Narcissism, not pursuit of money, is the root of all evil.

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Wouldn't it have been great if back in 2000, when the Bush/Cheney team was touting they'd run the government "like a business", if the press had done due diligence and reported what sort of business successes these two really had achieved. As CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney engineered the acquisition of an asbestos manufacturer, a purchase which subsequently burdened his company with crushing lawsuit liabilities. The stock value plummeted, and despite frenetic subsequent war profiteering, Halliburton stock has yet to rebound to its pre-Cheney level.

Of course, George Bush's business acumen has been represented via his tangential association with a Texas baseball team, his last business involvement before assuming Texas governorship. This story is mere public relations spackle over a hideously marred business record. Time and again, Dubya rode his oil companies into the dirt, only to have them resuscitated by daddy's fat cat friends, many of them members of the Saudi Royal Family.

The culmination of Dubya's pre-baseball business tour-de-force was bailing on his company, of which he was then chief financial officer. He cashed out his stock just weeks before a bad financial report was released, resulting in the stock's tanking. Apparently, as CFO, he was unaware of any existing or impending financial difficulties. Rabid Bush apologists are quick to point out that George W. Bush was cleared of any wrongdoing in this case by the FTC; his exoneration speaks more to corruption and cronyism at the FTC at the time than to his innocence, unless we accept that he was really so uninvolved he truly didn't know what was going on. In any case, he was either a crooked bad businessman, or an egregiously incompetent one.

True to their word, this dynamic duo of free marketeering has run America like a business. Run it in the way they have always done: into bankruptcy. But who could ever have foreseen this? 

Saturday, January 21, NBC nightly news let a conservative film critic have the last word in their story about recent films with serious themes, and he used it to slam Hollywood liberalism. Giving him airtime was far from ‘fair and balanced’ because NBC had given no explicit information about the subjects or the politics of the movies mentioned. All that was said was that they were “serious”, and a couple of very brief clips were shown.

The “film critic” (more accurately, “thought policeman”) said Hollywood better get in step with what real Americans think. Well, if Hollywood is so out of step, how is it their grossly misguided movies are box office smashes? His argument is absurd, and if NBC weren’t bent on pandering to the political right, it never would have wasted everyone’s time with his presumptuous, inane carping. 

I’m a native born American who served four years in the USAF, went to college on the GI Bill, have paid taxes for almost four decades, served jury duty, raised children, and I’m registered to vote. Because of that, I consider myself a real American, and still I have no big problem with any of the films mentioned in that piece. 

NBC might want to  brace itself for a paradigm shift soon, because there are a lot of ordinary people like myself who are becoming very, very tired of  Christo-fascist, self-declared culture mavens pretending to have final approval over mores and morals while denigrating our values and beliefs. (We liberals do have them.) 

Anytime there truly is a cause for going war, I don't think young, affluent neo-conservatives should have special dispensation from having to serve in combat. Why is it that a junior executive need only heckle the occasional protester in order to fulfill his obligation to his country? If he's going to talk the talk, he should walk the walk. He and his fraternity of business friends benefit from the sacrifice of others on the battlefield, while their commitment is limited to cheer leading the war. They are getting much too good a bargain in this rigged market.

It's ironic that in days of old, feudal lords demanded taxes from their peasants in exchange for protection, but now we've reached a stage where the lords of finance accept tribute, then expect their peasants to go into battle in their place, and they restrict their own contribution to generating patriotic noises. Nice work if you can get.

The corporate media's idea of balance is to let the fat kid scoot up on the seesaw. 

Apparently, this is an inexcusable affliction, a fact that began to be drummed in during the Reagan Administration. By praising the entrepreneur to the rafters on a daily basis while concomitantly omitting any mention, favorable or otherwise, of those workers and artisans who did the actual work, the Great Communicator effectively imbued all of America with the notion that businessmen were the wellspring of social betterment and well being, while the rest of us were parasites at best.

In my resulting miasma of self-recrimination, I searched my soul for an answer to why I lacked the ability to be a mover and shaker, and the answer turned out to be as plain as it was inescapable: I am not motivated by money! This is a shameful admission to make, but if I’m to be honest with myself and others, I need to confront this fatal character flaw.

Somehow I just missed acquiring the overpowering will to make a buck. I am ashamed to say that from my early beginnings I was geared more toward making an individual contribution to the common good, according to my abilities, and then taking what I needed in return. Oh the shame of it! Never did I aspire to the higher state of consciousness that is profit seeking. How I long for elevation to the higher plane of of being a money-whore.

At bottom, I must face the brutal truth that my social perversion stems from the loathsome misconception that “We’re all in this together.” Pity me.

I’ll go to the ramparts to protect clumps of fetal cells; I’ll fight to restore prayer in school; I’ll resist gay marriage. I’ll reduce funding for food stamps so un-aborted children will know hunger; I’ll cut back on Medicaid so that small children will go untreated for illness because their mothers have no resources; I’ll nix programs that help poor families pay for heating fuel during times of drastically increased fuel costs; I’ll push for ineffective abstinence-only sex education so that young women will have unprotected sex; I’ll fight against the minimum wage so that the desperately poor will always stay that way. I’m a conservative politician. Vote for me because I have VALUES.

One story that isn't being picked up by the mainstream media is the deaths of female soldiers from dehydration in Iraq, which are occurring indirectly from their fear of being raped on the way to the bathroom at night. Because the women's barracks at Camp Victory is far from the latrine, and the path is so poorly lighted, women have stopped drinking fluids after three or four in the afternoon to avoid needing to go at night. In 120 degree heat, this has proved fatal in some instances, with women actually dying in their sleep.

The only response of the brass has been to tell the surgeon to shut up about it and list the cause of death in some cases as "unknown" and hide the fact that the deaths were solely among women.  General Sanchez of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib torture investigation fame remarked "The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory."  

What a sweetheart! Not hard to understand how he found nothing systemically wrong at either prison.

Some of the comments on this story in blogs have been as hard-hearted and misogynous as the gentle general's. They range from "They're in a combat zone, so why don't they just take their guns with them?" to "They're trained in hand-to-hand combat, so why can't they protect themselves?" and "Women always go to the bathroom in pairs, why don't they do that at night?"

I was in the USAF from 1969 to '73, and the only time I held a gun was when I qualified with the M16. You don't get issued a gun unless it's part of your job. More than likely, all these women worked inside Camp Victory (Mansion), which is a fortress behind barbed wire, so they don't have weapons. 

As for them being able to take care of themselves because they've had combat training: give me a break, so have the men raping them and whose upper body is composed of 40% more muscle. 

To those who say "Why don't they just go in pairs?" I respond, think that through, will you? Are you really going to inconvenience someone --and piss them off-- by waking them out of a sound sleep if you figure you can just not drink water before you go to bed? 

My daughter is 20. Her best friend joined the Air Force and tried to get my daughter to enlist with her. I let my daughter know I thought it was a really bad idea, and I prevailed. Hearing this story and  the pitiless response of some men (and even some woman), I'm damned glad I did. Americans put magnetic yellow ribbon symbols on their cars to bond with their jingoistic neighbors, but the fact is most don't give a sweet shit about "the troops". 

Oh, and if Camp Victory weren't a Halliburton/ M&M Enterprises, so that logistics and security were not a privatized thing, making the position of "supply sergeant" an anachronism, I'm sure they could have gotten some goddamn lights strung up and even moved the women's barracks closer to the latrine!

Some are saying, "If you don't have anything to hide, why do you care [about domestic searches and surveillance]?" In reality, nobody wants to have his privacy invaded. Nobody watched "The Truman Show" and said, "Gee, I'd like to be in that guy's shoes!" Nobody, not even an exhibitionist, wants his phone tapped. The "If you don't have anything to hide" argument is baldly disingenuous.

Further, how can anyone claim the federal government's spying on its citizens without judicial oversight is necessary? Defenders of the policy, including the president, imply that warrant-less searches are indispensable in many cases because time is of the essence when tracking terrorists, and waiting for a warrant might be fatal. This argument is specious because, as nearly everyone knows by now, the government can spy first and ask permission later. There's no waiting period. Plainly, searching without warrant is unwarranted. 

All the government is avoiding is accountability by not asking for warrants after the fact. Still, because of intimidation or cognitive dissonance, no one challenges the president or his administration when they repeat the ludicrous assertion that warrants incur unacceptable delay. 

What’s the real danger of the government’s wiretapping or otherwise spying on its citizens without judicial oversight? Well, let's stretch our imagination a little. Everyone knows that the present administration is above politics, especially where defense against terrorism is concerned. They are beyond reproach, but sometime in the distant future a less altruistic group might come to power. 

As hard as this is to conceive, the Founders anticipated just such a contingency, so they set up a system of checks and balances. They gave only Congress the power to make law and declare war, and the courts power to interpret the law and safeguard the Constitution. This may seem silly now, but the Founders had an inordinate fear of their precious republic disintegrating into tyranny. 

O.k., let's drop the pretense: unless the checks and balances that are in place are observed, it's only a matter of time before some rogue executive branch abuses power and seizes complete control. Nixon and the Uber-Cross-Dresser, Hoover, spied on peaceniks, political opponents, and anyone who didn't goosestep to their tune. Could we ever return to another dark period when powerful men indifferent to the basic rights of the individual run roughshod over the Constitution, or do you believe no one in modern times would dare use extra-constitutional powers for political reasons? 

Here's your answer: this government is presently spying on the American Friends Service Committee. That's right, the FBI and the NSA have finally infiltrated Quaker meetings! If the administration ultimately fails in its attempt to keep the list of those it has spied on from becoming public, I'm certain we’ll find names on that list which cannot be associated with terrorism in the judgment of any sane person. So the answer to the above question is: We are already there.

If you doubt the arrogance of this administration in regard to abuse of civil rights, consider their reaction to the recent revelation of domestic spying: they are only concerned with catching and prosecuting the leakers! This parallels Rumsfeld's reaction to the photos of prisoner abuse: he thought digital photography was the problem! To their way of thinking, the only thing wrong with anything they have ever done or might do is associated with getting caught. Even then, the fault is not theirs but belongs to those who expose their deeds. They possess a narcissistic certitude of their own righteousness. 

Elements of the proposed UAE takeover of US ports are downright farcical, but one thing that it reveals should be taken seriously: the "War on Terror" is a hollow show put on by the government to draw attention away from the actual Big Money games going on behind the scene.  

This is nothing new. Over the decades the US Government has continually dangled one bugbear or another in front of the populace to keep us from focusing on the real business of government: insure Big Money comes into more money, uninterruptedly, irrespective of politics and ideology. This is demonstrated in present by the financially salubrious ties of the Bush family to people who have been known to go hunting with Osama bin Laden as naturally as Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia goes bird hunting with Vice President Richard Cheney. 

In grade school we were constantly told that the US is a democracy. No wonder we're confused! This is utter hogwash and self-serving, cynical, government propaganda. The founding fathers and framers of the Constitution feared democracy and shunned the (not so mythical) little guy. The United States of America was always meant to be run by and for the wealthy elite. Further, with the exception of brief regional outbreaks in Boston and Chicago in the early part of the last century, democracy has been successfully avoided throughout our history. 

If you doubt any of this, just look at the fantastically lopsided distribution of wealth we have, the inexplicable lack of universal healthcare, or the humongous expenditure on defense during peacetime. If that were not enough, the circumstances surrounding this present situation should convince you: the UAE are the benefactors of the President’s father, brother, and uncle. What a coincidence! 

The fact that the company poised to take over our ports is owned by a government that has supported al-Qaeda is irrelevant. So is the irony that we are privatizing port operations only to have them run by another country's government-owned company. None of It will make a damned bit of difference to our security in the final analysis, because our government’s “War on Terror” is as contrived as any TV show.

What really matters is that the Big Money Game goes on unencumbered.  Anything else is bread and circus.

Samuel Alito will be the ring bearer at the government's fascist wedding. 

Witness the perfect political storm: a president who thinks he's a divine monarch, a congress controlled by corporatists, and a judge, Alito, who worships the powerful. There never was a better time for Democrats to throw down the gauntlet and filibuster.

Dems have spent the last 20 years trying to pass for Republicans. Now is the time to differentiate themselves from those who openly wear their corporation T-shirt. "Reagan is dead, you can come out now!" [p.s.  On 1/30/6 enough Democrats voted with Republicans to pass cloture, and Alito now sits on the Supreme Court; hence, we are another step closer to totalitarianism.]

Right-wingers' claim that secular humanist/liberals are warring against Christmas is balderdash. These guys are forever declaring a grudge match against an imaginary opponent over some fabricated insult. This lets them pose as the wounded party when they're actually taking an offensive stand. It's an old gambit, but it works, especially in front of an unsophisticated crowd that can't fathom the ruse. Mel Brooks mined this type of situation for laughs in "Blazing Saddles" when the sheriff holds a gun to his own head and takes himself hostage to get sympathy from the on-looking, dull-witted townspeople.

Forcible Pro-Life. Nice to hear that the state of Missouri refuses to transport an inmate to a clinic to receive an abortion at her own expense. To hell with her rights, make her have that baby in jail, and that’ll be a great start in life for the kid too!

Missouri, with the help of a ruling by His Honor Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is forcing a woman to have a baby that is sure to be born with three strikes against it, all because Missouri politicians pander to zealots with a trendy moralistic stance. These extremists don’t care a whit for the consequent misery the child and the mother will be forced to live through, and they’ll carp about every dime they might have to spend on the child’s education, medical care, and probable eventual incarceration. Truth be told, most of these ostentatious moralists don’t truly care about the fetus either, but merely compete with each other in ultra-religious circles for maximum display of apparent fervor on the issue.

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"We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."

                           -President Woodrow Wilson

(Sleep tight with that thought in mind.)

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One by one over the years, the illusions I had from childhood about my country dropped away. I watched kids wasting from wound infection in a med-evac hospital during Vietnam, realizing they were merely an offering to politicians' egos. I learned that you were free to say whatever you thought in this country, so long as you didn't care about eating. I learned that we as a nation,  through our big businesses, rob the third world poor of their potential for a decent life and feast on their dreams. I learned about the leverage advantage the wealthy have over working people, and that for all the Horatio Alger bluster, America is half as upwardly mobile as the rest of the industrialized world.

For all that, I still held on to one illusion: I didn't think the United States of America was a torture state.

V.P. Dick Cheney says he believes in a "robust" power of the executive branch. He's in fine company: Hitler, Stalin, Franco, Pinochet, Chouchescu, Saddam Hussein, Mussolini, and of course, King George III.

President Bush recently remarked, "In a dictatorship there is no need for negotiation or compromise", meaning that's not how things work here in the United States of America. There's more than a little irony in his saying this, however. 

Consider that his administration consults with legislators rarely, Republicans exclusively, and just a handful of those. And Bush limits his appearances to only hand-selected audiences where his every word will be accepted unquestioningly. The White House operates in deep secrecy at all times to preclude ever having to explain or defend its policies and actions, let alone modify them through negotiation. Personally, President Bush brooks no criticism, bullying and maligning anyone who disagrees with him or else having his surrogates do it.

In the Congress, which is dominated in both chambers by Bush's own party, Democrats have been excluded from the process of writing law. Oftentimes Democrats do not even get to see laws that consume hundreds of pages until a couple of hours before a vote. According to President Bush's own description of how a dictatorship acts, his government surely fits the bill.

Other industrialized nations have garnered enough Tamiflu for 30 percent of their population. We have enough for 2 percent. Up to this point we haven’t done much to get ready for a possible flu pandemic. It most likely won’t happen, but if it does, we will pay dearly for out indolence. It would result in the Katrina fiasco times ten to the fourth power.

2/16/06: The congress masterfully pulled off a switcheroo this week. After having made bold pronouncements about its intention to investigate fully potential illegalities in the NSA domestic surveillance case, congress precipitously dropped the subject. Amazingly, it avoided any criticism or accountability for this by adroitly shifting focus from our domestic spying to Chinese surveillance of its dissidents, publicly bashing Yahoo executives for their complicity there.

The shift in attention from US to Chinese surveillance was so seamless that no one, lest of all the press, took any notice. What made this feat of prestidigitation run so smoothly was the use of the high-profile, attention-grabbing “Yahoo” name to distract the audience. The press obligingly watched the bright object held up in one hand while the other made the switch. Like taking candy from a baby.

When manipulation of the media goes this well, there is never a question as to whose deft hand is guiding the performance: kudos again go to Karl Rove, the man who understands this country’s limited faculties for detecting a ruse better than any other living illusionist.

Many, perhaps even most, anti-abortion advocates also want to block teenagers' access to contraception. This action of limiting contraception is bound to lead to more unwanted pregnancies, with an attendant increase in abortions. So the same people who decry abortion are willing to create a situation causing more of them. This inconsistency suggests their avowed concern for the fetus might be secondary to some other consideration. 

The anti-abortion movement is not solely that. Its real intent is to promote morality. By forcing a girl to have her baby it is hoped to impress other girls with the inadvisability of engaging in pre-marital sex. If old-fashioned shame and ostracism can be reintroduced, pre-marital sex can be rolled back to 1950's levels, or at least that is the idea. It is an anti-choice movement with a purpose.

The hope is to halt rampant teenage sex and return chastity as the norm, although there's some question as to whether chastity was ever more than an unattainable ideal. If abortions result because of withheld contraception while the conversion is taking place, that is unfortunate collateral damage.

In another respect though, it's a bonanza: the hysterical fervor it produces can be directed in support of the cause of morality. Similarly, although the hardship and shame visited on unwed mothers results in pain that is unfortunate for them, it serves the greater good of the return to a "Frankie and Annette" culture of innocence.

The whole theory is wishful thinking though, because the apparent promiscuity of our time is a direct result of the advent of oral contraception, which decoupled the sex act from procreation. 

Come to think of it, most of the cultural upheaval that so enrages reactionaries results directly from "the pill". Women entered the job market in great numbers beginning in the 60's because they could avoid becoming pregnant unpredictably. Then, because they became more able to provide for themselves, they were more likely to escape unhappy marriages, and the divorce rate went up. Perhaps most egregiously, self-assured women chafed at the conservatism of a male-dominated, misogynous religious hierarchy; hence the vehement attacks by the right-wing on "femi-nazis".

Yes, almost everything social conservatives find offensive can be traced back to the birth control pill. I agree that the new freedoms it brought have been destabilizing to society in some ways and that the changes created numerous problems, but I disagree that the proper answer is to dive back into the 50's, even if that were possible. All we can do is adjust and get on with it. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.

Here's how to kill Osama bin Laden in three years or less: invite him to this country, give him Medicare benefits, and let him receive dialysis from one of the US's corporatized private dialysis services. Gets him in three years max, guaranteed.

Polls show Democrats ahead on the issue of the Iraq war, but Republicans still ahead on the terrorism issue. The latter does not follow from the first. According to President Bush himself, the centerpiece of his war on terror is the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the liberation of Iraq. He says he’s fighting terrorists "over there" so he doesn’t have to fight them here.

The war in Iraq is 99% of his war on terrorism, so how can anyone say Bush and his party are effective against terrorism, yet mishandling the war? To be logically consistent, you either have to believe that he’s made a shambles of the invasion and has been merely lucky there hasn’t been another attack on our soil since 9-11, or you have to maintain that the war is an overall success and that terrorism is contained as a result.

The polls only make sense when you consider that a conservative party appeals to some people because its rhetoric is reminiscent of a ‘strict parent’ posture. Tough-talking conservatives make these people feel secure, irrespective of the actual facts of the situation.

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