirmity that now sickens this nation sprouted without being recognized. "The cell that multiplies, the killing thing," Shorris writes, "lies beneath the observable world." Indeed, the pestilent agent lies out of sight because we, as a nation, are far more complicit than we are capable of acknowledging.

With the ascendancy of a figure like Reagan or George Walker Bush, one might point out that such figures simply reflect a prevailing quality or character already at work within a nation's citizenry.

A Reagan or Bush manifests simply because enough of us--void of curiosity, brazen and shadow projecting louts--have summoned such leaders.

In a medical case such as ours the undeniable message is, "Sick nation, heal thyself."

Rick Santorum's surprise showing at the Republican Iowa caucus and his prospects for competing in New Hampshire, switches focus to the dollar figure his campaign has spent; finance folks like to bandy about those ROI (return on investment) numbers factoring the investment value of each vote.

This kind of talk illustrates what fundamentally afflicts this country's decision making when choosing its decision makers. Now that Santorum's campaign is suddenly competitive the question becomes, will he or won't he raise the cash to remain viable beyond this Iowa surge?

Why couldn't the good citizens of New Hampshire, or of any other state, muster a broad enough voting presence that forces the millions in big dollar donations into political irrelevance?

What the 'free speech' of wealthy campaign donors ultimately represents is a built-in voter apathy that tilts electoral politics into the 1%'s favor. Voters should view Rick Santorum's unlikely success as what is possible when a plurality of citizens casts aside prevailing thought to cast their vote.

A fascinating read in the Harper's Jan. 2012 issue features the story of foreclosed homeowners challenging lenders in courts across the country. Among organizations that have taken shape to push back against banks is the National Homeowners Cooperative.

As Harper's writer Christopher Ketcham reveals in his report, "Stop Payment", the NHC teaches homeowners how to counteract a bank's foreclosing efforts. Suing for "quiet title" compels a bank to produce evidence of an unbroken chain of title (documenting ownership going back to the time property was first parceled and recorded). If the foreclosing institution cannot prove it owns the loan, then the title in question is considered "clouded".

Enter the Mortgage Electronic Registry Systems, what Ketcham calls "the heart of the clouded title problem." The purpose of the MERS--going back to the mid 1990s when Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and a handful of major banks launched it--has been to keep an electronic record of the sale of mortgages between lenders. In doing so it became the 'in-name-only' owner of the loan for the public record. This allowed mortgage companies an alternative to the time-consuming and costly recording process handled through the county clerk's office.

Ketcham's piece does not mention the specifics of the county clerk's office role after the advent of MERS, except to state that the electronic registry "had single handedly unraveled centuries of precedent in property titling and mortgage recordation...".

A very telling quote from University of Utah law professor Christopher Peterson captures the meaning of MERS's 'achievement' on a wider scope: "What's happened is that, almost overnight, we've switched from democracy in real-property recording to oligarchy real property recording.... There was no court case behind this, no statute from Congress or the state legislatures. It was accompished in a private corporate decision. The banks just did it."

Professor Peterson also considers it no coincidence that as more Americans face foreclosure than at any other time since the Great Depression, it happens as the records of home ownership and mortgages shift to a private database.

An estimate of the number of mortgages held by MERS stands at around 62 million.

Former president Bill Clinton appeared on ABC's This Week With Christiane Amanpour on Sunday (Sept. 18) to talk government gridlock and the economy. He imparted two points that capture the crisis of our times.

Speaking to the question of what it will take for Washington decision making to break through the stalemate, he replied that it would require “a little help from the American people.” His answer followed with a reminder to voters of the crop of freshman Congressional nay-sayers elected in 2010--those who impeded such matters like raising the debt ceiling and opposed a balanced approach to the federal budget deficit. Clinton elaborated by saying, "It's very hard for the people in Washington who got there based on pure conflict, pure attack, pure ideology to take it seriously when their same constituents are saying please do something positive."

This is especially true of elected legislators who behave as if their sole mandate is to oppose President Obama. As far as anyone can measure, this agenda has yet to have any direct impact on creating jobs.

On that note about jobs and their 'creators' Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on the same day joined the Fox News Hour discussion to cry 'class warfare' at President Obama's suggestion of raising taxes on millionaires (the White House calls it "The Buffet Rule"). Rep. Ryan also repeated the usual, fraudulent claims against raising federal levies on the wealthy and their impact on how jobs get created. Such arguments loop in the multi-million dollar S-corp. companies among that sacred class of small business owners that must be spared any increases.

His reasoning mashes down to "if you tax more... you get less. If you tax job creators more, you get less job creation." Rep. Ryan would be in the oddest position to explain with a straight face why Bank of America, a beneficiary of Bush-era tax cuts, is fixing to lay off 30,000 employees. All that may remain of Ryan's once-fervent audience is the low information voter.

Speaking of the low information voter, Bill Clinton's second important point emerges. In an attempt to account for the few bright spots of economic development around the country, he emphasizes how crucial "networks of cooperation" are to the success of a local market. As for the rest of the country's lagging economy, a significant disconnect prevails between "the way the economic system works and the way the political system works." In other words, we cannot expect economic success when the political system endures the legislative standstills of the magnitued we witnessed this past summer.

As for other disconnects that figure prominantly into our political dysfunction, the influence gap is one that rarely receives attention. Yes, there are those whining references to "campaign finance reform" that pepper some conversations about how to improve government, however, rarely, if ever, does anyone name the players or what is at stake. 

The influence gap occurs between two classes of citizens distiguished by their earning power. As troubling economic times have ginned up talk about class conflict, increasingly the two groups have been referred to as the elite 2 per cent and the everyone-else 98 per cent. Each election they enter into what has been  called here a zero-sum faceoff--the 2% being in a position to finance the media resources necessary to reach the remaining 98% through television, radio and internet ads.

Conventional wisdom drives Bill Clinton's caution that "until the American people make it clear that-- however they voted in past elections--they want these folks [Democrats and Republicans] to work together and to do something, there's going to be a little ambivalence in Washington."

For the millions of unemployed or foreclosed-upon Americans hanging to their wits by a tattered thread, relief will require something far bolder than conventional thought. 

What voters too often forget or fail to understand is the influence they wield when working in concert. If the 2008 economic meltdown has anything to teach us, it has to be how interlinked or mutually dependent our occupational and financial destinies are. Given that interdependency, won't survival require a serious reconfiguration of the influence gap? It would be up to the 'lower' 98 per cent to insist that candidates and elected officials alike, must honestly bear their concerns.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman stood out over the 9/11 weekend--among the various civic nine-eleven observances and rote reflection-making for the tragedy's tenth anniversary--to rub salt, not in a national wound, but to smart the festering hubris of a select group of leaders. This swollen lesion belongs to the elected- and appointed officials who believed they could parlay nine eleven's moments of nation-wide panic and sustained uncertainty into decades of political advantage.

Mind the spittle in the reaction from neocon zealots and pundits. Judging from their rabid responses, the post-nine eleven fallout unfolded in way that merits absolutely no criticism. How dare you, Mr. Krugman, tamper our sanctimonious revery.

Former War Secretary... that is, Secrtary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went so far as to tweet canceling his subscription to the Times. "[R]epugnant..." he sniffed in objection to Krugman's piece. All very telling reactions from people who heaved and cheered the loudest for our military to invade a country that was a bystander when New York City and the Pentagon were attacked. Not a whisper or wince of regret for the one hundred thousand-plus Iraqi civillian fatalities; our dead, maimed and tormented soldiers; 'renditioning' and torturing innocent civilians; our nation's reputation worldwide, a tattoo-quality disgrace. Really, Mr. Rumsfeld, you certainly know 'repugnant' when you see it.

The indifference shown by Rumsfeld, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for the global catastrophe they set in motion, illustrates the dual-sided dimension of shame. One side is the regret, or at the very least second thoughts, felt by a person with a developed moral sense. He apologizes profusely for accidentally shooting his friend during a hunting trip, for instance.

The other side to shame is that of a deeply wounded dignity. Usually the unfortunate soul who, as a child, endures mistreatment or outright physical harm, receives the message from the tormentor what the debased value of his or her dignity is. Later on in life the person has one of two choices: engage the memory of the assaulted dignity or pretend that it never happened.

For the pretenders it's a life-long commitment to keep that memory locked away. To serve that effort, the denier may commit some act of hostility or torment against another person who does not deserve such mistreatment. Further, the pretender fails or refuses to acknowledge the impact his or her hurtful actions have upon other people. Otherwise the tormentor risks rousing his or her own memory of suffering.

Paul Krugman advocated the shame of a healthy, engaged conscience. Such an awareness does not indulge in games of pretend or denial. By writing about our nation's severe shortcomings, he reminded his detractors of their own pummeled dignities--and, inevitably it seems, they excoriated him for that.

(Article first published as Voters' Zero-Sum Faceoff with Wealthy Campaign Donors on Blogcritics.)

It's a national pastime for voters to badmouth any given elected official from the comfort of their disengaged and isolated perches. While most citizens gripe about politicians or "the system" for operating beyond their influence--do any voters understand the "how" and "why" when elite interests wield far greater force?

Recently I received emails from two members of Congress informing me of an important fund raising deadline. Periodically during any given election cycle the Federal Election Commission requires candidates and political action committees alike to report their fund raising results. The donation appeals sent to my inbox represented the exact same party-related political action committee. Each letter urged a contribution before the Aug. 31 deadline, to meet a specified fund raising goal. Doing so would enable said pac a show of party strength or, as one letter boldly stated, "to take this fight to" the opposing party in each district.

Such letters--perhaps one of hundreds that get mailed out each month--do not mean much in and of themselves. As a cog in the machinery of mega-dollars campaign financing, however, the letters represent a failure on the part of vote-eligible citizens. The shortcoming is twofold: first is the well-known indifference of that 40 per cent of voters who opt not to show up at the polls every election; second, and perhaps more crucial, is the group of voters who do participate, but take little notice of how candidates finance their campaigns or who contributes to them.

At this point, voters find themselves on the losing end of the bargain known as representative democracy. It adds up to a zero-sum faceoff with wealthy donors. Why? Because voters have not shown the initiative nor interest that offsets a campaign's need for large dollar donations; the kind of contributions that finance the television ads produced to manipulate under informed citizens. Also on the campaign tab is the army of pollsters and analysts--sifting surveys and focus groups for a candidate's penny ante political advantage.

The way torrents of cash saturate political campaigns, the most accountability can hope to achieve is talking-point status. What often looks like wilful passivity of on the part of voters enables a breach between what the electorate intends and what the highest bids for influence actually achieve.

Here lies the influence gap that privileges corporations and monied interests over everyone else. If you don't believe this gap is a meaningful factor in the poor representation we endure today, let's have a look at an interview snippet quoting Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) in his district's newspaper, The Birmingham News. The occasion for the Dec. 8, 2010 conversation was his appointment as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

"In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated," the congressman pontificated, "and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."

Who can deny that the banks have been well represented by Rep. Bachus's persuasion? Given the generosity they have shown his campaign budget, who could expect the chairman to raise a fuss about trifles like preditory lending and robo-signing? When the committee he chairs isn't busy attempting to dismantle the modest transparency requirements of the Dodd-Frank Act, it is marking time while the usual suspects from the financial services continue on, business as usual.

This nation is three years into a financial calamity that anyone has yet to see the end of. Home foreclosures and chronic employment continue to not only eat away at our national solvency, but also undermine the mutual full faith and credit Americans once possessed.

If this state of affairs received serious consideration, blunt honesty would require us to admit that we have the kind of government we deserve. As we have yet to produce a voter turnout that demands fair, unbiased representation, we, the people, will continue sending the likes of Spencer Bachus to Washington every election.

Indifference has already exacted a harrowing price in the diminished quality of life most of us must cope with. So, consider this question a modest proposal: if it's within the electorate's capacity to avoid selecting convicted felons or pederasts for public office, why not strive to restore our leadership's accountability to the greater whole of this country?

Begin by paying attention to the who, what, why and how of governing. Special interests already deploy a battalion of lobbyists and insiders with the right access to elected officials, so voters will have to exert an equally coordinated and engaged effort. Then they will be in a position to avoid candidates who've sold away their decision making responsibility--and, instead, support candidates who are accountable to all citizens.

As her orbit in the world of pop music gained altitude, I took notice of an archly costumed female figure stalking throuh her music videos. What I would describe as a conspicuously concealed personal identity, her various appearances smothered in eyeliner, platinum-blonde wigs and sex object-shiny costumes. Her image was more a cipher than singer; conveying more 'sync' than 'lip'.

Besides the mindless mass adoration her singles and videos churned up, I found it troubling that a performer would go to such trouble to banish nearly all uniquely identifying charicteristics. The gawk-seeking, chameleon quality of her public appearances aroused in me a suspicion as to what exactly she could be hiding or attempting to deflect attention from?

One day it finally struck me--how prominently the bridge of her nose stood out from her face. Given Stefani Germanotta's Italian ancestry, her acquiline feature should surprise no one--though it does deviate from the prevailing WASP ideal (without which rhinoplasty would have no talisman).

She has asserted never having submitted to the scalpel on priciple that plastic surgery promotes insecurity. The photos accompanying the April 1, 2011 Harper's Bazaar feature display what appear as protrusions of bone at her cheeks and from either corner of her forehead. What intrigue she summons when stating the newly sprung bones (obviously the prosthetic magic of a make up artist) are her own--indeed fitting the angular thrust of her own Roman nose. Yes, there's promoting insecurity and then there's hemming said insecurity with all manner of visual gimmicks (who wouldn't fancy a meat dress?). Falling short of shocking, her wardrobe only manages to flout already-trampled middle class senses.

Irony swings every which way for this mediocre talent with the stand-out face. The more outrage or shock she attempts to compel, the louder the protest against her own ordinariness.

It's how the headline should have read. Instead the CNN article heading rolled out this way: 100+ CEOs promise no campaign donations.

How encouraging it is to hear from the likes of Warren Buffet and Eric Schultz about taxes and the distorting influence of wealth upon our political system. A couple of ultra-wealthy business types speak out on behalf of the rest of us. Will elected officials take heed how the middle- and working classes are getting the shaft? It is doubtful as voters have yet to speak a language that candidates for public office can understand.

Unemployment stands at anywhere from 15 to 25 million. If a class of (eligible) voters who previously had no reason to pay attention to government decision making, perhaps unemployment and the great economic setback of our lifetime will have to worsen before they rouse from indifference.

This is the very demographic at whom the multi-million dollar TV campaign ads are aimed; those manipulative talking points and absurd slogans. Who pays for these ads? This crucial question leads the discussion to the moneyed interests who enjoy purchasing their place at the table while the 98% remainder of voters are left scratching their heads, 'Hey i thought i voted for change,' and they most certainly expected change. But they did not notice their candidate accepting boatloads of bundled contributions from the top 2%.

What will it take to remind voters of their own responsibilities as citizens in our democratic republic: to stay informed; to continually engage elected officials as well as one another? Understanding the influence gap between voters and their representatives may impress upon Americans how their votes succumb to the force of large check writers pulling strings behind the scenes. The language candidates for election would undrstand require a significant consensus of voters willing to enforce the following terms: to vote only for candidates who refuse any donation greater than $200 per individual per year. As of yet, that determination by voters has to be self-realized.

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(Article first published as An American Shadow: Citizen Projection and Government Dereliction on Blogcritics.)

Speaking to representatives of Future Farmers of America in July 1988, President Ronald Reagan took a moment to remind his listeners of the ten most dangerous words in the English language: "Hi, I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."

Decades earlier near the beginning of his political career Reagan recorded a speech on a vinyl LP excoriating socialized medicine for what he claimed as the gradualist aim of controlling citizens' lives. He went so far as to predict that the government would end up coercing doctors as to where they could or couldn't practice medicine. Even though Reagan called it "one of the traditional methods of imposing statism," he does not mention a single example when a government eventually trampled upon the freedoms of its citizens.

Like other Cold War red-baiting alarmists, Reagan fueled the hysteria of the U.S. succumbing to Stalinist repression; also doing his share to popularize the projection of inhuman, monolithic qualities onto government--an impulse that's wildly popular till today. Perhaps because of these uncertain times people are apt to carry heaps of anxiety and need somewhere or something to unload upon. Given the jobs crisis, crumbling infrastructure and America's loss of prestige world-wide--these days our government is a fish-in-a-barrel shot.

Capitalizing on the anti-government appeal, a significant number of Republicans running for office will season their campaigns with "small government" or "limited government" slogans. Apart from promises about lower taxes, stripping the social safety net or uncaging the "free market", there aren't many specifics about how less government would improve the quality of life for the whole republic.

Regarding the whole republic, the problems we face have little or nothing to do with big government or small government. What afflicts our politics is an influence gap that continually thwarts the will of voters. The gap owes much to the 40% of eligible voters who don't vote in each election as well as a general unwillingness of voters to build a consensus to solve our most pressing problems. Into said gap, moneyed interests (petrolium, financial services and defense industry to name a few) have driven their Hummer-sized policy agendas (war and industry deregulation); an effort that has looted not only the federal budget but also skimmed off the value of middle class labor--all in service to the endless gain of share holders, industry captains and their direct reports.

And all the while their right wing water carriers work to spread antipathy and mistrust between voters and government. They have employed all manner of fear mongering slogans about tyranny and threats to the so-called free market. Conjuring a despotic straw man, they urge that he stands at the threshold of seizing your rifles and relocating you to FEMA-operated death camps. Such apocalyptic talk has had the effect of eroding the bond of accountability between the government and citizens; what should have prevented much of the public- and private sector malfeasance we've seen over the last 30 years.

What voters too often forget or fail to understand is the influence they wield when working in concert. If the 2008 economic meltdown has anything to teach us, it must be how interlinked or mutually dependent our occupational and financial destinies are. Why not accept and utilize that interdependence toward its greatest electoral advantage? As the group granting the "consent of the governed" we insult the purpose of our republic to continue rolling over in deference to wealthy interests.