Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania. I’ve only been there once, to Philadelphia. I attended a meeting. But all I can remember is seeing a couple of people huddling over a steaming manhole cover. It was November. Cold. Other than that I know little of Pennsylvania. Even so, I’d bet that the people of Pennsylvania are every bit as smart as people anywhere else in the U.S. That is why I will go way out on a limb and predict that Obama will either win Pennsylvania or come close, much closer than anyone thinks. They will see through Clinton’s absurd claims about Obama being an elitist and herself being a down home country girl. Since she became desperate some time ago now, she has behaved in exaggerated ways to express herself, ways that I believe are so transparent as to be almost laughable. For example, her dramatic claims about her reaction to the assassination of Martin Luther King, her tale of sniper fire, and her attempts to mock Obama’s speeches, and now her downing shots of whiskey followed by a beer chaser and bowling. Some even believe her tears are false (I don’t, I’ll give her that as genuine). I believe she’s a great candidate when she sticks to the real issues, she’s obviously knowledgeable, has done her homework, comes across as a serious and thoughtful person. But when she attempts to be dramatic or sarcastic or mocking, she just falls flat. Whoever advised her to attack Obama instead of just doing what she does best, gave her some bad advice. I believe that for all intents and purposes her campaign will be over after Pennsylvania. Even her supporters like the Governor and Barney Frank are hinting it’s over. I think Bill and Hillary have badly damaged themselves in this campaign. How badly remains to be seen.

Michelle Obama was on the Colbert Report tonight. She was great. If Obama can survive the roviating he is being subjected to, and actually makes it to the White House, I will be incredibly proud of my country for the first time in years. Think of the importance of this. An African-American President with a black wife as first lady in the White House. Even if Obama should turn out to be a terrible President (which I doubt) it will send a message to all the world that we are not as bigoted and racist as they might think we are. It’ll be the greatest thing since the invention of making fire. And more importantly, Obama may in fact be the rare person who can actually end the “war” and also make progress on the intractable and endless Israeli/Palestinian problem, the root cause of most of the trouble in the Middle East. I may end up disappointed but for the first time in a long time I actually feel hopeful. I feel my natural cynicism beginning to fade. Naturally, if something goes wrong and Obama is denied the nomination I will be crushed. But I won’t be alone, the majority of the American public will feel the same way. What this might do to the country I hesitate to even contemplate. I feel the Great Mystery may have once again sent us a White Knight just in the nick of time.

LKBIQ:
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work. You don’t give up.”
Anne Lamott

The utterly absurd

Well, I think we may have done it, reached the utterly absurd. It’s hard to see how anything could get much more absurd that what is passing for a nomination battle. Here we have Hillary Clinton, daughter of a wealthy businessman, educated in the best schools, Wellesley and Yale, a successful lawyer, first lady of Arkansas and then first lady of the United States, now a Senator, who has, with her husband, earned 109 million dollars in the past few years, trying to paint her opponent, Obama, as an out-of-touch elitist, and herself as a good ‘ol gal’ that is in touch with the working class and chases her straight whiskey with beer. She apparently expects people to buy this ridiculous B.S.
Her opponent, by the way, was raised by a single mother and his grandparents, went to school on the GI Bill and scholarships, worked in the slums of Chicago helping the poor, and eventually became a Senator (in spite of being an African-American).

If this isn’t absurd enough, consider his other potential opponent, John McCain, not one to pass up a free ride when he sees it. McCain is the son and grandson of two Admirals (not exactly working class stiffs), he is married to an heiress worth apparently 100 million dollars or more and is reputed to own eight different houses. Piping in like an echo he, too, says Obama is an elitist. The MSM eat this up and are doing everything they can to keep the controversy going. Clinton, McCain, Obama, and the MSM all know this is complete and total crap but, of course, the MSM, Hillary, and McCain, think they see advantages in it so they just keep pushing it, all the while accusing Obama of “talking down” to ordinary citizens and “patronizing” them. Think about this. Can there be anything more patronizing and insulting to ordinary people than Hillary and McCain thinking they are stupid enough to fall for this line of complete bullshit? How stupid do they think we are? The answer is pretty godamn stupid. Anyone who becomes a candidate for President of the U.S. is either an elitist, surrounded by elitists, and on his or her way to becoming an elitist. I wish I could say some of my best friends are elitists but, alas, I have no such friends. In any case, I do not subscribe to the silly idea that what you want for President is a non-elitist, whisky swilling, beer drinking, bowling alley patron, who is just like me. I would like someone smarter, better educated, knowledgeable, on top of the issues, charismatic, and endowed with leadership capabilities. You want a President you’d like to drink beer with, count me out.

I feel I would be remiss in my (imaginary) duties if I did not refer Mr. Obama back to my blog of March 10, 2008. I suggested that what Mrs. Clinton was saying about him was basically irrelevant. Her whole strategy is to drive him crazy if possible. It is the illogic and unreasoning that is the core of her strategy. There is no point in trying to answer her charges because she will just introduce more irrationality into the exchange. Whatever Obama says, however sane and rational, will be met by even more irrationality on her part. If this were a domestic dispute it would eventually dissolve into a situation where either a frustrated Obama would result to physical violence or would withdraw into separation or divorce. Hillary is just goading, goading, goading him, trying to frustrate him to the point he’ll make a mistake, do something he shouldn’t, and then she’ll have him. With this strategy she potentially wins either way, he’ll be forced to give up or do something to disqualify himself. I fear that Obama may be getting sucked into this nasty business, he’s starting to answer back which will only provoke her to more absurd accusations and etc. On the other hand, I think Obama is aware of what she’s trying to do and so far has avoided being completely entrapped.

McCain, of course, is enjoying this no end and just going along for the free ride. If Hillary says Obama is an elitist, McCain just parrots it back. Why not, it all to his advantage (however damaging it is to the democratic party). Hillary can’t win, all other things now being equal, all she can do is try to ruin Obama. I don’t think she is going to succeed but if the public buys into her cornball image who knows?

I heard on Hardball, which I don’t usually watch, that Bill and Hillary are saying in private to the superdelegates that Obama can’t win against McCain because (1) he won’t get the Jewish vote, (2) he won’t get the blue collar vote, and (3) he won’t get the Hispanic vote. If true, this is just more Clinton nonsense. All three of these groups typically vote democratic in Presidential elections, there is no reason to suppose they will not do so this time whether it is Obama, Clinton, or whoever. It must be hard for the Clintons to have their “sure thing” turn out to be a failure, but it will be the best thing for our country. We don’t need dynasties, Clinton, Bush, or otherwise.

LKBIQ:
“If you go in for argument, take care of your temper. Your logic, if you have any, will take care of itself.”
Joseph Farrell

She doesn't get it

Teen goes for Guiness record,
blows up 213 balloons with his nose
in one hour. Mom and Dad help.

Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to get it. The more she carries on about Obama’s “bitterness” remark, the more ridiculous she becomes. Obama likened her to Annie Oakley. Sorry, she’s no Annie Oakley. She doesn’t shoot straight. She’s desperate. Very desperate. You can see it now in her eyes and her demeanor, she’s “losing it” I think. I’m beginning to feel sorry for her. I wonder, will the guys in the white coats have to come and take her away. She’s become a danger to herself and others (especially Obama). Sorry Bill, there’s not going to be any Clinton dynasty (or Bush/Clinton dynasty if that’s what you are really up to). You should give up now while you still have at least some semblance of respect.

Have you noticed how often John McCain says “my friends?” He says it a lot. When I hear it now it always comes across to me as “my uninformed friends,” or “my gullible friends,” or even as “my friends, the suckers.” Whatever, it certainly doesn’t strike me as being in the least bit friendly. It’s like, “my chumps,” let me tell you how things are, or “my inferiors whom I would like to think they think they are my friends,” for this particular business at hand. In any case, to me, this is the most insincere affectation being used these days by politicians. But, then, what would you expect? They are politicians. I am beginning to have renewed respect for used car salespersons.

I hadn’t realized that John Yoo was a tenured professor at Berkeley before he was called to Washington to write the torture memos. I should have. This explains why he is still at Berkeley despite his abominations. Tenure is a tough nut to crack, because tenure, contrary to what many believe, is not designed to insure permanent employment as such, but, rather, to guarantee and protect free speech in our universities (which is far too important to be taken lightly). Yoo is being called to explain to Congress the legal basis for his torture memos (which is highly questionable to say the least). Thus it will be most interesting to see how or if this will affect his professorship. Free speech is one thing, rampant dishonesty for political causes is another thing entirely (or at least it should be).

The wheels of justice turn slowly, it has been said. They certainly do. When it comes to justice in the U.S. one wonders if they are turning at all. Here we have a criminal conspiracy that has been running the country for the past eight years, blissfully ignoring the laws of the land as well as the Constitution and International Law as well, and nothing is being done about it. At least nothing that seems to be measurable in any way. Of course there have been and are investigations of various kinds, committees to look into this and that, threats of subpoenas, and so on, but nothing ever seems to come of any of it. Henry Waxman himself must be involved in dozens of different investigations, seems like a new one every few days, but I guess they are merely for show as once they supposedly begin we never hear any more about them. Our much vaunted separation of powers, designed for the three branches of government to oversee each other, doesn’t seem to function as planned. Perhaps because the founding fathers never thought there would be a situation in which criminals would take over all three branches, plus the Justice Department and the Supreme Court. Maybe, if we ever wiggle out of this morass, we should pay more attention in the future.

LKBIQ:
"The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is the duty of the living to do so for them."
Lois McMaster Bujold

That's it?

It appears to be true that all the big honchos in the Bush administration, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, et al, met in the White House to discuss the particulars of “intensive interrogation” (torture). That is, what techniques could be used and on whom. It seems strange to me that they would have done so. I mean, why couldn’t they just leave it up to the CIA, or whatever organization would ordinarily be responsible for such things? I can see no reason for their doing otherwise unless, perhaps, they were worried about the legality or illegality of what they were doing. As they seemingly didn’t mind ordering the worst, this would not seem to be the explanation. So were they, perhaps, just reveling in power, getting their jollies by doing this? Interesting that although Ashcroft knew what they were engaged in was improper he participated anyway (after all, he was only the Attorney General of the U.S.). He apparently said, “history will not look kindly on this.” I guess he must have felt like Bush, by the time history judges us we’ll all be dead. Bush has admitted that he knew about this. So that’s it? People at the highest levels of this administration participated in discussing and ordering torture, a clear war crime, and the President has now admitted to knowing about it. So that’s it? I mean, doesn’t anyone find this disturbing? Shouldn’t people be outraged? Shouldn’t these war criminals be brought to justice? Oh, I forgot, justice is no longer part of the democratic system here in the U.S. I confess this is about the most outrageous thing I have ever heard of and no one seems to care much. Maybe by the time the Bush/Cheney Brafia have all retired on their fortunes from war profiteering, someone, some historian, may actually inquire about this apparently not very important episode during the Nightmare Years. I guess in the interim the participants can meet annually to giggle about the “heady” old days when they had so much fun. Nothing “sick” about this, just good clean sport. More fun than shooting those pen raised, wing-clipped pheasants or shooting your hunting friend full in the face with buckshot. Hahahahaha.

I recommend that the candidates for the Presidency spend the rest of the time before the election arguing about whether people in Pennsylvania (or elsewhere) are bitter or not. Obama seems to think they are, Clinton and McCain don’t really think, they just grasp at straws. As one of the main definitions of bitter is “hard to accept or bear,” and as many of them have lost their jobs and in some cases their pensions as well, and more are probably losing their homes, you might think that would be hard to accept or bear. But maybe not, maybe like Clinton says, they’re just optimistic and hard-working people (apparently oblivious to their plight?). I guess they could spend a lot of time on whether or not Obama is just an “elitist” (like them), or whether he was “speaking down” to them (by pointing out the obvious), or whatever. Oh well, what’s another completely pointless and ridiculous argument, when there’s nothing else to talk about, like, Iraq, recession, health care, Iran, Israel/Palestine, or etc. Anyway, pay no attention to me, I’m just bitter and angry and I’m not even out of work. I’d like to say, I’m not going to take it any more, but what choice do I have? No one seems to be able to curb these people no matter how egregious, illegal, or unconstitutional their behavior becomes. I guess our new American motto has become, “just grin and bear it.”Aaaaagh!

LKBIQ:
“There are men in the world who derive as stern an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as others from success.”
Sir Winston Churchill

Sociology 101

Rats kept to feed her snakes
escape, multiply, take over
house. She is removed.

Barack Obama made an observation reflecting an obvious sociological truth: where you find anomie you find people bitter and angry and lashing out at the conditions they believe have something to do with it. Fortunately he did not use the term anomie itself. Had he done so the response probably would have been even more ridiculous. What he actually said was something to the effect that people in Pennsylvania, who have lost jobs and pensions over the past twenty-five years, under the past few administrations, are bitter and angry and that’s why they cling to (read vote for) guns, religion, and anti-immigration laws, etc. There are really two parts to this issue. First, are the people of Pennsylvania really angry and bitter. As fully 81% of people in the U.S. believe we are on the wrong track and desperately want change it might be reasonable to conclude that yes, they are angry and bitter. If you talk to them, as Obama obviously has, it no doubt brings this point home. The second part of this is more abstract, and this, I believe, is where Obama could have done better. That is, the connection between people voting for guns, against immigration, and turning to religion during periods of anomie, while doubtless true, probably cannot be explained easily in a few words to most people. Obama momentarily forgot to say it in a language that would have been more appropriate: people are pissed off as hell and won’t give up their guns to an administration that has screwed them over for years. Furthermore, they don’t want immigrants coming and taking the few jobs that are left to them. And gay marriages are an abomination against the bible, etc, etc., which is one of the few comforts left to them. Given what has been happening to them for years these sentiments are not hard to understand. In fact, they are entirely predictable.

Hillary Clinton, not one to fail to grasp at any passing straw, no matter how fragile, immediately accused Obama of “talking down” to the people of Pennsylvania. I guess that according to her they are not angry or upset at all, but, rather, optimistic and hard-working (those that still have jobs, I guess). Obama is portrayed as some kind of elitists, out of touch with the working class. If we are to take this seriously we have to conclude that Clinton has encountered a population entirely different from the one Obama has encountered. You also have to believe that telling people who are angry and bitter that they are angry and bitter, is somehow talking down to them. As presumably 81% or so of Pennsylvania citizens are as upset as the rest of us, it’s a pretty good bet they are angry and bitter. If not, the citizens of Pennsylvania are much better off than everyone else. And as far as Clinton and McCain accusing Obama of elitism goes, I doubt they are in a very good position to judge. Obama, raised by a single mother, with modest means, and years of experience working in the Chicago slums, is out of touch? I guess Clinton’s background of elite college, law schools, and years of living in the White House has kept her closely in touch with the “working class.” And McCain, the son and grandson of Admirals, with all his years in Congress, no doubt is also closely in touch with working stiffs. Who are they trying to kid? When you don’t have things going too well I guess any straw is better than nothing. This isn’t even a tempest in a teapot, but watch the MSM play it to death in the next few days. Obama said something intelligent, if slightly abstract, apparently too subtle for the average mind to grasp, and he will now be punished for it. Remember Adlai Stevenson and all those other “pointy-headed inellectuals” from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and places like that, what do they know. Is it any wonder that Obama’s supporters tend to be better educated than most? Watch out, we might elect someone with an education and a brain (for a change). Obama can’t even bowl, what kind of President could he be?

LKBIQ:
“America believes in education: the average professor earns more in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.”
Evan Esar

Worth it?

I have often wondered how we determine how things become “worth it.” For example, let’s say you’ve been eating a particular candy bar for years at, say, 25 cents. But then the price is raised to 30 cents. Okay, you will buy it. But how about 40 cents? Or fifty cents? Or even more? At what point do you decide it’s not worth it. And why? Is it a purely financial decision or do other things enter into the equation? Let me suggest a more complicated example. A number of years back a woman shot her husband to death as he was asleep on the couch. During the trial it turned out the man was an absolute bastard who punished his children so severely they would wet their pants. And he beat and abused his wife. She finally got sick of it and shot and killed him. At her trial she was acquitted, even though everyone knew she was guilty of murder. Of course you could argue special circumstances as, indeed, many did. But the prosecutor didn’t agree and insisted she had to be tried again. After some thought the county refused to try her again. Not because they thought there might not be further questions about her guilt and the circumstances but purely because they said it would cost too much money.

I bring this up now because on Buzzflash today there is a short piece about the possibility of bringing war crimes charges against Bush/Cheny/Rumsfeld/Rice/et al, who are now known to have held meetings in the White House detailing how prisoners should be interrogated (tortured). If this is true, they would clearly be guilty of serious war crimes. Of course they are already known to be guilty of war crimes because a pre-emptive attack on another nation that is no threat to you is a known war crime, as is torture, renditions, war profiteering, hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, etc., etc. That is to say, there is no doubt they are guilty. But some are arguing that trying them for war crimes, or even trying to try them for war crimes, would not be “worth it.” This is not an argument that has anything to do with the financial cost, mind you, but, rather, with the cost in time and energy that would be involved. That is, they argue, it would take valuable time away from, say, passing universal health care, or trying to save the economy, or so on. One could argue, I suppose, that it would, in fact, be too expensive (in money). But what is the difference in the question of cost, money or time? And, more importantly, what about the morality involved? It would seem to me that in a case of war crimes, when you are speaking of the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people, including non-combatant women and children, there is a moral imperative involved. The cost in time and/or money has to be completely irrelevant in this context. How could anyone excuse the illegal mass murder of thousands, and the torture of who knows how many, on any grounds whatsoever? To quote someone or other, “this isn’t beanbags you know.” To me, even the suggestion that such monsters should go unaccountable for their actions betrays a moral bankruptcy so profound as to be virtually inhuman. To excuse such behavior on the grounds that we don’t have the time or money for it is totally unacceptable. Congress has already used this as an excuse for not impeaching Bush/Cheney, will they be allowed to just walk away from this more powerful moral imperative? If so, I believe there is no hope whatsoever for the U.S. to be forgiven or to ever take their place again in civilized society. This is a rare case, I believe, where it is absolutely and unquestionably “worth it “

LKBIQ:
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Edmund Burke

Pelosi

C’mon Nancy, be reasonable. Nancy Pelosi has got her dander up (so to speak) about Tibet and the way China is violating Tibertan civil rights and such. Perhaps that is very commendable, but what about civil rights here at home? Bush/Cheney are known war criminals. Virtually the entire world knows this. It is quite clear-cut, not doubts about it. But Pelosi has gone out of her way to protect these war criminals. Her famous line, “impeachment is off the table,” is well known. One might well ask, isn’t it just a teeny weeny bit hypocritical to be so worked up about a dispute between China and Tiber over civil rights while actively protecting such violations here in the U.S.? It might also be pointed out that had Pelosi and Congress acted two or three years ago (or even more), thousands of lives would have been saved and millions of people would be by now far better off than they are. Not only has she refused to consider impeachment (which, I believe to be a violation of her Constitutional duty), she has also been complicit in funding and refunding this illegal “war.” Congress could have, and should have, cut off funding long ago which would have ended this miserable and unnecessary business. Our troops could have been home and our much depleted military could have been revitalized instead of barely hanging on and doing repeated tours of duty (now having to fight alongside 10% of troops that shouldn’t even be in the military). Perhaps she believes that by fussing about Tibet she can draw our attention away from her disgraceful performance as leader of the House. Bush/Cheney are war criminals. Pelosi has been defending them. What does that make her?

Billions of dollars have been wasted in Iraq. Even assuming that the billions that have actually been spent for tanks and planes and such, have not (in some sense) been wasted, billions more have truly been wasted. No one even knows where they have gone. Most of those billions can probably be traced to war profiteers of one kind or another, wasted in that way. But there are some that literally are unaccounted for. Indeed, the Pentagon loses a billion or so this way every year. It just seems to vanish. With that in mind, reflect for a moment on the fact that at this time 44 cents of every tax dollar is going for defense. Well, you say, defense is important. Well, yes I agree, it is important. But it is also important to know what it is we are defending ourselves from. While I am hardly an expert on national defense or the military I simply do not believe we need to spend almost half of all our tax dollars defending ourselves from “terrorists,” probably armed with box cutters or screwdrivers, or perhaps even a small explosive device in the heel of someone’s shoe. In fact, it is obvious that all that money is being spent on armaments and equipment to defend us from threats that don’t even exist. No nation on earth is preparing to attack the U.S. with planes, submarines, battleships, or nuclear bombs. None. And as it is highly unlikely we are about to be attacked from outer space by squadrons of flying saucers, perhaps we should reconsider how we are spending our money. Of course with unemployment rising and people losing their homes and the price of oil and food escalating to the speed of sound, if not light, soon no one will be able to pay taxes. So hurrah! The problem will solve itself. The free market has a way of making things right, right? Right.

Another feature of American culture I find absurd has to do with venison and wildfowl, especially Canadian geese. You very rarely can find a restaurant that serves venison in the United States, and if you do the venison probably comes from New Zealand. Yes, in New Zealand deer are raised commercially and pretty commonly served in restaurants. Even in Germany and Austria and other countries you can often find venison on the menu. You can also find wild boar. Why can we not have venison in our markets here, along with pork, beef and lamb (and wild boar)? You can once in a great while in specialty restaurants but they are few. Surely this is not because we have a shortage of deer. Indeed, thousands of deer are killed on the highways every year, many thousands. In some parts of the country, like here in North Idaho, there are so many deer they are basically just pests. It’s true that people hunt them both for food and sport, but this doesn’t seem to keep their numbers down. Why shouldn’t people be able to raise them for food? We do, of course, have a few Elk farms but, interestingly enough, you hardly ever see Elk on a menu either. Part of this, I guess, has to do with their designation as game animals. So you can hunt and kill them for sport or food but you cannot sell the meat (even though road kill is often picked up and donated to various restoriums and such, and I’m sure it is even illegally sold at times). As there is such a surplus of deer it seems absurd that we cannot enjoy venison. A similar situation arises in the case of Canadian geese. There are so many of these delicious creatures that they have become a genuine nuisance in many areas. People have tried all kinds of ingenious ways to get rid of them but they continue to thrive and foul parks and gold courses and lawns and whatever. They are very different from domestic geese in that they have virtually no fat and thus are much better for you than the domestic variety. Why should they not be raised commercially? Of course if you were to allow people to hunt and kill deer and geese for sale it would have to be regulated. People, being what they are, would otherwise quickly bring them to extinction like we did with the Passenger Pigeon and almost succeeded in doing to the bison (we’re doing a pretty good job of extinguishing the salmon, too). Anyway, we have these creatures in abundance, even in superabundance in some areas, so why not. I chalk it up to just another of the absurdities of American culture. By the way, we have succeeded beyond expectations in bringing back wolves. People here can’t wait to get out and kill them. We don’t eat them, we just kill them after we bring them back from the edge of extinction. This is considered “sport.” I guess the sport consists of find one to shoot. If you find one it’s like shooting a dog. Oh well, I guess hunters who get their jollies by shooting captured Elk and other “game,” in game farms, probably do the same by shooting dogs. Hey, now that I think about it, how come we don’t raise dogs for food? Some people do. Go figure. We do raise some horses for food. We don’t eat them, we just ship the meat to France. Oh well…

LKBIQ:
“The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.”
Frank Zappa

Deja vu

Yes, yes, I’m afraid it’s true. Déjà vu all over again. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker put on their performance for Congress today. They could have just replayed last year’s performance. Yes, some progress is being made, but it is very slow and not uniform. Yes, al-Quaida is a big threat, but not as big as it was. We need to take a pause for 45 days and then assess just where we are before we can say anything about withdrawing troops. Some political progress is being made but it is still not satisfactory. Iran continues to meddle in our meddling. No, we don’t have any idea when we can withdraw our troops from Iraq, it depends upon things on the ground. No, we don’t know how to define success. We should just stay the course and figure it out later. No, the agreement we are seeking with Iraq to maintain troops there for an indeterminate time does not need the approval of Congress. We’re not seeking permanent bases in Iraq, just an enduring presence. Let’s just leave it all up to General Petraeus (and to hell with anyone else who has a different opinion, they are all expendable). No, we can’t just pull our troops out precipitously, that might cause chaos (instead of the order we have now in Iraq). There might even be a civil war (as opposed to what is happening now). I know they’re sending mortar rounds and stuff into the Green Zone, but it must be the Iranians because we know the Iraqis really want us to stay and occupy their country.

In other words, nothing much has changed in the past year, we still don’t know what the hell we’re doing, so we’ll just stall for more time (and lots more money and deaths). Besides, McCain still hasn’t figured out the difference between Shia and Sunni, maybe if he has more time. At a pro-war rally today (can you believe it, a pro-war rally) a McCain supporter said “you’ve got Tiger Woods but we’ve got John McCain.” I still can’t figure out what the hell that is supposed to mean. But if that’s the choice, give me Tiger Woods every time. Was the guy equating Obama with Tiger Woods because they’re both part black? Was it meant to be a racial slur? Was it just his mouth working without engaging his brain? Whatever it was, McCain liked it enough to give the guy a hug. Weird goings on. How could anyone attend a pro-war rally? Why not a death and destruction rally? A let’s kill a lot of women and children rally? How about an, I’m a warmongering ghoul rally? A pro-war rally has to be the sickest most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard about). It won’t be long before they stage their pro-torture rally, or their let’s poke their eyes out rally, or maybe their let’s blow off some arms and legs rally. Where do these kinds of slavering sadists come from?

You don’t think this gambit to delay any further decisions about what to do in Iraq has anything to do with Bush’s obvious desire to pass the problem on to the next President, do you? You don’t think his desire to cut a deal with Iraq to let us maintain an ongoing troop presence there is designed to commit the next President to this unpopular “war,” do you? You don’t think all that oil in Iraq has anything to do with it, do you?

Interesting that Bill Clinton is involved in some way with the proposed Columbia trade deal and/or is all for it, whereas Hillary is opposed to it. You know, the one that her main advisor, Penn, was trying to get as a client so he could promote it, even though Hillary was against it. He was supposedly fired, but wasn’t, and is still active as an advisor to her. You don’t think Hillary is devious, do you? I wonder how many other things Bill and Hillary disagree about. Can’t you just imagine them in the White House again, bickering constantly about money and policy. A big potential for domestic violence and abuse there. I suggest that if Hillary should miraculously end up in the White House as our President, she should have to have Bill put into a blind trust so he has nothing whatsoever to do with anything.

:LKBIQ:
“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”
Jeannette Rankin

PERPS

Bubblehead: So nice to have you back. I worried that something might have happened to you. I don’t know what the world would do without your absolute dedication to the facts. Obviously I should have said Admiral Fallon rather than General Fallon (I confess that in most contexts Admirals and Generals are all the same to me, not being a dedicated military person). It is true, I believe, that Fallon was a superior officer to Petraeus. I believe it is also true that Fallon resigned (probably forced) because he resisted the Bush/Cheney desire to (perhaps) go to war against Iran. He also is on record of not having a very high opinion of Petraeus. As many believe Petraeus may be more amendable to such a strategy, in that sense he is presumably replacing Fallon in the eyes of Bush/Cheney. That he is not taking over the entire Command is not really the point although I suppose I should have made that clear (frankly, I don’t see that it matters much with respect to the Iran situation). I, Morialekafa, did not say I thought we were going to war with Iran, merely that some people do. Personally, I don’t think even your beloved Brafia is that stupid (although going by past experience they might be). In any case, if Morialekafa is not up to your obviously higher standards of truth and beauty, perhaps you should stop reading it.

Getting away from the ongoing absurdities of the “war” in Iraq and the equally absurd election campaigns for a moment (not an easy thing to do these days), let me fantasize about my idea for the Personal Experience Recovery and Preservation System (PERPS). I have always been an avid reader of biography and autobiography. It is perfectly obvious that no biography or autobiography can possibly deal with the entire life experience of any individual person, no matter how “average” or “inconsequential” a person may have been. A complete account of any person’s life would require the equivalent of several thousands of volumes, and may or may not be worth the effort. Thus all biographies are selective, extremely so, just focusing on things that the biographer or autobiographer thinks were significant. At the same time they invariably omit things the person does not want other to know about. No one could ever write a completely truthful biography or autobiography because everyone’s life contains experiences that were embarrassing, illegal, inappropriate, gauche, stupid, unconscionable, or whatever. Thus the sum total of a person’s experience is lost when they die. It is not their soul that leaves the body but, rather, all those experiences they have had. Why is this important? Because of culture. The essence of culture is that human experience and knowledge can be transmitted extragenetically from generation to generation. It is this capacity that makes it possible for naked apes like us to actually survive and compete on the world stage. It saves us time and energy as it makes it possible to not just have to discover things new over and over again. Things that were solved by experience in previous generations can be transmitted to us, thus enabling us to avoid having to do that. But because of the limitations of biography, fully 99% (perhaps even more) of a human’s experiences just evaporate when they die. So think of just how more powerful culture and its transmission would be if we could recover all that personal experience instead of a mere fraction of it, and preserve it for the following generations. Naturally a lot of it would be repetitive and superfluous, but there would doubtless be some true gems of knowledge and experience that would otherwise be lost. We need some kind of machine or device or system for capturing and sorting this lost experience, something that could be hooked up to the person just before death that would record and preserve all the best of it for mankind at large. This assumes, of course, that the experience a person has during his or her lifetime is preserved somewhere, however consciously, unconsciously or subconsciously, in that unusually large brain (this might not work for members of the Brafia). Fantastic? Of course. But more fantastic than time machines, black holes, people from outer space, world peace, or Bush/Cheney telling the truth? I don’t think so. Instead of spending billions more on clever and diabolical ways to kill each other, let’s work on it.

LKBIQ:
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Alan Kay

Just another liar?

Hillary Clinton. I fear the truth is not in her. Now she has been caught trying to tell us she was a critic of the Iraq war before Barack Obama. Not true. This was after she gave us her account of landing under sniper fire in Bosnia. Not true. She has been using an anecdote about a pregnant woman being denied care because she didn’t have the $100 for a visit. Not true. She has claimed she did not support NAFTA when it was introduced. Not true. She has lied, or at least grossly exaggerated her experience, claiming to have been involved in the Irish truce procedure. Not true. She opposes a trade agreement with Columbia while her chief advisor was meeting with the Columbian Ambassador, who was hiring him to promote it (he has as of today finally been fired). She has also claimed all along that she is better prepared to be President from “day one” than Obama which, depending upon how you want to look at it, is also probably not true. And when she claims Obama is not ready to be President she overlooks the fact that neither was her husband or Ronald Reagan. In addition to all this, she has been doing everything she can to change the rules in the middle of the election game, making claims that are both far-fetched and false. She pretends to be for the working stiff while pulling down millions with her husband. And she is also financed heavily by the very corporations she says she will challenge. So what do we make of this? She’s a politician, but not a very good one? She certainly doesn’t deserve the Presidency (unless you desperately want another George W. (prevaricator supreme) for the job.

There is more talk now about a “war” with Iran. Some believe that General Petraeus is going to lead the way next week now that he has replaced General Fallon who was his superior officer and wouldn’t do as Bush/Cheney wanted. If this should happen, god forbid, it will be another completely illegal war against a nation that is no threat to the U.S. I would like to know just who is going to fight this war – our exhausted troops in Iraq? Probably not, they’ll be too busy trying to stay alive in Iraq when Muqtada al-Sadr gives the word to attack our troops there. Will any European nations provide troops – they don’t even want to provide them for Afghanistan. Is this talk of war just that, talk. I sincerely hope so. If not, it will make the worst foreign policy blunder in American history look like a brilliant decision.

How much longer will this Hillary farce continue? The only reason I can see why she continues to behave as she is, is because she wants Obama to get the nomination and then lose to McCain, giving her and her corporate sponsors a chance in 2012. They can all afford to wait it out, they’re all rolling in dough after conning us for the past eight years. Let’s get rid of the DLC once and for all. Vote for Obama!

Our Congressman Bill Sali is the most consistent fellow around. He always, well, almost always, votes “no.” And he’s always in a minority. Now he voted against a bill sponsored by some Republican that would have funded conservation and management of ocean resources. I guess he didn’t think that was a good thing (this vote was passed 308 to 60).. He also voted against a bill to fight Aids, tuberculosis, and malaria. Well, I suppose that’s not a good thing either (it passed 308 to 116). Don’t you wonder just who it is Bill is voting for? Does he have a constituency somewhere in outer space that we don’t know about? VOTE LARRY GRANT FOR CONGRESS!!

LKBIQ:
“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”
Plato

Pleading?

I hope I saw this wrong. Or perhaps I was having a bad dream. Maybe I was hallucinating. I could, I suppose, simply be losing my mind entirely. Anyway, I thought I saw yesterday somewhere (probably either on buzzflash or the smirking chimp) that Congress had sent a letter to Bush pleading with him to not leave the war to the next President. Yes, “pleading,” was the precise word I saw. I am having trouble believing this, hence my confusion over my state of mind. First, why should Congress be “pleading” with Bush? They could demand he not leave the war to the next President. They could order him not to do so. They could suggest he not do so. They could even take action to insure that he not do so. So what’s with this pleading crap? Is our Congress so mealy-mouthed, so timid, so afraid, so senseless, so ridiculous, so stupid, so helpless, they have to “plead” with the worst President in American History, with the lowest ratings ever, not to do something? This I find unbelievable. They could have ended this disastrous “war” a long time ago. They could just have withheld any further funds which would have brought the troops home quickly. They could have impeached this pitiful excuse for President and his Rasputin-like sidekick a long time ago. They have done nothing, nothing, to end this ridiculous, nonsensical “war.” And now, at this relatively late moment, they are pleading with Bush to end it, knowing full well he is going to do no such thing. Of course he’s waiting to pass it on to the next President, that’s been his obvious strategy for a long time. If this is true it has to be the most cowardly, timid, asinine thing I have ever seen or heard about. Please tell me I’m hallucinating, I can’t stand any more.

Books. I love books. I love reading books. I love having books, touching them, holding them, admiring them, owning them. I have been an avid reader all my life. Thus I am distressed to learn that fewer adults are buying books this year than last year. I am even more distressed to learn that only 51% (I think it was) of adults bought books year before last and only 49% this year. I learned today that the book business has become so bad that Borders Books, a huge chain of bookstores, is trying to sell out. And of course I have known for a long time that small bookstores have been closing for years. This is partly due to the fact that the big box stores like Cosco and others have been selling books so cheap that even the huge Bookstores like Borders can’t compete. But there is another, more insidious reason, Americans just don’t read much. It is part of the overall anti-intellectualism that is such a part of America. Book larnin’ just ain’t a good thing in American culture. Teachers are not a good thing (people who can’t do something themselves teach it, so the saying goes). “Pointy headed intellectuals,” college perfesssors, types like that think they know it all. I know a man, and I think he is not atypical, that boasts he has never read an entire book in his life. I’m sure his friends don’t read either. Whatever it is they think they know they get from Rush Limbaugh and pass it on between themselves. Of course TV and the internet have something to do with it. But I think this may be overrated. I don’t doubt that many people just prefer watching TV to reading, that has to be true, but I don’t think many people actually read books on the internet, even people who do read. Even with the advent of laptops I don’t think taking your laptop and reading under the trees is a real substitute for books. I find the idea of having a non-reading public actually frightening and I wonder what will happen to us. When you also consider that about 50% of urban high-schoolers don’t graduate you might truly be frightened. Anti-intellectualism has been rampant in America for a long time. If we truly wish to survive in the modern world, and compete with other nations, we had better do something to reverse this trend before it is too late.

Books are readily available, more available than ever before. You can buy great books, books of all kinds, through the internet, for peanuts now, for one dollar, bargains galore. They are great entertainment as well as informative and useful. And they are less expensive even than going to a movie. Perhaps one good thing might result from the current recession – people might begin to read more. Books are our friends.

LKBIQ:
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
Charles W. Eliot

That's all?

Man climbing six foot wire
fence with backpack full of
beer slips and hangs himself.


Hillary Clinton, that faithful champion of the working class, who understands their problems and knows how to solve them, only made, along with Bill, 109 million dollars in the past seven years. That’s barely more than 15 million a year. Pitiful. As I understand it, that doesn’t even include last year’s loot. Bill Clinton himself made over 50 million just giving speeches. I don’t know where all those working stiffs got the money to pay him. It must be pleasant to be among the nouveau riche and hobnob with the Bush’s and others who wouldn’t give them the time of day back in the good ol’ Arkansas days. I don’t begrudge the Clintons some good money, they deserve it, at least some of it, but I do resent Hillary trying to present herself in Pennsylvania as a populist. It’s amazingly clever how she has managed to portray herself as a champion of the underclass and convert Obama into an elitist. Politics moves in mysterious ways.

Someone asked why is John Yoo still a professor at Berkeley. A better question might be how did he get to be one in the first place? It can’t be because of his astute interpretations of the law. After writing his clever torture memos and being exposed I wonder that he has the nerve to show himself in public. In addition to posting signs warning of child molesters we should consider signs warning about the presence of war criminals.

Usually the history and accomplishments are written by the winners. Thus if we win in Iraq there will be no war criminals. But we aren’t winning. So who is going to write up the facts about Iraq? Will it include any war criminals? Will Bush/Cheney and their Brafia thugs be able to move freely about the world, vacationing in France and Germany, skiing in Switzerland, dining in Italy? Or will they, like Kissinger, be afraid to go there for fear of being arrested? Oh, I hope so. Let’s keep; ‘em here where we can keep an eye on them at least. It won’t do to let them inflict any more misery on the world. Maybe we should consider a war crimes tax.

Obama has apparently raised money from 1,270,000 individuals at an average clip of 96 bucks each. How is it we aren’t told about Hillary’s fund raisers? For the same reason, I guess, that we aren’t going to be given the latest intelligence reports on Iraq and Afghanistan. We can just accept what Petraeus tells us and like it (“when you’re slapped you’ll just take it and like it”). Our Secretary of Defense has announced that in 2009 we will be sending more troops to Afghanistan, whether there are fewer in Iraq or not. It’s not clear where those troops will be coming from, nor is it clear why he’s talking about 2009 when he presumably won’t still be Secretary of Defense. Or….oh my god.

At the moment a mere 81% of Americans think we are on the wrong track in what Bush/Cheney are doing. Only 81%, gee, that’s not a lot. With 19% still going for them they can no doubt stick it out forever, which they are clearly intending to do with the help from our cowardly, useless, stupid, spineless, ass-kissing Congress who can’t even stir themselves to consider impeaching, arguably, the most evil man on the planet. Perhaps we should have a day of mourning for our defunct government. We can all smear ourselves with ashes, all 81% of us, and walk around all day banging on pots and pans. Do you think that might get some attention. Naw, probably not, some ditzy blond will get stoned and run into a lamppost or something. If Jeremiah Wright wants to say “god damn America,” I say go for it Jeremiah.

LKBIQ:
“Anger at lies lasts forever. Anger at truth can’t last.”
Greg Evans

The bleat goes on

Jeremy told 18 year old goldilocks
it was okay to sleep in their bed.
They didn’t know any Jeremy.

Well, the bleat goes on, and on, and on. What will the MSM do when this #$@%$&*$#@ election is over, go out of business? Clinton is behind in delegates, behind in popular vote, behind in states won. Obama is gaining delegates, gaining in Pennsylvania, raising twice as much money, getting more and more endorsements. She continues to insist she is going to win and that Obama can’t win against McCain. The MSM continue to humor her. The bleat goes on.

Iraq is a complete and utter disaster and failure. The surge has failed. Iran is taking over and calling the shots. Moqtada al-Sadr is controlling the level of violence. Nouri al-Maliki, our puppet, is weak and failing. We have accomplished nothing and spent a trillion in our spectacular failure. General Odom says the only thing to do is to get out of Iraq as soon and painlessly as possible. Bush/Cheney/McCain insist things are going well and the surge is a success. The bleat goes on.

A new memo from the demented lawyer, John Yoo, has surfaced. It is now clear that the orders for torture came from the top down. The claim it was only a few low-level bad apples has been exposed for the ridiculous nonsense it was. Bush says we don’t torture. Mukasey refuses to label torture, torture. It would make Bush/Cheney war criminals (which they clearly are). Congress is remarkably silent about all this and refuses to even consider impeachment. I guess they like war criminals. Anyway, the bleat goes on.

All we peasants know there is a recession. Bernake says maybe there will be one. They use taxpayer money to bail out Bear Sterns but won’t help individual homeowners (it’s all their own fault for being so stupid). Banks have nothing to do with it. Innocent banks with their usurious interest rates and unconscionable banking sleight-of-hand fees and charges. We need to give Wall Street more power to oversee themselves. The bleat goes on.

Condi Rice tells Israel to let up on the Palestinians. They agree to remove some road blocks. Condi is pleased. Israel then announces they are going to ad 1400 illegal new houses/apartments on the West Bank. Condi is silent. Bush is silent. Cheney is silent. Congress is silent. Clinton’s position paper on the Israeli situation doesn’t even mention Palestinians and favors building the wall. U.S. favoritism continues. If the U.N. is displeased no one knows about it. Israeli colonialism continues unabated. The bleat goes on.

John Conyers demands answers from the Attorney General about his 9/11 comments. Is anyone keeping track of how many demands Conyers has made in the past couple of years? Does anyone know if any one of his demands has ever been met? Similarly, how many different investigations has Waxman begun? Has even a single one ever been completed? The investigations are always announced but then they just disappear never to be heard of again. By the way, whatever happened to Wexler’s attempt to get Cheney impeached? That seems to have just disappeared as well. Does anyone in Congress ever do anything except announce they are going to do something (that never happens)? Pelosi condemns China over their treatment of Tibet but ignores the Bush/Cheney illegal war crimes against Iraq. The bleat goes on, and apparently will continue to do so until we are all dead and long gone.

This blog was fun when it first started several years ago. Now it has degenerated into political rants against this horrible administration. Can’t we please get this unpleasantness over with and go back to when it was possible to laugh once in a while? Having lived a pretty long time, and having witnessed a lot of trouble and misery, I confess I have never seen anything like these nightmare years of the 21st century. If Bush/Cheney escape accountability for their multiple and blatant war crimes I think I shall never recover. Have decency and justice become completely passé?

LKBIQ: “Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.”
Frank Dane

What if...

I don’t usually go in for hypotheticals, but I’m making an exception for this evening. What if Hillary Clinton loses in Pennsylvania? Don’t laugh, I think this is a possibility. Three more weeks is plenty of time for the Obama charm and he has steadily been making inroads into her lead. He has also picked up an important endorsement and the Governor of Pennsylvania, a Hillary supporter, has made a fool of himself claiming that Fox News has been totally fair and balanced. Hillary has said she is going to take her candidacy all the way to the convention. If she were to lose Pennsylvania, supposedly her strongest state, will she still pursue that hopeless goal? She is already losing superdelegates to Obama, and several important voices have urged her to get out of the race now, so will she continue to defy reality? Are she and Bill just some of those people who can’t (or won’t) take a hint?

Read Dr. J’s commentary on buzzflash today and you will see a potential explanation for why she continues to run. Remember that whatever else is going on, this is fundamentally a contest between the DLC and the DNC. The DLC, of course, is Bill and Hillary’s organization, the Brafia lite part of the Democratic party, the big money, corporate funded organization that has supported Bill and Hillary all along. If she loses out in her campaign it will mean the end of the DLC. The DNC, under the guidance of Howard Dean and his 50 state strategy will have won and thus the ownership, so to speak, of the democratic party will have changed hands. The Clintons will be out. Obama, Dean, Gore, and others will be in. The only thing left for the Clintons will be to split the party which they seem willing to do. This explains the desperation we are seeing now on the part of both Bill and Hillary. Their belief that the nomination was Hillary’s by right has been ruptured by the success of the upstart Obama. Bill has taken to turning red and shaking his finger at the superdelegates that don’t see things his way. Hillary looks very tired and her eyes are taking on the look of sheer desperation. They apparently know they are going down and are grasping at straws. Don’t be surprised if Obama comes very close in Pennsylvania or actually wins it outright.

The MSM pundits are starting to claim that Obama is going to suffer from his connection to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The Brafia is going to repeat this over and over and Obama will continue to have to deal with it. I don’t think this will fly for the Brafia because both Hillary and McCain are too vulnerable themselves. Remember that Hillary belongs to the “Fellowship,” a secret religious-type organization whose membership is composed mostly of ultra-right wingers, and she has belonged for quite a long time. Not only that the Pastor of the church she apparently attends has been indicted for child sexual abuse. McCain is getting support from two or more of the most far out wingnuts there are, Magee and Parsons. These two make the Reverend Wright look like a schoolboy. While we aren’t hearing much about them from the MSM at the moment, that cannot last if they continue to focus on Obama/Wright.

General Odom has now said the best thing we can do in Iraq is get out as quickly as possible. It will be most interesting to see what cock-and-bull story Petraeus is going to give Congress this time. If ever there were lost causes, Afghanistan and Iraq would have to lead the list. Both of these countries are little more than pits of shame where we just keep throwing away lives and money for no conceivable useful purpose. Short of somehow raising a million man army or perhaps an even larger one, there is simply no way we can accomplish anything worthwhile in either country. Bush/Cheney and our Congress don’t care, after all, it’s good for business, like the multi-billion dollar submarine we’re building to fight the al Quaida navy, or paying for all the faulty ammunition we’ve been sending to Afghanistan. What recession/depression? The military/industrial/political complex is thriving. McCain says we need more military, more troops, more everything. Soon we’ll only be able to give blood. If anyone tells you we need more money for the military try not to dissolve in hysterical laughter.

LKBIQ:
“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our Bones are Scattered - book

Drinks to 3:00 a.m., wakes up
in garbage composter, yells, is
saved, doesn’t remember.

I have just finished reading Our Bones are Scattered by Andrew Ward. This is a history of the Cawnpore massacre of 1857 in India and its terrible aftermath. If you want information on man’s inhumanity to man (and women and children), look no further. For hatred, violence, arson and murder it would be hard to beat this horrible tale of senseless bloodshed. It’s right up there with King Leopold’s Ghost which I mentioned before. Let me explain before you conclude that I am the ghoul of Bonners Ferry that I have been working on a book about savages and savagery so this type of reading is necessary. Personally, I much prefer Maugham, Steinbeck, Orwell, and Conrad.

It seems to me a President has to be truly unpopular to get booed when throwing out the first pitch of the season. But George W. Bush managed it. You have to give him credit for unbelievable chutzpah. Ordinary people in his position wouldn’t deign to show their face in public. He seems oblivious to the fact that he is despised by most of his countrymen, a talent that Hillary Clinton is apparently beginning to share.

The good people of Pennsylvania could stop this unpleasant business between Clinton and Obama. All they would have to do is vote for Obama in large numbers to send a message to Clinton that the fat lady is singing. The superdelegates could also end it right now if they would all come out and give their votes to Obama. This appears to be happening, but by a slower pace than necessary. Maybe she’s waiting until she can raise enough money to pay her bills. Nobody likes a deadbeat. Lots of people seem to like liars.

Obama should avoid bowling alleys. My son could do better than 37 in 7 frames when he was three years old. Obama in a bowling alley is like George W. at NASCAR. Please Barack, stick to hoops. Speaking of hoops, I’m rooting for UCLA. Go Bruins!

Tomorrow is April Fool’s Day. Here at Sandhill it is cold and we still have snow on the ground We usually plant potatoes, peas, and broad beans in April. I dunno about this year. Maybe before the end of the month? The deer are already around the house looking to eat the tulips. They love tulips. The wild turkeys were pecking at the window until we stuck a political sign in it. I guess they don’t like politics. Maybe it’s just democrats they don’t like.

REMEMBER! VOTE LARRY GRANT FOR CONGRESS!!!

LKBIQ:
“The truth is cruel, but it can be loved and it makes free those who have loved it.”
George Santayana

Defining moments

Pastor tells wife he’s going to
have his computer fixed, is
found days later in strip club.

Bush says that the battle in Iraq between the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr and the government of Nouri al-Maliki is a “defining moment” in the Iraq travesty. I’m not sure if this is the 50th defining moment for Bush or the 73rd, but there have certainly been many claimed in the last eight years of this ongoing farce. Frankly, I don’t believe Bush would know a defining moment if it jumped up and bit him in the butt. Bush thinks it is a defining moment because al-Maliki’s presumably loyal government troops have taken on al-Sadr’s militia on their own. That is, without U.S. support. But they haven’t, as they did call on the U.S. for help and received it. This means the U.S. is now involved in an Iraqi civil war on the side of our puppet government, which is very cozy with Iran, the same Iran we are trying to keep out of Iraq. How else could our puppets stay in power? Oh well, defining moment, defining schmoment.

I should think that defining moments are more like the American revolution, the Civil War, the Emacipation Proclaimation, World War II, and giving women the right to vote. You know, truly important landmarks in American history. What I believe will be the next truly defining moment in American history will be the swearing in of Barack Hussein Obama as President of the United States. This will be the crowning achievement of the American attempt to provide equality and justice for all. We have come a long way in race relations in this country. While racism undeniably still exists it certainly is not as bad as it was. We no longer have separate bathrooms and restaurants, blacks have made great contributions to business, entertainment, sports, and other fields, they are far more visible as successful, normal people (in spite of the hatemongers like Rush, Coulter, Hannity and others), we see them now everyday in places they would never have been seen before, and we have successfully passed hate crimes legislation, and so on. But I have no doubt that lurking in the subconsciousness of many white Americans is the belief that somehow blacks are in some ways inferior. This is a paradigm that has defined Western-European and American ideology since at least the 16th century. It was responsible in large measure for the unbelievable brutality of European and American colonialism, leading to the murder, arson, rape, torture, and humiliation of untold millions in the name of salvation, civilization, and progress. If Obama is elected and sworn in it will mean, hopefully, the final step in realizing equality in America. Of course there will no doubt remain some hard-core morons, who, because they are morons, will have to have someone to pretend is worse off than they are. Eventually, even these will have to give up their nonsensical ideas of superiority. Not only will Obama’s coronation be a monumentally defining moment in America, it will also send a message, loud and clear, that we here in the U.S. are serious about seeking equality and opportunity for everyone. I fear the expectations for Obama will be so great he will not possibly be able to live up to them. But the problems facing our next President are so great, and in many ways intractable we must be patient and do our part. If we can just get rid of the wicked witch we’ll at least be on our way to solving them and restoring the U.S. to its rightful position as a beacon of hope for all and a respected member of the international community once again.

With all due respects to women and their aspirations, there is no doubt their time will come and we will soon have a female President. Women have already achieved this exalted position in many countries of the world and the idea of a woman for President is not even unusual anymore. It is unfortunate that Hillary has perhaps made it more difficult for women to seek this office but it will surely come. And it will also be a defining moment for America. I do not think it represents the same incredible landmark or defining moment as having a black President but I surely will welcome it when it comes.

LKBIQ:
“Civilization degrades the many to exalt the few.”
Amos B. Alcott

Julian Guest Blog VP and General Election Predictions

Hi, this is Julian, I’m Lew’s son. And I don’t have my own blog, but as a hopeless political junkie all my thoughts sometimes start to overwhelm me and I need to get them out, so my pa has graciously allowed me to post a guest blog on Morialekafa tonight.
I am a student at University of Washington in Seattle right now. I am gonna graduate next spring hopefully. And then I plan on going to law school eventually. But I also want to run for the state legislature, or any office, in 2010, or at the latest like 12 or 14. I am absolutely obsessed with running for office. I want to run for something so badly!!! I would die to be running for congress this year. Well, as long as Obama is at the top of the ticket. If Hillary is the presidential nominee I think congressional nominees in Idaho and the rest of the west and all swing districts can kiss their chances of going to Washington goodbye.
Anyway, I was also the county captain for the Obama Campaign in Boundary County, Idaho, where we got 76% for Obama I think. And im a delegate to the state convention in June, which I am really looking forward to.
But yeah, in this post I wanted to basically rant about how selfish the Clinton’s are and how they are ruining the democratic party(!), and talk about who I think might end up being the vice presidential selections, and finally, talk about what I think will happen in terms of the general election and the electoral college and who will win which states.


One Hillary Clinton

I was never that big a fan of the Clinton’s. But throughout the course of this campaign I have really lost the respect I once had for them. Hillary Clinton has no chance of winning this nomination without either having the superdelegates overturn the pledged delegates, which I don’t think will ever happen, because the superdelegates realize that that would tear the party apart. Or, if Obama somehow pulls some Larry Craig Minneapolis-bathroom scenario. There are a lot of people who are arguing and saying “oh, well she should stay in the race in case obama does screw up really bad, so that she can then get the nomination”. But the problem is, she can do this, that is exactly what Mike Huckabee did, respectfully staying in the race against McCain, touting his own positives, until he was mathematically eliminated. If Hillary was doing this there wouldn’t be any problem. But she isn’t, she is constantly trying to hurt Obama politically. And not usually in ways that will hurt him in the primaries, but rather in long term ways that raise his overall negatives, and will hurt him in the general election.
I think Hillary fully realizes that she will not be the nominee, but is just staying in the race to try to hurt Obama’s chances against McCain as much as possible, because she is hoping that McCain wins so she can run four years from now. Not so sound to conspiracy-theoristic. Now I don’t think that will happen anyway. I think four years from now if McCain is the incumbent people will remember how shameless she was this time around, and Kathleen Sebelius or Claire McCaskill or Mark Warner or Jim Webb or Wesley Clark will beat her anyway. But I think its clear that this is her strategy- hurt obama as much as possible, and attempt to intimidate voters and superdelegates into going for her, just in case she can somehow pull it off this time, if there are another two or three Reverend Wright incidents.
Finally, I also just wanted to stress how sick I am of all these ‘dream ticket” things people are saying. Obama and Hillary together would not be a dream ticket, they would be a disaster!!! Not just in terms of governing the country, but electorally. VPs are for the most part personality. They are there to balance things out, or to grab you a new state or two, or to reinforce the theme of your campaign. Hillary would be a horrible VP choice, bringing with her all her negatives without really helping Obama, except arguably to keep her hardcore supporters from defecting. But he would be better off picking some other woman if he is worried about losing elderly white female voters.

Two-
Which brings us to the second thing I wanted to talk about! :) Who I think will be the VP’s. First off lets look at McCain. McCain’s choice of VP is going to be fascinating. Actually both parties VP picks will be. I think they will be more important than any Vice President picks in the history of the country. And also quite likely more interesting. Because first of all we have both parties doing it, which almost never happens because theres usually an incumbent. But then also because both McCain and Obama have big problems they need to address with their vp selections.
So McCain, he has several things he needs to address. He needs to shore up support among hardcore evangelical Christians. He needs to shore up support among econonomic free-marketeers. He also needs to add some youth to the ticket. And, although I personally don’t think McCains age really should be an issue (his moms 95 and goin strong), Im sure it will end up being a big one. And then yeah, picking someone from a state he might be able to gain through the selection would be good. Leading to the first of several names that have been thrown out there- Tim Pawlenty, the gov. of Minnesota. I think that is a possibility. He’s very free market. Hes young. But I don’t think he could put Minnesota into play anyway. Similarly, McCain could pick someone from somewhere like Minnesota or New Jersey or Nevada or Ohio or Pennsylvania or Florida. Or he could pick someone who is regarded as really good on the economy- a John Thune of South Dakota (I think that’s right).
The most popular choice thrown around- and the one I have been talking about since last spring, is South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. He is young, good looking, gregarious, very free market libertarian-ish. But solid on abortion and also from the most southern state imagineable for the most part. He would be a great pick and is arguably the best pick if you are gambling. But yeah, the only reason some ppl say he might not is b/c Lindsay Grahan is so close with McCain and has been such a supporter and he is also from S.C. so McCain wouldn’t pick Sanford instead of him. Which I don’t put any stock into.
K, next are all the ideas that will never happen. First is Condoleeza Rice. Which I think is ridiculous. VP’s are largely just ppl who are make the ticket look better or more complete. Rice is excuse me for sounding mean, but incredibly ugly. I mean she is really really bad looking. And she is way too connected to the Bush admin. There is just no way. It would just be silly. And I don’t think it would steal any woman or black votes anyway.
There is Huckabee. I used to think that he would be VP when I thought Romney would be the nominee (and before they started hating each other). McCain could pick him but he is also hated by a lot of hardcore neo-cons cause they call him a socialist (go figure lol). And because I think his “awe shucks” routine finally started to get kind of old.
There is Romney. And I think that he is a genuine possibility. He would help out a lot in the western states. He could add mormon money to the campaign treasury (which should not be underestimated, mormons are much more powerful and rich than anyone realizes), and (maybe?) possibly get Massachusetts for McCain. Although I cant imagine Mass. Goin Republican.
But yeah, my personal pick for who I think it will be is also kind of a surprise- Kay Bailey Hutchison, the senator from Texas. She is southern- a plus. She is a good looking, handsome, likeable woman. A formidable politician. And she is very good strategically because she could help McCain steal elderly white moderate women. Problems- some Con’s view her as weak on abortion. And that she is from a state that they don’t really need to worry about. And also- she isn’t that young. But I am still gonna go with her. I think she would be a great pick for McCain.

Obama-

As an obama supporter, I think it is sooo unfortunate that he cant pick like four or five VPs. Because he has so many holes he could use the VPship to fill. He has to worry about white women goin to McCain because of the sabotaging Hilary is doing. He could fill this with Claire McCaskill Sen-Missouri (the best possibility for a female president so far in American history in my opinion, apart from maybe Hutchison). I LOVE Claire McCaskill, she is amazing. She is unfortunately a senate freshmen though, which would add to the perception of lack of experience. Kathleen Sebelius- Gov. Kansas is good too. She did the dem response to Bushs last state of the union address.
I don’t think Obama will pick a woman though because I just think that might be too minority-ish unfortunately. So yeah, what else does he need? He needs to shore up the perception of being weak on Isreal- suggesting Ed Rendell, who would also shore up Pennsylvania. However Rendell is unfortunately a hardcore Hillary supporter. The other guy a lot of ppl are talking about is Bloomberg. This would be fascinating. But I think he is just too big government and anti gun and would hurt obama’s legitimate chances in western states like NM, Montana, The Dakotas, Colorado, etc.. And also the minority thing, I don’t think America is ready for Black/Jewish ticket just as they aren’t ready for a black/woman ticket.
Finally obama definitely needs to shore up his foreign policy credentials, and the whole “love for America” thing. This leads to maybe Jim Webb, who would be fantastic. But he is also a frosh senator. And some ppl think is too crucial a member of the senator already. If McCain wins this time, I would love to see Webb run in four years. But unfortunately that will be right when his first term is running out, which sets up an unfortunate dynamic. Anyway though……. This leads me to my choice
Wesley Clark- this is who I think will be the VP for Obama. I predicted the combination back in June. He is technically a Hillary Supporter. But about in as small a way as possible. I think of all the Hillary supporters he would be the easiest to cross over and be Obama’s VP. I think he helps shut down the Rev Wright thing. The inexperience thing. He helps the most of any one individual. And although I don’t think he’ll help get any one state, but I think he will help in Montana, Dakotas, Colorado, everywhere.
Similar choices would be Barry McCafrey and Tony Zinni. But neither of them are as good or have the ring to it as Obama/Clark.

Finally the one other one I think is a serious possibility is the guy who just endorsed him today- Bob Casey- hes from Pennsylvania- which would be a HUGE benefit. And he is a conservative moderate democrat – rural pro gun etc. He would be a really good pick too.



So, we have Obama/Clark against McCain Hutchison.

Three The General Election.



And here are my electoral predictions.
There is my prediction of what it would be between Obama and McCain, compared to Hillary vs. McCain.


So I found some really cool websites where you can do your own electoral map. I couldn’t save my picks on any directly. So I printed them off, scanned them, and have them for you here.

I also included some maps from this site surveysusa.com. You can find them by googling “surveys usa obama” and clicking on the first one. They have done several times, including like march 8th, polls in every single state of how each dem would be against McCain. These are the results. They are absolutely fascinating. Hilary loses to McCain in Oregon and Washington (which I don’t think will actually happen though). And they have Obama winning in North Daktoa. Which I also don’t think will end up happening, but I think shows that the upper Midwest/north/west could be open to Obama. Obama does really well in the upper Midwest, and the west. Although I think McCain will end up winning over 50% of the latino vote, hopefully showing dems that maybe giving voting rights to 20 million more of them might not be the best thing… but anyway I digress.

I think Obama McCain will shake up the map overwhelmingly. It will look drastically different than the Gore and Kerry and Dukakis maps that we are used to seeing, where dems win every state that borders water pretty much, apart from the carribean or lower atlantic.


So yeah, I think Hillary would do better in Florida, but I think it is lost to dems for at least a decade or two. Seriously. Florida is made up of old people (the majority), Jews, Cubans, and an increasing number of moderate evangelicals, and military people, particulary retired ones. That is like the exact perfect McCain electorate right there.

I think Hilary will do better in Pennsylvania than Obama. As well as New Jersey, which I think obama could very well lose. I think obama will win Virginia, and Hill wont. And maybe Missouri. I think the latinos will mean Clinton would win NewMexico but Obama wont. And I do think Hilary will have trouble in states like Wash. And Oregon, although I think she will end up winning them. And I think she will lose New Hampshire, Iowa, maybe Maine. And finally Obama could, if they get enough blacks and young ppl to turn out, could hypothetically win Mississippi and South Carolina.

So yeah, here are my predictions---- and the survey usa current poll result predictions.


Clinton vs. McCain

Obama vs. McCain

Surveys USA March 2008 Clinton vs. McCain polling state by state


Surveys USA March 2008 Obama vs. McCain polling state by state

Who's on first?

FIRST: VOTE LARRY GRANT FOR CONGRESS!

Larry Grant was here this evening, I believe his sixth time for visiting us here in the remote regions of North Idaho. It is always most refreshing to listen to someone who doesn’t just spout total nonsense like most of our contemporary politicians. I still maintain that he is an absolutely outstanding candidate for Congress and is fully deserving of our support. His grass roots campaign for the past three years has concentrated on building an organization through the counties that will last even if he should not be elected. This is like the 50 state strategy of Howard Dean and the DNC and eschews big money in favor of more individual support and grass roots volunteers. He has been criticized for not reaching out for the big bucks. These critics are wrong. Money can’t buy you love.

Anyway, let me see if I have this straight. Moqtada al-Sadr, a religious leader in the southern part of Iraq, has a very large militia that is loyal to him. He is an Iraqi nationalist and would like the U.S. out of his country. For the past few months he has observed a truce and restrained his militia. Now, weary of having his people attacked, he has called off the truce and violence has broken out once again, not only in the south, but also in parts of Bagdad. As a nationalist, and even though he is Shia, he does not answer to Iran which is also Shia. Nouri al-Maliki, our handpicked leader of Iraq, and the one we are supporting, has called for the destruction of al-Sadr’s forces, saying only the central government has legitimate power. He and his followers are also Shia, but the Shia that are all cozy with Iran. The U.S. is constantly trying to start a war with Iran and wants to prevent the Iranian from getting too influential in Iraq. So…who are we supporting in this civil war. If you answered al-Maliki you are right and you win a pink kewpie doll. But wait, there is more. There are also the Sunni who used to be in control of Iraq under the notorious leadership of Saddam Husein. We have been bribing them with arms and money to not attack us as they were wont to do previously. They do not want the Shias in power and now well armed by us, could turn on us once again, and can also fight against the Shia. But wait, there is more. There are the Kurds in the north who have traditionally been our allies. But they want independence from Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. Those countries do not want them to be independent. Turkey has therefore been attacking certain Kurdish elements who commits various acts of aggression against Turkey. We have sided with Turkey in this and sanctioned their right to invade Iraqi territory to punish Kurds. The Kurds are well organized and have their own army. They want control of Kirkuk, where most of the northern oil is. The Iraqis don’t want them to have it, but it is not very clear what they can do about it. Israel has been supportive of the Kurds because they don’t like the Iranians. Then, of course, there is Syria and Lebanon which don’t cotton to Israel, especially the Hezbollah part of Lebanon which is supposedly backed by Iran. Iran also supposedly is backing al-Maliki and his Shia followers even though al-Maliki is backed by the U.S. and doesn’t want the Iranians to ally with Iraq (or anyone else for that matter). I hope that by reading this you have a clear understanding of just who is on first. To try to put part of it more succinctly: we are now actively engaged in a civil war in Iraq on the side of al-Maliki who is allied with Iran even though we may be about to attack Iran because they someday may have the know-how to build a nuclear bomb which, stupid savages that they are, will immediately drop on Israel while reciting some of the 3000 year old poems they composed while our ancestors were still dressing in the skins of animals. All this, if you haven’t figured it out, is called American Foreign Policy. American Foreign Policy is determined by 100,000 chimpanzees playing with 100,000 computers while eating bananas.

LKBIQ:
“We’ll be a great country where the fabrics are made up of groups and loving centers.”
George W. Bush

Can't handle the truth

Can’t handle the truth. There was some movie a few years ago that featured Jack Nicholson who played some kind of Army or Marine officer. I didn’t see this movie (I haven’t seen a movie for years except for an occasional ethnographic film) but I know it had Nicholson say the line, “you can’t handle the truth,” in a very forceful way. I only know this because they featured it on the news for quite some time. I think the line comes in handy right now when considering the Reverend Jeremiah Wright situation. Critics of Wright (and Obama) just can’t seem to let this rest. They keep playing one or more of Wright’s sermons over and over, outraged that he had the temerity to criticize America (god dam America). The vehemence with which they attack Wright and Obama seems to me not commensurate with its importance. There are many critics of America nowadays and they often say things just as bad or worse. As near as I can determine the Reverend has said nothing that hasn’t been said elsewhere and, in fact, hasn’t said anything that isn’t probably true except his rash claim that the U.S. deliberately created aids to harm blacks (even here, however, don’t forget that the Government did, in fact, deliberately bring about syphilis in blacks to see how it would play out and left it untreated). It is undeniably true that the Bush/Cheney administration deliberately lied to get us involved in an illegal “war” with Iraq. It is also undeniably true that under their direction we tortured prisoners in violation of the law and international conventions. We also killed civilians, including many women and children, in violation of the law, and have been involved in other known war crimes as well. These are the main things Reverend Wright preached against when he made his incendiary remarks, all true things that have been said before by others (but not repeated ad nauseum on television). Right wing preachers like Falwell, Robertson, Hagee, and others of their ilk have said things just as bad or worse, but their outrageous statements are not played over and over again. So what is it specifically about Wright’s sermons that is so troubling to these critics? There is, of course, the obvious reason, they want to destroy Obama and they are not opposed to using blatantly racist tactics to do so. But I submit this is a problem that transcends Wright and Obama, and even transcends race itself. It has mainly to do with the simple fact that they “cannot handle the truth.” They want to continue in denial as they can’t face the truth of America’s war crimes. They don’t, or even can’t, bring themselves to admit that what we have done in Iraq is inexcusable and in principle, un-American. How could America, that beacon on the hill, that bright spot in the world, that best nation on earth, that god-fearing Christian outpost in a world of evil, have possibly have done anything wrong. But we have, and they cannot bring themselves to admit it. And they don’t want to hear about it, especially from the pulpit of an angry black preacher (even though he is an ex-Marine and the pastor of a large and respectable church). Because of this Obama has no choice but to disavow it. No prospective President of the United States, at this time, and in this context, could possibly dare say he agreed with this basic truth, because the voting public “cannot handle the truth,” and would not accept it. Truth, as we all should know by now, has no place in American politics.

It strikes me that the past few days in Iraq have revealed a most unpleasant truth. The much vaunted “surge” probably had nothing to do with the level of violence in Iraq. The level of violence is probably controlled by the Iraqis themselves, particularly by Muqtada al-Sadr and his large and effective militia. Now that he has called off the truce he observed for the past few months the violence has escalated and will continue to escalate if he desires it to do so. The surge may have had some effect in Bagdad neighborhoods but that is, at best, what it may have accomplished. But remember, millions of Iraqis have fled their country and hundreds of thousands have died. The violence would have to have somewhat subsided whether there were additional troops or not. This, coupled with al-Sadr’s truce almost certainly had more to do with the level of violence than the surge. Even the so-called safe Green Zone has been under attack in recent days. The market where McCain previously walked, aided by a hundred armed troops, helicopters and gunships, is now too dangerous for him to repeat it. So much for “success” and “progress” in Iraq. I will not be surprised to hear Bush tell us next that pigs are now flying and peace has been achieved in Palestine.

LKBIQ:
“Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.”
Heinrich Heine

Muddying the waters

In road rage incident, man
throws hamburger at motorist, gets
tasered and arrested for assault.

Muddying the waters. Former Presidental candidate McGovern has apparently said that America is more ready for a Black President than a woman. Wow! What a question to raise. I guess if I were a woman I’d be mighty outraged. Did you ever believe you would hear someone say Americans would prefer a black man to a white, whether woman or not? But, then, what a dismal choice. Golly, why can’t we just have a white man like we always have? On the other hand, should blacks be really proud to be elevated in status over women. I mean, really, if women are that bad, what prestige is gained by being better than that bad? I guess we’d be a lot better off if no one had raised this difficult gender/race business. Of course we might all try to grow up and recognize utter nonsense when we see it. Given the choice our questionable process has forced upon us, I would be completely happy, even more happy than that, if Obama wins the nomination and becomes President. On the other hand, I’d be delighted to have a woman President, as long as it isn’t Hillary Clinton. Unhappily, Clinton has sealed her own doom. She should never have taken those lessons from Karl Rove (and Bill). Of course McGovern, having lost big time when trying to become President, doesn’t know what he’s talking about (I heard some pundit say that). I guess if he’d won he would know? Actually, no one knows what the hell they’re talking about ‘cause there no precedent for such a situation. Further, even after one or the other is elected, no one will still know any better than they do now. Obama will not be elected because he’s black, nor will Hillary be elected because she’s a woman. Nor will either one of them lose because of their race or gender (although this might be a better bet). But this is a Presidential contest. Knowing nothing about what you are talking about has no connection with how much you talk about it. In fact, if you have to talk about it 24/7, the less you know is an advantage. If anyone knew anything the issue would not be an issue and the news (?) would be over. What would we have to talk about then? If anyone actually knew anything the entire system would fail. We’d all have to go back to scratching our heads and pitching horseshoes (I wonder how many people are aware that horses wear shoes). Anyway, if the next “war” breaks out in a few days or months there probably won’t be any election to worry about.

Somewhere, I forget where, the problem of prostitution (if, indeed, it really is a problem) has been approached by a kind of common sense idea. Selling sex is not illegal, but buying it is. Voila! Problem solved. If this works for prostitution why wouldn’t it also work for drugs? Selling drugs wouldn’t be a crime but buying them would. But, then, what would you do about drugs you can get free, marijuana, for example. Or mushrooms. Damn, there’s always a catch somewhere. Of course there is a perfectly easy and sensible solution – make drugs legal. You’d still have to get a prescription, but at least you would be dealing with a medical problem rather than a political and criminal problem. But no, this would be to sensible, we can’t have anything sensible in this country. Shucks, even if we did no one would recognize it (remember shucks, people used to talk like that. It sort of went with the horseshoe pitching).

If we don’t have enough problems with child pornography, the churches molesting children apparently almost on a daily basis, homophobia, rape and sexual assaults, we now have what is an epidemic of female school teachers in Florida having sex with their underage students. Three cases in the last few days and I think quite a few more in the past year or so. Women of from 25 to 45 having sex with boys 14 to 17. People in Florida are outraged, especially parents of the children that get involved. Everyone is demanding to know why. How can they do such a horrible thing? What’s wrong with them? They have to be punished. Etc., etc., etc. I bet I can guess what one reason is: they want sex but they don’t want aids or the clap or syphilis or something. What better way to avoid it than having sex with young people, preferably virgins. Of course it could just be they don’t like their husbands anymore, or they like some variety in their lives, or whatever. Maybe they do it for love. No, I don’t think so. Make ‘em wear the scarlet double AA. Abusive Adulterer. Put AA signs in their yards and on their license plates. Make them wear orange jump suits with the scarlet AA. Show them no mercy. But don’t arrest the Johns, people might find out. Anyway, with important stuff like this going on who has time to think about Iraq, Iran, bankruptcy, recession, depression, or the fact that our Congress is broken down by sex and age. It is truly a wondrous culture of the absurd we’re living in. Just put another shrimp on the barby (if you can afford it).

LKBIQ:
“Does it really matter what these affectionate people do—so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses.”
Mrs. Patrick Campbell

In vain

Bush recently said that the decision to take out Saddam Hussein was the right decision when he first did it, it was the right decision later, it’s the right decision now, and it will always be the right decision. Talk about speaking in vain! This carries the ridiculous even past the sublime.

But seriously speaking of things in vain. Bush insists that our troops have not and will not have died in vain. I would like to know that if they haven’t died in vain, what have they died for? What is it we have accomplished by this terrible and unnecessary “war?” Have we spread democracy? Have we destroyed (imaginary) weapons of mass destruction? Have we improved the lives of Iraqis? Have we inspired the rest of the Middle East to crave democracy? Have we even stolen or managed to control the oil? What? I want to know. I demand to know. I want an explanation for this absolutely murderous, criminal behavior. I don’t want to be told any longer that we are “winning,” “succeeding,” or going to be “victorious.” I want to be told the electricity and water have been restored, the displaced have returned to their homes, and yes, damn it, the untold dead have been brought back to life, and this whole miserable eight years has just been a terrible bad dream.

I guess one might say that military personnel never die in vain. If they die honorably in the service of their country, as they are asked to do, they do not die in vain. This is true whether the mission they were given was worthwhile or not. That is not up to them. But this is not the meaning Bush has in mind when he lies to the parents who have lost their sons and daughters to this awful mistake. He wants them to believe that something has been or will be accomplished. And it hasn’t and won’t. There is nothing that can come out of this illegal business after the loss of life and misery of so many that can possibly be said to have been worth it. To even suggest such a thing shows an awesome disregard for human life and suffering. Bush is so out of touch with reality, so unconcerned with death and destruction and misery beyond belief that he actually had the nerve to suggest how romantic it was to be serving in Afghanistan, and how much he would like to be joining them in this great adventure. He is, in short, a monster, inhuman in his inability to empathize with the misery of others. He might as well be back in his childhood blowing up frogs for all he understands of pain and suffering. How this borderline retarded man got elected to the Presidency of what used to be the greatest country on earth, and how he managed to serve for eight years without being impeached or imprisoned for his blatant crimes against humanity will keep historians busy and confused for many decades to come. Unfortunately for the United States and the world, given the nature of our Congress and the public, this has been simply a case of the blind and dumb leading the blind and dumb. Beer anyone?

Hillary Clinton, increasingly caught in her web of lies, half truths, and distortions, is pulling out all stops and going nuclear in her attack on Obama. I fail to see how this will win her the Presidency except, perhaps, in 2012 when it will probably be too late to matter.

LKBIQ:
“Repetition does not convert a lie into the truth.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt