Presenting the last decade in media and film: Part two

Photo: A movie stub from the film "Inglourious Basterds"/Paul Heaberlin, used under Creative Commons license

The Underground is proud to present a review of film and media trends of the last decade by local film critic Robert Roten. This is the first part of a four part series. Part two details the movie that best represents the decade.

The film that best sums up the decade

Robert Roten
Saturday, March 6, 2010 2:13 PM MDT

Quentin Tarantino's much-ballyhooed film Inglourious Basterds is a film which reflects the decade of 2000-2010 better than any other. That is one of the reasons I didn't like this film as much as many critics did. It reminded me too much of a decade I would just as soon forget.

It was a decade in which the horrible 9/11 attacks happened, and that was one of the worst days of my life. It was a decade in which it was revealed the United States government condoned practices which resulted in kidnapping, murder and torture. The decade in which America screwed up its best chance to catch Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in a misbegotten war in Iraq. It was a decade in which the housing bubble burst and the entire world's economy nearly toppled because strange financial dealings in things called credit default swaps and derivatives, allowed by recent banking deregulation, overturning rules put in place after the great depression 60 years earlier. It was decade in which the U.S. government went from a budget surplus into deep debt. A near depression was caused by deficit spending, financial deregulation, wars and tax cuts. Naturally, some politicians now propose more war, more tax cuts and more deregulation to get us out of the mess they got us into in the first place.

“Inglourious Basterds” fits right into this decade. It shows us that murdering and torturing prisoners of war is not only fun, but it is an effective way to get information and win wars. Either that, or it is a clever satire on what U.S. forces did to prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also re-writes history, showing us a version of World War II in which the Allies win the war years before they really did by the clever tactic of murdering prisoners of war, civilians, and torture. They also win with the help of a high-ranking German officer who betrays his own leaders.

This is not the only time history has been re-written. There are those who say the U.S. would have won the war in Vietnam, if not for the American news media. This has led to increasingly strict military control over the media in subsequent wars. There are also those who say that the depression of the 1930s and the current recession would (or will) go away on their own without any government intervention. They say that deregulation and tax cuts did not cause the collapse of our financial system, or the huge deficits we face and it would all just fix itself, because that is the way capitalism works. It fixes everything by itself in its own magical mysterious ways, including, presumably, health care. It's like Stevie Wonder once sang, “When you believe in things you don't understand ... ” that's just superstition.

History is continually being re-written. If history is, in fact, merely an “agreed-upon fiction,” then Mr. Tarantino's account of World War II is as good as any other, and some do view history that way. However, that isn't what happened. The war went on for years after the time in which the movie was set. The United States did not sanction the death and torture of prisoners of war. They had rules against that, and those rules stayed in effect until the administration of George W. Bush re-wrote the rules in an attempt to legalize torture. This was done despite the fact that torture is known to produce unreliable, sometimes disastrously wrong, information. So why was it done? More on that in the subsequent feature on the representative drama of the decade.

“Inglourious Basterds” not only celebrates American torture and murder, it is a nightmare for the Anti-Defamation League and other organizations trying to hold down the rising tide of anti-Semitism in America and elsewhere. In re-writing history, “Inglourious Basterds” casts Jews in the role of aggressors, as well as victims. This depiction of Jewish aggression aids the rising tide of anti-Semitism both here and abroad. The film reflects the view of Jews held by many in the Muslim world. The film has also been seized upon by anti-Semitic factions on both extremes of the political spectrum to further stir up more hatred against the Jews. When I remarked to a friend that I didn't like the fact that “Inglourious Basterds” makes Americans look worse than the Nazis, my friend replied, “Those weren't Americans, those were Jews.”

The anti-Semitic interpretation of the film fits right in with certain Neo-Nazi views about Jews, fueled by the so-called “Christian Identity” theology (more on that in this essay about the Christian Identity movement and how it has been adopted by elements of the violent radical far right). It also fits in with views of Jews among some elements of the far left wing, the so-called “9/11 Truthers” who hold that the attacks of 9/11 were an “inside job” by the U.S. Government, aided or orchestrated by Israel. Like the film itself, this is a re-imagining of history, which is becoming increasingly popular. Abraham H. Foxman, president of the Anti-Defamation League, said 2009 was the worst year for global anti-Semitism he's ever seen in his 40+ years in the organization. Here is further deconstruction of the film along anti-Semitic lines. This is not how I viewed the film when I saw it, but it seems to be a film which lends itself to this interpretation for those who are anti-Semitic.

When America was attacked on 9/11, Americans wanted revenge, and the nation lashed out. People who looked like Muslims (including a Sikh) were murdered by revenge seekers. “Inglourious Basterds” is a movie all about hatred and revenge. One woman in the movie locks an entire crowd of moviegoers into a theater and then sets fire to the theater in revenge for the Nazis killing her family. The squad of soldiers in the film, composed mostly of American Jews, with one anti-Nazi German soldier added, celebrate revenge by killing Germans, scalping the corpses and bashing German soldiers' heads in with a baseball bat and carving swastikas into their foreheads.

Revenge movies are nothing new. There is the “Death Wish” series of films, the “Dirty Harry” series, and more recently, there was “Taken.” People are angry in this country. When President Obama was elected, there was a huge increase in gun sales. The membership in hate groups increased greatly as well. The “Tea Party” movement is brimming with hatred. There are lots of angry people who want revenge and “Inglourious Basterds” dishes it out. The aught years, 2000 through 2009, were dark years in America and this film reflects that darkness.

Robert Roten is a journalist with over 25 years of newspaper experience, including 20 years as a reporter, editor, photographer, columnist and editorialist at the Laramie Daily Boomerang. Since retiring from the Boomerang in 2000, Roten has been president of the Laramie Film Society and the Laramie Astronomical Society and Space Observers (LASSO). He has operated his own movie journalism web site, Laramie Movie Scope, for the past 13 years. He also has a weekly movie show, Laramie Movie Scope News, on KOCA radio in Laramie. He is also a member of the Online Film Critics Society and contributes frequent movie reviews to rottentomatoes.com. He is a former member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of Environmental Journalists. Roten is a resident of Laramie, Wyo.

Presenting the last decade in media and film

The Underground is proud to present a review of film and media trends of the last decade by local film critic Robert Roten. This is the first part of a four part series. Part one lists the top ten movies of the decade.

The aught decade in review
Robert Roten
Monday, February 8, 2010 12:57 PM MDT
I have never done a decade film roundup before, but I was asked to do one this time and I had some thoughts about how to make it into something more cohesive than just a “best of” list, but I'll throw in a best of list too, since I was asked to do that as well.

We'll start with a “best of” list and then get into the related subjects of which film best exemplifies the decade (“Inglourious Basterds”) and which had the biggest impact on the decade (the TV show “24”). The current decade doesn't end until the end of this year, just like the last century didn't end until the year 2000 ended, but we'll ignore that for the purposes of this article, because most other people do.

The decade's best films, by year

2000: Requiem for a Dream


2001: In the Bedroom


2002: Road to Perdition


2003: Seabiscuit


2004: Kinsey


2005: Crash


2006: United 93


2007: The Lookout


2008: The Visitor


2009: The Hurt Locker


Robert Roten is a journalist with over 25 years of newspaper experience, including 20 years as a reporter, editor, photographer, columnist and editorialist at the Laramie Daily Boomerang. Since retiring from the Boomerang in 2000, Roten has been president of the Laramie Film Society and the Laramie Astronomical Society and Space Observers (LASSO). He has operated his own movie journalism web site, Laramie Movie Scope, for the past 13 years. He also has a weekly movie show, Laramie Movie Scope News, on KOCA radio in Laramie. He is also a member of the Online Film Critics Society and contributes frequent movie reviews to rottentomatoes.com. He is a former member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of Environmental Journalists. Roten is a resident of Laramie, Wyo.

Me and Mr. Cheney: A history

Photo: Protesters assemble on Dick and Lynne Cheney Plaza before the dedication. Credit- Meg Lanker, The Underground

Me and Mr. Cheney: A history
Meg Lanker
Monday, September 28, 2009 2:56 PM MDT

It may have been excitement, but I want to believe it was solidarity. The two little boys raised their fists as I marched with the protesters past the University of Wyoming Lab School students on recess. One gap-toothed boy cheered wildly as Nancy Sindelar, a Laramie peace activist, shouted, “These are your rights, kids! It’s the First Amendment at work!”

I watched their eyes light up and the wheels begin to turn. We were more alive than any history book, any documentary, any slideshow. The enthusiasm and unease electrified the air as they pushed forward, crossing Prexy’s Pasture on their way to protest former Vice President Dick Cheney and his dreadfully, ironically-named Cheney International Center.

I marched in solidarity with them Sept. 10. I have marched in solidarity with them since 2003, as the crazy 48-hour deadline for the bombs to drop ticked away and the news anchors waited with baited breath. I knew this invasion was wrong in my inner core. I scrawled furiously in a notebook as the airstrike began on the Iraqi Presidential Palace March 19, 2003. The night vision with white puffs of smoke sanitized the carnage on the ground.

I remembered seeing similar images when the U.S. went into Iraq in 1990. I was in first grade at a small Catholic school in Ohio. My class wrote letters beginning with “Dear Soldier.” I still remembering wishing an unnamed soldier Merry Christmas and not quite understanding why.

Dick Cheney was around for Desert Storm as well – in fact, then-Secretary of Defense Cheney and General Norman Schwarzkopf oversaw the engineering and planning of Desert Storm. In 1990, Cheney said, "I do not believe the President requires any additional authorization from the Congress before committing US forces to achieve our objectives in the Gulf." An unnerving statement, considering what happened nearly 12 years later.

PBS’ Frontline oral history website devoted a section to the former vice president called “Cheney In His Own Words.” In 1991, Cheney gave his perspective on U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf: “We're always going to have to be involved [in the Middle East]. Maybe it's part of our national character, you know we like to have these problems nice and neatly wrapped up, put a ribbon around it. You deploy a force, you win the war and the problem goes away and it doesn't work that way in the Middle East – it never has and isn't likely to in my lifetime.”

Even then, Cheney knew. He knew this would never end – only go quiet for a period.

A friend of mine from my stint in the Navy was deployed to a ship running support operations for the 2003 invasion. He said they were told on the ship that they would “just know” if they were going to war. Later that night, as most prepared to sleep, the ship’s PA system erupted with AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” and the sounds of pilots firing up the engines of their jets. It was time, he said. He began singing the lyrics to “Hells Bells” on the phone with me – “I’m a rolling thunder, a pouring rain/I’m comin’ on like a hurricane/My lightning’s flashing across the sky/You’re only young but you’re gonna die!”

He called it the “most patriotic time of his life.” This was a year after the invasion began and they finally pulled back into port.

I felt sick.

I watched President George W. Bush land on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln May 1, a ship that had been out to sea for nearly a year and was now forced to sit off the coast of San Diego because of security concerns. The sailors were mocked by the sight of their home for several days. I saw the “Mission Accomplished” banner, the beaming sailors, and a flight-suit clad Bush as pure political theater and nothing else.

Where was Cheney?

As Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and said, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” Cheney was nowhere in sight.

On July 2, 2003, when Bush famously said of the insurgency, “Bring ‘em on,” Cheney was still nowhere in sight.

Yet he took those messages to heart – even when the administration backed off both statements, claiming the notorious banner was “unclear” and letting the “bring ‘em on” blow over.

It also seems that Cheney was at his undisclosed location when Bush spoke of torture. On March 23, 2003, Bush said Iraqi soldiers were “welcoming” American troops, and were “surrendering gleefully, happily.” He emphasized to a cache of White House reporters, “They'll be treated well.”

Andrew Sullivan wrote in the Oct. 2009 edition of The Atlantic of Bush’s resounding condemnation of torture on June 26, 2003 on the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. This was roughly one year before the news broke of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In his speech, Bush said, “I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy.”

There was no mincing of words. According to the Bush administration – or at least Bush – Americans don’t torture.

But anyone who watched news coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison photos, the de-classification of CIA and internal memos urging Bush to declare Taliban and Iraqi insurgents as exempt from the Geneva Conventions, and finally, de-classification of internal documents detailing methods ranging from sexual abuse and threats to the use of power drills and loaded weapons in the “approved” interrogation methods – anyone who watched any coverage of these stories knows better, knows America has tortured.

And it was with this in mind, I watched Cheney transform over the years from a faintly sinister-looking boorish uncle to a chilling criminal organizer of torture at worst and a nefarious bully at best. He was a chief architect in a pre-emptive invasion to find weapons of mass destruction with faulty intelligence, to spread democracy like so much syphilis, and, as many of Cheney’s detractors allege, to secure a significant slice of the Iraqi oil reserves for U.S. corporate profit.

Cheney insisted in a landmark interview March 16, 2003 with the late Tim Russert that the Iraqi oil reserves “obviously, belong to the Iraqi people, need to be put to use by the Iraqi people for the Iraqi people and that will be one of our major objectives.”

In this interview, Cheney made statements that are tragically laughable in hindsight and disastrous in their lack of foresight. He claimed, “My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”

Russert pushed him on this statement and asked, “If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?”

Cheney replied, “Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators… The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question that they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.”

Russert asked about costs of the proposed conflict, which analysts placed at $80 billion then, with a cost of $10 billion for each year of occupation. Cheney declined to elaborate on projected costs in the interview, only acknowledging “there are estimates out there.”

As of Sept. 23, 2009, the cost of the Iraq War was over $165 billion – nearly three times the cost of the war in Afghanistan. Since 2001, the U.S. has spent over $912 billion on these two wars. Much of that money has gone to civilian firms contracted to rebuild Iraq. A principle firm is Cheney’s old haunt, Halliburton, and its subsidiaries.

Cheney headed up the energy development company Halliburton, which bills itself on its website as “one of the world’s largest providers of products and services to the energy industry.”

I wonder if Cheney remembers the speech he gave to the libertarian-leaning-conservative Cato Institute in 1998. The think-tank sponsors numerous symposiums and invited then-Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney to speak at a conference entitled “Collateral Damage: The Economic Cost of U.S. Foreign Policy.”

He delivered a speech on the topic of Defending Liberty in a Global Economy, expounding on the challenges of delivering adequate energy services to a war zone.

Cheney remarked, “The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is.”

And, in 2003, the U.S. went where the business is – the second-largest oil reserve in the world, under the sands of Iraq. Also, in 2003, Halliburton was awarded billions of dollars of no-bid government contracts to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq’s oil industry. Halliburton is also entangled with Blackwater USA, a private security firm under investigation for smuggling weapons into Iraq concealed in dog food bags and, in more serious allegations, of murdering Iraqi civilians for sport.

Since Halliburton held millions in government contracts even before the Iraq war, Cheney sold his Halliburton stock to avoid a conflict of interest as vice president, but retains a severance package and retirements benefits worth millions. These stock sales paid for most of the Cheney International Center.

Cheney and the black gold he holds so dear both share a common characteristic: Both can take the form of crude or refined. Whether it’s screaming, “Go fuck yourself!” at a fellow legislator on the House floor, to smirking “So?” at a reporter who, in 2008, points out two-thirds of Americans no longer think the fight in Iraq is worth it, Dick Cheney held the monopoly on evil in the Bush administration – so much so that I began to regard Bush as a puppet, a faux-martinet standing in as a mouthpiece for what Cheney had planned for America and Iraq.

And here we are. Two, then four, then six years crawled by as the body count on both sides rose and “Mission Accomplished” tasted not of victory but ashes. The war in Iraq appears to stagnate more and more as troops prepare to withdraw, and the forgotten conflict, Afghanistan, transforms into one step forward, two steps back.

As Cheney continually defended the actions of CIA interrogators who “may have” crossed the line on Fox News every time whispers of prosecution of the previous administration began, the University of Wyoming quietly prepared to dedicate the Cheney International Center.

A clichéd little birdie told me the dedication was prepared for Sept. 10 at 10:30 a.m. in front of the center on Dick and Lynne Cheney plaza. I confirmed the dedication with UW spokeswoman Jessica Lowell Aug. 30 and published the news on The Underground.

I knew I had to be there.

I wanted Cheney welcomed with the reminder that he sanctioned torture in the name of every American citizen. I wanted him to know that he could not buy honor. And I wanted him to know that not every Wyoming citizen claims him as a native son – never mind that he was actually born in Nebraska. A petty point, but Wyoming does have a tendency to disown those that dare move here from “back East” or, God forbid, California. Wyoming only claims a select few as its own.

I was also torn about protesting his visit. As the editor of The Underground, it is my job to remain objective when I report the news. I reported on his visit along with the opposition and planned protest to it, which thanks to several Laramie community members tipping off Mead Gruver of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, garnered national attention via the AP wire story “Protests brew over Cheney International Center.”

As the enthusiasm over the protest brewed, I began to suspect I could no longer be objective. This was cemented by UW President Tom Buchanan’s opinion piece in the Casper Star-Tribune Sept. 6 “Tolerance, diversity cut many ways.” Buchanan said he had reviewed a list of those protesting the decision to name the center after Cheney and recognized many friends and colleagues on this list.

Buchanan wrote: “The list includes some good friends and colleagues who have previously admonished the UW administration to support greater diversity and increased tolerance for all views. So it is ironic that they show so little of it when confronted by a situation that challenges their own comfort zone.”

The lack of understanding by the UW administration and Buchanan was incomprehensible and wholly offensive. I immediately fired off a letter in response.

In my letter, published in the Tribune Sept. 9, I wrote: “The protest to this decision has nothing to do with intolerance of Cheney's views or of narrow-mindedness. This has everything to do with naming the center after a man who is suspected of sanctioning torture internationally and numerous violations of U.S. citizens' civil rights.”

It was in that moment any ideas of objectivity fell away. I believe every journalist will one day face a crisis of conscience on whether or not to remain objective manifested by a breakthrough of passion. Mine came that day.

The day of the event, I scrawled the number for the Wyoming ACLU in black Sharpie marker on the arms and hands of nearly 50 people. I marched with the protesters. I created the music mix they blared from a small stereo as we marched from 22nd and Willett Streets to Prexy’s Pasture. I gave comments to the media as a facilitator. I counted nearly double the AP’s estimate of 100 protesters.

And then I stood in the media area, signed in and filmed the event, recorded the speeches and took comments for this feature from protesters, Cheney supporters, Tom Buchanan, and Jessica Lowell.

When Cheney walked out, the protesters booed, supporters cheered, but I remained silent.

When Former U.S. Senator Al Simpson commented on Cheney’s patriotism, how easy it was to protest and how anyone can be a “bitcher,” I continued to remain silent so as to not compromise my recording.

And when Cheney began to speak, not more than 20 feet from where I stood, all of the epithets and all of the curses I wanted shout at him about eight years of lies, sanctioning torture, buying honor, and sending my friends to die in an unjust war strained against my lips. I remained silent.

I remained silent because there were so many others hoisting signs and yelling what I have wanted to say to the man since I watched the bombs drop in 2003. The throng of protesters remained, for the most part, polite during the speeches – although Simpson’s comments certainly rankled a few.

The colorful signs elevated above the crowd spoke volumes. Some referenced the donation and torture: “We don’t want your blood money!” “UW: High priced whore” and “My USA doesn’t torture.” There were also references to Buchanan’s opinion piece: “Tom Buchanan tolerates torture” and “If thinking torture is wrong makes me intolerant, then I’m gladly intolerant.”

There were signs from supporters as well, both thanking Cheney for his donation and encouraging him to run for president in 2012 – although protester Will Welch dressed as a grim reaper-esque Darth Vader from Star Wars and carried a sign encouraging Cheney to add Vader to the 2012 ticket.

The demonstrators protested the naming for varied reasons, but many referenced the idea that Cheney was buying a mark of distinction at UW’s expense.

Chip Rawlins, a UW graduate student and Wyoming native, felt Cheney was receiving an undeserved tribute. “I think it’s wrong to honor someone like this who has done such severe damage to the United States and its reputation,” he said.

Protester and UW student Tim Earl said, “I don’t think that the university should allow Dick Cheney to clean up his legacy at this campus with this money with that building.”

Another UW student, Ruth Briggs, came out in support of Cheney and was dressed in a T-shirt with the message “Nobody likes a liberal.” She said she came out to show Cheney that there are “youth who aren’t influenced by the young liberal mindset, and that there are young conservatives who support Mr. Cheney.”

Briggs added she feels liberals outnumber conservatives on the UW campus. Later, she was able to have her picture taken with Cheney and he mentioned that he liked her T-shirt.

UW graduate student Dan DePeyer echoed many of his fellow protester’s sentiments. DePeyer helped organize the protest, sending a bulletin out to the members of the Facebook group, “UW Students Against the Naming of the Cheney International Center” and helped create signs for the rally.

DePeyer said, “I believe Cheney is guilty of war crimes, particularly torture, and he’s responsible for many international crimes.”

UW alumnus Mara Sobotka also helped organize people to rally at the dedication and led the march to campus. She said, “I am here to demonstrate that we do not support what Dick Cheney stands for."

Not everyone at the protest was a UW student or Laramie resident. Mark and Renee Sandefer of Colorado drove up to protest the dedication. Mark said he wants to see both the war in Iraq and Afghanistan ended and called for Cheney’s prosecution on charges of murder and crimes against humanity.

Renee said that the UW administration had committed “an atrocity” by allowing a “war criminal and a war profiteer to come in here and buy himself this honor.” She called the dedication of the center a “disgrace to this university and to this nation.”

Other supporters of the former vice president were just as vocal in their defense of Cheney’s actions and policies as his detractors. UW students Dillon Kinney and Dustin Stallings came out to support Cheney.

“I strongly believe that what he did was the best thing for our country,” said Kinney. “I think it’s great that the university can dedicate this in his honor and recognize what he’s done for us.”

Buchanan did not address the demonstrators in his speech but afterwards called the crowd “well-behaved” and “civil the way we hoped it would be on a university campus.” He said, “Considering the emotions here, Wyoming did itself proud. I’m sure there are folks who feel strongly on both sides.”

UW spokeswoman Jessica Lowell said of the crowd, “You know, in America, we have the First Amendment which entitles everyone to free speech and they certainly got their opportunity to use their First Amendments rights.”

In the end, I decided to wait a few weeks before writing about this event. Buchanan was correct in his assessment of the emotions running through the crowd that day. When Cheney began his speech, the cheers and jeers threatened to reach a fever pitch. Even though I decided to wait, the memories I carried away from the event remain fresh.

I carried away the memory of those kids, staring frozen in astonishment or applauding and shouting as we marched by their recess time.

I also carried away the memory forever burned into my mind’s eye of Cheney striding out of the international center and thinking to myself with a bizarre jolt, “But he’s just small, stooped old man with a cane…”

And I carried away the memory of being within a few feet of Cheney and feeling an unearthly coldness crawling across my skin on an unseasonably warm day as I heard him laugh. His laugh was humorless and bitter, his face blank as I looked him in the eyes.

Making eye contact with Cheney, I understood the arrogance needed to explain away five draft deferments, courtesy of the University of Wyoming and Casper College, with the statement, “I had other priorities in the 60's than military service,” and then later calling Vietnam “a noble cause” in which “had I been drafted, I would have been happy to serve.”

I understood the dispassionate indifference needed to look at reporters and the American people and insist the intelligence was never faulty, the CIA interrogators never crossed the line and that Iraq is still the noble cause he believed Vietnam to be so many years ago.

I understood and was dismayed – I know he will never answer any questions truthfully in any kind of investigation. Cheney creates his own acerbic reality, in which he is the star and the rest of the proletariat purely bit players.

Never mind the U.S. soldiers sent to die in the desert.

Never mind the lives battered and broken by the detention of innocents.

Never mind the legacy of national debt he helped create.

Never mind the quagmire enveloping the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Never mind the authorization of heinous threats and abuse as “enhanced” interrogation methods.

Never mind any of this because he gave the university so many millions made the good ol’ capitalist way – war profiteering. Perhaps the business school should have been named after him, with lessons in no-bid contracts and off-shore accounts. After all, Cheney was a rather successful capitalist.

Furthermore, none of this will ever fit into Cheney’s version of events. The protesters and the media were simply part of his routine. Sen. Simpson’s annoyance at the demonstrators provided a back-handed acknowledgment of the dissent. Cheney made no mention of the protesters in his speech, only smirking in their general direction a few times beforehand.

I tried to ask him a question afterwards and was pushed out of the way. My entire generation was pushed out of the way with the assistance of this man, so I should not be taken aback by his impassiveness.

Several of the protesters saw Cheney’s plane off at the airport here in Laramie. Accompanying them was a long, heavy list of names – names of soldiers killed in action since these disastrous wars began. They displayed the names prominently and flipped him the bird as the plane took off.

I know he saw.

But I doubt he cared.

Rep. Lummis looking forward to August recess

Rep. Lummis looking forward to August District Work Period
Meg Lanker
Wednesday, August 5, 2009 12:21 PM MDT

The U.S. House of Representatives recessed Monday for August, but for Rep. Cynthia Lummis-R, Wyo., it’s anything but a break.

The website for the U.S. House calls the break the “Summer District Work Period,” and bills it in news releases as a chance for representatives to meet with constituents, hold town hall meetings, and gear up for the next session.

Lummis said in an interview with The Underground Friday she is looking forward to meeting with constituents in Wyoming and discussing issues important to them. “I have, I believe, six town hall meetings, multiple interviews with the press and many constituent meetings,” she said.

With a vote on health care reform looming large in September, Lummis is using August to prepare for discussions on the House floor. Lummis does not support the health care plan the Democrats are proposing, and instead, supports the ten-point plan set forth by Sen. Mike Enzi R-Wyo.

“Sen. Enzi’s ten steps, which are laid out in bullet points on his website, are, in fact, extremely comprehensive, well thought-out, well fleshed-out, and have a lot of support on a bipartisan basis here in Congress,” Lummis said. “Sen. Enzi’s work is highly respected, and is based on years of experience.”

According to Enzi’s website, the “Ten Steps to Transform Health Care in America” include providing cross-state pooling to reduce health care costs and increase accessibility for small business owners, individuals, and families; increasing affordable options for families to purchase health insurance through a standard tax deduction; and emphasizing preventive benefits.

Lummis is using the time in August to read the entire proposal authored by House Democrats and said the proposal is a “1000-page plus” bill. She said she has not seen what it covers in its entirety, but said, “I do know this – it creates at least 31 new government agencies, and has a health commissioner that will decide whether the plan I have meets their criteria.”

Lummis is concerned about portability of health insurance and potential penalties to employers. “One of the employers I talked to in Wyoming, a physician’s office, went through the Democrats’ bill and found out it would be cheaper for them to pay the eight percent penalty and shift their own employees onto the government plan rather than provide the insurance they have now,” said Lummis. “The President’s express notion that if you like your insurance you can keep it is not embodied in the Democrats’ bill.”

Proponents of the health care plan disagree, including Milt Shook, a former Washington D.C. paralegal-turned-author who read the entire bill and purports to debunk many of the Republican Party’s statements on the health care bill on his website. Referring to the eight percent penalty, Shook said, “The section [on penalties to employers] only refers to any employer who doesn't offer any insurance to his employees. If they offer either private insurance or the public insurance, they do not have to pay the 8%, regardless of the size of their payroll.”

However, if the employer’s payroll is over $400,000 a year, the eight percent payroll tax would kick in, potentially affecting small business owners who may find it cheaper to pull the current insurance and not offer the government’s health care public option. In this case, an employee could enroll in the public option and pay an amount indexed to the employee’s current yearly pay.

Lummis is also worried about whether or not people could keep their current insurance in all circumstances. “Yesterday [Thursday], in the House Energy and Resources committee, a number of Republicans offered amendments to that bill to make sure the bill allows you to keep your insurance if you like it, and all of those amendments were defeated,” she said. “I have serious reservations, and am in fact, opposed to the Democrats’ health care bill as it is written now and am very concerned about the notion of a public plan and how it could bring about lower quality health care and health care rationing.”

Lummis acknowledged people are seeing somewhat of a rationing due to high health care costs, but said the plan will bring about “more serious rationing on a broader level.” She said, “My big concern is that it will not elevate opportunities for those who cannot currently afford insurance, but will instead decrease opportunities for affordable health care for those who do have insurance.”

Lummis also supports a review of the reimbursements doctors and hospitals receive under current Medicare and Medicaid fee schedules. “I know from visiting with Wyoming hospitals and Wyoming doctors that they are under-reimbursed,” said Lummis. “It’s critical, that for Medicare to perform properly, that we level the playing field in order to ensure the long-term health of the Medicare system.”

She said that fixing Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements is particularly important for Wyoming, since some providers have stopped accepting Medicare and Medicaid – reducing the number of already limited providers available to patients.

“I want our doctors and our hospitals reimbursed at rates that will allow them to continue to take Medicare patients as Wyoming people age, as our population ages,” said Lummis. “Health care reform will be my highest priority when I return in the fall.”

Numerous energy issues are on the table as well. Lummis opposed the cap-and-trade bill, called the “Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,” and was uneasy about promises made by Democrats in the House that the bill would not increase energy costs for the average consumer.

Lummis emphasized the need for Washington to look to Wyoming for energy resources including solar power and uranium for nuclear power. “We are number one in uranium reserves and I am a big supporter of nuclear energy. It is the most abundant, zero-emissions source of energy our country has,” she said.

She cited large numbers of nuclear plants in Europe as an example of implementation that could take place in the U.S. “Currently nuclear power produces 20 percent of the electricity in this country, and without it, we will not be able to meet the kinds of standards that are required under the cap-and-trade bill,” she said.

Democrats and Republicans alike in Wyoming – and the rest of the U.S. – worry about storing nuclear waste as a by-product of a nuclear power plant, but Lummis supports other renewable energy resources such as solar and wind power, calling solar power an “efficient energy source” that Wyoming could lead the way in developing. She said, “Our moderate, cooler temperatures allow solar panels to operate more efficiently. That’s an area where I see tremendous growth for Wyoming.”

Lummis acknowledged the need for clean energy development to reduce air pollution, especially in urban areas. “Urban communities like Los Angeles do have higher rates of asthma, and that’s tied to things like automobile emissions. Whether or not a person believes in global warming, these issues must be addressed.”

She is working with other legislators to draft and sponsor numerous bills to benefit Wyoming residents. Before the House recess, Lummis introduced the “Statewide Public Television Access Act,” which will allow DISH Network subscribers in Wyoming to have access to Wyoming Public Television.

Many subscribers in Wyoming receive their public television from Denver, Salt Lake City, or Rapid City, SD. According to Lummis, federal law prohibits satellite television subscribers from receiving Wyoming Public Television, but this new bill would attempt to change that.

Lummis cited the bill as an example of reaching across the aisle in an environment that she said is divided along party lines. She is the lead sponsor, with three Democrats and three Republicans co-sponsoring the bill on public television access.

Wyoming PBS features programming relevant to the state. According to the Wyoming PBS website, one popular series, Main Street, Wyoming, highlights the uniqueness of Wyoming’s communities, history and people. During the election cycles, Wyoming PBS also features local candidate forums and debates – unavailable to those subscribers who have DISH network.

“Over half of the Wyoming counties do not get access to Wyoming Public Television. And, I believe, 18 other states are in the same boat as Wyoming – where you cannot get your own public television within the four corners of your state,” Lummis said. “When you have so many Wyoming residents getting their public television from neighboring states, it’s not possible to have a cohesive community dialogue.”

Lummis also pointed out the bill would allow for easier access to local news, weather and sports and said it did not make sense that residents don’t already receive Wyoming PBS.

August has already been packed full by Lummis’ staff with what she called a “near-campaign schedule.” She said, “I just can’t wait to be back home in Wyoming. This will be a great opportunity to get feedback from the people I represent, so when I do come back in September, I have wise counsel and good Wyoming common-sense to carry back with me.”

However, Lummis does plan to take some time to relax after a grueling House session full of discussions on controversial issues by going fishing. After describing her schedule, she chucked and said, “I would just love to be able to stand in a stream and drown a fly.”

The U.S. House will reconvene after Labor Day in September.