The era is different. The terrain is different. The culture is different. Yet the similarities between Barack Obama and Lyndon Johnson are remarkable, and the chances of history repeating itself are an odds-makers dream. The Vietnam conflict ruined LBJ’s presidency and derailed his domestic agenda, just as Afghanistan will likely doom Obama’s presidency at a time in America’s history when the country can least afford for him to fail.
LBJ feared the political consequences of appearing weak on Vietnam just as Obama is deathly afraid of appearing wimpy on Afghanistan. Like LBJ in Vietnam, Obama desires to “finish” the job in Afghanistan, though what that job is remains a shifting target.
The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in order to root out al-Qaeda terrorists, their Taliban supporters, and to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Superior military firepower allowed the US to rout the Taliban, but Osama bin Laden remains at large, possibly hiding in Pakistan. It is unlikely bin Laden would still be free or alive without a wink and a nod from the Pakistani government – a purported ally of the US in the Global War on Terror and a major recipient of US funding. Pakistan is a key but wildly unpredictable variable in the Afghanistan conflict; for good or ill we’re in bed with a country we cannot trust any more than we can trust the government of Hamid Kharzai.
There’s an element of Keystone Cop in the U.S.’s pursuit of bin Laden. Bill Clinton tried to take bin Laden out with cruise missiles; W. Bush used cowboy rhetoric and an invasion and occupation that have cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars; and now Obama seems determined to continue Bush’s misadventure. Despite all this, not to mention the best efforts of the CIA, NSA, DIA and NATO, bin Laden is still alive and dreaming of global jihad.
Now, after months of careful deliberation that has been criticized by the GOP as “dithering,” even though the GOP’s man, W. Bush, bumbled around in Afghanistan for nearly seven years, Obama will dispatch some 30,000 more American troops to the Afghan quagmire. While the number of troops is less than requested by Stan McChrystal, the American commander, Obama will ask, beg, plead, browbeat and threaten our NATO allies to give 6,000 or more additional troops to the meat grinder, providing McChrystal the magic number he wanted from the beginning. Why NATO countries should cough up more soldiers is a mystery, since Afghanistan is clearly America’s war.
By sending fewer than 40,000 American troops, Obama can claim that he’s not a puppet of the Generals, even though he is because not sending thousands more troops was never a serious policy consideration. This is another of those instances where failure is redefined, packaged and sold to the public as success. Will the people buy it? Probably. Millions of Americans are distracted by the rigors of everyday life, deeply worried about keeping or finding a job, making the mortgage payment, or putting food on the table. The economy is fucked – at least for people who work for wages, but things aren’t yet so bad that our government can’t waste billions chasing phantoms in Afghanistan.
When he addresses the nation next Tuesday to justify the troop increase, Obama will appear and sound reasoned, reasonable, realistic and resolved; he will talk about our national security, our freedom and perhaps our way of life in language that will soar and may even inspire. Unlike W. Bush, Obama probably won’t refer to the American people as the chosen ones or toss in many references to God, and in itself this will be a relief, but the bottom line is that the U.S. will be stuck in Afghanistan for years and perhaps decades to come, unable to “win” the conflict or cut its losses and leave. The Soviets poured more than 100,000 soldiers into Afghanistan in the 1980’s and got their clocked cleaned.
I’m afraid the same unfortunate fate awaits us. History may not repeat in exactly the same way, but repeat it does when people are too stupid or stubborn to heed history’s lessons.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Last Visit with Dr. Duke
“I’ve had it,” Duke said, handing me an ice-cold Corona before I even stepped across his threshold. Tossing a slice of lime over his shoulder (I caught it), he plopped into his recliner and sighed deeply, like a man who has reached the end of a long desert march.
“With what?” I asked, taking a seat opposite him.
“The American corporate welfare state, the American military-industrial-intelligence complex, the American prison industry and incarceration complex, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the War on working people, and the endless assault on the environment. Had it. Game over. Moving to Amsterdam.”
I hadn’t seen or heard from Duke in months, not since I watched him toss a coin to decide which of two beautiful young women he would choose to marry. He looked wearier now, all of his 60-plus years, and with a heaviness in his spirit that had never been there before. Duke had always controlled his own environment and lived on his own terms; something was clearly amiss.
“Don Henley was right,” Duke said. “We’re ‘poisoned by these fairy tales,’ unable to confront reality, unable to rise beyond a tribal, siege mentality.”
“I’ve never seen you this down, Doc,” I said. “Last time I was here you were stone in love with two women.”
“Ah, that was hard, Tang, an absolutely untenable position and a dance I don’t recommend to any man, unless he’s as demented as George W. Bush.” Another heavy sigh. “I saw Sarah Palin on Oprah today. Sarah-Fucking-Palin. The woman is a twat – not a twit or a tweet, but a foul-smelling back alley VD-infested twat. She’s a walking, talking testament to the abject failure of our celebrity-obsessed culture. How many of our fellow citizens realize that we are on a one-way street to second-nation status? But don’t get me started.”
Too late for that, I thought.
Duke opened another Corona.
“Why Amsterdam?” I asked.
“No particular reason,” Duke said, “other than I’ve always liked the place, plus it has the benefit of being 5500 miles from this pig-fucked nation. Europe has problems, of course, but the continent remains reasonably civilized. So I’m turning my back on George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, on James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, on John Adams and John Jay. If I had bigger balls I’d end my misery with a bullet to the brain, like Hemingway and Hunter Thompson.”
“Jesus, don’t say shit like that, Doc.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“Despair’s not your thing, Doc.”
“Maybe. But a man – a thinking man, anyway – reaches a point where what is and what should be cannot be reconciled. My despair is of the unshakeable variety. My sense is of things, people, institutions and nations slipping and sliding into the abyss.”
“Have you seen you physician lately, Doc? Maybe you need a prescription for anti-depressants.”
“I’m on Zoloft and Lithium already. They have no effect. I’ve even lost faith in pharmacology.”
“Shit.”
“Keep writing your flaming screeds, Tang-O, but never forget that you’re battling the most prolific propaganda machine this world has ever seen. It’s owned by the wealthy and in the service of the wealthy. Nonetheless, you can’t quit. Keep screaming from the balcony, the outhouse, the prison cell and the church pew.”
“You’ll be back,” I said.
Duke stared into space for thirty seconds. He seemed to age before my eyes; his passion, audacity and fire seeping out of him like blood from a severed artery -- this man who had resigned from a tenured professorship at UCSB because he disagreed with the chancellor on everything from the treatment of teaching assistants to the salaries of top administrators. (“Parasites on the body of higher education,” Duke called his bosses.) Resigned to become a successful marijuana dealer (suspected by the SBPD but never charged), owner of a large and rustic home in secluded Mission Canyon, and a man who largely did exactly as he pleased.
Duke chuckled. “You know what the last straw was, Tang? The Wall Street bail out. That’s when I realized that all hope was gone, even with an intelligent black man parked in the White House. A trillion taxpayer dollars for reckless financial firms that deserved to die not be rescued. Too big to fail is a crock of horseshit. A trillion dollars for politically connected banks and Wall Street firms, peanuts and crumbs for working people. Look at the banks and Wall Street now? Swimming in profits, paying huge bonuses to their executives, and laughing hysterically at how easy it was to bilk the taxpayers. The Mafia never had it as good. It’s beyond insulting.”
I couldn’t argue with his conclusion. The bail out soured me on the Obama Administration, too. All that talk about audacity and hope, the excitement I felt on Inauguration Day, hadn’t translated into much in the way of concrete policy. On the other hand, a president’s powers are limited.
“The people should be in the streets,” Duke said, “with axe handles and Molotov cocktails, baseball bats, machetes, kitchen knives, hunting rifles. D.C. and Wall Street should be engulfed in flames, burning to the fucking ground. I’m not a violent man, but I see no other way to disrupt and change the status quo. Political solutions can’t work because the system is irreparably corrupt. The cancer has been growing for years, but it metastasized when the Supreme Court installed W. Bush in the White House.”
“How come you’re not out there, Doc?”
“Me? Too old. Too tired. Too comfortable. My generation had its shot.”
“The 60’s?”
“Yep. We climbed part way up the mountain, and then we got corrupted and co-opted. We got fat, happy and greedy. We’re little more than advertising slogans and statistics now.”
“You’re depressing me, Doc.”
“Yes, I’m not fit for human companionship.”
“You’re really leaving?”
“Amsterdam bound, baby. The first thing I’ll do when I get there is take out my dick and piss all over my passport.”
We shook hands on his porch. I told Duke that we would meet again, somewhere in America, but he was adamant that such a meeting would never happen. He was leaving and not coming back.
“Keep writing,” he said before turning to go back inside.
I laughed. “It seems pointless. Nobody reads my shit, Doc.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s an act of resistance and protest.”
Duke closed the door. The porch light went out and I heard the deadbolt slide into place. I stood in the dark of the porch for a moment, listening to the cicadas, the distant rumble of traffic on the 101, the howl of a lone dog. I never imagined that Duke would become a casualty of the American Dream.
And then I heard the single gunshot.
“With what?” I asked, taking a seat opposite him.
“The American corporate welfare state, the American military-industrial-intelligence complex, the American prison industry and incarceration complex, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the War on working people, and the endless assault on the environment. Had it. Game over. Moving to Amsterdam.”
I hadn’t seen or heard from Duke in months, not since I watched him toss a coin to decide which of two beautiful young women he would choose to marry. He looked wearier now, all of his 60-plus years, and with a heaviness in his spirit that had never been there before. Duke had always controlled his own environment and lived on his own terms; something was clearly amiss.
“Don Henley was right,” Duke said. “We’re ‘poisoned by these fairy tales,’ unable to confront reality, unable to rise beyond a tribal, siege mentality.”
“I’ve never seen you this down, Doc,” I said. “Last time I was here you were stone in love with two women.”
“Ah, that was hard, Tang, an absolutely untenable position and a dance I don’t recommend to any man, unless he’s as demented as George W. Bush.” Another heavy sigh. “I saw Sarah Palin on Oprah today. Sarah-Fucking-Palin. The woman is a twat – not a twit or a tweet, but a foul-smelling back alley VD-infested twat. She’s a walking, talking testament to the abject failure of our celebrity-obsessed culture. How many of our fellow citizens realize that we are on a one-way street to second-nation status? But don’t get me started.”
Too late for that, I thought.
Duke opened another Corona.
“Why Amsterdam?” I asked.
“No particular reason,” Duke said, “other than I’ve always liked the place, plus it has the benefit of being 5500 miles from this pig-fucked nation. Europe has problems, of course, but the continent remains reasonably civilized. So I’m turning my back on George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, on James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, on John Adams and John Jay. If I had bigger balls I’d end my misery with a bullet to the brain, like Hemingway and Hunter Thompson.”
“Jesus, don’t say shit like that, Doc.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“Despair’s not your thing, Doc.”
“Maybe. But a man – a thinking man, anyway – reaches a point where what is and what should be cannot be reconciled. My despair is of the unshakeable variety. My sense is of things, people, institutions and nations slipping and sliding into the abyss.”
“Have you seen you physician lately, Doc? Maybe you need a prescription for anti-depressants.”
“I’m on Zoloft and Lithium already. They have no effect. I’ve even lost faith in pharmacology.”
“Shit.”
“Keep writing your flaming screeds, Tang-O, but never forget that you’re battling the most prolific propaganda machine this world has ever seen. It’s owned by the wealthy and in the service of the wealthy. Nonetheless, you can’t quit. Keep screaming from the balcony, the outhouse, the prison cell and the church pew.”
“You’ll be back,” I said.
Duke stared into space for thirty seconds. He seemed to age before my eyes; his passion, audacity and fire seeping out of him like blood from a severed artery -- this man who had resigned from a tenured professorship at UCSB because he disagreed with the chancellor on everything from the treatment of teaching assistants to the salaries of top administrators. (“Parasites on the body of higher education,” Duke called his bosses.) Resigned to become a successful marijuana dealer (suspected by the SBPD but never charged), owner of a large and rustic home in secluded Mission Canyon, and a man who largely did exactly as he pleased.
Duke chuckled. “You know what the last straw was, Tang? The Wall Street bail out. That’s when I realized that all hope was gone, even with an intelligent black man parked in the White House. A trillion taxpayer dollars for reckless financial firms that deserved to die not be rescued. Too big to fail is a crock of horseshit. A trillion dollars for politically connected banks and Wall Street firms, peanuts and crumbs for working people. Look at the banks and Wall Street now? Swimming in profits, paying huge bonuses to their executives, and laughing hysterically at how easy it was to bilk the taxpayers. The Mafia never had it as good. It’s beyond insulting.”
I couldn’t argue with his conclusion. The bail out soured me on the Obama Administration, too. All that talk about audacity and hope, the excitement I felt on Inauguration Day, hadn’t translated into much in the way of concrete policy. On the other hand, a president’s powers are limited.
“The people should be in the streets,” Duke said, “with axe handles and Molotov cocktails, baseball bats, machetes, kitchen knives, hunting rifles. D.C. and Wall Street should be engulfed in flames, burning to the fucking ground. I’m not a violent man, but I see no other way to disrupt and change the status quo. Political solutions can’t work because the system is irreparably corrupt. The cancer has been growing for years, but it metastasized when the Supreme Court installed W. Bush in the White House.”
“How come you’re not out there, Doc?”
“Me? Too old. Too tired. Too comfortable. My generation had its shot.”
“The 60’s?”
“Yep. We climbed part way up the mountain, and then we got corrupted and co-opted. We got fat, happy and greedy. We’re little more than advertising slogans and statistics now.”
“You’re depressing me, Doc.”
“Yes, I’m not fit for human companionship.”
“You’re really leaving?”
“Amsterdam bound, baby. The first thing I’ll do when I get there is take out my dick and piss all over my passport.”
We shook hands on his porch. I told Duke that we would meet again, somewhere in America, but he was adamant that such a meeting would never happen. He was leaving and not coming back.
“Keep writing,” he said before turning to go back inside.
I laughed. “It seems pointless. Nobody reads my shit, Doc.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s an act of resistance and protest.”
Duke closed the door. The porch light went out and I heard the deadbolt slide into place. I stood in the dark of the porch for a moment, listening to the cicadas, the distant rumble of traffic on the 101, the howl of a lone dog. I never imagined that Duke would become a casualty of the American Dream.
And then I heard the single gunshot.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Manny and Me
They arrive at 6:30 a.m. on a bright, clear November Friday morning, the Mexican gardeners who work for my landlord. Manny is the honcho, his helper today is Jose or Juan or Chuy or Paco or Pedro. The helpers come and go, Manny, unfortunately, remains. Hate is a strong and overused word, so I won’t claim to hate Manny, though I dislike him, intensely.
We have history, Manny and I, of broken pots and trampled poppies, sunflowers, morning glory, geraniums and wildflowers; of delicate new grass, roped off with yellow caution tape, mowed weeks before its time, the yellow tape left on the ground. How many times have I asked Manny to be careful of my flowers only to find my request ignored? How many times did Manny or one of his helpers leave the back gate wide open, allowing Sparky, our Jack Russell Terrier, to get out and reconnoiter the neighborhood? Sparky always came home, but as we live on a busy street where drivers routinely flaunt the speed limit, he could have been creamed.
And then there are the trash cans, two for regular trash, one blue can for recyclables. How many times has Manny or one of his boys filled my recycle bin with grass clippings, leaves, twigs or good old-fashioned dirt?
I’ve lost count.
You might be thinking that my problem with Manny springs from lack of a common language, but this isn’t the case. Manny has been in California for more than thirty years and speaks English very well, so there’s no question that he understands me when I point to a four foot tall sunflower and say, “Please don’t pull this up.”
Invariably Manny will nod vigorously and say, “OK, OK.” But as soon as I turn my back, Manny jerks the plant from the ground or stomps it with one of his cloudhoppers. Though I don’t have any concrete evidence to conclude that Manny enjoys murdering my innocent plants, I imagine he does.
My landlord knows Manny is an imbecile, a classic “blow and go” sort of gardener who takes no pride in his work, but because Manny shows up regularly my landlord keeps him on the payroll. This is a sad commentary on the pool of gardening talent in our town. The gig is a snap and if my landlord would let me, I could do it as well if not better, if only because I can tell the difference between a flower and a weed.
Lack of control over when the gardeners come and what they do (or don’t do) when they get here, is a tenant’s dilemma, never easily resolved. On the one hand I appreciate that my landlord tries to maintain his property, even if he hires an imbecile to do it. On the other, there’s no sound quite as annoying or nerve rattling as the whine of a leaf blower before a man has downed his first cup of coffee.
We have history, Manny and I, of broken pots and trampled poppies, sunflowers, morning glory, geraniums and wildflowers; of delicate new grass, roped off with yellow caution tape, mowed weeks before its time, the yellow tape left on the ground. How many times have I asked Manny to be careful of my flowers only to find my request ignored? How many times did Manny or one of his helpers leave the back gate wide open, allowing Sparky, our Jack Russell Terrier, to get out and reconnoiter the neighborhood? Sparky always came home, but as we live on a busy street where drivers routinely flaunt the speed limit, he could have been creamed.
And then there are the trash cans, two for regular trash, one blue can for recyclables. How many times has Manny or one of his boys filled my recycle bin with grass clippings, leaves, twigs or good old-fashioned dirt?
I’ve lost count.
You might be thinking that my problem with Manny springs from lack of a common language, but this isn’t the case. Manny has been in California for more than thirty years and speaks English very well, so there’s no question that he understands me when I point to a four foot tall sunflower and say, “Please don’t pull this up.”
Invariably Manny will nod vigorously and say, “OK, OK.” But as soon as I turn my back, Manny jerks the plant from the ground or stomps it with one of his cloudhoppers. Though I don’t have any concrete evidence to conclude that Manny enjoys murdering my innocent plants, I imagine he does.
My landlord knows Manny is an imbecile, a classic “blow and go” sort of gardener who takes no pride in his work, but because Manny shows up regularly my landlord keeps him on the payroll. This is a sad commentary on the pool of gardening talent in our town. The gig is a snap and if my landlord would let me, I could do it as well if not better, if only because I can tell the difference between a flower and a weed.
Lack of control over when the gardeners come and what they do (or don’t do) when they get here, is a tenant’s dilemma, never easily resolved. On the one hand I appreciate that my landlord tries to maintain his property, even if he hires an imbecile to do it. On the other, there’s no sound quite as annoying or nerve rattling as the whine of a leaf blower before a man has downed his first cup of coffee.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Berries, Bombs and Billions
Per capita annual income in Uruguay is $12,400.
Per capita annual income in Afghanistan is $700.
Uruguay is 6,212 miles from California by air.
Afghanistan is 7,647 miles from California by air.
Trader Joe’s imports blueberries grown in Uruguay.
According to the CIA’s World Factbook, “Uruguay’s economy is characterized by an export-oriented agricultural sector.”
According to the same CIA Factbook, major challenges facing Afghanistan include: “Budget sustainability, job creation, corruption, government capacity, and re-building war torn infrastructure.”
In 2006 a UK-based organization called Sustain issued a report that said: “Fruits and vegetables are the largest of all airfreighted commodities.” The report went on to note that airfreight is a heavy contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
The Congressional Research Service reports that our government budgeted $227 billion for the war in Afghanistan in fiscal year 2009. Contracts and payroll alone amounted to $3.6 billion per month.
What do all these facts mean? Primarily it means that when I see blueberries in Trader Joe’s -- on sale, $3.99 for 4.4 ounces – the first thing I do is read the label to see where the berries were grown, and if the label says Mexico, Argentina or Uruguay, the berries stay on the shelf.
Call me a grump, a curmudgeon, a crank. Guilty as charged, but I can’t justify the carbon emission required to bring blueberries to California from Uruguay. Yes, some farmer in Uruguay is delighted to have a worldwide market for his blueberries, and people need jobs, but the total cost to our besieged planet is simply too great.
The other facts put me in a profoundly pessimistic mood, a pervasive sense that the world is descending a long slope, down, down, down into the fiery pit of Hell. Bankers, financiers and lobbyists have an iron grip on my country’s politics; serious action on climate change isn’t going to happen any time soon; and President Obama is almost certain to defy logic and defecate on common sense and commit more American troops to the lost cause that is Afghanistan. (Here’s a suggestion: if Al-Qaeda terrorists want Afghanistan so bad, maybe we should let them have it.)
If they give any thought to the mess in Afghanistan, I’d wager that most Americans probably think Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are one and the same (they’re not, folks). We’d gain more security if we let Al-Qaeda run loose in the wastes of Afghanistan and butt heads with the Taliban when their interests diverge, which they will.
While the real economy at home stumbles, shakes and shivers, our government is dead set on “nation-building” in a ruined, ethnically divided country where hope is as scarce as official corruption is plentiful. Let’s face it – most, if not every damn one, of the justifications for continuing the war in Afghanistan are bogus, particularly this dinger: either we fight Al-Qaeda over there or we fight them in Los Angeles, New York City and Pittsburgh, PA. Think logically: if you wanted to wage global jihad, would you choose a shithole like Afghanistan as your base of operations?
A hard truth: few imperial powers willingly walk away from a conquest. To admit to the world that victory isn’t at hand and never will be, requires uncommon statesmanship coupled with uncommon wisdom, both of which are in short supply in our political leaders, including President Obama. When TV pundits, talk-radio yakkers and Members of Congress compare health insurance reform to Nazi concentration camps – and are allowed to continue uttering such absurd fabrications without a bitch slap from their media colleagues or their political brethren -- it’s a telltale sign that the nation is in the throes of a staggering political paralysis. Next to nothing can be expected from politicians of either party -- particularly when it comes to questions of war.
Before the political class, the hawks, the generals and the defense contractors sour on war, the casualties have to stack up and the coffin supply must run low; the wounded, crippled and maimed must become very visible in our cities and towns and hamlets, and the folks here at home must feel the searing pain and sacrifice of war like we did during Vietnam. Until that happens don’t expect Americans to lift a finger to protest the waste, futility and lost opportunities that Iraq and Afghanistan represent.
Blood and blueberries. Imperial wars and global trade. Failed politics, ruined lives. A farmer in Uruguay just wants to earn his living and feed his family, and an American soldier on patrol in Afghanistan only wants to survive intact and return home to the normal life he or she left behind.
Per capita annual income in Afghanistan is $700.
Uruguay is 6,212 miles from California by air.
Afghanistan is 7,647 miles from California by air.
Trader Joe’s imports blueberries grown in Uruguay.
According to the CIA’s World Factbook, “Uruguay’s economy is characterized by an export-oriented agricultural sector.”
According to the same CIA Factbook, major challenges facing Afghanistan include: “Budget sustainability, job creation, corruption, government capacity, and re-building war torn infrastructure.”
In 2006 a UK-based organization called Sustain issued a report that said: “Fruits and vegetables are the largest of all airfreighted commodities.” The report went on to note that airfreight is a heavy contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
The Congressional Research Service reports that our government budgeted $227 billion for the war in Afghanistan in fiscal year 2009. Contracts and payroll alone amounted to $3.6 billion per month.
What do all these facts mean? Primarily it means that when I see blueberries in Trader Joe’s -- on sale, $3.99 for 4.4 ounces – the first thing I do is read the label to see where the berries were grown, and if the label says Mexico, Argentina or Uruguay, the berries stay on the shelf.
Call me a grump, a curmudgeon, a crank. Guilty as charged, but I can’t justify the carbon emission required to bring blueberries to California from Uruguay. Yes, some farmer in Uruguay is delighted to have a worldwide market for his blueberries, and people need jobs, but the total cost to our besieged planet is simply too great.
The other facts put me in a profoundly pessimistic mood, a pervasive sense that the world is descending a long slope, down, down, down into the fiery pit of Hell. Bankers, financiers and lobbyists have an iron grip on my country’s politics; serious action on climate change isn’t going to happen any time soon; and President Obama is almost certain to defy logic and defecate on common sense and commit more American troops to the lost cause that is Afghanistan. (Here’s a suggestion: if Al-Qaeda terrorists want Afghanistan so bad, maybe we should let them have it.)
If they give any thought to the mess in Afghanistan, I’d wager that most Americans probably think Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are one and the same (they’re not, folks). We’d gain more security if we let Al-Qaeda run loose in the wastes of Afghanistan and butt heads with the Taliban when their interests diverge, which they will.
While the real economy at home stumbles, shakes and shivers, our government is dead set on “nation-building” in a ruined, ethnically divided country where hope is as scarce as official corruption is plentiful. Let’s face it – most, if not every damn one, of the justifications for continuing the war in Afghanistan are bogus, particularly this dinger: either we fight Al-Qaeda over there or we fight them in Los Angeles, New York City and Pittsburgh, PA. Think logically: if you wanted to wage global jihad, would you choose a shithole like Afghanistan as your base of operations?
A hard truth: few imperial powers willingly walk away from a conquest. To admit to the world that victory isn’t at hand and never will be, requires uncommon statesmanship coupled with uncommon wisdom, both of which are in short supply in our political leaders, including President Obama. When TV pundits, talk-radio yakkers and Members of Congress compare health insurance reform to Nazi concentration camps – and are allowed to continue uttering such absurd fabrications without a bitch slap from their media colleagues or their political brethren -- it’s a telltale sign that the nation is in the throes of a staggering political paralysis. Next to nothing can be expected from politicians of either party -- particularly when it comes to questions of war.
Before the political class, the hawks, the generals and the defense contractors sour on war, the casualties have to stack up and the coffin supply must run low; the wounded, crippled and maimed must become very visible in our cities and towns and hamlets, and the folks here at home must feel the searing pain and sacrifice of war like we did during Vietnam. Until that happens don’t expect Americans to lift a finger to protest the waste, futility and lost opportunities that Iraq and Afghanistan represent.
Blood and blueberries. Imperial wars and global trade. Failed politics, ruined lives. A farmer in Uruguay just wants to earn his living and feed his family, and an American soldier on patrol in Afghanistan only wants to survive intact and return home to the normal life he or she left behind.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Unarmed, Unheard and Unrepresented
Sitting in sunny Santa Barbara feeling surly and mean. Thinking, what’s an average, law-abiding American citizen to do? Three thousand miles from here, give or take a few hundred miles, in the capitol city of this so-called democracy, lucrative deals are made in large, high-ceilinged rooms by people who are supposed to represent the interests of residents back in their home districts.
That’s the generally accepted idea of representative democracy, but in reality our elected representatives, more often than not, pimp for the narrowly focused interests of industry (pick one—defense, finance and insurance, real estate) groups. Money rules the day. Money talks. Money dictates.
In our name but frequently without our consent, political rulers write laws that benefit their benefactors. Remember the bailout? Trillions of dollars handed over to banks and investment houses, the insurance giant AIG, with virtually no strings, oversight or accountability attached. In itself that was corrosive enough, but as we purport to be a representative democracy, where was the public debate, the open hearings? Talk about a sweetheart deal: Here, boys, take this huge pile of dough and do with it whatever tickles your fancy. Buy other banks, take illogical and insane risks, award huge bonuses to your executives.
The bankers laughed then, laugh raucously now. A sucker is born every minute. Isn’t American-style capitalism great? We get to keep the lion’s share of our profits and lay our gambling debts on the taxpayers. Perfect, no lose system, a veritable money machine. The Mafia never had it this good. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and he lives in a penthouse apartment on Wall Street.
The political class along with their media and corporate enablers don’t fear the masses because they know how easily we are diverted, distracted and divided. Think on it for a second. If you can persuade a Medicare recipient to stand up at a public meeting and denounce “socialized medicine,” you’re not merely good, you’re a grand wizard, like Albus Dumbledore from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry. Some overweight redneck, utterly dependent on Medicare for the pills he needs to control his Type-II diabetes, wearing a ratty t-shirt with “DON’T TREAD ON ME” emblazoned across his chest, thinks it’s patriotic to fulminate about the heavy, intrusive hand of the Government. Glenn Beck said so.
There is dumb, and there is Dumb.
The sun shines here on the California coast. A turkey vulture circles high overhead, scouting for his lunch. The clock moves slowly around the dial. Birds chirp, twitter and shriek. A truck backfires, a siren wails. The Food Bank runs low of provisions for the poor, and the homeless shelter down by the beach is short of beds; real people, real pain, flesh and blood, soul and spirit, dreams and demons. Bad luck, bad genes, bad karma.
The down and out harbor no hope for a taxpayer bailout or a bank loan at favorable interest rates. In America, that sort of largesse is reserved for those that need it least.
That’s the generally accepted idea of representative democracy, but in reality our elected representatives, more often than not, pimp for the narrowly focused interests of industry (pick one—defense, finance and insurance, real estate) groups. Money rules the day. Money talks. Money dictates.
In our name but frequently without our consent, political rulers write laws that benefit their benefactors. Remember the bailout? Trillions of dollars handed over to banks and investment houses, the insurance giant AIG, with virtually no strings, oversight or accountability attached. In itself that was corrosive enough, but as we purport to be a representative democracy, where was the public debate, the open hearings? Talk about a sweetheart deal: Here, boys, take this huge pile of dough and do with it whatever tickles your fancy. Buy other banks, take illogical and insane risks, award huge bonuses to your executives.
The bankers laughed then, laugh raucously now. A sucker is born every minute. Isn’t American-style capitalism great? We get to keep the lion’s share of our profits and lay our gambling debts on the taxpayers. Perfect, no lose system, a veritable money machine. The Mafia never had it this good. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and he lives in a penthouse apartment on Wall Street.
The political class along with their media and corporate enablers don’t fear the masses because they know how easily we are diverted, distracted and divided. Think on it for a second. If you can persuade a Medicare recipient to stand up at a public meeting and denounce “socialized medicine,” you’re not merely good, you’re a grand wizard, like Albus Dumbledore from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry. Some overweight redneck, utterly dependent on Medicare for the pills he needs to control his Type-II diabetes, wearing a ratty t-shirt with “DON’T TREAD ON ME” emblazoned across his chest, thinks it’s patriotic to fulminate about the heavy, intrusive hand of the Government. Glenn Beck said so.
There is dumb, and there is Dumb.
The sun shines here on the California coast. A turkey vulture circles high overhead, scouting for his lunch. The clock moves slowly around the dial. Birds chirp, twitter and shriek. A truck backfires, a siren wails. The Food Bank runs low of provisions for the poor, and the homeless shelter down by the beach is short of beds; real people, real pain, flesh and blood, soul and spirit, dreams and demons. Bad luck, bad genes, bad karma.
The down and out harbor no hope for a taxpayer bailout or a bank loan at favorable interest rates. In America, that sort of largesse is reserved for those that need it least.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
World Series
Gawd, I hate Fox Sports almost as much as I despise Bill O'Reilly and that nitwit Glenn Beck. Fox Sports is jingoistic, never fails to hype the American military and our "brave men and women" in uniform, sent to fight and die in pointless wars in faraway lands. Of course they never say that on Fox -- it's just the flag and the National Anthem and God Bless America (usually sung by a military man or woman) and some palaver about prayers from a grateful nation.
Sure, and horse shit smells like roses.
The other thing Fox Sports does that makes my blood boil is wring every drop of advertising blood that can be wrung from a sports telecast. "This half-inning brought to you by Chevrolet. This pitch brought to you by the good folks at Budweiser. This thirty-second segment of the Chevrolet pre-game show is brought to you by Taco Bell. Try our new Black Jack Taco! while driving the new and improved Chevrolet Malibu."
It's an orgy of advertising words and images and slogans. Mastercard and Windows 7 and Nikon. All this from the country that shipped its manufacturing base to China and will be in debt for generations to come, the country that cannot figure out an equitable way to provide health care for its citizens, a country that invades and occupies other sovereign countries based on lies and pretext, and a country that is poisoning the environment, like a beagle that defecates in its own bed.
Fox Sports and Major League Baseball conspired to tweak the game schedule of these playoffs in order to reap maximize advertising revenue. This explains why we are playing Game 4 of the World Series on November 1st, in wet, 50 degree weather in Philadelphia. This accounts for the odd intermissions between the games and the series, numerous days off for athletes accustomed to suiting up and playing every day.
Money again -- the American God -- a deity that can be bought, sold, traded, shorted, hedged, insured and transformed into a derivative whose ultimate value nobody can explain.
Anyway, this Game 4 has all the earmarks of a wild affair, probably high scoring, even with C.C. Sabathia on the mound for New York. The Phillies are a good, gritty club and they won't quit.
But hell, who cares about the game. It's the commercials we really care about!
Sure, and horse shit smells like roses.
The other thing Fox Sports does that makes my blood boil is wring every drop of advertising blood that can be wrung from a sports telecast. "This half-inning brought to you by Chevrolet. This pitch brought to you by the good folks at Budweiser. This thirty-second segment of the Chevrolet pre-game show is brought to you by Taco Bell. Try our new Black Jack Taco! while driving the new and improved Chevrolet Malibu."
It's an orgy of advertising words and images and slogans. Mastercard and Windows 7 and Nikon. All this from the country that shipped its manufacturing base to China and will be in debt for generations to come, the country that cannot figure out an equitable way to provide health care for its citizens, a country that invades and occupies other sovereign countries based on lies and pretext, and a country that is poisoning the environment, like a beagle that defecates in its own bed.
Fox Sports and Major League Baseball conspired to tweak the game schedule of these playoffs in order to reap maximize advertising revenue. This explains why we are playing Game 4 of the World Series on November 1st, in wet, 50 degree weather in Philadelphia. This accounts for the odd intermissions between the games and the series, numerous days off for athletes accustomed to suiting up and playing every day.
Money again -- the American God -- a deity that can be bought, sold, traded, shorted, hedged, insured and transformed into a derivative whose ultimate value nobody can explain.
Anyway, this Game 4 has all the earmarks of a wild affair, probably high scoring, even with C.C. Sabathia on the mound for New York. The Phillies are a good, gritty club and they won't quit.
But hell, who cares about the game. It's the commercials we really care about!
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