Republican immorality

Homeless man, called “ungrateful bastard,”
as he throws gift cheeseburger back
at benefactor and demands money instead.

The latest Republican suggestion that torture may be okay to use because it “works” indicates to me a lack of morality so profound as to make me wonder where these people came from. Cheney, in particular, seems to imply that if further memos were released proving that their “enhanced interrogation techniques” “worked” that would somehow justify their use. They are apparently incapable of understanding that IT DOESN’T MATTER WHETHER THEY WORKED OR NOT (and I seriously doubt they can show that it did), they still constitute a war crime, a crime both against U.S. law and International law. I gather that according to this view if something “works” it is therefore acceptable. So if I wish to rob a bank because I need money, and I successfully do it, it’s okay. Or if I were to rape someone and succeed it would be okay. This is an idea so absurd I cannot believe anyone would even suggest it. But it is perfectly consistent with Nixon and Bush claiming that “if the President does it, it’s not illegal.”

And it is precisely this kind of immorality the Republicans have been employing since they tried to bring down the Clinton Presidency. For them anything was okay as long as it might “work” to get rid of Clinton. You will recall they spent years and hundreds of millions to try to “get Clinton.” They accused the Clintons, especially Bill, of just about every crime possible, including even murder. When all of their false claims failed they brought in the sleaziest, most biased lawyer (Starr) they could find who ultimately stooped so low as to bring out a pornographic account of a private sex act between consenting adults that had nothing whatsoever to do with how well the Clinton administration was doing, and, in fact, greatly hindered it from doing much of anything. This was completely unprecedented and quite likely would have easily brought down previous administrations. One does not have to admire or defend Clinton’s sexual behavior to understand this sordid episode ushered in a new political climate that changed the Republican Party from a legitimate political entity into what has become under Bush/Cheney little more than a criminal conspiracy (what I have previously referred to as the Brafia – the Bush/Republican/Mafia). This criminal enterprise, employing slogans from the Reagan era, managed to change laws and manipulate Congress into a system of deregulation designed to effectively siphon away taxpayer money into the hands of equally immoral corporations and obscenely rich individuals. They stopped at nothing, an unnecessary and criminal “war,” war profiteering, no-bid contracts, outright theft, endless lying, the killing of innocent civilians, the use of illegal weapons, and yes, even torture. We can see now where this criminal activity led us.

But according to this new Republican idea of morality, it was all okay because it worked, they got away with it, at least up until now. Now that their criminal behavior is about to catch up with them, they are squealing like a bunch of stuck hogs, “Everything we did was for the good of the country,” “We kept the country save for eight years,” “What we did worked.” The Bush/Cheney years constituted the greatest criminal heist in the history of the world, a criminal conspiracy so vile and immoral as to be almost beyond comprehension. Billions upon billions of dollars, either borrowed or stolen from taxpayers, simply vanished into the coffers of the military/industrial/political complex, or, in some cases, just vanished completely. Millions of people killed and injured, millions more dislocated and thrown into misery, many tortured, and some even “disappeared.” And for what? What have we as a country gained from this? Nothing but collective misery, unless you belong to the relatively small insider elite that now possesses more wealth than all the rest of us combined. During their nightmare years of terror and crime they spat on the Constitution (“Just a goddamn piece of paper”), ignored our laws, illegally spied on us, did away with habeas corpus, ignored the Democratic opposition and refused them even space for meetings, and tried to establish a dictatorship of the Executive Branch. Now we are supposed to thank them for keeping us safe after 9/11, which, in fact, they haven’t even done? They believe they shouldn’t be held accountable for their behavior as it would be “divisive,” and after the fact, and etc. They expect bipartisanship, a concept they seemed totally unfamiliar with until now. If all this were not so unbelievable and awesomely terrible one might well think it was merely an episode of “Clowns at Play in the Fields of Fantasyland.” There are some I guess who still believe that the Attorney General might not take action against them. I cannot see how that is possible, given that the Attorney General is sworn to uphold the law, and the laws against torture and murder are pretty clear. As far as I am concerned no punishment would be too great for these immoral ghouls that have destroyed the lives of so many millions. Granted what they have done falls far short of the achievements of Hitler or Stalin, their goals were more modest. But who knows what might have happened if they had actually achieved the dictatorship they were striving for. The entire world knows what they did and waits expectantly to see what we will do. Thus it behooves us to act honorably and show the world that we do not condone war crimes and are, indeed, a beacon on the hill as we once were.

LKBIQ:
There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

TILT:
Pigs do not have functional sweat glands, so they use water or mud during hot periods.

No turning back

Road rage leads woman to
accidentally set her car on fire
and burn to death.

The more we learn about the Bush/Cheney torture program the more everything seems to make sense. For example, I was wondering why they began developing their “enhanced interrogation techniques” so early in the game, even before they had anyone to torture. It turns out that the aim of the torturing had little to do with learning what prisoners might or might not know, but, rather, with how to get them to confess to a relationship between al Qaida and Saddam Hussein. In fact, it seems they were rather desperate to get such evidence as they needed it to justify their illegal “war” on Iraq, and the more they failed to find such evidence (they had been told by the CIA there was no such evidence) the more frustrated they became and the more they ordered torture.

We now know beyond any reasonable doubt that the orders to torture came from the White House, primarily through Donald Rumsfeld, who personally signed off on the specific methods to be used. I always wondered how it was that a few enlisted personnel could have figured out precisely those techniques that were believed to be the most efficatious against Iraqis, and also how it was those same techniques became so ubiquitous, both in the CIA and the Army. It was obviously because the orders came from the same source. Rumsfeld and others tried to pass the torture off as just a “few bad apples.” It was a few bad apples…at the top.

We also now know there was resistance on the part of some to employing these illegal methods. The FBI, for example, very early in the game, objected to what was being done and were told, in effect, to “butt out,” which they did. We know that one of the legal advisors to Condi Rice wrote a memo suggesting that the legal basis they were using was unsound and was ignored. There was also at least one case where one of the enlisted personnel refused to participate and was transferred at his request. Rumsfeld (and Bush/Cheney and others) had to know they were doing something illegal, but went ahead and did it anyway. At one of their White House meetings discussing these methods Ashcroft reportedly said, “history will not look kindly on this.” When one of the torturers reported that he didn’t believe they could get any further information and wanted to stop the torture he was ordered to continue. As one of the prisoners was waterboarded apparently six times a day for a month, one wonders why this should have been required. I cannot explain it except perhaps as just plain sadism.

There is no doubt now that the lawyers who drew up the legal rationale for torture did so on orders from the White House, and in fact were helped by Condi Rice and Dick the Slimy in what to say. They knew what they wanted to do and what information they needed and the whole scheme was developed with that in mind. This was a conspiracy at the highest level of government to break the law by using faulty legal documents pretending to legalize what they were doing. As far as I know this was completely without precedent, creative perhaps, but illegal as hell. These monsters should never be allowed to escape punishment for the terrible murders and misery they caused for so many.

It appears now that perhaps they will face justice after all. This scenario has played out just as I believe it should have, seemingly choreographed by a master craftsman. First there was the (I think) feigned disinterest in pursuing any form of action, on the grounds of so many other important things to do and the necessity to just look forward. Then Obama said the actual perpetrators of the physical torture should not be prosecuted (thus placating the CIA) even though “acting on orders” has not been an acceptable defense. Then it was suggested that Obama didn’t even want to prosecute the authors and planners of the program. But then, as if they had conveniently forgotten the obvious, it is not up to the President to make such decisions, but, rather, the Attorney General. Then the question was/is will the Attorney General actual do anything. And of course he will because he will have no other choice but to follow the law. If he appoints a truly impartial independent investigator(s), and if they follow the law because they must, Obama and his administration cannot be blamed for partisanship, revenge, retribution, or whatever. This was/is a beautiful scheme that, although politically unwise, had to be done. At this point it is unlikely that this process, having progressed this far, could now be stopped. There will be no turning back. Do I believe Obama had this all figured out in advance? I think so. I think so because I cannot believe that Obama could conscientiously do otherwise. You would have to believe that if Obama truly was opposed to this he would have had to be both immoral and willing to ignore basic principles of law and the Constitution for purely political reasons, and he also would not have released the incriminating memos. Obama is a politician (a consummate one it appears), for sure, but he is also a loyal American and a Constitutional lawyer. What we have (I think) is a conspiracy to bring about justice trumping a conspiracy to violate it. What is the world coming to these days, what with evil being (hopefully) punished and good triumphant? Personally, I will not be happy until I see some of these miserable sadists behind bars. No one could deserve it more.

LKBIQ:
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
Theodore Roosevelt

TILT:
Rabbits are distinguished from hares by being altricial (having young that are blind and hairless).

Dick Cheney

Husband hits security guard
in face, as his wife makes off
with a package of diapers.

Dick the Slimy, Prince of Darkness and Secrecy, has embarked on a strange campaign to have more torture memos released. He has been appearing on as many talk shows as he can, arguing that the release of more memos would prove their enhanced interrogation techniques (torture) worked. I think he is running scared and is now flailing about for anything that might save him from arrest or worse. I believe you can even see it in his facial expressions these days. I also doubt very seriously that any memos will demonstrate that their torture “worked,” unless he has a different definition of worked. If they worked so well why was it necessary to waterboard one prisoner 183 times in one month? Does that mean that it only worked on time 183? Another prisoner was waterboarded some 90 or more times. I find this puzzling in the extreme. Part of the reason I find it puzzling is that at least one lawyer who worked for Condi Rice wrote a memo questioning the legal reasoning behind the torture memos. He was not only ignored, copies of his memo were gathered up and (presumably) destroyed. But they were obviously aware that waterboarding was considered torture and went ahead with it anyway. I guess they did not want any dissenting opinions about their disgusting behavior. Another thing I learned is that at least on one occasion the torturers sent a message saying they thought they already had all the information the prisoner could provide and did not want to continue the “enhanced interrogation.” They were instructed to continue. This suggests to me what I mentioned previously, I think there must have been a real element of sadism involved. Another thing that puzzles me about this has to do with the 183 instances of waterboarding in one month. This would indicate to me that the technique does not work as well as Dick the Slimy wants us to believe it did. It could, on the other hand, indicate that it is nowhere near as traumatic as it is said to be. But as waterboarding has been condemned as torture for an extremely long time, and as those who have undergone it say it is torture, and as we hanged Japanese for using it, I have to continue to believe that it is, indeed, torture. Perhaps the people who were performing it were just not very competent. And remember, waterboarding was only one of the tortures inflicted.

Cheney wants us to believe that these tortures “worked.” So what if they did work? Does that mean that torture, widely defined as a war crime, ceases to be a war crime because it “worked?” This would seem to be the age-old argument that the ends justify the means. But if the means is a war crime in the first place, how could it be used to justify anything? It should not have been used. Anyway, I’d like to see the memos that Cheney seems to think prove that it worked. So far he has offered no evidence of his claim, no example, no proof, nothing but unverified claims. Cheney’s insistence that more memos should be released so the public can see them is completely contradictory to all of his previous behavior. All his appearances allow him to attack Obama as being “soft” or making us more vulnerable to attack, and so on. Yet here again he offers no proof of these wild accusations, none at all. As he has been wrong virtually 100% of the time I don’t understand who it is that listens to him, or why they do so. The MSM certainly feature him every chance they get.

Obama has done just what I thought he would do, he’s left it up to the Attorney General to decide whether or not to investigate war criminals. I do not see how Holder can possibly not name an independent investigator, nor do I see how it will be possible for him to just let bygones be bygones. If there is an independent investigator, truly neutral, and if he and Holder stick closely to the laws of our country, this cannot then be seen as simply revenge or a partisan attack on those responsible for these atrocities. Let us all make certain that Holder is aware that we want some action, and soon.

LKBIQ:
All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
James Thurber

TILT:
Billy Eckstein was the first romantic black male singer in popular music.

Can't stand the truth

Irate man stabs friend
for permitting girlfriend
to use his bathroom.

Sad, but true, the U.S. apparently cannot stand the truth. We did not attend the UN International Conference on Racism in Geneva because we feared someone would castigate Israel as a racist nation, and the U.S. for uncritically supporting Israel. So what do you do when you do not want to hear the truth – you just refuse to hear it. It can no longer be doubted (if it ever could) that Israel is a blatantly racist country. And that we have more or less uncritically supported Israel in its racism for years is also not open to dispute. This conference was attended by some 186 nations, all of whom supported the agenda for the meeting, and all of whom are concerned about racism around the world. But the thought that poor old put-upon Israel might be singled out as racist was apparently too threatening for us. When Ahmadinejad said Israel was a cruel and racist nation virtually the entire room walked out (they, too, do not want to hear the truth about a situation they have refused to act on and hence feel guilty). We, however, did not even have to hear it. We weren’t there. Ahmadinejad’s words may have been a bit rough but what he said was basically true. No one wants to hear the truth when it comes to Israel, a racist nation attempting the slow genocide of the Palestinians, a pariah nation that has violated more UN regulations than any other nation, while the whole world (and especially the U.S.) has just stood by seemingly helpless, and certainly unwilling, to do anything about it.

If you don’t want to hear the truth about how we broke the law and tortured people, just say you’re looking only to the future, and this is not the time for retribution. Hope that the issue will somehow just disappear even though no one was held responsible for it. Obama’s position on this is not only wrong and blatantly illegal, it is also absurd. He says he has banned it and now our nation will be stronger for sticking up for our values. Since when was deliberately looking the other way when war criminals are right in front of your eyes an American value? If Eric Holder and the Justice Department do not investigate and prosecute I guess we will truly have established war crimes as an American value.

If you also don’t want to hear the truth about how Western Europeans have shamelessly exploited South and Central America for the past five hundred years, just refuse to shake hands and talk with Hugo Chavez and other South American leaders. Just pretend they don’t exist, or, if they get right in your face, talk down to them and tell them what’s what. Refuse to accept a book about it from them. George W. Bush certainly kept them in their place. He wasn’t “weak” like Obama, and of course would never have shaken hands with anyone as frightening as Hugo Chavez. I think there is little doubt that at this very moment Chavez is building an Army, Navy, and Air Force for the express purpose of launching an attack on the U.S., now that he knows how weak Obama is. Not only did Obama shake hands with Chavez, he even smiled and joked with him. Armageddon must be just around the corner.

Would someone kindly explain to me why anyone pays any attention whatsoever to the “Windbag Emeritus” (Rachel Maddow’s term) Gingrich. His attempt to resurrect his political career makes about as much sense as Rudy Giuliani now claiming to represent traditional marriage. I find what these two hypocrites are doing so utterly dishonest as to be beneath contempt. But no doubt there will be Republicans who will fall for it. Watching the current Republicans is like watching the death throes of an angry wounded water buffalo, thrashing about wildly in a vain attempt to somehow survive, crazily moaning and bellowing at the top of its lungs, announcing its imminent demise to the world.

I find the claims of a few states that they want to secede from the union absolutely hysterical. Like Perry of Texas, objecting to the “oppressive hand of Washington D.C. on the state of Texas,” that oppressive hand that is trying to force them to accept billions of dollars to help their citizens. Of course this is all nonsense, none of them would secede even if they could, and the very idea of secession is so totally impractical and ridiculous as to make you wonder if they are even sane. But I guess this kind of insanity appeals to their base of the mentally handicapped. As near as I can see, they are just mad because they can’t lynch anyone anymore.

LKBIQ:
Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.
Dave Barry

TILT:
Orangutans are the most arboreal of all the great apes. They spend almost all of their time in the trees.

The Journey to the West 17

My rather pathetic journey to the west continues. I think the first few years after you graduate from High School may well be among the most difficult and unpleasant of all. Certainly they were for me.

I cannot imagine anyone more unprepared for the University experience than I was. First of all, I did not really want to go. Second, I knew absolutely nothing about it. Third, I was a terrible student. And finally, I was burdened with not only my father’s feelings of inferiority, but my own as well. Of course no self-respecting University would have admitted me. But our University, a Land Grant College, was required to admit anyone in the state who had graduated from High School. That, I had finally managed to do. So, one fine day in September of 1947, my father, having arranged for me to have money enough, drove me the 150 miles or so to Moscow, Idaho, where he left me on a street corner with one large, ugly, green metal suitcase. I knew no one there, had never been there, did not even know where the University was located, had no place to stay, and was about to turn 18 years old. I found a local paper, looked in the ads, found a room for rent, called, hired a taxi to take me there, and found myself in a pleasant enough house, with a pleasant landlady, who, bless her, immediately pointed out that we were about as far from the University as it was possible to be, and there was no adequate bus service available. She wondered why I had not found a dormitory room. Living in a dormitory had never even occurred to me as, in fact, I had never heard of such a thing. But after one night in her home I managed to find such a dormitory room. It was in Pine Hall, a large, not very well constructed dormitory, built on the periphery of the campus, and even further from the center of University life. But it was okay, and not only that, I discovered immediately that someone I knew was also staying there. Leonard W., one of the boxers from our High School team, had been awarded a boxing scholarship. I had known him all through High School and although we were were never truly close friends, we were friends. We decided to share a room in Pine Hall. It was a perfectly adequate room although certainly nothing fancy. The cafeteria food was edible, certainly for us, as we knew no better. Leonard was from Burke and was no better a student than I was. I soon learned that his Brother Norman, also a boxer, was also there, as were a few kids from Kellogg, our traditional rivals in the Panhandle of Idaho.

University registration at that time was a nightmare. It took place in the gymnasium where rows of tables were set up with faculty members handing our registration cards for various classes. It literally took up to three days to complete, especially if you were a freshman. You had to take whatever courses were open at whatever times were available with whatever instructor was available. Somehow we managed to register. Leonard and I were in the same English 101 class that all freshman were required to take. We had managed to get an early morning class three mornings a week (somehow escaping a Saturday morning one). On the first day we sat together in a class of about 40 students. I do not know how the topic came up, but the instructor raised the subject of the Jews, and what did we think a solution to the Jewish problem might be. Thinking back on this, I believe it probably had something to do with the creation of Israel. Anyway, I was far too inhibited to say anything, but not so Leonard, who said out loud, in front of the class, the Jews should be lined up and machine-gunned. There was a stunned silence, and although I was scarcely more sophisticated than Leonard, I knew this was not a proper thing to say. I wished fervently that I was not with him. We managed to get out of class without further ado. I cannot claim to any particular insight into prejudice or its causes at that time as, frankly, I had not thought much of anything about it. It was an interesting introduction to the subject because I knew that Leonard, having come from a large and poor Irish family living in Burke canyon, could not possibly have known any Jewish people, and, in fact, could not reasonably be believed to have ever even seen a Jewish person. I wondered how he could have such an intense prejudice.

I managed to pass English 101, barely, even though at one point, when I had to read a paper I had written out loud in front of the class, I had stage fright so bad the instructor told me to sit down before I could finish. This was terribly embarrassing to me. I also was required to take a class in American History. This class was taught by an older Professor who always seemed to wear a red, white and blue tie of some kind. It was a large class, probably about a hundred students, and was, hands down, the single most boring class I have ever experienced in my entire lifetime. The old guy didn’t lecture, he droned... on and on and on, with names and dates, until it was virtually impossible to stay awake. To pass the tests you were expected to regurgitate the names and dates and that was about all. I passed, living in dread fear I might have to take it over again. I don’t remember what else I took during that first semester, except ROTC, which I failed, miserably. As a Land Grant College we were required to take two years of ROTC. We were issued uniforms and lockers and three mornings a week were expected to show up spic and span and ready to learn to march and bear arms, and whatever. I loathed it. I despised it. I hated the uniform, hated the classes, and just plain refused to attend. So I failed. I believe I finished the first semester with a D average, continuing my stellar performance as a student. I was put on probation. My parents, for whatever reason, seemed to pay no attention. I guess they thought that having sent me there, their responsibility ended. I don’t know why they did not supervise me more carefully, but they didn’t.

Pine Hall was, of course, the equivalent of “the wrong side of the tracks,” as far as University life was concerned. We did not participate in exchanges between dorms or sororities and fraternities, had no dances or parties, or whatever. We did participate in intramural sports and did well, especially as many of the “jocks” resided in Pine Hall. Although I was aware of our second-class citizenship, I do not recall being particularly upset over it. Through Leonard and his brother I began to meet football and basketball players on scholarships, many from places as far away as Alabama and Tennessee. Virtually none of them had any serious interest in academia or learning, they were there to play whatever sport they excelled at, and they did not waste a lot of time on their schoolwork. I was the only non-athlete among them but I got along with them just fine. While I did not do well in my classes, I did have an interest in at least some of them, and, as I had done in High School, I did well in some and terrible in others. I discovered things like psychology, sociology, and anthropology, subjects I had never heard of in High School, and subjects I found of considerable interest. Philosophy, too, was new to me, and appealed to whatever little bit of “love of learning” I might have begun to experience.

My next lesson in prejudice came about in my zoology class (that I had to take). We all had lab partners and mine was a football player named Dombrowski. I think he was from Michigan and was an end on the football team. Unlike most of his colleagues, Dombrowski was smart, and he was interested in his education. In zoology we had to dissect things and observe things through the microscope and such, and then draw pictures of what we saw. I didn’t like it at all, but I did what was required and submitted my drawings that seemed always to get a “B” grade. Dombrowski did the same and his drawings always received a “C.” Even students as green as Dombrowski and myself could not help but recognize that his drawings were superior to mine. So we decided to switch them. And sure enough, our respective grades stayed the same, I received “B’s” and Dombrowski received “C’s.” After three tries we confronted the teacher about this, a kind of strange but pleasant enough woman who was in charge of the labs. She finally confessed that as Dombrowski was a football player, she merely assumed that he and his coaches would be perfectly happy with C’s. University life was beginning to become downright educational.

I confess that my memory of my first few years at the University is not as good as I would like it to be. Nonetheless, I don't believe I am truly falsifying anything. Some of the chronology might not be perfect, and some events may have occurred either earlier or later than I think they did, but all in all I believe it is coming back to me fairly distinct. After my second semester I did well enough to at least get off probation although, again, I failed the hateful ROTC. Although I was aware that I would never graduate without it, I still could not bring myself to attend.

"Cool Hand Barack?"

Man sues police for making
him walk home in his polar bear
pajamas after false arrest.

President Obama released the most revealing and terrible torture memos in spite of the objections of four former CIA heads. This was an act of incredible political bravery. Does this sound like the act of a man who it is said would prefer that the torture issue just be ignored so we can move ahead? I don’t think so. This is a most interesting situation that makes one pause to try to assess just what is going on and just what Obama is trying to do. There is, of course, the possibility that he truly doesn’t want to deal with the issue of torture. Personally, I do not find this credible. Torture is illegal and a war crime. Obama knows this. According to our own laws and Constitution, we are legally obliged to investigate and possibly punish such activity if it occurred. Obama has to know this as well. Some seem to think that by releasing the memos he can also placate the CIA at the same time by announcing that the CIA operatives involved who were merely following orders will not be prosecuted. But it was clearly established at Nuremberg that “I was just following orders,” is not an acceptable defense. Obama has to know this. Even so, is there a possibility that by not prosecuting the agents and others actually responsible for these illegal and totally disgusting acts he can thereby maintain good working relations with the CIA? Doubtful, because unless Obama has dictatorial powers we don’t know about, it isn’t really just up to him to decide not to prosecute. This would be a violation of our own laws. It is most probably the job of the Attorney General to decide whether these people should be prosecuted or not. Obama might order him not to do so, but he would be violating the law. I would assume that Congress might, itself, want to insist on prosecution, and the American Public, too, might insist, in which case Obama could not realistically object. Obama has to know this as well. Then there is also the possibility that some have said that Obama has left the door open to prosecute those who actually wrote the memos in question as well as those who ordered the torture to be carried out (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Rice, and others?). I think this is quite likely what is involved, but someone other than Obama himself will have to insist on an independent investigation and possible prosecution. I’m sure Obama is also aware of this. I believe Obama believes these prosecutions should occur but does not believe that he should be the one to instigate them, as it would be too divisive for the country and he would appear to be vindictive. If the American Public, Congress, and/or the Attorney General insist there be an investigation and possible prosecutions it will probably happen and Obama will be not seen as entirely to blame (of course there will be some who will blame him not matter what).

There is another aspect of this torture business that puzzles me greatly. Unless those who ordered the torture, and those who actually carried it out, were incredibly uninformed and/or stupid, they must have been aware that the evidence is pretty overwhelming that torture just does not work. So either (1) they were unaware of the evidence against torture, or (2) were aware of it but refused for some reason to believe it, or (3) they knew it didn’t work and just did it anyway. As I cannot believe they could have been totally unaware of the evidence against torture, I conclude that both 2 and 3 were involved. This disturbs me greatly as it indicates (to me, at least) there must have been an element of sadism involved on the part of both the creators of the memos and the practitioners. Indeed, I suspect that in all cases of torture there has to be an element of sadism involved. There were and are cases of individuals simply refusing the order to do such things (just as there are conscientious objectors and such). I find it strange, for example, that people like Richard Armitage and Colin Powell, and no doubt others, did not resign over this. I find even more bizarre and difficult to explain the behavior of the Doctors and Psychologists who were involved in this totally unacceptable, repugnant, inexcusable, and unforgivable behavior. Individuals capable of doing such inhuman and brutal tasks seem to somehow emerge when the (perceived) need arises. Where do they come from? How does this process work? In this case I have an image of Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, and the others sitting around in the White House discussing their collective sadism, sending their order to the CIA, who then know just the people to select for such work, not an image I relish, nor one I wish to see repeated. I do not believe these people should go unpunished for their vile and illegal acts, and I want desperately to believe that Obama agrees with me.

On a much, much lighter note, I spent all of the afternoon yesterday, “Among the Gently Mad,” that is, book people (see Nicholas A. Basbanes, Henry Holt and Co., 2002). Happily, before joining the mad throng at the book sale, we had a fine lunch at Café Campagne, a French Restaurant near the Pike Place Market. I had Penn Cove Mussels that were quite delicious. Linda had Oeufs en Meurette, which thrilled her to no end, although I don’t understand how a couple of poached eggs on a piece of garlic toast could bring about such ecstasy (it was the red wine, veal stock, and dried cherry reduction sauce). After lunch we took our trusty folding chairs and joined the line of those foolish patrons of this annual event. We joined the line about 1:00 p.m. even though the sale did not begin until 6:30 p.m. (I told you they are all gently mad). About 5:00 p.m. I enjoyed my dinner, sitting in the car. I had an expensive American meal, a plastic container of carelessly cut melons and fruit that were all unripe to a degree seldom attained even by our modern supermarkets. This was accompanied by the piteous and constant whining of a Whippet left locked in his master’s car (you can’t win ‘em all). Then the scramble was on, hundreds of eager book buyers crawling around on the floor of an abandoned airplane hanger, peering into boxes of books, and banging into each other in narrow lanes of books on tables, each looking for their own special bargains, the equivalent to them of the statue with the emerald eyes. It is always jolly fun (in my case I do it for love). We accomplished our task quickly this year, didn’t really do very well, but beat it to the hotel with our two huge boxes of books with a huge sigh of relief. Unfortunately, this ridiculous event occurs twice a year.

On the way to our hotel I witnessed something that almost brought tears to my tired old eyes, and reinforced my belief that this is, indeed, the best country on earth. We were parked at a street light, waiting to proceed. But just then some special theater event for young children let out. There were two police officers directing traffic so we had to wait. There was a lot of traffic with cars waiting to go in all directions when the officers waved them on. The children had to cross these busy streets. Three very cute little girls had to cross right in front of us. I watched them as they gingerly approached the curb and looked carefully around. They then spontaneously held hands and started across: one Black, one Asian, and one White. This was not in response to any directions from adults, truly a sight to cherish.

LKBIQ:
A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.
Sun-tzu

TILT:
Eating Polar Bear liver can be fatal to humans because of far too much vitamin A.

Teabaggers

Miffed at neighbor, woman
subscribes to pornographic
magazines in her name.

We are going to the annual Seattle Library book sale so I will not be blogging for a couple of days. Pray for sunshine.

Where were the “teabaggers” for the past eight years when Bush/Cheney converted the huge budget surplus into the largest deficit in history through their profligate waste of money? How is it that it is only now, when we desperately need to overspend to jump-start the economy, they are protesting? And why are they protesting now when Obama has just reduced taxes on 95% of our taxpaying population? Can they really be that upset that Obama wants to raise taxes on the filthy rich by a measly 4%, and do away with some corporate loopholes? Yes, apparently they can, and this so-called grass-roots protest is really being organized and promoted by corporate interests. You may have noticed that of all the things they seem to be concerned with, few, if any, included the bloated pentagon budget. No one seems to be interested in taking on the military/industrial/political complex that is robbing us blind and wasting our money on military junk that isn’t even needed. I dislike paying taxes as much as anyone, but I wouldn’t mind half as much if they were being used for useful public projects like highways or schools, or entitlements like Social Security and Medicaid. But I resent like hell having to pay for more and more armaments and equipment to kill innocent people to protect corporate greed and American imperialism. I want us out of Afghanistan and Iraq NOW, not twenty or thirty years from now. And I want our hundreds of overseas bases closed and those troops brought home NOW. I do not want an American empire, period. While I admire Obama and believe that most of what he has done is in fact in the public interest, I think his Afghanistan and Iraq plans are stupid.

I saw today that Newt Gingrich, probably the world’s greatest hypocrite, to say nothing of the world’s greatest pontificating windbag, has been accepted as a possible Republican candidate for President in 2012. This should be taken as an indication of just how desperate the Republicans have become. Don’t forget this is a guy who confronted his first wife with demands for a divorce when she was hospitalized for cancer. And don’t forget it was this guy who said he would criticize Bill Clinton in every speech for his immorality when he was engaged himself in precisely the same thing at the time. I am pretty sure that it was also Gingrich who first said he preferred oral sex because it didn’t constitute (at least in his mind) adultery. What a guy! In the words of the immortal moron, bring it on! It’s really too bad there is no cure for idiocy, without it the Republicans are doomed.

Hooray for the Spanish! They have apparently concluded that the U.S. is not going to follow its own laws and constitution and bring charges against our known war criminals, so they will begin the process themselves. Will this shame Obama and Holder into doing what the law requires them to do? And will the process eventually get around to Bush/Cheney as it should? How I hope so. I hate seeing such evil go unpunished. Over 4000 of our best young people killed, probably a million Iraqis killed, two or three million more displaced, misery beyond belief, multiple war crimes including torture, and apparently the U.S. doesn’t mind a bit, and would prefer to just let bygones be bygones. Frankly, I think this is sick, and if Obama doesn’t see it and do something about it, he is himself sick. And don’t give me that “it’s politics” crap. Since when in any decent culture does politics take precedence over murder and war crimes?

The opening line today of a piece in what passes as our local newspaper read: “Glenn Beck, the latest Fox News sensation…” If Glenn Beck is a “sensation,” it ought to be fair to ask, to whom? If Beck is not actually insane he is a great actor, and I guess he appeals to those who are just as pathetic as he is. But what do you expect from a newspaper that pretends to be more or less bipartisan but supported McCain/Palin in the last election? Remember Palin, that other Republican sensation? I must say I am impressed that there are so many sensational Republicans these days: Palin, Jindal, Steele, Gingrich, Romney, Huckabee, Sanford, Perry, Barbour, Keyes, etc. I don’t see how they will ever be able to pick one to run against Obama. Time will tell, unless they all drown in their sewer of lying incompetence, still clinging to their lone credo…cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes…

LKBIQ:
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Douglas Adams

TILT:
The largest horse ever was called Sampson. He was 21 ½ hands high and weighed 3,360 pounds.

Mencken - book

I have just finished reading Mencken The American Iconoclast, by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (Oxford University Press, 2005). This is further subtitled, The Life and Times of the Bad Boy of Baltimore.

If you are an aficionado of biography, as I am, I doubt you will ever find a finer example of the genre. Rodgers has done a superb job with a subject of enormous complexity, H. L. Mencken. It is carefully researched, thoughtfully and clearly written, and manages to present the genius that was Mencken in all of his marvelous contradictions and prejudices. The most basic features of Mencken’s life and work might be most easily summed up by his unflagging and persistent insistence upon free thought, free speech, and a free press. He opposed censorship at all times and hated hypocrisy above all. While he is not much in the forefront of our minds at the moment, his influence on American literature and American language is monumental. His early championship of Theodore Dreiser changed the face of American literature for all time. He also was almost solely responsible for the rise of Afro-American writing in the United States, and his book, In Defense of Women, was influential in the ways we came to perceive the rights and obligations of each other (although some women thought it was condescending). His book, The American Language was definitive and written before the rise of modern linguistics. As a newspaper reporter he was without peer. He had an important role in bringing about the famous Scopes trial and was present and reported on virtually every major event for almost 50 years. As a magazine editor he either discovered or promoted all of the major American writers after Dreiser: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolf, Sinclair Lewis, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and more. He was close friends with Joseph Hergesheimer (who was considered one of the greatest American writers at that time although now is virtually unknown) and also James M. Cain, as well as with the publisher Alfred A. Knopf. He was, in short, a giant in the literary world of his time.

Henry Lewis Mencken was born in 1890 and lived for 75 years in Baltimore, most of the time in the same house with his mother. He was a man of enormous contradictions, absolutely detested by many and adored by many more, no doubt partly a result of his striving to tell the truth about things as they were, and his constant exposing of hypocrisy. A student of Darwin, he also admired Huxley, and believed in both social and physical evolution. A student of Nietzsche, he believed that some groups of people were superior to others, and yet he championed civil and equal rights for years. His fights against censorship were legendary but of course resulted in animosity between himself and what he often called the “booboisie.” His opinion of the American public was far less than flattering, as expressed by his often quoted remark, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” Although he believed that some groups were superior to others, in his dealings with people he dealt with them as individuals rather than as stereotypes. He railed at times against the institution of marriage but when he finally married, rather late in life, he was a model husband who worshipped his wife. He was an unrepentant agnostic but insisted he felt no animosity towards those who were religious, although much of his life was spent opposing “do-gooders” and those who attempted to force their beliefs on others. As H. L. Mencken, famous iconoclast, “bad boy,” curmudgeon, master of the poison pen, acerbic critic, and deadly opponent, he was feared by those he felt compelled to attack. As plain old Henry Mencken in his daily life he was friendly and gentle, a loyal friend and benefactor to many, lover of children, and boon companion to many lifelong friends.

Mencken was probably never more in his element than in political conventions in which he delighted. He covered both Republican and Democratic conventions and always had strong feelings about the candidates. Here, too, his tongue was always sharp and sometimes devastating. Consider, for example, his comment on a speech by Warren G. Harding: “The worst English I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights.” When asked why the speech was so bad he replied: “When Dr. Harding prepares a speech he does not think it out in terms of an educated reader locked up in jail, but in terms of a great horde of stoneheads gathered around a stand…an audience…of morons scarcely able to understand a word of more than two syllables, and wholly unable to pursue a logical idea for more than two centimeters.” A lifelong foe of socialism and communism, and with a hatred of Franklin D. Roosevelt surpassed by no one, Mencken supported Wendell Wilkie and criticized the New Deal endlessly, although he recognized FDR as an extremely clever politician.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of Mencken’s contradictions had to do with his German heritage. Although born in the United States, he was German to the core. Some of his ancestors had been well-known German academics, a fact of which Mencken was proud, and he viewed Germany and German culture as superior to most others. He visited his homeland on several occasions and thought it a beautiful and wonderful place with hard-working citizens and orderly lives. Thus when the First World War was about to break out he was entirely sympathetic to Germany and not at all pleased with President Wilson. He was in Germany for a while just before the outbreak of hostilities and was aware that most of the information Americans were getting about the situation and Germany was filtered through England and was mostly propaganda. He thought this was decidedly unfair and said so to the point where he was accused of being pro-German at a time when that was not at all acceptable (sauerkraut was renamed “freedom cabbage” at the time, among other things). As a German sympathizer he was subject to a great deal of discrimination as the war proceeded. In fact, it was this experience of discrimination that later led him to champion the rights of blacks and others. More importantly, however, this early experience blinded him to what was occurring prior to and during the Second World War. He could not bring himself to believe that things were as bad as they were in Germany or that the Jews were being treated so terribly. He thought Hitler was merely a simple buffoon that could not last and was essentially harmless. He believed the problems were the result of the terrible and stupid conditions Germany had been subjected to as a result of losing the first war. He resisted reality until Kristallnackt made him realize the truth. He then became outraged that none of the allies would accept Jewish refugees, including FDR, and tried to get the U.S. to accept some of them. Although here, true to form, he thought there were good Jews and bad Jews. The good Jews he thought should be accepted into the U.S., the bad Jews he suggested should go to Russia. Thus the accusations that he was anti-Semitic were true even though he spoke out on their behalf. For the most part, however, he remained pretty silent about the tragedy that was occurring.

Given his cynicism about politics, and his opinion of the American public, he predicted what would eventually happen, a prediction I think that came true in 2000:

“As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

This is a truly fine book about a time and a place and a brilliant but flawed character, who fought the good fight irrespective of the personal consequences, and managed to make of America a better place.

Good guy/bad guy?

When not allowed to buy beer, 26 year-old
woman buys pint of ice cream and
hurls it through plate-glass window.

Is President Barack Obama a good guy or not? I confess I cannot understand what appears to be some of what he is doing. On the good side, for example (at least what I think are good things), he is slowly reducing the absurd restrictions on Cuba and allowing more people to visit, visit oftener, and send more money. But he still hasn’t done away with the over-all sanctions that have been a failure for 50 years. He appears to be standing up to Israel and insisting on a two state solution, even in the face of their current rejection of that solution, and he also seems to be resisting their insane idea of bombing Iran. But so far he has not said much about their illegal settlements in the West Bank or cutting back on the billions we give them every year.

Similarly, he has closed Guantanamo and insisted that habeas corpus be restored and the prisoners there be given fair trials or released. But he is opposing the same fair play for the Bagram Air Force prison. Does that make any sense? I would like to believe there is a reason for this contradictory behavior but I do not know what it might be. Likewise, on the one hand he acknowledges that we cannot win in Afghanistan but at the same time seems to be embarking upon a very long-range program of sending and keeping more troops there. He says that anyone who is guilty of war crimes should be punished, but he is doing nothing to bring that about. It may be possible that he wants Congress to be responsible for this, but if so, it is not obvious that he does. On Thursday he is supposed to decide whether the most revealing torture memos of the Bush/Cheney era should be released. I think this is an absolutely critical test of whether he really wants to see justice served or not.

I realize that all of these problems are complex and there may well be reasons involved that I do not know about. If so, I wish he would better explain the rationale for what he is doing so a poor soul like me can understand it better. It seems to me that in the case of Bagram, at least, he owes us an explanation for what seems to be an entirely contradictory policy. And if we are to stay in Afghanistan for the long term I would like to know what purpose is being served. For the most part I think Obama has done a great job, quickly and sensibly, but these contradictions need to be explained.

Could there be a better example of Republican sabotage than the Franken/Coleman situation? After months of counting and recounting, and giving Coleman more chances than he deserves, and even now after Franken has been confirmed the winner, Coleman wants to take it to the Minnesota Supreme Court. If he fails there he will most probably want to appeal it to the Federal Supreme Court. Apparently he is banking on the possibility that he will find a Republican court that will somehow magically declare him the winner. In the meantime Minnesota goes with only half of their representation in the Senate. This, along with the Michelle Bachman lunacy, makes one wonder if the Minnesotans are paying attention.

The state of Alaska doesn’t seem to be doing much better. Palin, in addition to engaging in a very public dispute with the 18 year-old “fucking redneck” who knocked up her daughter, and now having further embarrassed herself by suggesting for Attorney General a man who thinks men should be able to rape their wives, and in addition holds religious beliefs reminiscent of the 18th century, and has had to back down on her refusal to accept stimulus money, still somehow thinks she may have a run at the Presidency. I mean, how ridiculous does it have to get before the citizens of Alaska, as well as Republicans elsewhere realize just how absurd this is? Oh, I forget, Republicans have no sense of the absurd.

If the above isn’t absurd enough, consider their current “tea bag revolution,” that seems to have no clear-cut or obvious goal in mind. That is, it is ostensibly (I guess) supposed to be protesting taxes, in spite of the fact that Obama is reducing taxes on 95% of the population, and only increasing taxes on the filthy rich by 4% (where they were during the Clinton administration). Does this make any sense? Some have claimed this is also part of the Ron Paul anti-tax plan to eliminate income tax altogether and return to the gold standard. Quite frankly, I have no idea what these people think they are doing and I doubt very much they do either (other than mindlessly opposing Obama).

LKBIQ:
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
Mark Twain

TILT:
Baboons in captivity have been known to live for 45 years.

The Journey to the West 16

I'm certain my journey to the west has been more difficult than some and far less difficult than many others. As I grew older my life became more complex, more plagued by sometimes bad decisions, more consumed by problems, and less satisfying both to me and to those who knew me. As it progresses it also becomes more embarrassing to write about. I am learning just how impossible it is to write a thorough and completely truthful autobiography.

Paddy, Paddy…you homely little son-of-a-bitch, I love you.” It was 2:30 p.m., “Chicki” (her professional name) had just awakened and greeted Paddy. She did not seem surprised by my presence in their hotel room. I’m sure Paddy had told her about me. It was a large room, with its own bathroom, on the second floor of a building that housed an old, well-established corner cigar store, with a long restaurant counter at one end. Like most such stores of that time it sold all kinds of magazines and newspapers as well as cigars and tobacco. The upper two stories were hotel rooms similar to the one we were in at the moment, extra large rooms obviously meant for the “sporting crowd,” people who did not really live very domestically and who never cooked, but merely used them as temporary abodes. People, I surmised, much like Paddy and Chicki. Paddy had registered under an obviously French name. When the landlord said “French, huh?” Paddy responded “Yeah, I French a little.” He thought that was hilarious.

I thought Chicki was very pretty, with long dark hair, large brown eyes, lovely soft olive skin, and a trim figure. She looked like she might be a Latin, although her real name was not at all indicative of that. She also appeared to be intelligent. I wondered why she had become a prostitute. I wondered even more what she saw in Paddy. I don’t know what transpired between the two of them, I never saw any conspicuous displays of affection other than a kind of gentle banter. I assume Paddy had convinced her that he truly cared for her and wanted to stay with her and look after her. Presumably after they saved enough money she would give up whoring and they would do something else. Paddy’s immediate goal seemed to be simply getting enough money to buy a “baby Cadillac.” I think this was not an uncommon occurrence in those days, a man would make some money with a woman to get a grubstake to do something better, rather like young men were doing selling drugs in the 1960’s. And although Paddy’s appearance was hardly that of a matinee idol, he did have a kind of charm. Chicki’s weakness seemed to be shoes, she must have had easily fifty pairs, all expensive.

I never knew anything about Paddy’s family. He could well have been an orphan. He had worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) for a time, somewhere out in the woods, building roads and I think also a Forest Service Camp. I learned this one day when I asked him about his strange tattoos. On his left arm, beginning at about the wrist, was a series of the most primitive tattoos I had ever seen. They were difficult to identify but the first one was apparently supposed to be a baby. He explained their origin. None of the young men that worked in his CCC camp owned much of anything. But one of them had a rather nice leather jacket. Paddy had a two day leave so he borrowed his friend’s jacket. He returned without it, explaining to his friend that he had traded it for a tattooing set. As he didn’t know how to tattoo, he practiced on himself. He soon gave it up. His friend was not pleased, but Paddy, who was as wiry and strong as a feral cat, and also had the morals of one, didn’t worry about such things.

Anyway, I saw Paddy frequently during the summer, and I came to know Chicki a little better. Paddy sometimes played in an all-night poker game. When he knew he was going to do that he asked me to meet Chicki when she got off work at 4:00 a.m., which I did a few times. She was always ravenous so we immediately went to a nearby all-night restaurant where she ate heartily. I have no idea what the regulars there thought about a skinny 17 year old kid with glasses sitting there with a whore at that early hour. From the looks of them I think they were probably only interested in their own immediate problems. Chicki would go to bed and I would try to sleep a bit in a nearby bowling alley. Later in the morning Paddy and I would meet for breakfast in a restaurant at the Davenport Hotel. Paddy always ordered “Poached Eggs Vienna Style,” which looked to me like a combination of milk toast and poached eggs. I thought it looked disgusting. Paddy thought it made him virile.

In spite of my friendship with Paddy I somehow managed to finish my course at Lewis and Clark High School. Summer was almost over. One day I was standing on a street corner waiting for the light to change to cross over to the bowling alley. I was wearing at that time a kind of brown suede jacket that was popular and had a cigarette in my mouth. An expensive car stopped for the light and an elegant well-dressed woman looked at me with such utter disgust I never forgot it. She was quite right, I looked like a punk. My break with Paddy came shortly after that. We were walking back from breakfast when Paddy stopped me and said, “Do you see that woman crossing the street with that brown bag?” I said I did. He then explained that she crossed the street there every morning with the proceeds from some business. He proposed we steal a car, he would drive it, while I would grab the bag of money. I said, “I don’t think so, Paddy.” That was the last time I saw him. I was told by Babe years later that Paddy was selling kitchenware door to door in Louisiana. I don’t know if that was true. I also heard that Chicki left him when she found out he was trying to get another whore working for him. His explanation that he was only doing it for them, apparently fell on deaf ears. Chicki was no fool.

The summer came to an end. I knew I did not want to be a gambler. My claustrophobia was so intense I knew I could never commit a crime and risk going to jail. It was time for the University. I still did not really want to attend. My father’s sense of inferiority over his lack of education motivated him to insist. I had no excuse for not going but I was not ready for it. More potential disaster awaited.

Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

Eighty-five year-old man
arrested for trying to ram
ex-wife with motorized wheelchair.

I must be unusually impatient. I know that Obama is said to have accomplished a great deal in his first couple of months in office, and I know it is unreasonable to expect that he would have solved all the problems in such a short time. But it still seems to me that all is for the time being in limbo, at least with respect to the things I believe to be the most important. Perhaps this is because Obama has so many things to do that he has just not gotten around to everything, perhaps it is true he has taken on too many things at once. But however unreasonable it may be I would like to see some action with respect to war crimes. Most everyone (except for some desperate Republicans) seems to recognize that serious war crimes were committed during the Bush/Cheney administration. And it is also known that the failure to act against such war crimes is in and of itself criminal. Obama as a constitutional lawyer has to be aware of this, but as far as I can see nothing much is happening in this area. I know, I know, there are committees and things supposedly investigating this but that is quite possibly just a way of postponing any action for as long as possible.

Then there is the issue of Iran. On the one hand Obama has held out his hand to the Iranians and some kind of initial contact may have been made between our diplomats and theirs. At the same time little action has been taken with respect to this issue. As the Iranians themselves have pointed out (albeit in somewhat different language), talk is cheap. And at the same time Obama is suggesting improved relations there was apparently a meeting to discuss ways to threaten Iran. Threaten them into what? Negotiations I guess, but basically there is nothing much to negotiate as the Iranians have done nothing illegal or improper under all existing agreements. They have rights under the various treaties and such to develop nuclear energy and they seem to have faithfully followed the guidelines set forth in those agreements. We keep insisting they are trying to build a bomb, they keep insisting they are not, and all available information seems to indicate they are telling the truth. If the Israelis weren’t so paranoid, and if they stopped continuing to threaten to bomb them a solution could quite likely be worked out here.

The immigration issue is another area where nothing seems to be happening except talk. Granted this is an almost impossible situation but are we just going to go on talking about it forever without taking any action? It appears that no matter what solution is suggested there is a large block of people opposed to it. As trying to get consensus here is obviously impossible, someone has to simply come up with a reasonable plan and implement it, knowing full well that it won’t please everyone.

Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs is threatening to destroy Mexico. But rather than try to do something about changing the demand we just continue to spend more money and send more troops to help Mexico fight what is virtually a civil war. I was told of a study the other day which indicated that if Britain would legalize drugs they would save 50 billion dollars a year. How much do you think the U.S. could save by taking what is an obvious and simple solution to this monumental problem? I do not see any responsible people in the Obama administration even considering legalization of drugs, not even marijuana. This is just plain and simply stupid.

I am obviously out of tune with the Obama administration on several additional fronts. It seems clear to me we should be getting out of Afghanistan, “the graveyard of empires,” because we cannot possibly “win” anything there. Obama is sending more troops. It seems clear to me we should be slashing our military budget by a lot, Obama is increasing it. We should be telling the Israelis to shape up and stop committing war crimes, as well as stop building more and more illegal settlements in the West Bank, and if they do not, we will stop sending them billions every year. Many people who have studied the health care issue for years know that the least expensive and best system would be a single-payer system. As far as I know, no one in the Obama administration is even considering a single-payer system, at least not seriously.
With a Democratic President and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress it would seem to me things should be moving along much quicker and smoothly than they are. Obama should give up his idealistic goal of bipartisanship as it is perfectly obvious by now the Republicans are never going to participate and will continue to do everything they can to bring Obama down. It would be different if they had any ideas worthy of the name, and if they had serious proposals that would merit some attention, but they do not. They have apparently decided to just say no to everything, whether it would benefit our country or not. What is supposed to be a viable democratic political system has degenerated into little more than childish petulance and name-calling. What used to be the Republican Party has become, to use Spiro Agnew’s apt description of the current Republicans, “nattering nabobs of negativity.”

LKBIQ:
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
H. L. Mencken

TILT:
Trucanini, said to be the last living Tasmanian, died in 1876. Her skeleton was hung in the Museum (I have seen a recent book that claims there are even now some 200 people in Tasmania who claim descent from the original Tasmanian stock).

Changing tastes

Homeless sex offender living
under a bridge arrested for
failing to upgrade his address.

I have been thinking of things that I never liked and things that I once liked that I no longer like, and contemplating the reasons for them. Let me begin with motion pictures. When I was a child I loved motion pictures and I attended faithfully at least every Saturday and every other chance I could. My father didn’t like movies and virtually never attended one. I didn’t understand that at all. When I asked him about it he usually replied, “they’re just make-believe.” It didn’t bother me at the time that they were make-believe, but somehow over the years it has come to bother me. I virtually never watch movies anymore because when I try to watch one I am suddenly reminded that they are, indeed, simply make-believe. The actors involved in scenes of such passion and activity are just faking it. I can’t get that out of my head and thus movies have been more or less ruined for me. I guess I can thank my father for that. The only movies I can watch at all are either documentaries or comedies because I know that they are real or, in fact, just comedies and that is what they are meant to be. You can’t fake comedy, either it’s funny or not. I do have trouble with comedies sometimes also, because it is possible to make things funny that are not meant to be funny at all. I suspect that someone could make a funny movie about the Holocaust if they set their mind to it, you know, lots of slapstick, contradictions, funny backdrops, costumes, old people acting like children, children acting like adults, and whatever. As far as I know no one has as yet attempted this, but as I sometimes watch late night comedy I believe it might not be far off. Contemporary comedy becomes more and more raunchy, scatological, and off-color all the time. For many nowadays, dirty words are somehow funny in and of themselves. Like much of what used to be entertaining and genuinely funny has now become little more than who can become the most shocking. Perhaps the best example of this can be found in female standup routines. Whatever happened to what used to be comedy, like Jack Benny, Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Buster Keaton, Carol Burnett, Jackie Gleason, and such? They didn’t have to trade on trashy routines and bad language and were certainly no less funny than out contemporary practitioners. I don’t mean to say that some of our current comedians are not funny, they are, but the nature of comedy itself has somehow changed and I don’t think necessarily for the better.

I think movies may have also ruined my appreciation for classical music, not that I ever really had much appreciation for it. First of all, I rarely heard classical music as a child, except in the movies. When I heard the William Tell Overture I thought of the Lone Ranger. When I went to the must-see Disney movies I always saw ducks and geese flying to some classical score, or played as background music to scenes of the jungle or whatever. Other movies used classical music as background music for murders, cattle rustling, hangings, love scenes, runaway trains or horses, tragedies, or robberies in progress, and so on. Now much classical music strikes me as basically funereal. I am not really happy about this but it is too late, I fear, to change it.

About the only place I can think of where changes in my life might be seen as positive have to do with food. I was a very picky eater as a child, refusing to eat egg yolks, spinach, broccoli, oatmeal, brussel sprouts, carrots, cream-of-wheat, cottage cheese, and I don’t remember what all else. Like my father I ate only meat and potatoes. My mother was beside herself trying to get us to eat properly. She was so desperate she would sometimes serve the steaks or roasts on a bed of lettuce, hoping that we might accidentally eat some. She would sprinkle my tomato slices with sugar and try to tempt me in other ways to eat what was good for me. I didn’t like milk and was uninterested in cheese. But she had no trouble at all getting me to eat ham, bacon, side pork, and pickled pigs’ feet (but no liver), which I would devour with relish. Now, of course, I eat and enjoy almost everything in the way of fruits and vegetables, as well as liver and the standby meat and potatoes (I still refuse to eat oatmeal). Maturity I guess has some rewards.

In short, I basically lacked Culture (with a capital C). I have tried to like classical music but I confess I don’t really like it much. I have never been able to stomach ballet, which in my childhood was described as toe-dancing and indulged in only by stuck-up little girls. We had no exposure to the fine arts other than once we were shown some postcards of Van Gogh and others (postcards, mind you). Poetry was forced upon us as we were made to memorize and recite it in class, the effect of which was to make us hate it, unless we could use substitute lines which were either obscene or hilarious. Reading I loved, and I did a great deal of it, but certainly not literature. Rex the Wonder Dog and The Hardy Brothers were about as deep as we went, and most of the kids didn’t even delve that deeply into reading. I grew up to be a slob but somehow I outgrew the worst of it. Still, to this day, when I hear certain music I think of birds trying to get airborne or animals dancing in the forest. I seldom watch movies unless they are either comedies or documentaries. And, I am proud to say, I developed an intense hatred of country music of any kind. I guess all is not lost.

LKBIQ:
I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.
Woody Allen

TILT:
During the first World War sauerkraut was called “freedom cabbage.”

More lying

Doctor fired for malpractice
after telling woman to
strip for eye examination.

Why do they do it? Keep on lying, that is. I mean, lying is one thing, but lying when it is obvious that you are lying, and it can easily be demonstrated that you are lying, seems to me to be quite different. So we have Republicans lying about things that are easily shown to be lies. George Will, for example, recently claimed that the ice fields not only are not shrinking, they are expanding, a blatant lie. Senator Inhofe, standing on the tarmac in Afghanistan, said that Obama was reducing the military budget, a blatant lie. He previously said global warming was not happening, another blatant lie. Glenn Beck (and many others) have claimed that Obama is going to ban guns, a blatant lie. Many Republicans have claimed that the Employee Free Choice Act will do away with secret ballots, a blatant lie. A headline today said “Gates slashing Pentagon budget,” still another blatant lie. Cheney claims we are less safe under Obama, a lie (or at least a claim based upon no factual evidence whatsoever). And of course we have lived through eight years of one lie after another. It is not clear to me that Bush/Cheney ever told the truth about anything. Then the whole series of lies about Obama: he is a Muslim, he is a socialist, he is a fascist, he was not really born in the U.S., he is not eligible to be President, and on and on and on. I really don’t understand it. Why lie when it can be immediately proven that you are telling a lie? Are Republicans simply unaware that modern technology does not allow them to lie so obviously? I cannot believe that they actually believe all the lies they tell. In either case they would have to be seen as incredibly stupid. I don’t know how to explain this ubiquitous lying, especially when it is so obviously shown to be completely false. I have long thought that Republicans as a group were probably pretty stupid, now I am beginning to believe they are crazy, or at the very least pathological liars. What makes this worse is that the MSM lets them get away with their lying, seldom, if ever, challenging them when they deliver one of these obviously blatant lies. I guess in one sense you might understand their lying, if only because by constantly lying there is no way anyone could possible reason with them. By lying so constantly they are basically immunizing themselves from having to engage in rational discourse (which, of course, they would lose). I cannot think of any other explanation. Some of this lying is so awful that it literally leaves one speechless. There is a restaurant here where some of the locals (all Republicans) meet for coffee and conversation virtually every morning. This can hardly be compared to the Algonquin Round Table as it is more like the wilfully ignorant discussing the problems of the day with the totally uninformed, like one dittohead to another. Today these staunch Republican pundits, who were discussing the question of the price of oil, apparently assured a relatively rare visitor that “South Dakota has more oil than Saudi Arabia.” What, pray tell, can one respond to something like that? You might as well run shrieking from the place tearing out your hair as you go. I don’t know if something like this even falls under the category of lying, insane gibberish is perhaps a more accurate description. I have a friend who used to eat breakfast at this place but had to stop because he feared the conversation might eventually drive him insane.

Whatever any of these various Republicans claim, Obama has actually increased the military budget by 4% over last year’s budget. He and Gates are getting rid of some of the stuff that we obviously do not need and shifting priorities around, but it remains an increase. Personally, I believe this is ridiculous. I still maintain we could slash our military budget by more than 25% and it would make no difference whatsoever to our security. This budget does not reflect our true needs for self-defense, but, rather, the “needs” of the military/industrial/political complex that controls our lives. The defense contractors are shrewd so they deliberately spread the largesse over many states, thus making it more difficult to do away with various projects. Today I heard, for example, that parts for one of the fighter planes are made in 46 different states. That means 46 or more Congresspersons who will fight to keep the project going whether we need it or not. It remains to be seen if the Obama/Gates budget will survive the entrenched interests that will resist it to the last gasp.

LKBIQ:
There is an evil tendency underlying all our technology - the tendency to do what is reasonable even when it isn't any good.
Robert Pirsig

TILT:
The Hippopotamus is regarded as one of the most aggressive animals in Africa.

The Masculinist

When she did not place the cheese
properly on his meatball sandwich,
he attacked her with knife and teeth.

Republicans are going to go ballistic, they say, if anyone reveals the terrible and illegal things they did over the past eight years. That is, if the Obama administration releases certain memos that allowed Bush/Cheney to arrest and torture people at will. They argue that releasing such memos would be embarrassing. I guess we certainly wouldn’t want any war criminals to be embarrassed would we? Of course they will argue that it might reveal state secrets and it might involve foreign governments that would also be embarrassed, and so on. This is all nonsense, the memos should be released and those involved should be held accountable. Embarrassment should be the least of their worries.

You may recall that some time back I began a new hobby: collecting sex advice to women as expessed on the covers of women’s magazines (Morialekafa 3-7-09). Unlike almost all of my previous attempts at hobbies, I have not already abandoned this one. Today I was able to add to my beginning collection: from Best You, Better Sex Tonight, from Complete Woman, Sex Secrets You Must Know About Men, and Sex Goddess Secrets Amazing New Moves He’ll Dream About Day and Night, from Cosmopolitan, Sex He Craves, and also The Easy Way to Improve Your Sex Drive, and finally, from Glamour, 25 Things You Do that Men Secretly Love. I quite likely could have collected more but I ran out of time. I also discovered that this hobby is not as easy as you might think. This is because there are all kinds of what are perhaps borderline cases. For example, also from Cosmopolitan, Get Butt Naked, from True Romance, Bunny Love A Hop, Skip and Jump Away, and from Women’s Health, Get a Tight Butt in 10 Minutes. These kinds of things just hint of sexual pleasure rather than hitting you in the teeth with it. Another problem is that virtually everything in women’s magazines refers to “sexy.” That is, you can have sexy thighs, a sexy butt, sexy legs, sexy eyebrows, sexy eyes, sexy smiles, sexy dresses, sexy swim suits, sexy nightgowns, sexy lips, hands, and arms, and pretty much sexy everything and anything (I have yet to encounter sexy feet). If I didn’t know that American women were the most progressive, modern, feminist, glass-ceiling-busting, as good as men, women, anywhere on earth, I would think they were preoccupied, even obsessed, with sex and becoming sex objects. The rules of my hobby do not require me to actually read any of these articles, nor do they allow me to analyze any of the materials I gather. Even so, I cannot but wonder of the image of women that seems to be implied by this ubiquitous literature. It does seem to imply that women must want to be sexually attractive to men, and to please men sexually. The aim of the magazines seems to be to help women in this ongoing enterprise. Although I have not searched seriously for it, I have seen nothing even approaching this concern in magazines for men. Men’s magazines for the most part tend to show nude women and women in sexual poses and such, but there is little in the way of instructions for men on how to please women. I wonder at this. I’m sure that at least in part it harkens back to the days when women were believed not to enjoy sex, were not allowed to sue for loss of consortium, and so on. I’m sure there are attempts to teach men to think of women’s pleasure as well as their own, but these are nowhere near as prevalent as the advice for women.

In the course of my researches on this earth-shattering pursuit I discovered what I think is a strange anomaly. If you look up “feminist” in Merriam-Webster it appears only as “feminism” and is defined as: “1. The theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes, and 2. Organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.” If you look up “masculinism” you find there is no such word. It appears only as “masculinist” and is defined as: “an advocate of male superiority or dominance.” This raises a number of questions. If there is such a word as feminism, why is there no such word as masculinism? And why is feminism concerned with equality whereas masculinists are concerned with inequality (superiority and dominance)? Is it the case that if you are masculine you are automatically a “sexist pig,” whereas if you are feminine you lack feelings of superiority or dominance and strive merely for equality? And why is there no “organized activity” on behalf of male rights and interests? It would appear to me that feminists are organized in order to fight against male superiority, but male superiority is not, in American culture, generally speaking, organized (although in some cultures it may be). It seems to me this whole argument is predicated on the assumption that males have always been considered superior and dominant and females always subordinate and inferior. I acknowledge this may be the kind of general view we have of Western-European cultures, but it is clearly a pretty superficial description of the facts, and is based upon assumptions as to which kinds of behavior are somehow more important than others (fighting/hunting more important than food gathering/child care, etc.) The ethnographic record indicates to me that the issue is far more complex and nowhere near as clear-cut as we make it out to be. Sexual behavior may have been symbolic of broader ideas about dominance/subordinance in the past, but I suspect the so-called “sexual revolution” will eventually put an end to such ideas. Far from training to be sex objects, women may well be training to their strengths, and the idea of male superiority may well go the way of the chastity belt.

LKBIQ:
Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult.
Charlotte Whitton

TILT:
Armadillos have the ability to stay underwater for up to six minutes.

The Journey to the West 15

Although my friends and relatives are now slowly and not so slowly disappearing, my own journey to the west continues. I called one of the few friends I am still in touch with, just to chat as always, to learn that his wife had unexpectedly died. Two weeks later I called him again to see how he was, his sister just died. One of my closest friends is now in a state of advanced Parkinson's and can no longer communicate. Another just had a second stroke and can no longer communicate. Still another has to look after his wife full-time as she can no longer do anything. Still another friend's wife just died of Alzheimer's. There are other terrors as well. The walls are closing in on me. The Great Mystery continues.

By my senior year in High School I had established myself as an absolutely terrible student. I had done well in a few courses, but really terrible in others (especially math and accounting). I had even managed to fail typing, not because I couldn’t type, but because I didn’t like having to do the lessons that I thought were boring. The teacher said that if I boxed up the typewriters for the summer and cleaned up the room she wouldn’t flunk me. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I don’t believe anyone thought I was actually stupid, but there was no doubt I was not a highly motivated student. Even though I was not very athletic, or particularly handsome, I was popular enough and at times hung out with every group there was in our small school. Of course I continued to be a regular at the Pool Hall. My girlfriend and I went to all the dances and most of the social events and sang Auld Lang Syne at the end of the senior prom. We were about to graduate, and my journey to the west suddenly became more difficult, complicated, problematical, and fraught with potential disasters.

For me, the time between my graduation from High School and into my twenties was difficult. I guess if you were the son of a college graduate and knew more or less what you wanted to do, like follow in your father’s footsteps and become a lawyer or a doctor or dentist or engineer or whatever, and you went directly from High School into college where you pledged your father’s fraternity and so on, this period of time might have been very pleasant. This was not the case for me. I had thought about following in my father’s footsteps, indeed, I had practiced various things you could do with a deck of cards, I was familiar with the odds, and was a decent poker player. But after the first thousand hours of practicing in front of a mirror, I realized that to become a truly skilled “card mechanic” was probably more difficult than becoming a doctor so I had given that idea up. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I knew my father would insist I go to the University. I didn’t really not want to go to the University, but I didn’t want to go either. I didn’t know anyone at the University, had never even visited there, and had but a very dim idea of what was involved. But, then, I didn’t want to go to work in the mines or the mills. There were few other opportunities.

My life that summer following our graduation was further complicated by the fact that, technically, I lacked one or two credits and should not have been allowed to graduate. But in a small town like ours, and with a class that had mostly gone all twelve years together, they allowed me to at least pretend. In order to make up the credits it was decided I would spend part of the summer in Spokane going to summer school. I arranged to live for the time with one of my then closest friends, who had recently moved to Spokane with his parents. My girlfriend, faithful as always, somehow managed to stay the summer there also, and had found a job there. Our relationship, however, was slowly disintegrating. We both knew that marriage was simply not possible under our existing circumstances, no job, no future, no idea as to what to do. She announced during the summer that she would enter a Nursing School in Portland in the fall. I was going to enter the University. Although we had been together for years it was obvious it was not going to last. We did spend the summer together but we knew that separation was inevitable and I think we both began to think of ourselves in very different ways. As she was working and I was attending school we began to see less and less of each other.

This summer in Spokane was a strange interlude in my life in still another way. This was because of the presence of my friend Paddy C., who was at the time a self-described “gaffer,” with a whore to look after and big plans for their future. How my friendship with Paddy developed did not seem to me to be particularly unusual but I guess it was. Paddy was a genuine character with a gift of gab and a sense of humor that helped him overcome his physical appearance. He was several years older than me, Irish, small, I doubt he weighed more than 135 pounds, and he had rather homely features with sandy hair and a prematurely wrinkled face. He had quite a reputation as a street fighter and was as tough as they come. I was fascinated by him and had known him very casually while still in High School. It was Paddy who had assured me with absolute confidence when a man selling marijuana appeared in the alley behind our High School that marijuana was not habit forming. “I’ve smoked it off and on for years and there’s nothing to it,” dismissing it as utter nonsense. Coincidentally, this was at the same time we were forced to watch Reefer Madness in school and we all had recognized immediately that it was sheer propaganda, too ridiculous to be believed. I bought some and tried to smoke it, but as I didn’t know how, nothing came of it (until many years later). Paddy was drawn to me, I believe, because he knew my father was a gambler, and he thought I could probably teach him something about cards. This was not an unreasonable assumption as I had been for a time actually running a small poker game in the back of Babe and Jim’s. I forget who started this game but whoever it was, left, and it somehow fell to me to take it over. It was simple enough, if there weren’t enough players to start a game I would play, if there were sufficient players I would simply supervise the game, removing small sums of money from the pots from time to time which I split with the house. We could have charged the players rent for the table but that was not the local tradition. If there were players, and if the game went on long enough, it was possible to make a decent sum of money. Paddy occasionally played, but he was not really much of a poker player. In any case, Paddy and I slowly developed what I guess was a strange friendship. I taught him a bit about cards and he taught me a lot about life that I would otherwise never have known.

Serendipity?

Arrested for driving 103 mph,
Grandma explains she was teaching
Grandson not to drive like that.

Am I bothered by Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck? Well, yes and no. I am personally not bothered by them because I have never listened to them. I don’t believe I have ever seen or heard Sean Hannity at all, ever. I have heard the other three very briefly a couple of times because I have accidentally tuned in the wrong station or heard them in a store or somewhere. Here in our town Rush, for example, is played in the Court House by those who work in the licensing department. If you have to get a license you can’t avoid at least a brief exposure. Sometimes he is also playing in the Health Food store. What does bother me about these lying cretins is twofold: the fact that they exist at all, and, more importantly, they somehow have audiences, whose existence allows them to continue (and make absolutely obscene sums of money for chronic lying and hatemongering). I am led to believe there is another world out there of which I am virtually ignorant. That is, I cannot believe there are actually people who listen to these incredibly awful jerks and, not only do they apparently listen, they proudly announce themselves to be “dittoheads.” I should be familiar with at least some of these people because there are lots of them here where I live. But I do not fraternize with them and, in fact, I barely ever come into direct contact with them (I tend to pretty faithfully keep to myself).

I was extremely sociable as a child and I rarely remember even playing by myself. Over the years I have changed dramatically to the point where I actually shun social contacts except with a very few individuals. This has, at least for me, advantages, as I do not have to be exposed to other people’s idiocy (I have enough of my own). There are, I suppose, disadvantages as well. I seem to have missed out on some things that I have been led to believe are quite popular, for example, tabloids. In my entire lifetime I have never once seen anyone buy one of the many tabloid newspapers that are prominently displayed at the checkout counters in our local stores. I believed for a long time this was because no one was stupid enough to buy one of these rags, but one day a cashier told me how wrong I was. I guess it must have just been accidental. Until two years ago I had never seen a single person ever buy or consume a Dr. Pepper. But one of my friends had a friend of his visit from Mexico and he drank Dr. Pepper. I was quite amazed as I had never seen it before. Obviously my self-imposed exile from ordinary society has denied me some of the usual experiences of others. Has it been worth it? I believe so. Much of my lack of experience with ordinary things must simply be accidental (or perhaps I am not aware of being deaf, dumb, and blind). I have lived here on this county road for almost 20 years. During that time I have never seen anyone throw a bottle, can, or box from a car or pickup, yet our county road is constantly littered with such garbage. Am I just oblivious to what goes on around me, or what? I believe it is supposed to be illegal to have dogs in the back of your pickup if they are not safely restrained. People here have dogs in their pickups all the time; I have never seen one restrained in any way. I have seen calves’ brains on menus a few times in my life, but on only one occasion did I see somehow actually order them. A man seated next to me at the counter was illiterate and asked me to read him the menu. When I came to brains he became quite excited and insisted that was what he was going to order. I have never seen anyone either buy or eat tripe, although our meat counter features it most of the time. Our market never features brains, but I learned accidentally that if you want them they will produce them from the back of somewhere or other. I learned this only because for a while we had some brain tanners as neighbors.

I don’t know exactly why this is bothering me. I think it is because so much goes on in the world that I never witness or experience. Of course I know that one cannot expect to experience everything during their lifetime, but many of these experiences I might have had, I haven’t. I have never made a hole-in-one, and what is worse, I have never seen one made. I have never been seated next to an attractive woman in a bus, train or plane. I have never won a lottery or known anyone who did. Although I have owned many, many automobiles, I have never owned a Chevrolet, and I am pretty sure I have only known one person who did. I could go on but what is the point? I do not understand why these things have not happened to me, nor do I understand very well things that have happened to me. Is life merely serendipitous?

It is so wonderful to have a President one does not have to be ashamed of! Obama and his wife have obviously been great hits in Europe and have done a great deal already to restore American credibility and popularity around the globe. It is virtually impossible to contrast Obama’s trip with any of George W. Bush’s, they are so different as to be almost beyond belief. I have no doubt that Obama’s popularity will wane, especially as he is forced to make decisions that will always be unpopular at least to some. But I do believe he is the right man at the right moment and we desperately need him.

LKBIQ:
Leadership is based on inspiration, not domination; on cooperation, not intimidation.
William Arthur Wood

TILT:
Palouse worms can be 3 feet long and dig burrows up to 15 feet deep.

How high, Bibi?

Woman arrested for throwing
scissors at husband, because he
wouldn’t take her to Busch Gardens.

The arrogance of Benjamin Netanyahu is apparently exceeded only by his blatant racism. Can you believe that even before his inauguration he instructed Obama on what he had to do? In other words, he instructed Obama to jump and apparently expects him to say “how high, Bibi?” That is, he basically ordered Obama to settle the (perhaps non-existent) problem of potential Iranian nuclear bombs, threatening that if Obama does not, Israel would attack Iran on its own. It is my sincere hope that Obama will tell him to just go ahead and attack on his own (which he quite likely will not do). What makes Netanyahu think he can order the President of the U.S. around? Probably the fact that Israel has been doing just that for a long time and virtually every time they get the results they want. Now, the Israeli lobby, having successfully blocked the appointment of Charles Freeman, and Obama’s refusal to fight for it, apparently makes them think they still have the upper hand and can continue to direct our Foreign Policy. This would be a marvelous opportunity to finally break the stranglehold the Israeli lobby holds on the U.S. Government. But will Obama be up to the job? I sincerely hope so.

Do not lose sight of the fact that Israel is a pariah nation that without the unconditional support of the U.S. might have long since perished. They have broken more U.N. resolutions and international laws that most other nations put together. For years they have been stealing Palestinian land and water and show no signs of stopping. They have been carrying out a slow form of genocide of the Palestinians and obviously wish to continue doing so. They are obvious, even admitted racists, who do not believe Arabs are fully human. With the election of Netanyahu, and the appointment of Friedman, they have made this even more obvious. Netanyahu is opposed to a two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem. The alternative would be a single state solution which he would hate even more because the Arabs would soon outnumber the Jews to the point where Israeli would no longer be a Jewish state and would have to enforce apartheid. So, if Netanyahu does not want a two-state solution, or a one state solution, what is the alternative he prefers. Obviously to maintain the status quo that is no solution at all, and eventually crush the Palestinians completely so he can herd them into small disjointed enclaves (like reservations) where they have no power and will basically just provide cheap labor for Israel. In the meanwhile the Israelis, with their overwhelming military superiority can just go on killing them pretty much at will, women and children included. So far they have managed to continue this policy, unfortunately with the complicitcy of the U.S. in their war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon. The U.S. supports them to the tune of several billion dollars a year, without which they would not be quite so able to continue this miniature holocaust year after year. No U.S. President or Congress has refused to continue this unholy alliance, no matter how blatantly Israel has violated laws and resolutions, no American administration has admitted that Israeli national interests and ours are not necessarily the same. This is certainly true with respect to Iran. Netanyahu insists the Iranians are not only a threat to Israel, but also the U.S., and indeed, to the entire world. This is utter and complete nonsense. It is not really very clear how much of a threat Iran is to Israel, and they are certainly not a threat to the U.S. or the rest of the world. Netanyahu wants everyone to believe the Iranians are different from everyone else, that they are crazy fanatics that would immediately go about dropping nuclear bombs on the entire world, that they are an “existential” threat to Israel. In fact, the greatest existential threat to Israel is Benjamin Natanyahu. Will President Obama, with his overwhelming popularity and support around the world, be able to finally, at long last, curb the greedy Israeli war criminals, or will he, as Netanyahu expects, just say “how high, Bibi?” He caved on the Freeman appointment, will he do it again? Will Israel succeed where Hitler failed? Are the Palestinians doomed to emasculation and slave labor? If Obama can’t or won’t help them, who will? Netanyahu says he can work with Obama. Not with the Obama I think I know. Obama says he wants a viable Palestinian state, Netanyahu says he does not. The outcome of this confrontation carries with it the possible destruction of both Israel and the United States. The rest of the world will be watching.

LKBIQ:
All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
Sir Winston Churchill

TILT:
Hummingbirds are the only birds able to fly backwards.