On 9/7/5 USA Today did a good job describing how FEMA had been weakened through the appointment of political cronies to high posts and how that in turn had led to the loss of professionals. The sad fact is it's not just FEMA that has suffered this fate. Nearly every government agency has been politicized with the concomitant loss of professionals who often resign in protest. Think of the two most prominent examples, the CIA and CPB/PBS.

The tragic fact is that the US Government is now the roost of corporate-friendly frat boys, and no longer serves the interest of the public. Instead, it exists to line the pockets of the participants and do favors for big business.

This is by design, not by accident. It arises from the philosophy that there are only two legitimate functions of federal government: conduct war and promote business. Furthermore, where the two can be combined represents government efficiency.

Dear Katie, 

You cast the issue of unwarranted spying on people’s calls and emails as "Congressional scholars versus ordinary people who are afraid of another 9/11". You might as well have said, "Pointy-headed intellectuals against mom." Shame, shame on you. 

First of all, the following paragraph is not so inaccessible that the average person can’t get its meaning and importance. Sure, the language is a little stilted and antiquated, but if you read it a couple of times, the meaning is plain: 

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

I’m not a Constitutional scholar, but even I get it, no problem: "no blanket searches, and no searches at all without a legal warrant". This is what that silly, silly American Revolution was all about. Your "scholars versus addled, fragile, fearful old mom" angle completely leaves out the importance of the event as it effects our liberty.

Even worse, your approach actually inhibits people from realizing what’s at stake. Because so many people perceive the world exactly as you present it, when you trivialize, you actively contribute to keeping them in the dark: fearful, uninformed, and susceptible to exploitation and eventual subjugation through tyranny. By virtue of your public profile, you have a responsibility to present the events of the day in a clear light, even if it means challenging rather than coddling.

Do that, and old befuddled mom might actually rise in fury to defend the rights of her children and grandchildren, rather than quaking in fear and dribbling into her Depends.

3/16/6: My wife and I got it, our nine year old Dachshund seemed to get it, and even one of our cats understood ABC's Elizabeth Vargas when she emphasized that today’s military attack was an Iraqi operation from soup to nuts. It was based on their intelligence and they carried it out, with only the ancillary help of our massive air support. Presumably it was all their idea too. Their show. We had nothing whatsoever of any substance to do with it, really.

Unfortunately, our second cat, which is somewhat developmentally delayed, wasn’t quite sold. If Ms. Vargas had only gone further when chatting it up with the reporter at the end of the piece, instead of stopping at "What’s different here is that this time it’s an Iraqi operation" she should have elaborated a bit more: 

"This time is not like the time before when our government said Iraqis led an offensive, but it came out a week later that they were being micro-managed by US Marines, and that the whole episode was just a propaganda stunt to assure Americans that the war was going splendidly, just like the staged toppling of the statue of Saddam in the first weeks of the war. This time it’s really real. We know, because the same guys who blew smoke last time told us this time, and they wouldn’t lie to us twice, right?"

If she had just made that extra little effort! I think then our other cat would have caught on. There’s just no way you can be too obvious. Even a wink is good. After all, it’s vitally important that we all --no exceptions- get the impression the Iraqis are taking over the driver’s seat so that we can declare victory and get on to the work ahead in Iran.

Each is told that if he confesses, he will receive a light sentence. Conversely, if he stonewalls and the other confesses first, he will then receive the harshest punishment allowable.

If both prisoners keep their mouths shut, they get off scot-free and remain at large. On the other hand, if one brakes, the other is immediately doomed to a long prison sentence. Unbroken mutual trust is rewarded fully, while cynical betrayal secures a small penalty for the unfaithful, along with a severe penalty for the betrayed. Our country -any country in history- is in this sort of dilemma, with peace and perpetual war in place of freedom and prison.

Some are born with a temperament such that they will give others the benefit of the doubt unless and until events prove otherwise. This group prefers living in an atmosphere of harmony and trust. They will attend to defensive needs only as they arise, but otherwise, they will try to live in peace.

Others are born expecting the worst from their fellow man, and they are determined to gird for inevitable transgressions. This requires being geared for war at all times, even when no obvious threat looms. Since the underlying belief is that another nation will eventually attack, this group may accept the premise that attacking preemptively is justified.

The problem is that the very existence of the second group means there's always the chance of war, because somewhere in another country there is a group just like them, and from these the threat of war will come. Thus, the cynicism of warmongers will always be proved the right strategy. As long as their ilk is represented on earth, there will be wars aplenty. They promote their own survival even as they cause pain, suffering, and destruction around the world and throughout time.

The admonition to "turn the other cheek" was intended to break the age-old cycle of violence and retribution. It would make moot the warmongers' quest for invulnerability, so they deflected the message and thus triumphed over peace.

DC Sopranos: Rumsfeld recently flouted a court order to release videos and photos revealing further and reportedly much worse prisoner abuse than any we have seen so far. Karl Rove is in up to his neck in controversy over revealing the name of a covert CIA agent to punish someone politically. The oil companies, bursting with windfall profits from recent market speculation, have just been given billions more in corporate welfare in the anti-environment, anti-consumer, pro-business energy bill that VP Cheney allowed the oil industry to write.

It didn’t actually get the votes needed to pass, because one Republican’s nay vote was miscounted in the voting machine as a yea, and another Republican’s nay was not admitted, but that’s apparently good enough. ( Remind you of any recent national elections? )

On top of this, our undignified Commander in Chief clearly shot the bird to the press as he walked away, just as the VP did not attempt to restrain himself during Senate testimony and used the ‘f’ expletive. How much evidence does the slumbering public need to wake up to the fact this administration is a crime family, both in substance and in style? The answer is that there isn’t enough evidence conceivable, because the people like this thuggish administration and are content with its corruption.

The estate tax has been cleverly nicknamed the "death tax". Well, here's a moniker for its repeal: the "Dynasty Development Decree & Arrogant Aristocracy Act".

Most Americans benefit from immigrant workers coming from our south. The higher up the food chain you are, the more true this is. Developers, large agricultural concerns and other large employers do very well by the cheap and pliant labor of immigrants, legal or otherwise. These enterprises are by and large politically conservative.

Despite this, in the coming election Republican strategists will use the issue against Democrats in general, and Liberals in particular. How? Well, very craftily Republicans will propose draconian legislation attacking the immigrants, knowing Liberals will rally in opposition, on humanitarian grounds.

Then Republican strategists (Karl Rove) will polemicize and inflate the issue of illegal immigration in the public forum, then disingenuously point to the Liberal stance as the root of all ills associated with immigration. This despite the fact importation of labor is the lifeblood of Republican constituent’s fat profits.

They will get away with it too, because the media is disinclined to point out the hypocrisy, and the American people aren’t interested in details. Depth of understanding is not our cultural long suit. Why? 

Who cares?

Only Values Voters are True Americans. They hate Saddam. They hate France for not following us into Iraq when the French thought there was insufficient reason, even though they backed us in Afghanistan, which they saw as necessary.

Values Voters hate with a pure, blind hatred that was easily and adroitly deflected from Osama to whomever Karl, Rummy, and Dick wanted to focus it on. They will hate Iran and Syria next, when called upon to do so, although Bush’s own government sent prisoners to Syria for torture (outsourcing is good for the economy). That favor will be forgotten. The rationale for hating Syria is already in development. The “values” bunch will rise to the occasion and hate like hell when the time comes, rest assured. Patriotism plus hate equals nationalism.

"[Republican neo-conservativism is] a nightmarish vision of ideological extremism, catastrophic fiscal irresponsibility, rampant greed and dangerous shortsightedness... " So, need another beer?

Forcing a struggling young woman to bear and raise a child in poverty, instability, and  neglect betrays a callous indifference to suffering as well as a profound lack of understanding. Even the Puritans favored abortion (prior to "quickening") where strong family support was missing, realizing the folly of raising a child without abundant nurture. While abortion may be viewed an act of murder, it's a swift one that precludes the misery of growing up as one of society's weeds. The cruel twist is that the young woman intuits the sad outcome for her child, even as anti-abortionists force her to have the baby.

A pious hypocrite can still feel good about banning abortion though. He can always put the kid in jail later, condemning the grown child for his inevitable criminal acts. He can then savor the flush of righteous indignation and enjoy the vindictive pleasure of doling out punishment.  Perhaps he can even manage to make a profit off of the child's incarceration! If nothing else, he can congratulate himself over having saved a fetus.

Yes, there has been a vast right wing conspiracy, and it has been a smashing success. The ultra-rich have cajoled a slim majority of the electorate into relinquishing the powers and protections brought them by the New Deal, the very instrument that beat back Depression and enabled them to achieve middle class status (or more accurately, to be a well and fairly paid working class).

Getting voters to go against their own interests and the future of their descendants required a monumental right wing manipulation that turned on wedge issues and the marketing of straw man candidates as every-man populists (the antithesis of the powers they fronted for).

The mother of all wedge issues was race. Democrats embraced civil rights, and in so doing handed the right wing plutocrats a huge initial wedge issue. Following that, decimation of the manufacturing sector weakened the union base of the Democratic Party, and the right wing capitalized on this by formulating the sophistic argument, "The Democrats have done nothing for you lately. Ergo, they're not on your side." 

The irony that corporations profited wildly from moving jobs first to the American South, then to Mexico, and finally to China and the rest of Asia was not decried by the slow-footed, complacent Democrats. They did not respond to hypocrisy, but instead rushed to morph into Republican-Lite centrists and courted big business in an effort to hang on to their own jobs.

Along came the Gipper, the affable union-buster with avuncular warmth who persuaded ordinary people that government was the cause of all their ills. Of course, he did not mention that once government 'by and for the people' was gone, corporations would rush in to fill the vacuum. It's doubtful he understood this himself.

When Bill Clinton wrested the presidency from Reagan's successor, the conspiracy was in no real danger; in fact, the intermission allowed the right wing to groom its next shill, an inarticulate, mediocre scion of wealth who had shown he possessed a particularly valuable talent: a natural appeal to evangelists. Without this voting block, the right wing plutocracy could not take control through direct elections.

Now government has become small enough to drown in the bowl of New Orleans, if not in an actual bathtub. Our willingness to protect our civil liberties has been scared out of us. Social Security is in disrepute and we have been told to expect nothing from it in our old age. We are at war. Not only are we told not to ask when war will end, but that we must accept ensuing wars. Unofficially, we are officially a torture state. We ordinary citizens do not see ourselves as entitled to anything and accept that we live by the grace and at the whim of a superior entrepreneurial class. Finally, that cancer of Adam Smith's Utopia, the corporation, is in absolute control.

Elections now turn on nothing more than the wedge issues of school prayer and gay marriage because that's all religious zealots care about or understand. Right wing conspiracy? Mission accomplished.

Divorce rate among born-again Christians: 27 percent. Among atheists and agnostics: 21 percent. Any questions?

We are going to start winding down troop levels in Iraq, not because of any demonstrated metric of success, but because the well of volunteers is running dry. If the administration thinks it can reinstate the draft, it should be mindful that the public knows the current and previous presidents were both effectively draft dodgers. This means a draft packed with a cornucopia of deferments could not be sold to the American people, so the sons of the upper middle class would be drafted, trained, deployed, and killed in the same proportion as the drafted sons and daughters of the poor.

Wealthy Republicans will follow the Jane Fonda anti-war tour like Dead-Heads before they go along with that plan.

The Bush Goon Squad is: robbing the poor to give to the rich; changing laws to legitimize a permanent upper class; ushering in a two class system; diminishing the clout of ordinary working people; disenfranchising voters; auctioning off our children's legacy.

In the process they are decimating democracy, dismantling the Great Experiment, and positioning the US as an internationally reviled and feared empire. They have replaced the hopeful vision of Jefferson with the dark wisdom of Machiavelli.

Despite all this, the majority of voters are ignorant of what is happening, don't fully understand, or flat don't care. What is of paramount importance to them is that "Queers can't marry."

"Pop!" goes the country.

Funny how the Brits were able to get right to work and nab London terrorists, while we still get post cards from Osama bin Laden taunting us. The Brits have the advantage though, they don’t have to stop to don flight suits and cowboy boots and give John Wayne speeches. Anybody can do it the easy way.

The US is rapidly being reformed on the Saudi model, where royals control the wealth and clerics call the tune for the commoners.

hip-shots 

~~~ Screeds on Tap ~~~

intelligent re-design, Cindy Sheehan at Face Value, Enjoy Your Ribbon, The Conservative Media, 

Price of Gas, Let Iraqis Do It, A Day Without a Hypocrite

Get offa My Cloud,  The Other War,  Summer of our Discontent,  Grist for Frist,  Rush to Judgement,  Children of the Cornyn,   Magnetic Yellow Ribbons,  Forgotten-ed Half of the 9/11 Report

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