Dazed and Confused

Pair of teen thugs attack two
cage fighters dressed as women,
are left dazed and bewildered.

Dazed and bewildered I think is a fairly good description of where I am at the moment. I really cannot understand why it should be so difficult to pass health care reform with a public option (or even a single payer system). It is common knowledge the Insurance Companies are ripping us off right and left. If it is not also common knowledge they do nothing to make their obscene profits other than shuffle papers around and try to devise new ways to take advantage of us, it ought to be. The very idea that Insurance Companies should be involved in health care is simply ridiculous in the first place. How anyone in good conscience could defend these parasites escapes me (or it would if I didn’t know the answer was large bribes to our Congresspersons).

Another source of my bewilderment has to do with Afghanistan, and why President Obama cannot see that it is just another Vietnam. Unless we still have secret plans to build a pipeline across that rugged country I can see no reason for our continued presence there. It has already been admitted that we cannot “win,” even if anyone knew what winning might consist of in the “graveyard of empires.” The Afghan people do not want us there. Most of our troops probably do not want to be there. The threat of a Taliban takeover is greatly exaggerated as most of the Afghans don’t like them any better than we do, and they are no threat to us in any case. It is now being acknowledged that al Qaida is not much of a presence there and only a very minority presence anywhere else. So, I ask myself, what the hell are we still doing there? We can’t seem to withdraw because that would indicate that we “lost.” “Pride goes before a fall.” Continuing a “war” in Afghanistan, against a group that is not even an enemy, and another group that is not even there, and that we can also ill-afford, is, to put it mildly, stupid.

Something that truly dazes and bewilders me is the Sarah Palin phenomenon. She just doesn’t go away, this woman from Alaska, who was not even regarded as qualified to be Vice-President is now being regarded as a possible candidate for President, an obvious know-nothing now giving speeches on American Foreign Policy to people in China. By her own admission, her Foreign Policy experience was being able to see Russia from her front porch, and she has done nothing to improve it since then as far as I know. The idea of Palin as President of the U.S. is even more than ridiculous, it’s just plain silly. Of course when you consider what some of the rest of the “Republican base” is up to you might conclude that Palin is the only sane one among them. Now there is a move afoot to impeach Obama. As near as I can tell the only reason for impeaching him as to do with their absurd insistence that he is really a Kenyan (in the face of genuine evidence to the contrary). There is no danger whatsoever that this would happen, but the fact that some of them could even suggest it demonstrates an ignorance so profound as to make one wonder if they are actually sane.

And speaking of stupid, why do we continue to let Israel tell us what to do? If they want to bomb Iran (a truly stupid idea) they should not expect any help from us. Iran is not a threat to the U.S., and most probably not much of a threat to Israel, if the truth were ever to be told. It might well be true that Iran would like to see the Middle East free of Israel, but they are not about to send an army against them, or bomb them with nuclear bombs they don’t even have. Israeli greed for land and water, and their paranoia, is a far bigger problem in the Middle East than Iran. They do what they want, and take what they want, and listen to no one, violating international rules at will, and we continue to support them, even in their genocidal attitude towards Gaza. To me this is truly bewildering. They refuse even to take the first small step towards peace with the Palestinians and continue expanding their illegal settlements at will, thumbing their nose at Obama in the process.

But what confuses and bewilders me most of all, is what happened to the country in which I grew up? You know, the country “where all people are equal,” “for liberty and justice for all,” “one nation undivided,” the country where once there was a viable “fourth estate,” and the President was honored, and the dollar was actually valuable, and politicians, whatever their party, were basically there to serve the public interest, the nation of which we were once so proud, “the shining beacon on the hill?” We were never without our problems, to be sure, but politicians worked together to solve them and we were all proud to be Americans. That country seems to have disappeared. We now live in shame and increasing poverty, and kiss the feet of our creditors, even our lives have become commodities as the corporations profit more from out deaths than from our labor.

LKBIQ:
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Epicurus

TILT:
Both male and female mountain goats have short tails, beards, and long black horns.