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Copyright © 2007, Bruce Harrison
Screw the Middle Class Volume V
Opinions by Bruce Harrison
Preamble
This is NOT fiction, and for the most part is not fact. It's pretty much the rambling opinions of a certifiable lunatic. Many topics get covered, from the various ways in which big business screws the middle class out of its hard-earned money, to some wild conspiracy theories about the evil empire that we Americans call our "democracy".
The parts are in no particular order, just as topics come to the author's mind and get written. The author is a total pessimist, cynical, old, sick, and de facto bankrupt. It may be a horrible thought to most people that their main legacy to future generations is debt that can never get paid off, but that's what a great many of us face. (Including me.)
We recommend that you take this stuff seriously, even though there's pretty much nothing you can do to change the way things are done. The irony is that many of you will feel as if you're doing quite well, have a good job that pays a comfortable living wage, and so on. Keep in mind that all of that is a fragile shell, easily cracked by circumstances you didn't even think about. Enjoy what follows!
Part One - Joe Kennedy????
It just HAS to be some awful, evil commun ... OOPS, I mean terrorist plot to destroy the American way of life! Why else would somebody from Venezuela named (of all possible hispanic names) Joe Kennedy be offering to sell heating oil to elderly Americans at a forty per cent discount?
The ads are appearing on TV quite regularly. Sometimes "Joe Kennedy" is seen at an oil drilling rig in Lake Maracaibo, telling us that our friends in Venezuela, also known as Citgo, a large oil company, are willing and able to prevent elderly Americans from freezing to death in their own homes. As the saying goes, there MUST be a "catch" of some kind. The ads show a phone number where our senior citizens can "call to qualify". No, we have NOT tried that number, because we use natural gas for our heat, and Venezuela isn't supplying that to our local utility. Our gas, from all domestic sources, has gone UP in price significantly since hurricane Katrina. We don't expect it to EVER go down to pre-Katrina prices, but then that's just the "American way"!
There's no indication in any of the ads that the government of Venezuela has anything to do with the offer, but it DOES make us wonder. We know there's significant bad blood between our beloved Emperor and the (freely elected) President of that country. We recall that that President berated ours quite mercilessly in the United Nations. Could this heating oil discount be part of a plot by the terrorist-supporting Venezuelan Communist (he actually talks to Fidel!!!!) to make Emperor George II and his oil company buddies look bad?
Never mind. If I used oil heat, I would be on the phone in seconds calling old "Joe" to see if I could get that 40 % discount. I'd take it now! I don't think that the Saudis or the Kuwaitis will be making any such offer in this century!
Part Two - Arrogance, thy name is ...
It comes in many forms, this arrogance we find in our current Emperor. It's very EASY to find examples. In recent weeks, for example, he chose a visit to Vietnam to make a pronouncement about Iraq, to the effect that "We will win if we don't quit." Very appropriate in a country where we would STILL be fighting a lost cause if somebody had not learned the lesson that some situations, such as the war in Vietnam, cannot be won by force of arms, particularly if we are seen as occupiers propping up a corrupt puppet regime.
Meanwhile, the commission headed by James Baker is still trying to come up with SOME KIND of strategy change that will extricate us from George's quagmire. Even before their report has been released, George is taking steps to undermine its expected recommendations. In other words, he's preparing already to ignore anything these wise old men say. To facilitate his planned action, he's having yet another "internal study" done by the very people who created the mess and have been unable to come up with any ideas beyond "stay the course". Rumsfeld, Rice, and a few other supporters are working on their own recommendations, which I expect will contain nothing new.
The one recommendation most feared by Emperor George II is the one that calls for "involving" other nations from the region to help stop the Iraqi civil war that we caused. Since those other nations include Syria and Iran, two countries we don't speak to, such a recommendation has to be undercut in advance of the Baker report. Administration spokesliars have already been out there telling the media that "talking to Iran or Syria is out of the question".
And now, George is off on a trip to "pressure" our very own elected Democracy's leader into actions he'll never take. George is so impressed with how well Democracy has worked in Iraq that he's holding the two-day meeting in Jordan. Seems even Baghdad's "Green Zone" is not safe enough to allow him to visit Iraqi leaders in Iraq. Jordan seems to be the ONLY viable choice, since their King can keep the angry mobs from killing a visiting "Leader of the Free World". Heavy infusions of riot police can be expected on the streets of Amman.
Part Three - Out of Control
One of the offshoots of the 9/11 attacks has been an increasing lack of civility in our country. We see it in things like the so-called "Patriot Act", stripping away rights guaranteed by the constitution, but it also manifests itself in the "support our local police" syndrome. Yes, the attacks on 9/11 showed us that policemen can be heroic beyond measure. Unfortunately not all of them have retained the discipline that should go with heroism.
The most recent example is of course the shooting of a groom on the night before his wedding by what can only be described as an unruly mob of police. FIFTY, COUNT 'EM, FIFTY rounds of ammo used on a car full of UNARMED citizens, killing one (the groom) and putting several others in hospital with serious injuries. This may well be the absolute worst example (so far) of the fact that we may have over-supported our police forces. Others abound.
Los Angeles has seen numerous examples of police using unnecessary levels of force against unarmed suspects. They rarely even apologize for such actions. In New Orleans, police severely beat up an unarmed 64-year-old man when he tried to ask a simple question about the post-Katrina curfew. In an earlier volume of this set of "gripes", we mentioned the unarmed doctor who was shot and killed by a SWAT team sent to execute a search warrant at his office. He was a non-violent suspect, allegedly holding illegal poker games. The SWAT team was somehow deemed necessary to conduct a legal, warrant-supported search. We discussed back then the possible outcomes. It took the local prosecutor no time at all to reach the conclusion that the shooting was "accidental". Pointing a loaded and cocked weapon at an unarmed and un-resisting suspect and then pulling the trigger was just an "accident". The doctor is just as dead as if some non-policeman had shot him, but of course if you or I had done that, voluntary manslaughter would be the least serious of possible charges.
This week, the outcome of the internal police investigation was announced. The policeman who shot and killed the unarned Optometrist will suffer a whole THREE WEEKS on unpaid leave. The dead man's family was less than happy with this result! Below is the stuff as it appeared in Part Fifteen of Volume II:
The case happened in Northern Virginia. A man suspected of gambling activities was pulled out of his office by county police. He was unarmed and not dangerous in any way. Police held him at gunpoint for some time there in front of his business. While he was held at bay, one of the police fatally shot the unarmed suspect. It took three hours to notify his next of kin. The local prosecutor investigated and concluded that the shooting was accidental, requiring no action against the officer.
Part Four - A Free Country
We got the main part of this from the AP, as reported by AOL. How often do we hear the phrase "it's a free country" applied to the good old United States. We have Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and so on.
Unfortunately, not everybody in this country really believes in those freedoms, and there are people in this country spending every waking moment finding ways to limit other people's use of those freedoms. The so-called Evangeligal Right, for example, seems to think that a theocracy in which only the Christians would have freedom of religion would be a good thing. Others would place limits on our freedom of speech.
The speech issue sometimes gets framed in things that do not involve speaking out loud, but instead in things printed or displayed. Today's example of groups trying to suppress free speech involves a little town in Colorado, Pagosa Springs. In a subdivision called Loma Linda, a woman named Lisa Jensen has adorned an outside wall of her house with a holiday wreath that is not just the common circular type. It starts as a circle, but has an added vertical line and two other lines that make it into the time-honored "Peace" symbol that we knew in the 1960s.
Back then, the symbol was often used in protest movements against the Vietnam war, along with the slogan, "Make love, not war". Since the end of that wasteful war, the use of that symbol has faded away, so one hardly ever sees it used today. Lisa Jensen, however, thinks that a symbol of peace fits in nicely with the season of Christmas, as for example the birth of the celebrated "Prince of Peace" that so many people revere.
Her neighbors, however, did not all agree. Like so many communities, Loma Linda has a "homeowners' association" whose job is to keep up the standards of the community. Mostly, such associations get their power from the "consent of the governed" because one can't buy a dwelling there without signing up to consent to the oversight of that group. (Can't live here unless you are a card-carrying Nazi.)
In this particular case, just one person, Bob Kearns, the head of the Association, has taken on the job of eliminating Lisa Jensen's "peace symbol" wreath. He asked the Association's Architectural Control Committee to require the removal of the wreath. All five members refused to do that, and Kearns fired all five of them. He has unilaterally imposed a fine of $25.00 per day on Lisa Jensen until the wreath is removed. (Kearns has, among other things, characterized the wreath as a protest against our country's current "holy war" in Iraq, and as a symbol associated with, of all things, Satan Worship!!!!)
Lisa Jensen, who once was the President of the Homeowners' Association, has refused to comply. She plans to keep the wreath up right through the holiday season. The fines, she figures, will amount to about $1,000, but she is also figuring that the Association will be prevented from collecting. (Presumably the courts in Colorado will not uphold the Association's right to fine members for symbolic speech.)
We'll see. Meanwhile, I hope all of you get to enjoy the Holiday Season, have a Merry Christmas, a happy Hannukah, and a good New Year without running into such as Bob Kearns. Peace be unto you!
Part Five - A Christmas Idea
The news might never get beyond the immediate Washington DC suburbs, but it will get noted here. The nearby county of Fairfax, Virginia, in a rare case of generosity and Christmas spirit, has begun enforcing an old law already "on the books" to ban the feeding of home-cooked meals to homeless people. Why, you ask, should that be done?
According to the "spokesperson" (liar) for the county's Department of Health, the great fear gripping the hearts of the county government is that some homeless person might be stricken with food poisoning by eating a meal cooked by a well-meaning donor in his or her own home kitchen. Seems the dreaded poisons are always lurking, waiting for a casserole or some other nutritious meal to infect.
It comes at a wonderful time. Religious organizations in the county have a program designed to prevent hypothermia deaths among the growing homeless population. They provide space in their places of worship for the homeless to get in out of the cold at night. Along with that service, these religious organizations also provide a hot meal so that nobody needs go to bed hungry. It seems like a good idea, and being a "faith-based initiative", costs the taxpayers nothing! The problem, though, is that many of the churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques doing the feeding do NOT have sufficient in-house kitchen facilities to manage the number of meals required. Thus the members of the congregations often do some home cooking, and bring their products in to help with the feeding. The homeless are quite happy to get a nicely prepared casserole or even some pot roast cooked with care by some kind and generous person using his or her own kitchen, food ingredients, and skills.
But that simply is a violation of the law, which requires that all kitchen facilities providing food in such circumstances MUST pass regular county health department inspections, just like those conducted at profit-making restaurants. Even many of the in-church kitchens might not "pass muster" by the county's rules. One must suppose that eventually, we'll see a church, synagogue, temple or mosque on TV, surrounded by a Fairfax County SWAT team, threatening to shoot anyone caught carrying in a home-made tuna casserole. THAT story might make the national news. Merry Christmas, Fairfax!
Update: In a rare case of common sense interfering with beaurocracy, Fairfax County has reversed the decision of their health department. Volunteers will again be able to offer home-cooked meals to the homeless without government interference.
Part Six - The Other Shoe
It's the eleventh of December 2006 as we write this. Last week the long-awaited report by the Iraq Study Group (aka the Baker-Hamilton Report) was delivered, first at the White House, then at the Congress. Most of ther stuff we expected was there, including the frank statement that "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved". Nicely put!
Now, we wait for the other shoe to drop. Even before the report was issued, Emperor George II and his spokesliars were sending out the signals that this report would be completetly ignored. Words like "we do not plan on talking to Syria or Iran" and "we don't foresee any immediate troop reductions" were being said in press releases. On the very next day after the report, our Emperor met with his favorite toady sidekick Tony Blair. Both paid the expected lip service to the "fine men who prepared this report" while still showing all the signs of ignoring most parts of its recommendations.
Since then, our beloved Emperor has spoken a few more times in various venues, and has pointed out that he's now waiting for the reports he ordered from his Defense and State Departments, and from his apologist National Security Advisory staff. Of course we fully expect all those hired hands to tell the boss that his previous approach is full of shit, and that he should be embracing fully the Baker-Hamilton Report. NOT!!!
But still we have to wait. Iraqi people and our own troops continue dying while Bush waits, but that means nothing. It's important to him that he can later say he listened to ALL the advice offered before rejecting all the important things said in the Baker-Hamilton Report.
It won't matter in the long run, since the Emperor is fully preparing to accept no advice that contradicts his own opinion about what should be done. What can we really expect? More cannon fodder will be supplied to stem the flow of blood in Baghdad. That will work for a short while, but the violence will continue in all other parts of the country. Eventually, the extra troops will be moved to another trouble spot and the slaughter in Baghdad will resune at a still higher level than today. By January of 2009, when we inaugurate a new Emperor, we fully expect that the situation in Iraq will be far worse than it is today. Maybe John McCain will be the next Emperor. He is still spreading the Vietnam-era idea that the answer is to quadruple the number of our troops in Iraq.
Part Seven - A Dubious Record
The item appeared recently on AOL's news headlines, but seemed ignored by the TV media outlets I pay attention to. It seems that our country is now the record-holder for the number of people incarcerated within its borders.
That surprised me greatly, since we are not by a long shot the country with the largest population, yet in both sheer numbers and in percentage of population, we lead the world! Counting those in prison, those on parole and those on probation, we have seven million people on various states of lockup. That's about one of every 32 adults.
Our record rate of incarceration is five to eight times the rates on other industrialized nations. Our rate of 737 per 100,000 people is the highest ever recorded, outpacing the next highest rates of 611 for Russia and 547 for St. Kitts and Nevis.
Racial and ethnic aspects have a great effect on a person's likelihood of winding up in jail here. African-American males are about six times as likely to be incarcerated as white males. Hispanic males are about twice as likely as Caucasian males. Figures for discrimination among females are not quite so bad, with African-American females being only three times more likely to suffer incarceration.
Don't ask us just what this all means. More and more jurisdictions have made their sentencing laws tougher and tougher, so people get sent to jail for longer terms even for non-violent offenses. One must suppose that the figures get released by the Department of Justice so we'll have yet another reason to be proud to be Americans!
Could be worse. At one time, back in Merrie Olde England, one could be hanged for even minor criminal offenses. That got better when they discovered the more profitable prison we now call Australia.
Part Eight - Another Ripoff
It may be the most nasty exploitation of the tax system yet invented. Credit apparently goes to the geniuses at Jackson-Hewitt, a company that exists solely to make money from the complications of the United States' Income Tax Code. The theory on which their business is based is that every year the Congress makes the tax laws a little more complex, so that the average citizen feels more and more intimidated and incompetent to fill out his own tax forms. Thus companies like Jackson-Hewitt and their main competition, H&R Block, charge fees to have a specially trained "preparer" look at the sources of your income, the ways you've spent it, and fill in the necessary forms.
That idea has been around for a long time. It seems unfair, but Congress plays along, layering more and more twists into the tax-code pretzel until even the Certified Public Accountants can't unravel it. Recently, a new twist was added by the major "preparation" companies. Most now offer a "refund anticipation" service. It works like this. They prepare your tax forms and mail those off to the IRS. After some time, you will receive a refund, assuming that, like most ordinary taxpayers, you've paid too much in withholding to cover the taxes due. Instead of having to wait for that check from the IRS, you can get a check from the preparation company. They call it by various names, like "advance payment" or "instant refund", but it's really a secured loan, on which you'll pay a ridiculous rate of interest.
That all worked only AFTER the end of January, when you'd have all the forms in-hand to prove what your income and deductions would be. Now, however, a new and different service is being offered by these companies. Now they'll offer a "Christmas Advance" on your tax refund, so you'll have more money available for shopping before the beginning of the next year. All you'll need for this is a single pay slip that shows your salary and withholding for one pay-period. The company's "experts" will come up with a very rough estimate of your refund amount, and will issue you a check based on that rough estimate even BEFORE you are legally able to submit the forms to the IRS.
For the companies involved, this is another bonanza. First, it makes their little storefronts profitable in what is normally an off-season period. Second, since the time between this "Christmas Advance" and the issuance of the tax refund is a longer period, the interest you'll pay may be two or three times what you'd pay on their normal "Instant Refund" loan.
On the NBC broadcast where I heard about this, NBC played an audio tape segment in which the CEO of H&R Block denounced this new idea as being especially hurtful to the customers. One would have thought, from his remarks, that H&R Block would NOT be offering this service. WRONG!
Once Jackson-Hewitt started offering this new way to "tax" the taxpayer, H&R Block soon rolled out its own version. Their excuse was simple, "we can't just let our competitors take away that potential business". (Not necessarily a direct quote, but the gist is correct.)
The NBC Report added words of caution for anybody considering using such a service. The interest rates charged for these loans can amount to staggering usury. Expressed as annual percentage rates, they can run as high as THREE HUNDRED PER CENT!!!! Money sure does cost money, doesn't it! Even the greediest credit card comapnies don't seem to be able to exceed THIRTY per cent, but the tax preparers can get away with ten times as much. As we said, another ripoff.
Part Nine - A Decent Man
It was a very different time, back when Gerald R. Ford took over as the President of the United States. The country had been through two nightmares then. The Vietnam War, a foolish and "no-win" adventure in "saving democracy from communists" had clearly failed, but was not yet really finished.
The second nightmare had been the "Watergate" insanity. To this day, that word "gate" gets added as a suffux to scandalous episodes, even though the name doesn't always stick "Iran-Contragate" appeared, but later gave way to "Iran-Contra Affair" as the name for Reagan's foolishness. Back then, in 1974, hardly anybody still believed what Richard Nixon had said when he boldly asserted on National Television, "I am not a crook!" Most of us came to believe that he indeed was a crook, a liar, and an evil presence in our White House. He had to GO!
When he finally resigned, the country fell into the able hands of the man whose life we celebrate this week, the late Gerald R. Ford, of Michigan. Many might not have entirely agreed with his selection (by Nixon) as the Vice President after the resignation of Spiro T. (Ted) Agnew, of Maryland. Ted had narrowly evaded the law of the land with some kind of "nolo contendere" plea in court, but he would forever be considered a convicted crook by much of the American public.
Gerald R. Ford will, we think, be remembered mainly as a thoroughly decent man who did his absolute best to heal the wounds that were bleeding our country dry of good will. At the time, many of us did not like the idea of pardoning Nixon, but in the ensuing years we've come to accept that as a reasonable solution. Gerry Ford will also be remembered for starting the healing of that other wound, the horror of Vietnam. It was he who finally brought an end to our involvement in that country's civil war.
We'll miss you, Gerry. Right up to the end you showed that basic decency that we so sorely need in the White House today.
Part Ten - Happy Hogmanay
We who are advanced in age and in poor health, like your author, may place more significance in things like the New Year's arrival. Certainly the Hogmanay holiday (Scottish New Year's Eve) has been a turning point. Many have not made it to see 2007. The only clear "good riddance" probably goes to Saddam Hussein, hanged for crimes that only a tyrant could commit.
In a few days, your author will mark another birthday. (On the 9th of January, also the birthday of Richard Nixon) That will make him sixty-seven and one year closer to being dead. This particular holiday will always be remembered as the day on which our beloved Rotten Cat passed away, just one year ago.
Meanwhile, as many celebrate in various places, many mourn, too. The American death toll in the Emperor George II's wars has passed the three thousand mark. Sometime this month we will be allowed to know the "new way forward" that George thinks will lead to the cherished "victory" in Iraq. Being suspicious of the big liar, we don't believe his "trying to decide" and "listening to all opinions" excuses. What he's actually listening for is somebody OTHER than his wife and his dog to agree with the action he decided on many months ago. He'll send another useless infusion of thirty thousand troops, hoping to quiet down the violence in Baghdad. George, WE NOTICED that the new Secretary of Defense never ventured outside the "Green Zone" when he visited Iraq.
Yet we wait for the announcement, while dozens of Americans and hundreds of innocent Iraqis die every week. It's a little like that old joke about the wait for a new cemetery to open, "people are DYING to hear your decision."
To our loyal readers, we wish all of you health and happiness in this New Year.
Part Eleven - Reverse Mortgages
One of our regular readers asked us to have a stab at the "Reverse Mortgage" rip-off. We can be pretty sure that this financial arrangement, offered and heavily advertised by banks, must be of great value to the bank, at the expense of the poor devil who started out owning a house.
At that first request, we demurred writing about this, since we did NOT have the facts about how it operates. When we mentioned that to another of our loyal readers, he gave us the answer, or at least enough clues that we can use our vivid imagination to fill in the huge gaps in actual knowledge. All one has to do is think like a banker. What method would produce the biggest gain for the bank and the smallest benefit to the consumer? Once we've got that worked out, and a Federal Law written by our lobbyists to make it legal, we can make even the poorest elderly contribute nicely to the bank's "bottom line".
Here's how we THINK it works. The house itself will be "valued" by standards of what it would sell for today. The bank, then, takes possesion of that house as an asset, leaving the homeowner only the liabilities, like real estate taxes, upkeep, and so on. The bank then starts paying the "reverse mortgage" as what amounts to an "interest only loan" based on the value of the home when they took it. The interest paid out will STAY based on present value.
The actual amount that gets paid to the homeowner will not get anywhere close to the home's value, since that will keep rising in the "pumped" market that real estate is. When the homeowner dies, the bank gets to sell the house at the then-inflated market value, reaping profits galore on their rather small investment in the interest-only loan. Heirs get "the remaining equity" as an inheritance, but we suspect that the "remaining equity" is based, first, on the original valuation of the house, then that amount is reduced by the total that the bank paid the old folks while they were alive.
As our reader theorized, one finds that one has sold his house for a small fraction of its ultimate worth. Banks are happy with this deal. Currently, the housing market is "cooling", so we may find banks less willing to make these deals until the market returns to its normal "three times inflation" growth rate. Be sure, however, that even in a "buyer's market" for houses, the banks will keep making money from us.
Part Twelve - The Trash Heap
A few parts back, in Part Six of this volume, we made some predictions about the probable efffect of the Baker-Hamilton report on our beloved Emperor's actions to salvage his crusade in Iraq. We predicted then that in the final analysis the entire report would go to the same Trash Heap of history as Wilson's Fourteen Points, the League of Nations, and so on. So it has, except for the weakly supported idea of a temporary increase in troops sent to Baghdad. George liked that!
Now, George has lost the support of Republicans as well as Democrats. Senator Chuck Hagel, for example, said of the January "address to the nation", "I think this speech given last night by this President represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out." Nicely put, Senator.
So who's still supporting this idea of escalating the war? Anybody besides the dog and the loyal wife? Yes, George has that "gang of four" supporting his current plan. The gang consists of Dick "The Impaler" Cheney, Condoliar Rice, Robert "Lift up your heads*" Gates, and Senator John McCain. John supports sending twenty-one thousand more troops, but thinks the number should be higher. (John seems to think we could have won in Vietnam, too, if we'd sent more troops.) Gates, the new SecDef, said some astounding things in his testimony on Capitol Hill just after "the address". He answered one question about Iraq by saying "I'm no expert on Iraq." He said much the same about not being an expert on military operations in general. I suppose that makes him quite different from his predecessor, Ronald Dumsfeld. Dumsfeld would never have been caught telling the truth like that!
Time for another prediction. This "temporary surge" will still be in place on January 20th, 2009. After that, who knows? If we are stupid enough to elect John McCain as President, January 21st could see another fifty thousand troops sent into the lost cause.
* Yes, that's Biblical, as in "Lift up your heads, o ye gates, that the King of Glory may come in!" We know who that "King of Glory" is, don't we?
Part Thirteen - Prayin' for ya, Doc
Our topic for today is one of those wonderful people who spread the values of Christianity as far as the money from the suckers in the pews will permit. This morning, Sunday, the fourteenth of January in the Year of Our Lord two thousand and seven, we had the TV on whilst flying the Microsoft Flight Simulator's Boeing 737 from Pittsburgh to Phoenix. The TV had been left on from the night before, and just happened to be tuned to the channel that broadcasts The Coral Ridge Hour, with Dr. D. James Kennedy. As it happens, this morning's show started with some earnest young man explaining that the good Doctor had recently been hospitalized, suffering from some form or other of heart disease. (A killer I have personally looked in the face.) Thus, while all viewers were assured that everybody in the known universe was praying for the Doctor's quick return to his pulpit, we would be treated to a pre-recorded sermon. We were also assured that the good doctor had tailored this particular sermon just for each of us. He was right. I found it one of the most astounding pieces of crap ever broadcast since Emporer George II's "New Way Forward" last Wednesday.
This time, the subject, so far as I could tell, was the ever-popular school prayer issue, and the "facts" concerning how the United States is now AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN a Christian Nation. Apparently, according to the good doctor, right since the adoption of the Bill of Rights, non-Christian evil-doers (He didn't use that expression. I borrowed it from Emperor George II's lexicon of catch phrases.) have been grossly mis-reading the part of the First Amendment that deals with religion. Doctor Kennedy takes full advantage of the "freedom of speech" part to make his case about how wrong so many of us are about the religious part.
As usual, much of Doctor Kennedy's argument relies on false pretenses that none of the suckers in the seats dares challenge for a second. I'll take one example. Christopher Columbus. The good doctor alleges that the main reason old Chris came to the New World was to convert the savages for Christ. Gee, that doesn't seem to square off with "finding a shorter route to the riches of the Orient", does it? Forget that if what turned out to be America had indeed been India or China, Chris would have become one of the richest men ever to sail the seven seas. Forget that his motive just MIGHT have been to further enrich the Spanish Empire. Forget that hundreds of thousands of "Indians" here had to be killed because they would not accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Chris meant well! He somehow knew that millions of heathen would be found, and that most would readily convert to Christianity as soon as the priests got here to explain the matter to them.
Now the good doctor opens all the stops on the screwy logic that passes for wisdom in Evangelical circles. He explains that, after all, we should KNOW that Chris Columbus was a devout evangelist because his very name, Cristoforo (in Italian spelling) means literally "Carrier of Christ". That may or may not have any truth in and of itself, but is largely irrelevant.
Today, when celebrities name their children for anything they like, we may not realize that back in the all-Catholic Italy of the 1400s, choice of a first name (the Brits still use the expression "Christian Name") was largely a matter between the parents and the Priest who would Christen the new offspring. Names were chosen often with an eye on the pantheon of saints, and so on.
Outside of Christopher Columbus, we can think of no case where the newborn, helpless babe-in-arms rose up at his Christening and demanded that he be named Cristoforo because of his devout wish to evangelize. Glad that Doctor Kennedy straightened that out for us.
The sermon was a long one, even by the drone-on standards of evangelical clergymen. He went on to castigate us for believing that Jefferson and Franklin really MEANT that part about "establish no religion". In essence, his point was that old Thom and Ben forced those words down the throats of their more religious cohorts.
I don't know how I'll get through a whole week waiting for Doctor D. James Kennedy to explain more mysteries to me. He's sick, but we all have to hope he'll get back in that pulpit soon to satisfy our crying need for enlightenment on matters of religious tolerance and belief. We're all prayin' for ya, Doc!
Part Fourteen - Tax Break Time
One might call it the American Panacea. A cure-all idea that in this case has the added irony of being proposed to cure the American "Health Care" disease. Is it just my thought that this idea, put on the table by our beloved Emperor during his recent "State of the Union" address is just plain SILLY! A time-filler to take people's attention away from that Iraq war "elephant in the room" for some minutes. Nothing more. Oh, yes, maybe to regain that "compassionate conservative" label he likes so much. Call a man who's personally responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Afghan and Iraqi people "compassionate".
As with his previous lead balloon Social Security Destruction plan, this one, we predict, will be dead on arrival if anybody bothers to ask ANY questions about it. So far, the news media seem to be totally ignoring the plan. They haven't even bothered to ASK how it could be made to work. Being one of those forty-six or so millions of Americans with no health insurance makes me a bit more curious than the average corporate CEO. All we got from George II was the vague notion that the problem of health care could be solved "through the tax code".
Let's just for as second think through what COULD be done through the tax code for those who can't afford any of the thousands of private health care plans open to all in this country. Many of us are presently in the "fixed income" (actually decreasing income) category already. For somebody like me, it could work like this. I would stop doing something I already do with my pension income, like paying for food, clothing, or real estate taxes, and put that money instead into some HMO or PPO Health Care Plan. Could cost as little as, say, $200.00 per month for the two of us. A "fix through the tax code" plan would, in all probability, make some part of that $200 per month tax exempt or tax deductible.
Already, I have reached that state of affairs with the IRS rules that taking anything other than the standard deduction becomes a worthless exercise, since my "deductibles" don't come anywhere close to that amount. Just for the sake of argument, let's say that the generous compassionate tax code offers to make fifty per cent of the $2400 health care plan cost deductible. (unlikely) At the most, that would save me 33 per cent of half of the total that I had to lay out. Let's try the worksheet in the tax booklet. One third of 1200 is 400. Probably, that amount would NOT put me back "in the black" on the subject of itemizing deductions. That would take the value of the tax break for me back where it belongs, at ZERO!
For many other millions, those we call the "working poor", the benefit of the tax break would have the exact same effect. If one does not own a home, does not pay real estate taxes or mortgage interest, itemizing deductions doesn't make sense, and never will, so the value of this tax break for them will be exactly that same amount, zero. It will probably help the wealthy in some way, as ALL tax breaks wind up doing.
Oh yes, there are people in the middle, those fortunate enough to have employer-provided health care in their "compensation packages". George's plan would actually HURT them, because it would make the book value of that fringe benefit into taxable income!!! If anything has to be discovered to kill this plan, what if the health care provided to members of congress became taxable income? That would do it! (Actually, Congress could do what it usually does, and exempt itself from the "taxable income" provisions. They somehow can still face the voters after doing such things, and manage re-election. Who said that people like Karl Rove were not important?)
Part Fifteen - War on Wars
We keep hearing people declaring wars. Mostly not on other nations, the way it's supposed to be, but on non-nation things. Examples abound. All of these have one thing in common. Like the real war in Iraq, they are all non-winnable. The one I heard most recently was "we are declaring war on childhood obesity". That came from some do-gooder group associated with the medical community. It led me to a sick joke. There was a crash of a military helicopter in California, and I opined that the 'copter probably went down while making a gunship run against a bunch of fat kids standing in line outside a soup kitchen.
We are still, of course, fighting all those other non-winnable "wars" we started since the end of WWII. Let's see, there's the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on cancer, the war on crime, the war on teenage gangs, and maybe fifty more that I can't remember.
What does this do to the language? All these wars seem to add up to, at the very least, a war on the definition of the word "war". I propose that we stop abusing that word. Let's save it for the real thing, the kind we've executed so nicely in Afghanistan and Iraq. I even object to the abuse of the word in the nonsense expression "War on Terror". Terror is NOT a nation-state, and that should be a pre-condition to calling what we do a "war".
Part Sixteen - Who Needs It?
It's Super Bowl Sunday, and as usual I'm keeping my pledge to never see a SINGLE SECOND of that game on my TV. I decided some years back that the whole thing had gotten far beyond belief and any sense at all. For the past two weeks, one could not watch ANY CBS shows (including news) in which there would not be at least one "plug" for the game, which of course is on CBS this year.
Today's gripe, however, goes beyond that, to the apparent rush by many suckers to get their HDTV sets in time for the Super Bowl. What for? Does anybody actually NEED HDTV?
Back when our original TV (black and white) was invented, a lot of "human engineering" went into the design of the system. As a result, when people sat at a reasonable distance from a TV set, the resolution offered by the TV would approximately match that of the human eyes that were watching. It was an entirely sensible idea, having the system match the performance of the average human eye.
Later, when color was added, the ability to render detail in the color part of the images was similarly tailored to the abilities of the human eyeball. Thus the detail provided for certain axes across the colorimetry chart was better than for others. (In technical terms these axes were called I and Q, with I being the wider bandwidth axis and Q being the lower bandwidth.)
It all started to get ruined when people insisted on using bigger and bigger TV screens in their living rooms. In my very own living room, there's a 27 inch model, far too large for the viewing distance. (A 13 inch would be about right, and would keep the designed-in balance between the resolution of the picture and the resolving power of the human eyeball. Chuck Yeager might not agree, as he has eyesight BETTER than 20-20.) When the image is too big for the distance, one begins seeing the scanning lines, and the whole thing gets to look "fuzzy".
Alas, the FCC has rescued us from this trap of our own making, by forcing HDTV down our throats. Actually, nobody really NEEDS HDTV!!! With all the crap that comes over the TV, who needs to see it better? Are we going to get upset if some of the glints off of Howie Mandel's head get blurred? Is Jay Leno made more funny when we can see every wrinkle in his shirt?
The real benfactors of the FCC's HDTV decision are the people who manufacture, distribute, and sell TV sets. Their profits had lagged badly since the sale price of TV sets went down drastically, and the number of special features that might justify an increase in price just about disappeared. Now, ALL of the sets offer ALL of the useful features one can imagine, so one buys the cheapest in the desired screen size. (Anybody remember Sylvania TV sets with Halolite? That idea, stupid as it was, has come back with some flat-screen sets having "Ambilight". Just as stupid as Halolight.)
In any case, some of us old and myopic guys will hold out to the last before buying HDTV sets. They're a waste of good money unless your eyes happen to be better than the 20-20 standard.
Part Seventeen - A Powerful Populace???
In November, many celebrated. In February, many more will cry. Some day, maybe the many will openly revolt, and Iraq won't be the only country at war with its own people. The story was supposed to go unnoticed amid the Super Bowl overkill, but some of us DID notice that our all-powerful Congress has proven itself useless once more under the heel of the Texan Tyrant, Emperor of the World and outer Space, surpassing all understanding, George II.
They failed even to BRING TO A VOTE the idea of slapping the bastard's wrist with a non-binding resolution of disapproval. This, in a country that's the ultimate "model of democracy" for the world.
The populace did its part, voting in record numbers, voting the Emperor's partisans out of power. A small minority of the population still swallows that "we can win in Iraq" crap, but no matter. More cavalry is being sent to Little Big Horn. More troops to Dien Bien Phu, more Light Brigades into the valley of death, all because the American Supreme Court elected the most stupid, arrogant, pigheaded stubborn ass ever to occupy our big throne in Washington.
Next time you hear somebody explain how wonderful our government system is, remember yesterday, February Fifth, 2007, as our new model for a "date that will live in infamy". Maybe a few years hence, after the bloody revolution that guillotines all our present "leaders", the new big national holiday will be related somehow to that Fifth of February as the last straw, the last chance we had using that 1787 document to rule the country. We've missed that chance.
One wonders what our beloved Congress will do when the Emperor (aka "decider") decides to cancel the 2008 elections and impose martial law to allow him to continue his endless "War on Terror". Will they pass a non-binding resolution??? Will they face down the tanks that get deployed to surround the Capitol??? All I can say is, we may just need our own Bastille Day! After the declaration of martial law, dangerous nut-jobs like me may all become residents of the Bastille. Won't take an act of the powerless Congress to do that. We already have the necessary law, called the Smith Act. People like me can be jailed just for our words, once those words are interpreted as "advocating the overthrow of the government by force or violence". Come get me now, Gestapo. The words are right there in the paragraph just before this one.
Part Eighteen - A THIRD Screwing
We see these ads on our TV, and are VERY glad we are not in the potential sucker pool. The pitch goes along the line of so many such things, "you can get instant cash". In this case the "instant cash" is in return for any of the various kinds of "over time" payouts that are usually part of a previous screwing.
Let's try an example. Say your child was killed by some unexpected reaction to a prescription drug. You sue the drug company, among others, probably by joining a class action lawsuit. You WIN!!! The jury awards ten million dollars for each child killed by the drug. Right then, a second screwing can befall you. The judge can simply set aside the jury award, or reduce it by, let's say, a factor of ten. Still, that's a million you didn't have before, so it looks as if joining the lawsuit was a good thing.
Now another screwing is about to be applied. The drug company's creative accountants and lawyers will come up with "proof" that paying the awarded amount all at once would bankrupt the company. (NEVER TRUE!) The judge then permits the company to spread out payment over some long period of time, maybe twenty or thirty years. Thus, instead of a nice husky chunk of change that you could invest yourself, you'll be doled out much smaller amounts over time. Some of the recipients might even die before the payout ends. No matter! Chances are the judge's favor to the ultra-rich company will survive any and all appeals.
Now the door is open for the final screw-job, by that company whose ads you see on TV. They offer to "buy out" your long-time payments for a one-time lump payment. The ads never give any indication of just how many "cents on the dollar" they're offering. I'm betting on the amount being in the ten to fifteen cent range. A big lump that will help you over current cash needs, but WAY SHORT of what you're really owed.
So that's the third screwing. First, the drug company kills your child. Second, the judge screws you out of most of the jury's award, then this outfit screws you out of most of the rest. Is this a great country, or WHAT?
Part Nineteen - Paying the Price
It was a brief story on the local news in the Washington DC area. Few details were presented beyond the barest facts of the case. In the perspective of modern America, where millions of people have no health care available to them, it's just one more tiny tragic story. Tiny, that is, unless you were a boy from Prince George's County, Maryland, and your name was Deamonte Driver.
In that case, you, at the age of 12, would NOT be reading or hearing about the story. You'd be dead, having paid the ultimate price for being the son of a "working poor" mother. The facts of the case go like this: Deamonte's death was caused by an abscessed tooth!!!! Bacteria from the untreated abscess traveled into his brain and killed him.
In the America of the Bushes, the Kerrys, the Edwards', the Clintons, and Norman Rockwell's Post covers, such an affliction would probably be prevented by simple periodic visits to "his dentist". At the worst case for the ruling class families, an extraction, followed by heavy doses of antibiotics would have been needed, followed by the creation of a carefully fitted bridge to fill the gap in his winning smile.
Unfortunately, Deamonte lives in that OTHER America, along with millions of us. His mother explained that his tooth could not be treated in time to save his life because she "had lost Medicaid" recently, and could not afford dental services.
That expression "lost Medicaid" got my interest. How, once one has been enrolled in Medicaid, does one lose it? The story as reported offered no hints, so what follows is my own conjecture. (I once tried to get help from Medicaid, but was denied because my pension makes me "too wealthy" to qualify. I still owe a mountain of debt to a local hospital. Doesn't pay to be too wealthy.) Anyway, I suspect that Deamonte's mother got a better-paying job, and was denied Medicaid after she became "too wealthy" for that handout from the Maryland taxpayers.
UPDATE NOTE: My daughter, who has been both unemployed and homeless at some periods in her life, tells me that, to be eligible for Medicaid in Maryland, one needs to have NO INCOME WHATSOEVER! Even some part-time, below minimum wage paycheck will cause you to "lose Medicaid" benefits. She should know.
The "compassionate conservatives" can take some pleasure from the fact that this family was no longer "on welfare". What never gets across to them is the enormous gap between "qualified for Medicaid" and "able to afford some HMO or PPO health care system".
The last part of the story, as we stole it from Channel 4's website, is this: "Maryland lawmakers will be considering a bill this year that would pay for the expansion of public clinics where dental care is not readily available to the poor." Isn't that just swell! Maybe in ten years Maryland's politicians will all be elbowing their way into a "ribbon cutting photo op" for the first dental clinic just for the poor. Chances are pretty good that there will never be a second one, and that the working poor will be denied service at that clinic, on grounds of being too wealthy.
Part Twenty - Propping them up
Our main subject for today is NOT Iraq nor Afghanistan, but another stop on Dick Cheney's recent 'Round the World tour. It's that military dictatorship just next door to the Afghan one, Pakistan. Pakistan is another of those triumphs of our steady-state foreign policy over many changes of our own regime. Another of those "democracies" we support. This one has a "President" named Musharaf, promoted from General with our help, and now a military dictator over a country that bears little or no relationship to a democracy of any kind. Like so many other military dictatorships, this one is held together by its "strong man" on the basis of intense hatred and fear of its main enemy, India.
In today's screwball world view, Pakistan, a country formed just to house a large population of desperately poor Islamic people, is one of our main allies in the "War on Terror". It's a shaky ally under the best of circumstances, since poor Moslems are the most likely people to be recruited into the ranks of terrorist armies. We used Pakistan that way in the 1980s, to recruit what amounted to a terrorist army against the Russians' invasion of Afghanistan. We supplied the weapons and training, they supplied the hatred and the cannon fodder.
Even today, along that border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, there's a "no-enter" zone, ruled by tribal chieftains with little or no loyalty to Musharaf or his military. That brings us to the reason for the torture-supporting warlord Cheney to pay a visit.
News in recent weeks carried stories about the resurgence of the Taliban on both sides of that border, and the care and nurturing of al-Qaeda by those tribal chieftains and the population in their corner of Pakistan. Cheney was urging a "crackdown" by Musharaf and his army, to rout the bad guys once and for all out of his country's "wild West" area.
That is the one thing that Musharaf just plain can't do. His rule in Pakistan relies on keeping peace with those in his country who SUPPORT the terrorists in their cause. They've already made several attempts to assasinate him, barely missing. Musharaf gave all the usual "we love America" lip service to Cheney, with every intention of doing exactly nothing about the peace treaty between him and the western tribes. Will that anger the belligerent Cheney or his puppet Emperor George II? Sure it will. They'll make more and more statements about how nice it would be to have Musharaf at war with his own people. (That's not what they'll call it.)
Musharaf, however, knows full well that he's safe from being overthrown by the United States, at least for now. We have no choice but to prop up and support his military regime, lest those nuclear weapons he has should pass into the hands of some Pakistani version of a Taliban regime. Somewhere along the line, it became unknown to the United States that Pakistan and India both already HAVE those "weapons of mass destruction" available for use, along with rockets and other delivery means.
Those weapons are the main deterrent to any support from our country to overthrow Musharaf, and he knows it. Thus, regardless of the fact that parts of his country have again become safe havens for al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the United States will continue to prop him up with financial aid, money to placate his local oligarchy, and any arms he needs to keep his own police state intact. It's the least we can do.
Musharaf should learn a lesson from some others that the United States propped up. Such men as Fulgencio Batista (Cuba before Castro), Antonio Somoza (Nicaragua before the Sandanistas), the Duvalier family in Haiti (government by voodoo), and countless others. There comes a point at which the American props fail, heads roll, and new regimes emerge. When Musharaf gets his final reward, there will be another Islamic Republic to worry about, but this one, unlike Iran, will already HAVE plenty of enriched Uranium, Plutonium, and all the trappings we sought to deny the relatively harmless Saddam Hussein. Maybe we'll need another war. Will it be Hillary or McCain leading the charge? Won't matter. At least for this case they won't have to lie about the other side's weapon capabilities.
Part Twenty-One - Another Legacy
The legacy in this case will leave another trail of death, suffering, and unwanted children in many diverse places on this planet. This particular legacy belongs only in part to the current idiot in the White House. It got its start back in 1981, when a devoutly Christian actor took over running our country. Yes, we mean the beloved President Ronald Reagan. The idea is called "abstinence only", and its effects permeate many aspects of our government's programs.
It came back into my view several days back, when a local station carried reports about a new kind of "dance" being performed between fathers and daughters. The dance is a ritual, cementing a pledge from daughter to father that she will remain pure and virginal until after marriage. Some expert cited in the report claimed that the failure rate for such pledges runs about eighty-eight percent. If that expert is right, only twelve out of each hundred daughters performing the dance will actually make it to marriage without having at least one "horizontal dance" with a boyfriend.
Unfortunately, what will go along with that "horizontal dance" will be more incidents of unwanted children and venereal disease, because of the insistence on never teaching these children any form of contraception or disease prevention EXCEPT ABSTINENCE! For our government, this is not just another excuse to support some "faith-based" birth and disease control operations. It has extended to a ban on supplying any federal funds to organizations that do not adhere to "abstinence only" principles. If an organization trying to end the AIDS epidemic offers, for example, to supply condoms, or even to advocate their use, that organization cannot get any federal support.
A report from USA Today indicates that the same idea is being extended beyond just teenagers and their parents. As USA Today put it, "Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007." See, now your government is trying to directly target the sexual behavior of adults, too.
Doing a web search on this topic yields some truly bizarre websites. One that caught my attention was called IRON HYMEN!!! Right away it sounded like another idea from the era of the Crusades, when wives of the crusaders were fitted with cruel iron "chastity belts" to keep them "pure" until their husbands returned from killing Moslems. The website's opening page had a picture of Laura Bush, and claimed to be affiliated with your government in these words:
"The IRON HYMEN Abstinence-Only Education Program is produced by the US Dept. of Health & Human Services and the White House Office of Youth Purity"
NOTE: The Iron Hymen site and its companion for boys are both spoofs, intended to show just how ludicrous the ideas being promoted by abstinence only programs could get. Funny stuff, but this does NOT eliminate the real harm being done to people both here and abroad by the religious right's crazy ideas about sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and sex education for young people.
We have no way of validating that rather outrageous claim. It sounds too dumb even for the Bush White House, but just MIGHT be true. On the page were items being offered for sale with the logo of Iron Hymen emblazoned in red. Mostly the usual tote bags, t-shirts, coffee mugs and such, but panties for teen girls were also included. (Not made of real Iron, but for the same purpose as those belts from the Crusades.)
There were on the Iron Hymen site some supposed endorsements from teenage girls. One that caught my eye as particularly dumb was a young girl asserting that, "Iron Hymen taught me how to use super-effective strategies for just abstaining from natural stuff. And it works so good, that now when I get all old, I'm going to abstain from wrinkles and dying, too!" Was that supposed to be a joke? Abstain from dying? Is it just another part of the Christian belief in eternal life because Jesus defeated death?
There is a link on the Iron Hymen page to a companion site aimed at teen boys. That site bears the rather inane title "Sex is for Fags". Somehow, this wacky site is based on the idea that among boys, only homosexuals fail to abstain from sex before marriage!!!!! It's been a long time since I was in High School, but those steamed-up-windowed cars parked on Manor Road mostly DID NOT contain homosexual male couples. Many of our female students had the babies to prove just how effective abstinence was in the 1950s.
Bad as all this may seem for American youth and young adults, it's far worse for those in poor regions of the world. Africa is in the midst of an all-out epidemic of AIDS, and people are dying in the tens of thousands. The ever-generous American government is offering aid to those countries, but the aid comes with an absolute ban on using our aid for anything that violates the abstinence-only principle. Enough to make a person cry!
Part Twenty-Two - Shackles and Chains
The title comes from a song written by Jimmy Davis, and sung by Arlo Guthrie on his album Hobo's Lullaby. The part applicable to this situation goes like this:
"For these shackles and chains they will take me,
To a prison to stay until I die."
Not a pleasant idea, but this COULD soon happen to Angel Raich, of Oakland, California. Angel is a mother of two children who suffers from a variety of serious illnesses that keep her in pain all the time. Eventually, these illnesses will indeed kill Angel Raich, but before that can happen, the federal government has asserted its right to jail her because of the pain-relief treatment prescribed by her doctor. (They'll jail the doctor, too, no doubt.)
If Angel did not live in California, she would probably be given large doses of an opium derivative until she died an addict to opiates. Instead, her doctor has taken advantage of California's law which makes marijuana a legal treatment for some illnesses, including those like hers, where marijuana relieves her pain enough that she can function.
Federal law, however, does NOT consider that drug anything but an illegal substance, complete with various jail terms for possession, use, cultivation, distribution, and so on. This issue went to the Supreme Court back in 2004, and the feds won that case. Angel Raich's case, in which her doctor insists marijuana is the only drug keeping her alive, found its way to a federal appeals court. On Wednesday March 14th, 2007, that court ruled as expected, to wit, the DEA can indeed arrest her, shackle and chain her, try her as a drug trafficker, and take her away "to a prison to stay until she dies".
Your author owes you a confession at this point. Although I smoked cigarettes for decades (not now), I have never tried marijuana in any form, with or without inhaling. Thus I have no basis in my own life for supporting either side of the "marijuana is baaaad" argument. (South Park fans will understand the multiple "a"s in baaaad.) My uninformed opinion, however, is that marijuana is no more harmful than tobacco, and may in fact be far less harmful. It's certainly no more addictive than tobacco. (I CAN ATTEST to how addictive tobacco is. VERY!!!)
One comedian recently (don't remember who) answered the DEAs "marijuana leads to harder drugs" bullshit this way.
"They claim that 60 per cent of heroin addicts once used marijuana. Seems to me that 100 per cent of heroin addicts once used milk, so maybe that, too, should be a banned substance."
(The quote here is inexact, but you'll get the idea.)
One day soon, the narcs will raid Angel's house (sixty or so agents with bullet-proof vests, assault weapons, tear gas, and so on) and will find that this awful felon does indeed appear to have been using marijuana before one of the trigger-happy cops pumps fifty rounds into her chest. "She made a threatening move with a wooden spoon. The officer feared for his life." That might actually happen. Might be better for Angel than spending the rest of her shortened life in a federal prison. Keep a threatening wooden spoon handy, Angel, just in case.
Part Twenty-Three - Sounds Familiar
Now, in the twilight of an Emperor's reign, we are hearing the kind of crap from the White House that many of us remember well from Richard the Crook. Back during the investigations of the Watergate Break-in and the coverup, we heard a lot about such things as "executive privilege", confidences between a President and his advisors, and offers to "co-operate fully with the investigation", short of any testimony under oath by those who knew the truth.
Now, Emperor George II has offered up two Biggies, Harriet Meyers and Karl Rove, for private talks with members of congressional committees, but without oaths or transcripts!!!! How can that possibly be thought of as "clearing the air"? People who have every reason in the world to lie about these matters will testify in secret without being sworn to tell the truth, and somehow THAT will make their current round of lies acceptable?
Facts are scarce. Eight U.S. Attorneys (Republicans appointed by George II) were fired after the second Bush inauguration. Karl Rove (George's most accomplished dirty-tricks political aide - a modern-day Charles Colson, walk over his grandmother to elect George, etc.) was unhappy. Some of these U.S. Attorneys had prosecuted crooks belonging to the Republican Party. Some had been reluctant to pursue crooks that belonged to the Democratic Party. In other words, we might say these Attorneys put their loyalty to justice before their loyalty to George and Karl. Shameful! They oughta be fired, and so they were. Karl was particularly anxious about one of these firings because the replacement was to be one of his personal friends who needed a job.
Eventually, we will discover that George, Harriet, Alberto, and Karl conspired to obstruct justice. That's an offense which, back in the aftermath of Watergate, sent a former Attorney General named John Mitchell to federal prison. The process will take a long time. Congress will issue subpoenas, Bush's little gang will refuse to appear, then will be charged with contempt of Congress. (If you or I refused to honor such a subpoena, the U.S. Marshall's Sevice would provide rooms in jail for us until we agreed to comply.)
That is most likely NOT going to happen to George's little gang. They'll serve no jail time for their obstruction of justice. Some time later, I predict they will in fact testify under oath and on-the-record, but that may not happen until our new Emperor takes over that oval room.
The current Emperor's endless display of contempt for any authority other than his own is almost unprecedented in our country. Nobody but Nixon even came close. Rarely do I ever agree with Donald Trump on anything, but he recently summarized George II in words we can all understand. "The Donald" called him "the worst President this country has ever had."
Part Twenty-Four - Finks, Goons, & Scabs
The subject is a touchy one for your author. The terms above are from the days when labor in the United States was struggling to win the right to bargain with employers on behalf of the ordinary worker. For those too young to recognize the terms (most of America, I expect) I'll define the terms.
Finks were uniformed private police forces, mainly used to supplement the real local police in preventing union workers from interfering with the rights of plant owners. The name "fink" is a corruption from the name "Pinkerton". That agency was often the supplier of choice for police who did not need to obey the rules applied to the real police. These guys could use their billy-clubs without worrying about any investigation of their actions. Blood was spilled frequently.
Goons were yet another class of "strike breaking" help for the owners. These were simply ruffians, hired as "individual private contractors". Like the Pinkertons, they could ignore rules that applied to real police forces. (In labor/management disputes, to this day, local police forces almost always support the owners.)
Scabs is the pejorative name given to the non-union workers brought in to replace the strikers at their jobs until the union workers could be starved out of the business. They still exist today, though that name is no longer applied to them. Numerous companies have replaced striking workers with scab labor. Today, however, those who could be expected to uphold laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act (Department of Labor and Federal Courts) openly support the hiring of permanent scabs. (Even the Federal Government itself has done that, most notoriously in the Air Traffic Controllers' case back in the Reagan Administration.)
Having said all that, your author must now admit the painful fact about his own days as a worker. Never in thirty-three years of working for others did your author join or support a union, pay dues to one, or in any way actively support unions. In part, that's because your author worked for the Federal Government, where the most powerful tool of unions, the strike, was illegal.
Now there's an organization placing ads on TV specifically bashing the present-day labor unions, portraying unions and their leaders as outright crooks. Where does that come from? Some websites identify the brains behind the ads as a professional lobbyist. The money appears to be coming from the well-heeled community that Emperor George II has blessed with large tax breaks. Apparently some of the money freed up by those breaks is now being applied to attempts to destroy organizations that support the ordinary worker.
I suppose it's a temporary thing. Once all the jobs are safely in non-union countries overseas, nobody will need the union-bashing lobbyist. (Hope he speaks Chinese really well.)
A Footnote: The union-busting activities of the Federal Government are NOT limited to conservative Republican administrations. Democrats support the efforts of unions right up to the voting booth. Once the unionized worker has cast his vote for them, he and his union can be discarded by Democrats just as effectively as by Republicans.
Part Twenty-Five - Two Junkets
I LOVE Junket (brand rennet dessert), but it's hard to find. That, however, is not the kind of junket we speak of today. Today, we mean those trips by Senators and Congressmen to places they just MUST visit during their recesses. In this week, two of them have made news.
The first headline-grabber was John McCain, showing us just how wonderfully safe a marketplace in Baghdad has become since the "surge" of more U.S. troops in recent months. There he was, strolling peacefully among the shoppers and shopkeepers, making a few token purchases, happy and safe with his flak vest and a gaggle of reporters. His glowing reports of success in a war he so fully supports made the news in every corner of this land. John was safe even though his buddy George had NOT followed his advice about "surging" one hundred thousand troops instead of the paltry twenty-one thousand now in the pipeline to Little Big Horn.
Yes John had a nice, safe shopping trip. So would you or I if we went to the mall surrounded by a hundred heavily armed troops in body armor. Like him, we would be even safer if some twenty armed helicopters (a mix of Blackhawks and Apaches) hovered overhead, ready to fire hundreds of thousands of rounds into the crowd of ragheads if anybody appeared to threaten the beloved warmonger Senator. Word on the street says that additional guardians, soldiers with sniper rifles, perched on rooftops all around the open area as further assurance of safety.
Soon after the McCain circus left, reporters interviewed the ordinary Iraqi citizens who operate and use this market on a daily basis. They were astounded at the Senator's assertions of safety in this place. Most reported that they operate and use this market as a matter of necessity, and live in fear every moment that they're in the market. It makes an excellent target when McCain and his protection units are not there.
In other parts of the middle east, our new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, was junketing with a different mission. She was lending her own personal diplomacy to finding a way out of the Iraqi quagmire. Unlike the Emperor's many envoys, she decided on her own that perhaps the wiser heads on the Baker/Hamilton Commission had made recommendations that actually could help. Thus she included in her itinerary a trip to Damascus, Syria, where she spoke directly with that country's "President" Hassan. (A dictator, like so many who claim the title "President".)
It's far too early to tell whether Mrs. Pelosi's trip will yield any positive results, but the reaction of the Emperor's spokesliars was predictable and immediate. "Syria is a state that supports terrorism, and must be frozen out of any diplomatic ... " Mrs. Pelosi also visited the "Kingdom" of Saudi Arabia, and had some meetings with its King. Our Emporer's spokesliars did not object to that part of her trip, even though the Saudi King has openly hinted that his own country might send combat forces into Iraq to support the Sunni "insurgents" against the current Shiite government that we are supporting. Mrs. Pelosi did not visit Iran, partly because of the then-ongoing crisis over the British spy mission in Iranian waters.
We use the expression "spokesliars" regularly here, and that opinion of the White House staffers keeps getting reinforced by what they say. A recent example: George Stephanopoulos asked one of them (I think it was the White House Chief of Staff) his very first question, "Will the President talk to members of Congress about this standoff?" (The withdrawal date issue on the funding bill.) The answer appeared well-rehearsed, and started with somethiung like "Of course the President will talk with .... " In other words, a blatant lie in the first seven words out of his mouth. I changed channels right then. Hearing the rest of the lies he was sent to mouth would not have added anything but anger on my part. It becomes more obvious day by day, Presidential speech by Presidential speech, that the "decider" has decided that there will be no reduction of troops in Iraq (not counting the body bags) until January 20th, 2009. He talks AT the congress, not to them!
Part Twenty-Six - And the Answer IS ...
The good news last Monday was that Don Imus would no longer be dissected on every newscast. They'd scraped the bottom of that barrel anyway, with a lengthy and pointless interview of DOCTOR Maya Angelou. Seems she didn't see Don as a caged bird.
No, all that vanished from television and radio in the "breaking news" story from Blacksburg, in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The death toll ran to thirty-three, including the disturbed young man who killed the other thirty-two before killing himself. The story was BIG! The highest death toll, the most horrific, most deaths in a shooting incident, etc. Would have been bad enough if the victims were all octogenarians in a nursing home, but much worse since most victims were young, full of promise. planning to fulfill the dreams of doting parents.
As they always do, our local TV stations quickly assembled panels of experts to discuss all aspects of this event, the killer, his background, and so on. The discussion I remember best was held before even the identity of the gunman was known. He was being described by police as "apparently of Asian descent". None the less, the panel of experts had lots of air time to fill between the commercials. Everything else had been pre-empted for the duration, whether any new facts were available or not. Early on in the discussion, the subject of Virginia's "gun laws" came up. At this point nobody had any idea where the killer got his weapons, (maybe smuggled in to him by terrorists?) but the relative ease of buying weapons in Virginia is legendary. In essence, there are no restrictions whatsoever on guns in that commonwealth.
The discussions went round and round on whether placing meaningful restrictions would be possible, or whether they would have any useful effect on such people as the gunman. Most of the panel seemed to feel that a strengthening of restrictions on sale and possession of guns could not possibly make things worse. There was one notable exception to that opinion, voiced stridently, almost shouting to drown out others. This lady had the answer, and she was going to be sure that the one true solution to our continuing gun-violence problem would be heard. The answer, she insisted, was NOT to restrict gun sales or ownership, but to eliminate most of such laws in all of the states. It was obvious to her that if the professors and most of the students had been carrying their own guns, they could have shot and killed the disturbed killer in a moment. Killing him would clearly be justified, under laws that would be well recognized by the Earps and the Clantons, the Hatfields and McCoys, or even Bonnie and Clyde.
As the week passed, we found that the killer had shown clear signs of instability for some years, but that nobody could force him into treatment. Nor, in Virginia, could that instability be used to prevent his buying the weapons he used. One of the facts that has emerged, for example, is that he used high-capacity magazines for the 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, thus cutting down on the reloading time. A few years back, such magazines were illegal in our country, but the current President and his lap-dog Republican Congress allowed that anti-assault weapon law to lapse, and made a point of how that was the only sensible course of action to be taken.
Then the massacre happened, and among the first to leap up to offer comforting words was that very man who cheered the lapsing of the gun control law. He assured all the survivors and parents of the victims that God would be taking personal charge of all the dead. Nice of God to do what George asks! Later, he made statements about how he and the Federal Government would be looking into what could be done to prevent such tragedies. Anything, rest assured, that would not offend the all-powerful National Rifle Association. Politicians of all stripes and at all levels of government benefit from the largesse of the NRA. I'll be brave and predict that absolutely NO LAW of any possibly effective sort will be passed in the next ten years.
I am especially offended by the "crocodile tears" from George over the deaths of thirty-two Americans at the hands of one legal resident alien. This is, after all, the self-described "Decider" who is personally responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, thousands of innocent Afghans, and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
Part Twenty-Seven - Ulster Redux?
Build a wall. It's an old idea, one we can read about in our Bibles, back in those Old Testament accounts of battles in the land of Canaan. In those ancient times, cities had large stone walls surrounding them to keep out hordes of unwanted visitors, such as the Israelites, for example. Ultimately, as we know from "Joshua fit the battle of Jericho", the walls tumbled, the hordes took over, and started at once to build a stronger wall.
In more recent history, we have numerous examples of the "walling off" of a minority population from their majority neighbors. In Venice, for example, back in the sixteenth century, all the city's Jews were herded into a single island, walled off mostly by water, but still confined "for their own protection" by the Christian majority. The word used then in Venice survives today. Such a walled-off compound is called a ghetto.
Brief quote from Wikpedia: "... Venetian Ghetto was instituted in 1516. Surrounded by canals, the area was only linked to the rest of the city by two bridges, which were closed from midnight until dawn and during certain Christian festivals ..."
The word itself has been abused somewhat, but the idea proliferated. Most cities in Europe had ghettos for isolating Jews. It made them easier to find when somebody decided they needed mass killing.
A regular reader supplied this historical perspective on Ulster:
Ulster has been the name of one of the four kingdoms in Ireland since the beginning of recorded Irish history. It only has a Protestant majority because the Brits imported thousands of Scots and displaced the Irish landholders, as a reprisal for the Irish revolts against the English invaders.
In the title of this part we used the word Ulster, as the Northern part of what used to be Ireland has been called since the rest of the Emerald Isle became an independent country. Ulster has survived many decades of sectarian violence between the Protestant majority and the Roman Catholic minority. In many ways, Ulster could be considered a model for the current killing ground called Iraq. Like the residents of Ulster, both factions pray to the same god, using essentially the same holy scriptures, and so on.
Like Iraq, there was a flip-flop between which faction represented the power base. In Ulster, Protestants got the upper hand once the counties were separated from the mostly Catholic Irish Republic. In Iraq, the oppressed faction was the Shia religious faction, even though they were a majority in sheer numbers. Since the invasion by "coalition" forces in 2003, the Shia are now effectively in control.
In Ulster, each of the warring factions had its own external support. Catholics had the Irish Republican Army, while Protestants had the support of the United Kingdom. The I.R.A. became a sort of al-Qaeda, making terror attacks both in Ulster itself and in England.
In present-day Iraq, we have all the elements. Al-qaeda supports the oppressed Sunnis, as do Syria and Saudi Arabia. Iran supports the Shiites. There is supposed to be a unified Parliament, but there are frequent threats by the Sunnis to boycott its sessions.
The final ironic element is supplied by the United States Armed Forces. The equivalent in Ulster was the Royal Ulster Constabulary, a kind of cross between an occupying army, a police force, and a nationwide organized SWAT team. As the "occupation" of Ulster went on, decade after decade, intense hatred of the Constabulary came close to uniting the Protestants and Catholics.
This whole parallel came to mind this week, when it was announced by our Army that it was working on stout walls to surround Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad. Every town or city of even moderate size in Ulster has just such walls, built to separate the Protestant from the Catholic neighborhoods.
Just yesterday, our Army announced a rare "about-face" on the question of building those walls. Seems both factions opposed turning their capital city into a collection of ghettos. In a week filled with more massive attacks against our troops, abandonment of the stupid walling off idea was the best news from Iraq in a long time. Still, with or without the wall, the Imperial Amercan Iraq Constabulary can look forward to maybe fifty years of "in country" service, with increasing resentment.
Part Twenty-Eight - Greed is What?
The movie was named Wall Street, and the most-quoted line came from Michael Douglas, to wit, "Greed is good." It may still be the standard maxim of stock-trading insiders, but we are seeing examples every day in America and abroad that point in the other direction. Two examples have made news in the recent past, both unconscionable.
The "small potatoes", petit theft greed award goes to the college loan scandal. (Yes, we meant to use that French word "petit", meaning small, since that's the origin for our English crime's name, "Petty Theft".)
But we digress. The story goes like this. Students in college rarely get to graduation day without incurring some degree of "student loans" to help with the expenses. These are people whose parents can't simply buy them that education they need. In other words, these are people belonging to that middle class that America screws so effectively. What better screwing can a college student get than to be exploited on the interest rates for loans that may take decades to pay off after graduation.
Banks make the loans, set the interest rates, and provide all that fine print that makes you owe your firstborn son to the bank. At the college, there are loan officers, paid salary by the institution of higher learning, who are supposed to serve as the wise counsellors guiding students to the most advantageous loan deals. I suppose what we found recently depends heavily on the meaning of that expression "most advantageous". Not for the students. They're in the system to PAY the money, not to make the money.
So the banks decided to use a small portion of their excessive profits as kickbacks to student loan counsellors. That way, more and more of this lucrative business gets steered to the richest banks, better deals that are offered by less rich banks don't get mentioned to students. The counsellor gets a little extra money for turning himself into a crook and a liar, the bank gets more loans at higher interest, and the student gets the screwing. Greed goes on unabated.
The second recent example takes us back into that other "pot of gold" business, the folks who improve all our lives by supplying prescription drugs. Nobody who's read the warning labels on the more powerful pain killers, such as morphine, "Tylenol 3" and such can have serious doubts that these medicines can quickly lead patients into addiction even when under active care by physicians. Outside of the active care envelope, the drugs can actually kill people.
Now comes the surprising news that the makers of OxyContin, (Purdue Pharma) a relatively new pain killer, knew early in the drug's development and testing cycle that this drug would very quickly turn from blessing to addiction in many of the patients it would be prescribed for.
The company, all the way to the very top management, knew the danger and chose to take actions to suppress that knowledge, particularly from the "prying eyes" of the FDA. It worked. They got their approval of the drug, and have made untold billions of dollars peddling it to doctors as a superb method for dealing with pain. Any drug peddler could tell you that selling addictive drugs almost always has to start with a victim who thinks it won't turn him into an addict.
Although OxyContin is the newest of these threats, it follows a long history of rampant greed by drug companies, often leading to such results. We still have the giant German drug company named Bayer. Mostly today they're pushing Aspirin and blood-sugar testing gadgets for diabetes. They have managed to "live down" that pain-relief drug they sold aggressively as "a completely non-addictive but highly effective opiate drug". Yes, the great Bayer developed and sold that wonder-drug Heroin. Greed may not be good, but it never seems to go out of style!
Part Twenty-Nine - Dateline Tikrit
Dateline Tikrit, Iraq, July 14th, 2012:
During the past week, the Iraqi Parliament and heads of the major government ministries departed from the "Green Zone" in Baghdad under the guise of taking a two-week summer vacation. This morning, speaking from an underground bunker in Tikrit, an official spokesman announced that from this day forward Tikrit, not Baghdad, would be the seat of government.
Before the world had a chance to absorb that shock, the Prime Minister took the podium to announce that the government had issued a new General Order number One to all Iraqi armed forces. In that order, the Government formally broke all ties with the half-million American troops occupying the country. Instead, the Army would unite itself with the existing militias of all factions, with the single strategic objective of eliminating all occupying forces from Iraqi soil. This, of course, meant only the Americans, as all other "coalition members" had removed their troops after the failed "surge" in 2007.
Reaction from Washington was swift. President Clinton issued a statement through her Press Secretary, former Senator John Kerry. Kerry read it out verbatim:
"We, the United States Government, are renewing our resolve to gain the ultimate victory in Iraq. I have ordered our State Department to begin forming an interim Iraqi government which will take control under our protection from inside the Baghdad Green Zone. I have consulted with other important cabinet members, and we are unanimous in opposition to the illegal actions of the former Iraqi government. Vice President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, Secretary of Defense McCain, and Attorney General Giuliani have all agreed completely.
"Accordingly, I have ordered the Selective Service to increase draft quotas by fifteen per cent immediately. Until those new draftees are ready for deployment, I have extended the tours of duty of all our troops in Iraq by two years. I quote my predecessor, to the effect that 'We will ultimately win, so long as we don't quit'. Nobody ever said it better. We will insure that those twenty-five thousand brave Americans who have given their lives in this effort will not have died in vain."
In the following days, announcements of support for the Iraqi Parliament came from all parts of the middle east. Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia went so far as to offer to supply troops and weapons to the fight against what they called "The Evil Empire." The Iraqi Parliament in Tikrit announced complete "Nationalization" of all present and future oil reserves, cutting off any sharing of either the oil or its profits with any western nation.
Leaders from both parties in the United States Congress expressed complete support for the President's statement. Nobody paid much attention to the objections raised by former CIA Director George Tenet. He issued a largely-ignored statement through his attorney. Mr. Tenet was, after all, in jail awaiting trial for treason. Shouldn't have published that book, George.
From his ranch in Crawford, Former President George W. Bush proclaimed that "Those back-stabbing evil doers holed up in Tikrit will never prevail against the might of our great country. Democracy will win, and my decisions back when I was President will be vindicated."
Part Thirty - John's Nightmare
NOTA BENE:
This part is entirely FICTIONAL, a product of your author's warped sense of humor. You may associate the first name John with a real person, but here, the name John is purely coincidental. (You believe that? I've got a bridge to sell you!) In any case, just enjoy, have a good laugh at the expense of somebody else.
John woke up in a terrible cold sweat at his home in the Arizona desert. He was at home for the Senate's summer recess. Even before his morning coffee, John was on the phone to his "shrink", a man named Charles who lived in the Washington area. Charles recognized the voice instantly.
"Hello again, John. It's been a busy month, hasn't it? Four billable phone calls so far."
John was impatient. "It's that damned dream, Chuck. Keeps happening over and over, just the exact same damn dream. A nightmare to end all nightmares."
Charles had heard it all before, but one had to be respectful to guys running for high elected office, in case they win. Charles the shrink knew his next move and played it perfectly. He turned on the recording device attached to his phone. John's call would soon be another mp3 file on Charles' computer. "Okay, John, tell me the dream. Don't leave anything out."
"It starts the way it always does. I'm watching the local morning news from the CBS outlet in Phoenix. The lead story is a brief standup by a reporter at Sky Harbor, describing what's happening behind him. The first contingent of Arizona National Guard troops to return from Iraq is being greeted by families and friends. The reporter is saying that this is just the beginning of what will be a near-complete pullout from that country." John pauses. "I need a drink of water, Chuck. Can you wait a few seconds?"
At $500 per hour, Chuck will wait. "Yes, John, go get your water"
"The dream sort of drifts out of focus, but soon I'm in my car on the way to my downtown office, when, in the middle of a bright, sunny morning, there's suddenly a heavy overcast, dimming the light all around. I stop the car and climb out, then look up, expecting to see heavy clouds. There are no clouds anywhere in sight, but the sky from horizon to horizon is filled with those new giant two-deck airbus planes. Each of them is spewing out hundreds upon hundreds of men with parachutes, you know, the steerable kind that the Army uses."
Charles indicates he knows the type of parachute. John continues.
"In seconds, I find myself entirely surrounded by men in what appears to be guerilla warfare uniforms, but with arab type headgear instead of helmets. Each wears an emblem indicating al-qaeda on his left sleeve. Each carries an automatic assault rifle and thousands of rounds of ammunition. They start firing as soon as they touch down, killing civilians by the hundreds right in front of my eyes. That's when I wake up, always in a cold sweat. It's just exactly what I've said all along, they've followed us home from Iraq."
Charles asked again, as he had before when John recounted the nightmare, "You're sure it was Arizona, John? Not some small town in Michigan?"
"No, it's always Arizona, right in downtown Scottsdale, with at least one bank on every street corner. Scottsdale, Arizona. Why would it be Michigan? I don't live in Michigan."
Charles was now dancing on fresh eggs, trying not to offend a paying client. "Did you watch that movie again, John?"
"What movie?"
"The one you watched every other time just before this nightmare, John, Red Dawn. Did you happen to watch Red Dawn recently?"
"Well, uh, uh, I guess I did. I've got it on DVD. It's a GREAT movie, Chuck. Have you seen it?"
"Yes, I watched it just after you first told me the nightmare story. You really don't see any possible connection?"
"No, not at all. In the movie, the bad guys were Cuban and Russian Communists. True, they arrived by parachute, and shot lots of civilians, but that's just coincidence, isn't it?"
Charles applied a gentle touch. "No, I just think that in your mind, the idea of an attack on us here on American soil just fits too neatly with your 'They'll follow us home' campaign slogan. Try remembering the END of the movie instead of the beginning. At the end, I'm sure you know, the American flag flies over that rock with the names on it. The Cubans and Russians couldn't stay here as an occupying army forever. Take THAT lesson from the movie, and maybe you'll have better dreams."
NOTE TO READERS: There is in fact a movie named Red Dawn, made in 1984, during the cold war. It's actually a pretty good movie, featuring young stars like Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, and Lea Thompson. High school kids form a small group of "freedom fighters" called Wolverines. The whole cast, plot, and so on can be found HERE on the Internet Movie Data Base website. When this film was released, it held the all-time record for the number of acts of violence in a single film. Yes, there are loads of shootings, explosions, acts of sabotage, and so on, but by today's standards, it doesn't come close to the violence levels we are accustomed to seeing on screen.
Part Thirty-One - Have you no shame?
The title comes from a real-life drama back when your author was a teen-ager. The question was asked by Joseph N. Welch, a distinguished attorney. He was asking that question of Senator Joseph McCarthy, concerning some of the Senator's more outlandish accusations against innocent and loyal citizens that McCarthy tried to tar with the "Communist" label. McCarthy had ruined quite a few such citizens in his attempts to prove that communism was taking over various intstitutions, including the Department of Defense and the United States Army. (Mr. Welch was representing the Army in this particular instance.)
Today's target for the question is our Emperor's National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley. Mr. Hadley is one of the more blatant liars in the Emperor's stable, sometimes being blatant enough to eclipse even his former boss, Condoliar Rice. For example, on a recent Sunday morning, Stephen appeared on the ABC "This Week" show. He was asked an opening question, which he amswered with a long-since disproven lie. He did not flinch or show any shame whatsoever in mouthing the clearly false statement.
Four more questions were asked and answered with similar discredited lies. At my house, that fifth question was enough. I remembered Joseph Welch, uttered the words "Have you no shame?" aloud, and hit the on-off button. I might have missed some admission of truth by Mr. Hadley, but I doubt it. His track-record for telling the most blatant untruths with a straight face is superb.
This time, the National Security Adviser was defending the Bush plan to install anti-missile defense systems in Poland, with the necessary radar systems going into the Czech Republic. Both countries of course are far closer to Russia than to us, and neither seems to be threatened in any way by countries that OWN serious ballistic missile systems capable of reaching central Europe. Let's see, now. What countries COULD rain down thermonuclear hell on Poland? Only two come to mind immediately, the United States and the former Soviet Union (Russia and Ukraine, mostly).
Many of us are old enough to remember those cold war days when thousands of warheads were aimed at us by the USSR and at the USSR by us. The application of the Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) concept made the then-in-development Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) systems largely irrelevant, since they could never keep up with the multiple warheads and the many decoys that the MIRVed missiles could throw at defensive systems.
In 1967, the United States proposed a treaty to limit the development and deployment of ABM systems by the two superpowers. At first, the idea was rejected, but over time such a treaty did get signed. The treaty was signed in Moscow by Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev on May 26, 1972 and ratified by the US Senate on August 3, 1972. Although it was modified after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and was seriously threatened by Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" (Strategic Defense Initiative) project, it remained technically in force until June 13, 2002, when it was unilaterally dissolved by (guess who). Right, our current Emperor, George II, after giving the other parties a six-month notice of intent to withdraw from the treaty.
The idea, at least as stated then, was to provide the United States with the ability to defend itself against missiles launched, not by any superpower, but by "rogue states". Deployment of the National Missile Defense system is already in the works for only one part of the United States. Alaska will have protection against the hail of missiles that North Korea is preparing just to take over the world. The anti-missile system presumably will just wait until the North Koreans can develop a missile that can make it past the middle of the Sea of Japan. (That's a VERY long way short of Alaska.)
The Russians, until recently, accepted the idea that the National Missile Defense would be deployed on U.S. soil, to protect our own country. Now, suddenly, comes this new plan to deploy in Europe. Vladimir Putin knows that, at least for now, Poland and the Czech Republic are NOT parts of the United States, so he rightly objects to such a spread of defensive missiles into Europe. Vladimir, being nobody's fool, can see that right behind those two countries will come Germany, Austria, Italy, and a host of other hosts for the new protection.
Putin puts up the theory that the missiles are really intended to protect Europe against Russian missiles, although he knows full well that can't be the case. The missiles to be deployed would be totally ineffective against the kinds of missiles Russia could throw in. Still, his lies will serve some purpose, forcing Bush and company to get more tangled in their own web of lies to counter his.
Enter the wonderfully effective Mr. Hadley, having absolutely no shame when he claims that the defenses are needed to protect Poland from nuclear missiles that would be launched by Iran. IRAN???? IRAN???? What in hell would make Iran want to attack Poland????
Iran has some missiles. Reportedly, they could attack places as far away from Iran as Pakistan, Jordan, or Israel with high-explosive warheads. Such attacks would be frightening, but certainly not decisive in any warmaking sense. (Reminds me of the German V-1 and V-2 rocket attacks on London. Didn't make any difference except to the citizens unlucky enough to live where one fell.)
But now, suddenly, George has discovered a whole new Iran, with another country other than Israel to "wipe off the face of the earth", and that country is Poland, thousands of miles farther than Iran's missiles can reach, and of course Iran doesn't yet have the kind of thermonuclear weapons that it would take to eliminate Poland.
I will now propose a possibly truthful reason why these missiles will be deployed all over Europe. Boils down to one word, profit. The companies involved in making, installing, and maintaining the National Missile Defense system can't possibly keep their stockholders happy with the profits from a few installations in Alaska. More markets are needed to keep the money flowing in. Poland will be only a start, to be followed by Germany, et al, until all Europe outside of Russia will be awash in totally unnecessary missiles to protect them from Iran.
Maybe it would be better to provide Mexico with nuclear warheads and missiles instead. That would allow about a third of our soil to be in need of protection from Mexican nuclear destructive power. Even better, we could piss off Canada enough that they, too, would nuclear-arm themselves, and then just about every state would need the defensive missiles. Hawaii, maybe, could remain free of missile defenses until we could somehow endow Fiji or maybe Tahiti with long-range thermonuclear capabilities. If profits are needed by military contractors, a suitable threat can always be found or invented!
Part Thirty-Two - Colin Comes Clean
A lot of people who normally watch Meet the Press might have missed the program's broadcast of the 10th of June, 2007. The show aired at the early hour of 8 AM EDT, so as not to interfere with the all-important, ever-popular coverage of the French Open Tennis Tournament. Okay, so you guessed correctly, the author DETESTS, HATES, DESPISES the game of tennis. No matter, read on. It gets lots more fun than deuce-advantage-deuce-advantage-deuce-advantage.
The main guest, who sat across from Tim Russert by himself for somewhere close to forty minutes without even a commercial break, was General Colin Powell, a man I respect greatly. He has of course been in just about every really tough job that a man can occupy. He's been the National Security Adviser, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, (during the "Gulf War", aka "Kuwaiti Oil War"), and finally the Secretary of State. He's a tall, impressive looking man, whose very presence can intimidate most people, even if he didn't intend that result. Once in my days working for the Defense Communications Agency, I happened to be in the corridor near the Pentagon's River Entrance when he, resplendent in his uniform with the four stars, passed quite near. Impressive, even when just walking through the hallway.
On television, seated, and in civilian clothes, he's still impressive. He had some interesting things to say about the current quagmire in Iraq. Seems that before he went to the United Nations to support the idea of pre-emptive warfare, he spent five very long days at the CIA, right there in the place where all that bogus intelligence was being assembled. Now, in retrospect, General Powell is certain that he sat in meetings with people who KNEW AS FACT that much of the WMD evidence was gathered from sources who'd been officially discredited by the CIA as people who would lie about anything to please their "handlers". If the goal was to be able to say there were chemical weapon stockpiles in Iraq, these sources would weave just the right combination of lies and half-truths to support the incorrect conclusion. NOBODY spoke up about the discredited sources. One might think they'd been ordered to keep those discreditations away from the General's ears, on pain of being summarily fired.
The bottom line for General Powell, however, is that in the end he still voices the familiar "we would have to remove Saddam eventually anyway" justification. That bothered me more than a little, since all the arguments other than the WMD could be used to justify removal of "presidents" we support, like the one in Pakistan, just for example, a military dictator.
Okay, we'll give General Powell a "pass" on that one, mainly because he had other very important suggestions which will be totally ignored by the head jackass.
A biggie was the idea of the Guantanamo Prison Camp. General Powell recommends it should be closed as quickly as possible, and its inmates transferred to the United States to be tried by our normal Federal Court system. He can see what that camp, all by itself, is doing to ruin our reputation as a country that believes in justice, even for the worst criminals one can imagine. Tim Russert seemed surprised. He said something like "Let them have lawyers?" General Powell indicated they should have every protection of our criminal justice system, including appeals, access to lawyers, habeas corpus, and so on. General Powell pointed out that we do have somewhere around two million people convicted and in prison, and all of them had the rights he proposes to extend to the Guantanamo "detainees".
The most important thing the General had to say was that he fully agrees with the Baker-Hamilton report's recommendation to REALLY TALK to Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria. He briefly asserted that starting such talks with demands slapped on the table (as was done recently to Iran) is NOT a way to gain assistance from countries whose help we need. If you tuned in late and missed General Powell's appearance, I hope you enjoyed the tennis anyway.
Part Thirty-Three - Roadmap to Peace
It's been quite a while since we heard about the so-called Roadmap to Peace. It was big news back in 2004 and 2005, when our beloved Emperor was hoping for a freely-elected government for the Palestinian State. The roadmap took a sudden detour right around the 26th of January 2006, when Hamas won the elections, with enough seats to control the government. It didn't take long for both the Israeli and American governments to announce formally that they would not deal with Hamas.
After that, Israel and all its supporters, including the United States and Europe, took every action possible (short of outright war) to make it impossible for the Hamas-led government to function, or to even provide basic necessities.
We might have predicted that at some point enough would be enough, and sure enough, Hamas in the Gaza Strip took up arms to turn Gaza into a Hamas-only area. They succeeded, and in less than two days, the Palestinian President, Abbas, dismissed what was left of the elected government, and replaced that with an all-appointed one guaranteed to contain no Hamas supporters. Israel and its puppet superpower quickly announced full support for the non-elected government. (Democracy is SUCH a good thing!)
So now, as of the 19th of June, 2007, Israel's Prime Minister sat with his sidekick George and agreed they would instantly revive the meaningless "Roadmap to Peace". I'm just guessing, now, but I think this map has a big arrow pointed at Gaza, the path for the planes, missiles, and tanks that will destroy everything standing in Gaza, killing (by accident) as many of its people as possible. The appointed Palestinian Government will applaud that action, as will our Emperor and his closest friends.
An aside: as we write, thousands of Palestinians are trying to get OUT of Gaza. Partly, that's because Israel has cut off all supplies of water and electricity to the area. (Those actions are war crimes.) Israel has blockaded the exits, with forces including tanks and armored vehicles, to prevent these people getting out and over to the West Bank, where basic services are still available. Neither Bush nor any of his spokesliars has even mentioned these facts. Obviously, these acts are pardonable in the eyes of the Empire.
As we were getting ready to upload, there on AOL's welcome screen were these words: "EREZ CROSSING, Gaza Strip (June 20) -- Israel fired missiles and sent tanks on a foray into Gaza on Wednesday, killing four Palestinians in the first military action since Hamas militants took control." Didn't take long, did it!
So how does that lead to any lasting peace? It can't, and won't. Israel will continue as before, taking any excuse at hand to beat up any of its neighbors. (Remember the attacks on Lebanon last year?)
For our country, so beloved among all nations, it will be business as usual, supplying arms and support to Israel no matter how aggressive or outrageous their behavior becomes.<