Quagmire Redux

Just as likely as the rose-colored Rose Garden scenarios regarding Iraq is this scenario. Local Iraqi insurgents combating the American occupation and what they consider a puppet regime continue to increase in numbers, as foreign fighters stream in from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran and elsewhere.

We’re forced to escalate our troop numbers, just as happened in several stages in Vietnam. The government declares that each new infusion of U.S. troops will ‘finish them off by Christmas," but the larger American presence only fans the flames of the insurgency.

Violent incidents between the Sunnis and the Shiites lead to full-scale battles between those religious factions, further complicating the situation.

Some of the foreign fighters, now fully trained and better equipped, return to their home countries and help lead Muslim revolutions, tipping the balance in countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Joining with Iran in a loose confederation of theocracies, these Islamic nations drive the U.S. out of Iraq with a massive invasion, then install a religious regime. American citizens are forced to watch another scene of a last desperate helicopter leaving from the rooftop of a country we had no business being in. The Islamic confederation puts a choke-hold on oil for the U.S., thus crippling our economy.

The bloody purge of infidels, "Westernized dogs," and collaborators that follows leaves millions dead in the region. Americans wring their collective hands and wonder how they could have made such a tragic mistake, costing so many lives, ruining our economic well-being and further besmirching our international reputation. The only winners (as in Vietnam) are the defense contractors.

(In 2032, having forgotten the lessons of the previous two generations, and flush with defense contractor money, some hot-shot cowboy-brained administration decides to invade a country in Africa. And so it begins again ...)

Jabs and Hooks

The Bush Administration are, collectively, a team of trust-busters, but not in the sense of breaking up monopolies (which they encourage in every way they can) but in the way that they have shamelessly manipulated the populace with lies and misinformation, taking cynical advantage of the vast reservoir of patriotism and respect for the presidency that the average citizen has.

What we had in 2000 was very much like a bloodless coup, bringing in a new leadership group under starkly false pretenses (compassionate conservatism, protecting the budget surplus and the environment, etc.) which then proceeded to fail miserably on all fronts, from protecting the country from attack to keeping the budget balanced.

They also, under the falsest of pretenses, put us in a nasty foreign war without a semblance of a sensible plan to extricate ourselves. But, owing to the one thing they do accomplish better than any administration in history -- manipulating the truth and people’s emotions -– they got re-elected.

An Iraqi man who met George W. Bush during a State Department function a scant 6 weeks before the war started (and a year or two after it was decided by Bush’s team that they would attack that nation) was shocked that he had to explain to our president the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, and what their religious and political backgrounds were.

Lying on the record and in speeches about our intentions for going to war in Iraq, the presence of WMDs in that country, and everything else during the run-up to our engagement there, was at least 100 million times worse than Bill Clinton’s sneaky dissembling about Monica Lewinsky. So why no Special Prosecutor? Why no talk, other than from the indefatigable Molly Ivins, of impeachment? Why is this man still the president?

A Revolting Development

I doubt if there has been a more dangerously bad decision by the Supreme Court in the past 50 years than the one on Eminent Domain. Nothing previously done by any branch of the federal government has provided such a blow to individual rights.

The court majority, in a decision which grossly distorts the intent of the Founding Fathers, not to mention over 200 years of historical application, has turned the definition of "public use" upside down, making it now mean "private use which has a public benefit." The land-grab projects of overtly private entities such as real estate developers and hotel chains now qualify, under this repugnantly misconceived decision, as the basis for local community governments to condemn and seize the houses and properties of any citizen it wants to thus disenfranchise, allowing the developers to put up buildings and businesses with a greater tax yield.

Something like this could be done previously, but only if the houses in question constituted a "blight." But now, perfectly fine homes (maybe the one you’re sitting in) can be targeted for seizure. Oh yeah, the stipulation is that the homeowner has to be compensated at a "fair market value," but what’s the value on a house that you’ve put years of work into, raised your kids in, bonded with your neighbors in, the home that puts you in the school district that you and your children are an intrinsic part of? What’s the compensation for that? Answer. None.

One of the reasons this country grew to be great was its respect for the rights of the individual and his property. The floodgates are now open to a new era, one of crass exploitation of land, one of utter corruption of local governments now under intense pressure to do the bidding of the rich-market fat cats. This pressure will take the form of (what’s that funny, misleading word?) lobbying by these monied entities: heavy barrages of campaign funds, parties, trips, dinners, and for those who don’t cooperate, less pleasant forms of coercion, including smear campaigns, and heavy funding for their opponents.

So welcome to your new America. One last note worth making is that, in it’s typical style of inflating the trivial and ignoring the important, the mass media gave this epochal sea-change of a story the quick brush-off.

Scattershot

The latest thing among the corporate kiss-ups in Congress (and around the country, in places like Florida and Texas) are indemnifying companies from being sued. This thoroughly un-American — and strictly speaking, illegal — activity amounts to nothing less than criminal racketeering. These so-called representatives take huge amounts of cash from the corporations, then write laws to protect them from their just desserts. The latest example is the bill being put up just now to indemnify the pharmaceutical companies who made mercury-laced vaccines, which evidence points to as causing autism.

Here in Florida, the legislators (a pack of slavering lapdogs for the monied interests) successfully passed several such laws, including one that protects Publix from being sued for its malfeasance regarding the poisoning of dozens of community water supplies with the waste water from its dry-cleaning stores



On Iraq -- abysmally wrong. On the economy -- shockingly wrong. On Social Security -- hideously wrong. Yet still the president and still the vice-president. And still strutting around and making statements like they're the smartest people on the planet. And still somehow respected by 40% of the (not-paying-much-attention or tragically brainwashed) citizenry.



In George W. Bush, we have a president who has no interest or proclivity for anything literary, anything artistic, anything philosophical or anything scientific. Hell, he even admits that he doesn’t read the newspapers either. So it’s finally happened. Alfred E. Newman has grown up and become leader of the free world!



We’ve heard a lot about the yellow-cake plutonium that was supposedly offered to Iraq, and turned out to be based on forged papers, but what was never really discussed was who perpetrated the fraud. And, since this was his area of expertise, what role John Bolton played in the matter, either in assessment of the original claims -- before the president used the information in his State of the Union speech — or before that (if you get my ... drift).

And, while I’m re-incited on the topic, it was Bush’s claim of nuclear danger in that speech, along with Colin Powell’s U.N. "exposition," of WMD facilities — based almost entirely on a disreputable source named "Curveball" — that propelled us into this costly excursion. So, come to mention it, since it was his area of expertise (top State Department official on WMD) what was John Bolton’s role in the Curveball fiasco?



It’s great how moviemakers can go back 30 years or so and find films and plots and re-do them for a new generation of audiences. What’s not so great is when the leaders of this country do a remake of Vietnam in Iraq and work the same plotlines that led to such a national humiliation in the 70's. "War of liberation," "patriotic duty," "support the troops," "not gonna cut and run," "be over soon," and Cheney's recent "the enemy is in it’s last, desperate throes" are all culled from the Vietnam debacle, which cost 58,000 American lives, 5 million Vietnamese lives, and emotionally scarred over a million American kids. (Quick facts: Over 100,000 Vietnam vets committed suicide; over 350,000 were or are homeless; over 70% had or have serious mental problems.)

Many of the returning soldiers now are similarly affected, and there are websites detailing the tremendous percentage of them with serious life problems, not to mention financial distress due to their extended service time.

Bad Intersection

On the corner of Downing Street Memo and K Street Project, we find a dangerous intersection of presidential arrogance and willfull power-mongering, something referred to in earlier times as Imperial Presidency.

That the president and his hell-bent co-conspirators were already pre-agreed to invade Iraq was obvious at the time, despite the statements to the contrary by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. But to see it stated so starkly in the Downing Street Memo, how the invasion was a pre-scripted fait accompli, and the intelligence was about to be "fixed" to fit the plans, was a bit of an eye-opener. We got into the Vietnam War in a similar way, with Lyndon Johnson deciding to have the war, then over-hyping the paltry event in the Tonkin Gulf to get the Congressional vote.

The K Street Project, meanwhile, is an attempt, so far very successful on the part of the Republicans, to turn all the Washington lobbying firms into enclaves for their fellow party members, especially retiring administration officials who then move into the private sector with a high-paying lobbying job. This contemptuous "project" is headed by Grover Norquist, one of GWB’s top henchmen.

The way this highly dishonorable activity has been run is that all the Washington lobbying firms, representing as they do hundreds of corporations, conglomerates and special interest groups, were informed several years ago by the weasels at the K Street Project (with the Republican power structure fully backing them up) that the more Republicans who were employed by these firms, the more "access" they would receive by the Republicans in the Congress and the Executive branch. So, when a leadership job would open up in one of these companies, they would be urged to hire a Republican ... or else, the or else being less face time with the powerful office-holders, and less favorable legislation.

One example (and there truly are only a few) of a company that went ahead and hired a Democrat to fill a top company position was the Motion Picture Association, for which there "or else" amounted to losing a tax break worth many millions of dollars.

I’ve known about this scurrilously Un-American practice for a few years, but considered that most lobbyists are jackals, so what do I care how they’re getting reamed. But recently the Norquist group, drunk with their success in getting Republicans in upper and middle management in these firms, has decreed that the secretaries have to be party members as well, and a lot of these women, sometimes long-time loyal employees, have been summarily dismissed. Now that’s just going too damn far, and makes me wonder what’s next for this bunch.

Maybe they’ll start doing a similar number on the Washington media covering the Congress and White House. Wait, they’re already doing that, in effect, by denying interviews and press passes to liberal and moderate media outlets. Journalists like Maureen Dowd of The New York Times can’t get into a press conference, yet the recently disgraced gay prostitute who had a website praising everything Bush did got in many times.

All I can conclude is that woe be to this country if this odious pack of scoundrels isn’t thrown out in 2006 and 2008. Woe, woe, and triple woe.

Gauging George

So let’s summarize what kind of a man is the ostensible leader of the "greatest nation on earth," a country of 300 million which gets to elect a president from a large field of eligible candidates.

His intelligence and articulation are low, his charm is slightly above average (if you’re not overly particular about the first two things), his personal accomplishments in the private sector were at best questionable, his military record was a rich kid’s joke, his charisma is nonexistent (to compare him to Reagan is simply ludicrous), his foreign policy has led us into a non-ending hellhole, and his domestic policies have been centered on making the rich richer and the corporations fatter.

It therefore is not rational judgment that has him in office; it has to be something else, the one thing that unfortunately triumphs over rationality, and that is fear: fear of terrorism, fear of blacks, fear of homosexuals, fear of Godless secularists and liberals who some people are convinced (having been told by their preachers and the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell) are the baby-killing minions of Satan himself.

Missing the Bubba

There has not been a more shameless episode in recent American history than the Bill Clinton scandal and impeachment trial. The Republicans who despoiled our institutional integrity, stalled our rightful government business, distracted and besmirched the public discourse, and made us the laughingstock of the civilized world deserved to be themselves removed from office in disgrace. Instead, incredibly, most are still in Washington, in even greater positions of power and authority.

They weren’t successful in ousting Clinton, but the stench they managed to imbue the Democrats with fell on Al Gore somehow, and contributed to his loss. So the Republican’s politics of personal destruction worked indirectly, in that it helped GWB ascend to the presidency, where he has proceeded to put the country on the slippery slope towards financial insolvency, alienated our allies, handcuffed our scientific community, allowed increased damage to the environment and polarized the country.

Comparing the above to the previous administration, Clinton turned deficits into surpluses, reinforced our allies’ trust and cooperation, funded and enabled the tech industries, reduced pollution and was a master conciliator.

Danger Signs

There are a lot of things about the Bush Administration that disturb me. There’s one thing, though, in particular that, if not curbed, will seriously erode this bastion of democracy that we still have the privilege to live in.

I’m referring to the systematic attack by conservative commentators and administration spokespersons on the three professions in our society from whence our intellectuals proceed — journalists, professors and judges. These are the watchdogs of a free society, truly our best and brightest, who use their mental acuity and judgment as a career, who study and think through issues affecting us all.

A review of any fascistic takeover in history will show that, before that occurred, there was a withering denunciation and demonization of those three areas of society, on those who provided commentary and context for the general public about their government, about their history and culture.

I’m not quite calling the Bushies fascists, but I think they want some of those benefits that dictatorships enjoy, like free rein to foist their policies on the country and the world without serious resistance from the media, the academic world or conscientious judges.

As it is now, courtesy of their attack-dog intimidators on talk radio, at FOX and elsewhere, almost half the country believes that if someone in one of those three professions criticizes the Bush Administration, what they say or write is immediately discounted as B.S. spouted by America-hating liberals.

This administration so relies on people being easily manipulated by their shallow and fear-based appeals, not to mention their overt prevarications and cynical dissembling, that they don’t want the real thinkers to have any credibility. In their place they want to have packaged news and bought journalists. They quote and promote puppet academics who are on the payroll of the right wing "think tanks." And as for judges, the shrill comments of Tom Delay and others has surely sent a negative message to our independent judiciary, that they better be a little less independent, or else.

Funny aside: Recently, our president tried to use a fancy word, always a hoot. He said that oftentimes Muslim detainees purposely "disassemble," going on to show off his supposed knowledge by saying "that means to not tell the truth." So he butchered both the pronunciation and the meaning! The best one, though, is still Georgie's saying "feces" over a dozen times in a speech when his text read "fetus." Leader of the Free World? God save us!

Sunday Punch

Looking at the political spectrum in the U.S., we have a left, a center and a right. Most of the motivated political activism comes from the wings, and most of the attacks of one against the other are aimed at the more extreme members of the opposition.

The unvarnished truth is that on the far right extreme, you have what can justly be called fascists, people and groups who believe in violence as a cure-all, are overtly racist, are contemptuous of anything and anybody not American or rabidly pro-American, and prescribe harsh governmental controls on behavior, while on the left extreme you have what I’ll term (in a friendly/mocking way) fairies.

These folks, whether gay or not, have an over-idealistic view of the world -- a fairyland viewpoint -- and think everyone should just love each other, put away all the weapons and have high self-esteem. They’re lovers of the natural environment and believe in the acceptability of alternate lifestyles. Many artists and creative types, people who are unrealistic as a career choice, are in this category. They’re often not church-goers, but believe fully in what Jesus said in the Beatitudes, things like "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God," and "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

If there were to be an absolute takeover by one extreme or the other, give me the latter, thank you very much, as I don’t have much of a hankering for militaristic swagger, enforced religion and thought police.

Taking My Swings

The Christian Right is around 25% of the population, about the same as the (somehow very religious AND very violent) Sunnis in Iraq who held power for so many years before our invasion. What gives both groups their power is their vehement zealotry, and their undiluted belief that they know Allah/God's plan and it involves them taking power, implementing that plan and punishing evildoers, i.e., those who think the plan is something different, or the dolts who aren't privy to Allah/God's messages.



The former Texan exterminator Tom Delay, in an attack on Justice Anthony Kennedy, revealed his own provincial small-mindedness when he foamed at the mouth because Kennedy made a reference to international law and did some research on the Internet. He was screeching that Kennedy's behavior was "Absolutely Outrageous!!" and that some kind of discipline or punishment was warranted. To the choir he’s preaching to, you might as well say "work of the devil — booga booga" than mention those two things.

On the first, Justice Kennedy merely pointed out the fact that most civilized countries exclude minors from execution. As for Internet research, nothing could make more sense -- unless it's to a Christian Right type who thinks the Internet is synonymous with pornography and other dirty, evil things -- as the World Wide Web is an archived repository comprised of, among many other things, the files of dozens of law libraries.



Among the biggest criminals in the history of the human race are the American tobacco industry executives, men who to this day live lives of wealth, opulence and a certain amount of prestige, while purveying products that have killed millions, products they continue to sell domestically and in a widely-expanding foreign market.



For those Catholics who think that the new pope will show some open-mindedness to reform and change in the areas of abortion, divorce, female priests, homosexuals, right-to-die, pre-marital sex and other issues: You should realize that he was the one choice of the electing cardinals most likely to absolutely toe that strict dogmatic line, because he was the primary drawer of that line under the former pope, was in fact the enforcer of the conservative (i.e., hopelessly antiquated and backward) rule book concerning those matters.

Short Shots

A message often aimed at the youth, and a good one, is that they need to take responsibility for their actions. Unfortunately, if they are at all savvy about the world, they realize that those with the most power in society often do not set a good example for this, in fact appear to be getting away with the opposite — a sheer lack of responsibility. Whether it’s phony-assets CEOs, buck-passing politicians, bottom-feeding, scandal-chasing newsmedia, "we’re only reflecting society" TV programmers, movie producers and record executives, a young person can see many examples of people being very successful in America while displaying a basic irresponsibility.



Rednecks are a big part of the problem with U.S. society because of their love for guns, screen violence, scandal-centered media and racist policies. They hate liberals because, first of all they’re generally more intelligent, but also because they blame them for the PC guidelines against mistreatment of gays, women and people of different races, as well as the strict restrictions and penalties for hitting their wives, girlfriends and children, which they surely like to do, especially after they get liquored up and watch some football, wrestling, car racing and shows with lots of hollerin', shootin' and fightin'.



These modern-day Republican leaders are of the ilk that strenuously supported the evil and immoral Vietnam War, and still defend it. One of Kerry’s major mistakes was not confronting the foreign policy tragedy and human holocaust (5 million dead) that the war represented. Instead, he paraded around like he was a genuine war hero (for his relatively short stint in which he took a few minor gashes and shot a couple snipers) as if that would win him votes from the conservative types, who apparently weren’t swayed.

He should have spoken out against our sending professional killers to Asia for no justifiable reason, like he did back in the day when he had moral resolve and less selfish ambition.