No, but…

Technorati Tags: Mary Whitaker-Bono-Baxley-Mack,Conor Friedersdorf,Barbara Ehrenreich,Political Protests

There’s a mild brouhaha brewing, Dear Gentle Reader(s), over a passage or two by a writer in the the U.S.  It seems a woman named Barbara Ehrenreich wrote this:

Why are Americans such wusses? Threaten the Greeks with job losses and benefit cuts and they tie up Athens, but take away Americans' jobs, 401(k)s, even their homes, and they pretty much roll over. Tell British students that their tuition is about to go up and they take to the streets; American students just amp up their doses of Prozac.

In response, Conor Friedersdorf, subbing for Andrew Sullivan this week, wrote this:

Is someone taking away the 401(k)s of Americans? Would street protests somehow salvage the jobs of those who've lost them in the recession? For that matter, have street protests done anything to improve the lives of the Greeks engaged in them?

We’ll probably never know if the lives of the Greeks have been improved by street protests, but we’ll also never know if the very people who caused the mortgage mess here in the U.S., which, arguably, caused the Great Recession, would right now be looking forward to enjoying the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts which they should, in the name of fiscal prudence, never have been given.

We can certainly imagine the scene if the tens of thousands who did not vote for Representative Mary Whitaker-Bono-Baxley-Mack in November of 2010 would’ve shown up in front of her offices in downtown Palm Springs in protest against her promised vote for the tax extension.

Maybe the U.S. would be hundred of billions ahead on deficit reduction today if we’d marched in all the Republican House districts in December.

Sphere: Related Content

Mad Men Revived

The AMC original show, Mad Men, returns us to the late 1950's, prior to Nixon's first presidential run. If you don't watch it, Dear Reader, may I humbly (moi?) suggest you do so. It will give you a theatrical look at certain attitudes driven by the testosterone of the day; those attitudes, well, vestiges of them, could very well be the ones with which we find ourselves at odds today.

Women in the office are treated with indifference, if not disrespect. The protagonist cheats on his wife, in a retrospective moment he muses to his mistress, "I don't know if you have everything...or nothing." Not even a twinge if the question also applies to himself.

Although Alpha Male is a relatively new word of the day, the series two openers reek of it.

As a late teenager during those years, I find the memories stirred by this series to be disturbing. I couldn't understand the concept of male superiority, and I didn't care if I didn't have it. Others cared very much that they have it.

The blinkered view of the world which the WASP evinces in this series is quite similar to the view which we see the Bush administration displaying. They are correct; they have unflinching faith in themselves; anyone who disagrees will be shunted aside or destroyed. "Maybe I should stop paying you," says the 1959 protagonist to an underling who dares to engage in a second round of debate.

The equivalent exchange of 2003: "We need 500,000 troops." "You're irrelevant."

And everyone smokes. The smoking pregnant, drinking women in Hairspray were funny. The WASP wife on the shrink's couch smoking isn't funny. It's tragic.

We survived the Eisenhower years. Surely we'll survive the Bush II years. In 40 years will there be a television show which exposes the foolishness of 2007?

Sphere: Related Content

Sincerely Sincere or just Sincere?

The first time someone used the line on me was back in the 1970's when the Anita Bryant brouhaha was building over in Dade County, Florida. "She's being sincere."

Maybe. The problem with that excuse for a questionable action is that most people who engage in what others might feel unthinkable behavior are sincere. Don't you think Lenin was sincere? Stalin? Hitler? Bull Connor?

Sincerity shouldn't let people off the hook.

President Bush is often said to be sincere...in his belief in his Iraqi policies...in his tax policies...in his signing statements...in his disregard for the Geneva Conventions on torture...

So what? He's wrong.

Let's not hear more about how sincerely Mr. Bush believes the jail sentence for Mr. Libby was "excessive." The president's sincerity has nothing to do with the justice of the sentence.

The real question for Republican Party sycophants as Mr. Bush enters the final 18 months of his presidency is whether or not RNC members are more sincerely dedicated to the U.S. Constitution or to the RNC.

I sincerely hope Mr. Bush finds Jesus again--this time to stop trashing our system of government, now that his liver is healing.

Sphere: Related Content

Snowjob?

Dear Gentle Reader (both of you, sometime), you must go to this link for Salon.com's War Room and read the entry entitled "The good news about George W. Bush." Then you must read the comments.

The entry details a comment made by presidential spokesmouth, Tony Snow, when asked "...whether the Bush administration "feels any responsibility" for the split among Palestinians..."

I won't give away the joke. Nor will I give away the wonderful comments. You won't be disappointed.

Sphere: Related Content

A Madding Mantra...(almost)

Mantra is probably too strong. The repetition of something like "how we got here is not important anymore" by the supporters of Mr. Bush's initial invasion of Iraq and the subsequent questionable management of the occupation is certainly approaching the repetitive, soporific qualities of a mantra; but it might not yet have arrived.

A question arises, though. Why not?

Why isn't it important to keep near in our consciousness the questionable rhetoric used by the administration to lead the American public first to accept the invasion, and then to put up with the questionable policies developed to police occupied Iraq?

Trust in the administration's capabilities led us to where we are. Doesn't the administration have the responsibility to defend, aloud and publicly, its strategies at this point? Does "give it a chance" suffice?

The Islamist fundamentalists are a real threat. What, exactly, is the administration's strategy in this "ideological struggle?"

Republican defense of this president's war policies needs more than "forget" about how we got here.

We would be foolish to forget. We must remember who. We must remember why.

Fool me once...

Sphere: Related Content

Sufficient Troops and Politicians

Waaay back, in 2002, the Chief of Staff for the Pentagon recommended 400,000 to 500,000 thousand U.S. troops be utilized to defeat Hussein and to sustain peace and order in an occupied Iraq.

That recommendation was shot down by a politician, the Secretary of Defense, and that negative was sustained by another politician, the Commander in Chief.

During the early occupation months, calls went out for more troops, but the Commander in Chief constantly told the American people that the generals on the ground did not ask for more troops, so none would be provided--politicians would not second guess the generals on the ground.

After the elections of 2006, after an electoral repudiation of the Commander in Chief's handling of the Iraqi occupation.

When politicians, responding to the electoral desires of the American public began to demand a re-deployment, a lessening of American troop levels in Iraq, all of a sudden the Commander in Chief, responding to a sudden "need" for more troops from the generals, discovered the solution to the problems in Iraqi occupation would be solved, in part, by more troops. This in the face of "politicians" trying to "micromanage" the occupation effort.

So, as long as the Commander in Chief had a compliant Congress, no increase in troops was needed; after a repudiation of the CiC's policies at the polls, there is a desperate need for troops.

Hubris.

America weeps.

All for a tax cut in 2000.

Sphere: Related Content

A bit of selective memory, Dave Boy?

My favorite right-wing pundit is at it again. David Brooks writes of the Republican Party's downward slide in public trust with "No U-Turns." (Times Select)

As usual, Brooks gets most of it correct: the Republican Party is still working, largely, as if Reagan-Goldwater ideas were still "operative." Too much has changed since 1989, the last year of Reagan's presidency. The world and the United States have changed, but not enough of right-wing thinking have undergone the same.

The problem with Brooks' presentation today lies in this: (Postwar planning in Iraq was so poor because many in the G.O.P. were not really alive to the truth that security is a precondition for freedom.)

One begs to differ. In 1991, Bush I refused to continue the war effort in order to depose Hussein because of the strong possibility of sectarian violence and an inability to control an Iraqi leadership crisis--exactly the conditions which have come to pass and are obvious to all, including Mr. Brooks and other early neo-con supporters of the 2003. What would come to pass after April, 2003, was clearly anticipated by a Republican administration in the spring of 1991.

To torture the axiom, Bush II should've repeated the success of Bush I--and not moved to unseat Hussein.

Otherwise, Brooks has some interesting points.

David Brooks
Mr. Bush
Republican Party

Sphere: Related Content

Talk About Hurt!

Pity the poor U.S. attorneys who were recently fired by the Justice Department.

The first "reason" for the firings was some variation on the theme of "poor job performance."

Imagine the sting! To have your job rated "poor" by this Administration. To be labeled a "loser" by Losers Incarnate, Inc.!

Oh the ignominy!

Where is the humanity?

Justice Department Firings
Bush Administration

Sphere: Related Content

Stalemate? Probably. Let's Move On.

Over at GayConservativeLiberal's blog, I've been engaging in a teensy teapot tempest, which I thought I'd share.

Here's the first entry (actually, in the middle of a rather interesting exchange, but I'm cherry picking) from a young man named James Henry Bailey: "Liberals can NEVER support their idiotic assertions with facts. I don't think they even try anymore. The more facts get in the way, the louder they yell "Bush lied, people died!!"

Here is my riposte to his entry: "Is it not a fact that the Bush administration did not plan adequately for post-invasion Iraq?

Is it not a fact that none of the 9/11 murderers were Iraqi?

Is it not a fact that all of the proffered meetings between Al Qaeda and Hussein were based on doubious intelligence to begin with but were touted as proof of collusion?

Is it not possible that, no matter how many "facts" liberals may offer, supporters of Mr. Bush will not believe them? So, what's the use of engaging in a barrage of "fact"?

Out of interest, however, might one ask for a "fact" which will prove that liberals give "a pass to real theocracies and the fanatic Islamo-fascists who fight to instill it."

Painting people's attitudes with a broad brush is never wise. That is true. One is best advised to avoid it.

To which he riposted (?): "Is it not possible that, no matter how many "facts" liberals may offer, supporters of Mr. Bush will not believe them?"

I for one have never suggested that Iraq was the right war to fight after 9/11. However, like it or not, it has become a very important battle that should not be under-estimated.

However, I can't believe the hypocrisy with which the left attacks this president and I am determined to expose it as much as possible. Don't forget that most of the anti-war rhetoric coming from the democrats is coming from people who VOTED FOR THIS WAR. They saw, or should have seen, the same intelligence that the president saw. (in fact, almost none of them bothered to read it).

I think you will find there are PLENTY of conservatives who do not support this war.

what's the use of engaging in a barrage of "fact"?Indeed! why even bother with it, eh??

Guess what's next. Yes! My "final" riposte:

Not supporting the war does not speak to the "facts" of the Bush Administration's mis-steps.

If anyone is underestimating the importance of this current battlefield, they should stand corrected. Who, specifically, is doing this underestimating; and if we're going to assign culpability for underestimation, shouldn't we, again, go back to the post-invasion planning of the administration?

There are, indeed, PLENTY of conservatives who do not support this war. Isn't it fair to say that most of that particular plenty have become anti-war after the administration's mis-steps? Is it possible to identify a major conservative voice opposed to the invasion pre-March 2003?

I cannot believe the senators and representatives who voted for the authority to use force against Iraq after certain conditions had been met saw the "same" intelligence as did the President. You may be correct, but such sharing flies in the face of the Executive authority of which this administration has been so jealous.

The facts have been offered. They have not been refuted. Why continue?

The meme (not simply here, but elsewhere also) has become a stalemate. Nothing new is being offered. The surge will play out; it will be successful or not.

I certainly hope it is successful.

Agape.

And then, in a spirit of hospitality, I added

(If any of you guys are coming to Palm Springs for the White Party, give me a call.)

Now, I'm wondering if I didn't accidentally hit on a bit of clarity. This Iraq battlefield meme has reached a stalemate. I haven't seen any movement on either side of the argument. Maybe we should just let the surge work itself out.

In the meantime we should also be planning for our next "theatre of operations" in this battle against religious extremism.

(If you go to GCL's blog, you can find links to Mr. Bailey's blog.)

Moderates of the religious world, Unite!
Gay Conservative Liberal
James Henry Bailey
War on Terror

Sphere: Related Content

Habeas for Habeas?

Is it Orwell or Carroll? On January 18, 2007, the Attorney General of the United States, testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, said, “There is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.”

Now, Section 9 of Article 1 contains the following: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

Somehow Gonzales interprets this section to mean that something you don't necessarily have cannot be taken away from you.

Senator Spector suggested that Mr. Gonazles was on the verge of violating "common sense." One would be hard pressed, unless one is a member of the administration, to disagree with Mr. Spector.

The virtual trips to Oceania and Wonderland continue.

Alberto Gonzales
Habeas Corpus
Bush Administration

Sphere: Related Content