the rix mix

President Obama made two mistakes, & I thought they were mistakes when he made them. The first was making a big issue with Putin  over  Russia giving asylum to Edward Snowden. While Americans had very mixed feelings about what Snowden did & how he did it, from hero to traitor,  most Americans believe we needed to know what he exposed about the N.S.A. The President's obsession with bringing Snowden to "justice" did not acknowledge  the big problem was no longer Snowden; it was the Obama administration response to the N.S.A. revelations.   Snowden is not the dangerous man; Putin is. Snowden seems to be a jerk, & hardly makes me feel good about  privatizing  our national security. Bad enough you can't enlist in the Army to learn to be a cook anymore. We're hypocrites in Jersey; we despise rats even when we agree with what they do. It's just the way we are.

The second mistake was "drawing the line" for Assad.  I happen to agree with John Kerry that the President should not take diplomatic or military "options" "off the table." Not in public, in speeches.   We have a nuclear strike arsenal, for cripessake, & the activation codes are never more than a few steps from the President. I also think use of chemical weapons is "different." But the President should not have put himself in the situation of having no options at all. To use another cliche, he did not "get all his ducks in a row" before mouthing off to Assad. Then he dumps the serious matter on Congress - I don't basically object to that, but this congress is really  screwed up - but hasn't said he would abide by its decision if it went against him.  When the Brits - our only truly trustworthy allies in the world - wouldn't support us, that should have given him & everyone pause.

So now at a time when he ought to be seeking international unity for some form of action in Syria, with a number of "options" "on the table," & guiding the transition to a new healthcare program, he's isolated himself at the G-20 conference.  What a mess.

Labels: bully pulpit. war more war, in the news

At my age, my indignation counts for little.  But if you create a culture of hopelessness, comprised of boredom & emotional numbness, expressing the belief that change is impossible in a society split into economic & political extremes; sexist, violent, mocking of self & of the consumers of mere "product" (willing participants), you will raise up demonic powers to fill the moral vacuum. You did not create the vacuum, but you dance around it, daring it to suck you in & destroy you. It will, eventually. An enraged, despairing populace will use democracy to do it & in the process vote its freedoms out of existence, leaving the worst exploiters, the invisible ones, the truly guilty, untouched. Yes, that was Miley Cyrus & her collaborators on the VMA show.

Labels: bully pulpit. war more war, culture, in the news

You wouldn't believe how much liberals can piss me off.

There's one liberal here in Jersey -  from an advocacy organization, not an elected politico - who annoys the hell out of me. Throw his contradictions right back in his face & he won't acknowledge them.   He's probably gonna toss  me off his FB friend list because I just got on him about his anti-hunting attitude, "hideous" that hunters actually pose "grinning" with their kills.   I'm surprised he didn't say it makes him "cry." He can summon up tears faster than Bette Midler  on a TV talk show when the host mentions "The Wind Beneath My Wings." Go protest McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, the smiling faces in their commercials biting chunks out of double bacon cheeseburgers & awful chicken tacos.  Go demonstrate outside  the meat death factories of the Midwest,  chicken "farms" of the South,  those grim conveyor lines of indifference,  that hire hundreds of undocumented workers, Americans find the jobs so distasteful.

A problem with liberals is we get sidetracked.  Take some advice from the way  Bernie Sanders thinks.  Decide what you really want your governments  to do,  & get outta people's faces on  the other stuff. I think the whole whole human race should stop eating meat. I think it would be a wonderful evolutionary step. Climate change might eventually force us to do it, or drastically cut down.   But I  haven't stopped. Don Imus is a vegetarian, entirely organic.  It's part of his cancer therapy, he's 72 years old  &  it seems to be working. But he's said, "If I could do anything I wanted  right now, I'd drive into town & order a steak."

Not the only thing about him irritates me. His group endorsed a Republican State Senate candidate here because she's pro-choice & pro marriage equality (which condemns her  to total irrelevance in  her party).  Raised money for her! But she's off to the Repug Convention next week as a delegate where she'll dutifully cast her vote for Romney, Ryan (by acclamation), & probably the party platform (I'll be checking up on the latter).   Then he'll be at the Democratic Convention as a delegate.

I can handle contradictions. Hypocrisy, no.

Labels: bully pulpit. war more war

The U.S. military now has more people in its marching bands than the State Department has in its foreign service....
Nicholas D. Kristof, The Big (Military) Taboo

I'm surprised they haven't yet privatized & subcontracted military bands to KBR or Dyncorp, which would pay musicians three times  as much as military personnel, tax free, no union,  if they'll do a year in the Iraq Green Zone or at Bagram Airbase outside Kabul.

Our sacrosanct military budget: "The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined.."

Two wars, troops & fleets & bases spread around the world, & we don't  have a "Truman Commission"  a WWII Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program that brought the future president into the national spotlight. They investigated waste in the military budget. There's no waste like war waste.

Does it save money to privatize & subcontract so many crucial military support services?  Is it good for morale? 

Some jerk off right wing senator recently tried to stall the START treaty vote  by complaining that Russia took two of our humvees during the Georgia conflict.

We arm & train the national security forces  of South Korea & Saudi Arabia - & they are very well-trained & armed -  & then are expected to fight their battles, too. Which we're currently doing for the Saudi Royal Family in both Afghanistan & Iraq.  You know there's about 20,000 filthy rich Saudi princes & they run everything important in their country, & not one of them  to my knowledge is driving a Humvee in Afghanistan.

Our military-corporate-media establishment manipulates sincere "Support the Troops" sentiment to undermine very broad & real dissatisfaction with  our war policies & aims.

Although we maintain huge, unnecessary bases all over the globe, the Army brass decided it was too expensive to use, reassign, or mothball a small, versatile, irreplaceable piece of prime real estate in Jersey called "Fort Monmouth." So, to be "cost-effective,"  they gave it away.

Labels: bully pulpit. war more war, in the news, Iraq