#223 Tea Baggers-- A Dirty Joke

After my two-week "spring-break" it's time to get back to some politics. The subject if this post was already in the hopper, when, behold, it has now exploded upon the national headlines in a new light--a light last week that exposes them in their true colors--with the primary-election of Republican Rand Paul of KENTUCKY. Just love these cosmic connections--because this poster-boy for the Tea Baggers is now called by many, by reason of his Jim-Crow, anti-civil-rights views, the "Kentucky Fried Candidate."

So I bring up these execrable beings for several reasons, not the least is that Mark Morford did (DM #221), and he compared them invidiously with that culinary masterpiece called the KFC Double Down. I feel protective. That aside, I'll just go ahead and agree--and make it a "double-down" bet for sure--that the so-called Tea Party "movement" (the scatological possibilities are endless) is the worst, gag-reflexive, vomit-inducing thing that has come down the tract, or back up, reverse-peristalsis-wise, since the John Birch Society.

But wait, those knuckle-draggers have already joined the Tea Baggers. Go ahead, lift up the fundament-bestained coattails of the latter and you'll see other racist rabble, including the anti-Semitic Lyndon LaRouchies and the white-separatist Council of Conservative Citizens scuttling about in the dark. In fact, none other than that Sta-Puf-Boy of the right wing, Karl Rove hisveryownself, has warned Republicans to "disassociate" themselves from this movement if it continues to prominently attract other such "cranks and conspiracy nuts"--

This includes 9/11 deniers, "birthers" who don't believe Obama was born in the U.S., and militia supporters espousing something vaguely close to armed rebellion. (WSJ 2-19-10)

But at least these creatures have a cause in common with Republicans. They don't like black people very much. Or most any other variously-colored Americans but white. Especially those people of color who recently had the "audacity" (Obama's apt word from his book) to take over the gub'ment of these United States. That's really what the Tea Baggers are all about, Kentucky-fried to a turn, and proven time and time again, at rally after rally. The N-word flies freely, and sometimes spit. And without this, they are rebels without a cause at all. The rest is bogus.

Take the name, "Tea Bagger" They're all drama-queenly offended by it now, reacting almost as if N-worded ... but they started it. I make much of this for the following reasons. First, these folk are so CLUELESS as not to know--or not to have anyone in their ranks who knew or could do a little research in the Urban Dictionary to find out--that the term is used in oral-sexual parlance to describe the placing of the man's scrotum in the mouth of his partner. Well, everybody knows it now (including me). But April 15-"Tax-Protest-Day" a year ago you had lily-white, little-old-ladies-in-tennis-shoes with tea bags festooning their hats running around with signs reading, "Tea Bag the Fools in D.C." and "Tea Bag the Liberal Dems before They Tea Bag You." Meanwhile, conservative pundits like Neil Cavuto and Charles Krauthammer had been blithely throwing around the term all of last year. (See Crooks and Liars 5-6-10)

Point is--as Forrest Gump's mama used to say, "Stupid is as Stupid does"--they rather embarrassingly mucked-up the title of their own organization right of the bat. It's only symptomatic. Except for their bigotry and racism, which has a kind of despicable logic, the public, sanitized reasons behind their "protests" are similarly moronic and, moreover, utterly without foundation. But these ignorant and hate-filled folk are a clear and present danger to all of us, nonetheless. (more)
************

#222 Sloth

Yeah, this glorious summer-like weather has got to me, I guess. More to do than just write web-log entries ... or less. Can't hope to compete literally with those other "diurnals" in the blogosphere by the likes of Tina Brown or Markos Moulitsas, anyway. Or John Stewart on TV for that matter. I'd have to hire a staff. (Make your contributions payable to my nonprofit organization, Concerned Americans for Superior Homeblogs, by simply making out your check to C.A.S.H.)

It's been too late to re-title ever since I began this blog two years ago, and lately its twin. So look at "daily" this way: current posts and the wonderful archival treasures can be read at any time of day or night. By sunlight, even. Most often the bloggage is produced during daylight hours as well, co-terminus pretty much with my circadian bio-rhythms, too. The latter (and quite recent) compound-coinage is, by the bye, almost pure Latin: circa = "about" + diem (acc. sing. of dies = "day"), modified slightly for adjectival use. Aha. Now there would have been the ideal mast-head: The Circadian Mosteller--i.e., "about" or "approximately" daily. Too late, alas.

So much to write about--and lately it seems, as Hamlet said, "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions"--yet sometimes ... you gotta just "hang."
************

#221 Mark Morford Un-Foodied but Tasty

Since I picked on him peckishly a couple of weeks ago over at Mosteller Musings, let me give this SFGate guy a soupcon of time on this more topical/polemical wing of the family bloggerage. Though wildly off-menu in his food-nannyism about the "toxic zoo" at left (MM #48-50), Mark Morford doth rant often and well about other issues of more consequence, and closer to my heart ... in the non-cardio sense.

An opportunity for him to do so was afforded last week by the explosive reaction to that same anti-KFC-Double-Down article I attacked. The respondents to Morford's original column were overwhelmingly in support, of course, except for a "few oxygen-deprived souls" who only weakly (out of fan-loyalty, I must suppose) suggested to him that the Colonel's sandwich just wasn't all that bad, and that there were "far worse things out there" to get his animus animated about. No, no, says he to those few: you've missed the more important,"larger picture" (told you so). And here he admits to his true target(s) all along:

... all the pollution, animal abuse, INDUSTRIAL FARMING, chemicals, synthetic, antibiotics, hormones and just plain insidiousness of a company [losing syntax in mid-rant] concocting something this greasy and disgusting in the modern age. (full article here)

But while he's at it, okay, Why not admit rhetorically that there are indeed "those things that are worse for you than KFC's fistful of karmic hate"--and get some of them off his chest? So the remainder of "37 Things Worse Than a KFC Meatwich" does just that.

But first, a moment with Industrial Farming. If, Mr. Morford, saving the lives of millions of CALORIE-deprived souls around the world is of any consequence, then scientific agri-business must continue going about its business for years and years to come. Cute little organic "victory" gardens in everybody's utopian backyard--which even so canny a food-pundit as Michael Pollan seems to get misty-eyed about--just ain't gonna feed the SIX BILLION people, and counting, on Planet Earth. Thanks to "industrialization," the developed countries, including mainly us, have indeed been able SHARE our surplus groceries with the rest of the world. Moreover, our friendly neighborhood supermarket offers the most inflation-resistant, bargain-priced product you can buy in these hard economic times, or any other time for that matter. So very, very fortunately--think about it--it's THE product we can't live without.

However, here is a buffet of Morford's top seven, a tasty mix the sublime and the ridiculous, which I've seasoned with a sampling (in quotes) of his pungent prose:

1. Tea Parties. A recent rally featuring Sarah "Queen of Duh" Palin reminded him of the Lollipop Guild serenading Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz"-- "that bizarre acid-trip of a scene ... the moment just before a very stoned Dorothy skips away to hook up with her crazy gay pals and traipse through a giant Pink Floyd album, the moment when those three adult dwarves stumble out of the Munchkinland horde wearing little kid outfits, and sing their little surly song, replete with surly, out-of-sync leg spasms." Nicely done.

2. Floating garbage. Referring to that recently reported and news-piced "giant, rancid, thousand -mile swath of plastic collected over a period of years in a huge swirling vortex and choking off sea-life as far as the eye can weep." No bun needed.

3. Military spending. No argument from me, of course, about that vomit-inducing 53% of our annual tax bill. "We have the largest, most bloated war machine in the world. We SELL more guns, tanks, jets, and warheads to more dictators, regimes, and drug cartels than anyone on the planet. Are your local schools crumbling? Public hospitals failing? Entire state dumber than Glenn Beck's fact-checker? Blame the military ..."

4. Miley Cyrus. The ridiculous.

5. The Catholic Church. Worthy of quoting his full, sardonic treatment: "Sure, sure, the Double Down will enrage your colon, toxify your blood, disfigure your heart, greasify your skin, shrivel your genitalia, and dumb you down to the level of slug shoelace. But that's nothing compared to 2,000 years of abuse, lies, oppression, lack of sunshine and dead leathery skin that accompanies handing over your soul to the sinister clan of old men who run the Vatican. As for the Pope, well, it would appear the "holiest" man in the Christian empire cares more about PR than child rape. You know, just like Jesus wanted." More from me about all of that in a later post.

6. "Jersey Shore." For him it's the TV version of the Double Down, I guess. Why has Morford risked his gastro-intestinal health by watching even a moment of it?--one might ask. I suppose it's meant to be , like Miley Cyrus, another example of America's Double-Down-and-out sense of TASTE.

7. Republicanism. No argument here either. For me, the once proud party of Lincoln has become a weird religious cult of cold-eyed shamans leading a bunch of wild-eyed Kool-Aiders. For Mark Morford, the party "has devolved into a shrill, shrieking puddle of Glenn Beck's crocodile tears, Rush Limbaugh racists and surly white men who hate the fact that you might [in future?] have decent access to health care, can marry someone you love, and don't hate [as the Republicans do at present?] everything and everyone not inbred near a Texas football stadium." (The guy's rhetorical outrage doth betimes befuddle the plot of his sentences.)

8-37. Here he fudges. Morford put out a call on his FaceBook fan-page for suggestions to finish out his 37 "non-food items deemed far worse for you than a KFC Double Down." Check 'em out. They too range from the important to the inane--from Ann Coulter to a dioxin enema, from the Bible to unprotected bestiality (?!). Fun readage.

Okay, Mark Morford, time's up. I guess I'm a fan, too, because ... De gustibus non est disputandum. And you can Double-Down on that.
************

#220 IrAfPak--"Death to America"

Ah, Kandahar ... land of the pomegranate and the palm- and/or ballistic-grenade (see DM #154-156 for a fulsome rhapsode on that strange fruit's metaphorical and combatical implications) ... you EXPLODE upon the headlines once again--this time in the CIVILIAN MURDER department, apropos of last several posts. We just can't get enough of "takin' pot-shots at the Gooks."

Here's Monday's AP/HuffPost lead:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan--Afghans burned tires and chanted "Death to America" after U.S. TROOPS FIRED ON A CIVILIAN BUS near Kandahar, killing four people and wounding more than a dozen. Afghanistan's president [Hamid Karzai] accused NATO of violating its commitment to safeguard civilian lives. (full report here)

Ah, Kandahar ... of once-lovely place and vowelicious name, you threaten us with irony-overdose. Yes, you are the land of luscious pomegranate and lush-full opium-poppy, but also the fertile spawning-ground of the Taliban, and its major stronghold. You are also the birthplace of "democratically elected" Hamid Karzai, a former/major Talib himself, and will be once again, easily, if things don't go his way. For the execrable Mr. Karzai, as for all his Sunni-Pashtun brothers, Taliban or not, it's simply a matter of power-politics. Party affiliation, no more no less.

Hence the intractable, ultimately irresolvable problem--and why we must get the hell out--put in simple terms and Haiku-form for ease of memorization :

WE KILL CIVILIANS EVERY DAY,
AND SO DO THEY,
BUT THAT'S OKAY.

... because they're "one of us." The Americans, on the other hand, are the murderous foreigners, no matter the "collateral" justification. It was the non-overcome-able problem in Vietnam, and so it is in Pashtunwaliland. The awful fact is that NO AMOUNT of internecine slaughter-of-the-innocents by the Taliban will ever counter-balance the HATRED these people have for us infidel invaders--hatred, in microcosm, that can translate to a father (a Karzai-gov't employee who got off scot-free) stomping his daughter to death for fraternizing with a British soldier (DM #127 and ad nauseum).

All the innocent bloodshed is reflexively blamed on "America." Listen to this Afghani implicitly absolving the militants of any responsibility:

"The Americans are CONSTANTLY KILLING OUR CIVILIANS and the government is not demanding an explanation," protester Mohammed Razaq said. "We demand justice from the Karzai government and the punishment of those soldiers responsible."

Or this one:

"These FOREIGNERS have their enemies [someone/somehow or other], but killing Afghans is not the answer," said Abdul Hadi ... "Better yet, I would like to see them LEAVE Afghanistan," he added.

So might it just be possible that the following contains a grain of truth?--

The attack ... DEALT A FRESH BLOW to U.S. and NATO efforts TO WIN POPULAR SUPPORT [???!!!] for a coming offensive to drive the insurgents from the biggest city in the south. (AP 4-12-10)

The City of Pomegranates, Kandahar the Beautiful.
************

#219 Another "Fatal Vision" UPDATE--Video

Well, Karzai is still threatening to turn the color of his coat, and now yesterday exploding in the media is more damning evidence of "collateral murder"--WikiLeaks' headline--in our occupied territories. I'll admit to sensationalizing a bit when I anchored a post last week with a classic photo of the My Lai Massacre, but, really, so little has changed. And this video just come to light from 2007 Iraq proves it.

Reuters had been trying to get the scoop on on why two of their Iraqi journalists (arrows) among a totally non-combatant group of men were inexplicably killed in an attack by an American gunship. And, wow, did they finally get a scoop. It's fuzzy here, but quite clear in the full video, photographed and narrated by the killers themselves--"Light 'em all up. Come on, fire"--that we still can't resist "taking potshots at the Gooks" four decades after Vietnam. "Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards," says one hero after the fact.

(See three versions of the WikiLeaks video/audio here, along with commentaries.)

All these guys in the picture are strafed and eventually killed. A wounded Saeed Chmagh tries to crawl away to safety but is sky-stalked and re-strafed. That's gut-wrenching enough, but here's the heart-breaker: an "innocent" van pulls up ... adult jumps out ... looks up at gunship ... proceeds anyway to rescue one of the wounded ... both strafed and killed ... gunner asks permission to open fire on van ... permission granted ... van strafed.

Moments after the attack was over, ground troops report to the gunship that there are TWO CHILDREN in the bullet-riddled van, now lying severely wounded by the helicopter's 30 mm cannon fire. Still on video and audio, one of the crewmen responsible for just killing their father responds:

Well, it's their fault bringing their kids to a battle.

************

#218 IrAfPak: Obamas Fatal Vision IV--the Kids Again

But first, an I-told-you-so, news-flash update: "Afghan President Hamid Karzai Threatens To Switch Sides"--scream the headlines today. If his political situation doesn't improve, he and his minions may do what comes naturally, and turn their coats. Nothing new. Scroll down and take another look (#216) at those stolid guerrillas of a hundred years ago, turning on their British allies.

Karzai was once a staunch Talib, after all. And like them, a hard core Sunni-Muslim-Sharia-Pashtunwali-Tribal Pashtun. The Taliban may be a little stricter in their practice of of Sharia Law--cutting off heads instead of hands, and blowing up Buddhas--but they throw no fewer stones at an adulterous woman to get the deadly job done. They represent NOT some invading army--as I'm sure vast numbers of naive Americans believe--but an indigenous political movement borne out of reaction to foreign encroachment, and dedicated, in their militant-insurgent incarnation, to driving the Big-Boy Imperialists out. That's us, no matter how much we try to propagandize otherwise. We kill kids just like the Taliban do.

But let it be said, as ad nauseum I have: the adults aren't worth it in the first place. Not nice people. (I won't repeat it again, but for a refresher-in-microcosm revisit the father-murders-daughter story, DM #176) Our Vietnamese allies had at least entered the nineteenth-century in terms of cultural progress and (almost) social justice. These folk are no more than benighted barbarians emergent from some worm-hole-in-time connected to the fourteenth. Like the rest of the Middle East. Setting aside 9-11, if they weren't connected tangentially to the Great Oil Debacle that IS the Middle East, we would look at the AfPak-Pashtun people, if at all, with little more than scorn or pity.

However, the sins of the fathers must not be visited upon the children. Keep in mind a statistic that I will repeat: WE KILL TWICE AS MANY CIVILIANS as the "enemy" does. Their devious suiciders just can't top infantry operations and air strikes (incl. robo-planes) for killing innocent people. The child pictured above was caught in the latter. There is simply NO WAY to avoid it if the Bush/Cheney approach is followed by President Obama, and it seems to be. A military "solution" will NEVER "gain the loyalty of the people," much less "bring the insurgents to the negotiating table" (last post). How breathtakingly absurd is that direct quote?

If innocent "collaterals" are not killed or wounded willy-nilly from the sky, they're simply gunned-down deliberately. In a New York Times article ignored by other mainstream media, Obama's "man-on-the-ground" General Stanley McChrystal admits as much:

We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.

Great P.R. The article as redacted by HuffPost (here) continues:

According to the military's own figures, American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but as McChrystal noted, NONE OF THE VICTIMS PROVED TO BE A DANGER TO THE THE TROOPS. [Called in Vietnam: "taking potshots at the Gooks"]

Despite new rules put in place by McChrystal, aimed at REDUCING [not eliminating] THE KILLING OF INNOCENTS, such shootings have not dropped off. Although fewer than deaths from air-strikes or Special Forces operations, their continuance ... "has led to GROWING RESENTMENT among Afghans fearful of Western troops and angry at what they see as the impunity with which the troops operate--a friction that has TURNED VILLAGES FIRMLY AGAINST THE OCCUPATION."

So ... "Who ya gonna call?" The Taliban, of course. They're "one of us," after all, might reason the Afghan villager who has just lost a little daughter in an air-strike, or heard of Mohammed Yonus, a local teacher whose chest was ripped open by shots fired from a passing military convoy as his two sons sat in the bullet-riddled car (NYT). And the Taliban's WAR CRIMES, he might further think to himself, are no worse than the Americans'.
************

#217 IrAfPak: Obama's Fatal Vision III--Troops and People

I know ... this is My Lai. But the parallels between Vietnam and IrAfPak get stronger every day, and that's no easy thing, considering that they were well-nigh INDISPUTABLE from the beginning! It's baffling, frankly, why Obama has stepped full-booted into this quagmire, and taken now a majority of Congress and the American people (by a slim margin lately) mucking along behind him. After all, Wasn't he a scholar/teacher (who should know better) before he became a politician?--oops ... I just answered my own question. Besides, I forgot that every U.S. President since WWII but Jimmy Carter has gotten foreign blood on their hands. It gets in their blood somehow, and they've killed foreigners so well, and in so many lovely countries.

This is why it's axiomatic, I guess, that "The United States of America does not quit, once it starts on something [like its very favorite] ... We will prevail." Or so saith President Johnson--oops again ... Obama--to his contract-killers at Bagram. More to arrive soon. And BE killed ... it's only fair. From the same AP report (here) cited in last post:

In total, 57 U.S. troops were killed here during the first two months of 2010, compared with 28 in January and February of last year, an increase of more than 100 percent, according to Pentagon figures ... at least 20 American service members have been killed so far in March, an average of about 0.8 per day [eight-tenths of a human-being on the general's clipboard--love it], compared to 13, or 0.4 per day a year ago [not counting the winged and wounded, maimed, and mangled, due to the spike in roadside sniper-attacks and IEDs].

That's the good news; here's the bad:

U.S. officials have warned that casualties are likely to RISE EVEN FURTHER as the Pentagon completes its deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and sets its sights on the Taliban's [read: those "other" Pashtuns] home base of Kandahar province, where a major operation is expected [or maybe not?] in the coming months.

"WE MUST STEEL OURSELVES, no matter how successful we are on any given day, FOR HARDER DAYS YET TO COME" [who is this retro-jingoist?] Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a briefing last month.

The rhetoric is bone-chillingly THE SAME that we heard forty-odd years ago about Vietnam. Listen to this language:

... the Taliban [Viet-Cong] continue to plant bombs [we do it by air] at night and intimidate the locals, and the hardest part of the operation is yet to come: building an effective local government that can WIN OVER THE LOYALTY [insert "hearts and minds" here, in the Viet-speak of LBJ/McNamara] OF THE PEOPLE.

But there's "light at the end of the tunnel"--

The goal of both operations is to put enough PRESSURE on the Taliban [who live and die for it] to FORCE THEM TO THE NEGOTIATING TABLE [how about in Paris?] to work out a POLITICAL SETTLEMENT to end the war ... "Until they [the opposition, but Afghans just the same] transition to that mode, then we will have fighters ready to take shots at us and plant IEDs (improvised explosive devices), said Lt. Col. Calvert Worth Jr., commanding officer of the 1st battalion, 6th Marines Regiment in central Marjah.

Translation: they're winning. As insurgents always will. Point is ... no matter the outcome, EVERY DAY IS A DEFEAT in an unjust war. Eight-tenths of an American soldier per day are eight too many tenths. And might even prove fatal. Meanwhile, innocent civilians are dying by the whole numbers. (more)
************

#216 IrAfPak: Obama's Fatal Vision II--Troops and Tribes

But "The United States of America does not quit, once it starts on something ... " said the President. Neither do these redoubtable fellows pictured at right, Pashtuns ready to turnabout and give a good sniping to their British ALLIES (against the Russians once again) ... ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. (See DM #197--love this painting. They are as staunch and immovable as the ancient boulder next to them.) The watchwords have forever been "keep the foreign bastards the hell outta here" (in Pashto), no matter who, and with whomever business is being done at the time. So it goes, still, in this Graveyard of Empires.

And yet we stay. For the "Afghan" people? No such thing, not even geographically. The Pashtuns themselves spill over into the implacable borderlands of AfPak and beyond. Occupying other areas are such ethnic groups as the Uzbeks and Tajiks (and more) with their own sub-multiplicity of tribes, and centuries-old tribal laws and traditions. The Pashtuns have simply outnumbered them historically within the artificial, surveyor-tape boundaries of what we now call Afghanistan. What has kept peace amongst them is their bedrock hatred of outsiders--unless trader-types just passing through on the ancient Silk/Opium Road. Nevertheless, the President would have his troops believe that

If this REGION slides backwards ... if the Taliban retakes this COUNTRY , the al-Qaida can operate with impunity; then more American lives will be at stake; the AFGHAN PEOPLE will lose their opportunity for PROGRESS AND PROSPERITY; and the world will be significantly less secure. As long as I'm your commander in chief, I'm not going to let that happen. (AP story again)

After several moments of stunned silence, the assembled troops burst into a mixture of jeers, razzberries, and hearty guffaws, while some were seen putting sidearms to their heads and clicking away furiously. Or running for the exits. It's April 1 ... but don't I wish.

As reported, the other pressing reason for Obama's visit was to drag President Karzai to the woodshed and give him a few retributive licks for the CORRUPTION and FRAUD (like in elections) blighting his puppet government. In the true tradition of Vietnam. Well, "Prosperity is just fine with us, Mista Obama, but progress?" To dysquote the string-puller. The woodshed dialogue might have continued thus:

Listen, when you leave, and if we're still standing, fuhgeddabout this democracy shit [a Pashto word] you've imposed on us. We'll always be governed by our ancient, pre-Islamic "Pashtunwali," the tribal code-of-life, now merged with Sharia law and adopted by even the non-Pashtuns under our control. What's a little fraud, to preserve these sacred principles? Besides, they're your rules, not ours. One more thing: stay away from our women, or we'll kill them.

And so for all this, the war escalates and the death-toll rises. "The number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan has roughly doubled in the first three months of 2010, compared to same period last year," according to Pentagon figures, and we can expect a further increases in the dead and wounded--a very high rate for the latter because of IED's and the SNIPING that the Pashtuns, no matter whose side they're on at the time, have had so many years to perfect--a natural result 30,000 more troops yet to come. (AP story here)

So it follows--guess what--that the militants, to make a point, might just want to kill and maim as many more of the new guys as they can! No kidding, this is how one Pentagon spokesman tries euphemistically to describe the coming mayhem: "a reaction by an enemy to a new force presence." The soon-to-be-dead Americans have a space already assigned on his clipboard. (more)
************

#215 IrAfPak: Obama's Fatal Vision

"The United States of America does not quit, once it starts on something. We will prevail ..." said their Commander-in-Chief to 2500 troops at Bagram Air Field north of Kabul, during a "surprise" visit this week. His words must also have come as a surprise to any students of History in Obama's audience.

"But what about Vietnam, Mr. President?" one might have shouted. No, these were loyal troops, "fighting for our freedoms," as their mothers would have insisted halfway around the world. The President and former scholar/teacher (no less) might have have responded, at apparently an advanced stage of his denialism: "There's a huge difference ... and I'll think of it in a minute--but, soldier, you're comparing the two?! Look here, we sent more 50,000 of you people to their deaths in Southeast Asia; we haven't hit 1000 here in Afghanistan, and not quite 5000 for the whole Middle East megilla. Apples and oranges. Long way to go yet, men."

"I'm a woman, Sir. But let me follow up with: What then, or whom, are we fighting for?" This is how Obama put it, un-asked, to the troops (not a made-up quote):

Your services are absolutely necessary, absolutely essential to America's safety and security ... Those folks back home are relying on you. We can't forget why we're here ... We are going to disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy al-Qaida and its extremist allies. (AP story here)

Some in the audience might well have been frozen in "The Two-thousand Yard Stare" (Tom Lea's WWII painting used once before in DM #185 "The Middle-East Quagmire"), if it weren't for the generic hoopla erupting after the President's gung-ho pep-talk.

No one to point out for the Head Honcho that these "extremist allies" are Afghans too--Talibans only militarily (in the mujaheddin tradition) with their own cadre of foreigners helping out minimally (al-Quida) to kick out those other foreigners--but otherwise they are non-Arab Pashtuns ethnically, Sunni Muslims religiously, and (like us, ironically) Indo-Europeans linguistically, just as is current President Hamid Karzai and his government. They were all true-blue Talibans only a few years ago. When we were Talibans too! Everybody is fighting everybody else, including themselves. These subtleties may have been lost on Obama's audience. Best to stick with "Kill al-Qaida!" (more)
************

#214 Victory Choo-Choo III--"Foreign" KIds

And that includes our own.

But first, kudos to President Obama for signing yet another installment of the Nuclear Arms treaty with the Russkies--it's been twenty years--which reduces by 50% the 95% of all nuclear weaponry on earth "controlled" by us and them. Let's see ... that adds up to only 100% M.A.D. left to go. Not to mention the other 5% (un)controlled by mutually-assured, destructive madmen.

However, let's by all means keep up those symbolic gestures toward global peace, wheel-spinning though they are in real terms. Hey, our children won't be vaporized in a future nuclear war after all; they'll just keep dying in the good-old-fashioned, untidy way. More on that in a minute.

But talk about symbolic value! The US/Russia accord, signed after a year or so of intense negotiation (we're told) lends further credence, however belated, to Obama as Doer. Say what you might, and I have, Could our "new" President ever be accused, even by the wildest-eyed wing-nut, of NOT workin' his ass off at the job?! Consider this: two "master strokes" of the pen, involving THE two major areas of concern for any President--domestic policy with Health Care, and foreign relations with the Nuke Treaty. And it was all done with rather a flourish, both signings coming within days of each other.

The President IS on on roll, no doubt about it. Polls are up already this week. Can all this can be of much-needed help for foreign kids here at home, and those abroad?

YES for Immigration Reform. There were rallies all over the state of North Carolina last week (in conjunction with a general "march" on D.C.) protesting the need for more humane laws for "illegals"--especially in alleviating the plight of their children, who had absolutely no choice in ending up here, and their access to main-stream health care, educational opportunities, and gainful employment. Being an undocumented alien himself--well, Obama has certainly been singed by the flames of bigotry and xenophobia in that regard--he and the Congress should now be able to get something done.

Especially poignant at the Raleigh rally were testimonies from two young men of Hispanic heritage (yes, this is really what it's all about) just ready to graduate at the top of their high-school class. Outlook for college: bleak or non-existent. Our otherwise outstanding Community College system, for example, recently restored their right to matriculate (a long story, fraught with the usual prejudices), but these guys will still have to pay out-of-state tuition (that was the "compromise") at about three times the rate of in-state, even though they've been here virtually all their lives. Not fair. And they were well-spoken (perfect English naturally), intelligent young men whom I couldn't help compare with some of the inarticulate free-riders on NC State's and Duke U's basketball teams, interviewed at about the same time on the same local channel. "March" madness all around.

NO for IrAfPak. Because Obama's on the wrong side here, simply. Bite my tongue, but this fatal flaw will end up making him an LBJ--grudgingly remembered for his history-making domestic programs (Civil Rights, Medicare, etc.), but cursed forever for his foreign policy disasters. Lest we forget, President Johnson was responsible for the death, disfigurement, and dislocation of millions of people. Including innocent children, of course. Sound familiar? Look at it this way: for last-President Bush, Iraq is already on record as HIS Vietnam. No win. A bloody fraud of a war, and still going on. Moreover, to understate, he had less than zero domestic accomplishments to counterbalance it. Thanks to his inept and self-serving helmsman-ship we're still "underwater" in more ways than one. Obama will fix that I think, the way things are going, but When will he come to realize that the whole Middle East theater is now his very own Vietnam? And, so far, he's Bush.

It's so very, very lucky that Obama got some sort of health-care reform passed. And I'm sure there will be more social-justice measures on the books before too long. But JUST A WEEK AGO he was in real danger of becoming another G.W. Bush--rightfully ranked as the worst President ever-- failing not only on the foreign, but on the domestic front as well. Now if Obama would only stop killing kids overseas.
************

#213 Victory Choo-Choo II---More Kids

"Suffer the little children to come unto ..." Obama and the newly motile Congress, for suffering enough hath come unto them, yea and verily-wise. Much still needs to be done--NEWS FLASH: as of this verily moment the Prez is trying to keep a roof over the heads of millions of them--but before we get into that and bank-fraud and unemployment and immigration and other things that need fixing if only for the sake of our kids, let me say one more word about the HCR Act ... and the kids.

Surprised to learn after a little more research--'tis an Act of Many Pages--that, besides the crucial OUTLAWING of the pre-existing-condition thing and EXTENDING coverage to age 26 (which would presumably get the most indolent of offspring through college and a little beyond), the new law provides for a comprehensive WELLNESS program for children in conjunction with pediatricians and appropriate health providers. Is this not RELIEF abounding for parents?! Or parents to be? The particulars are a bit complicated, so I'll refer you to an approving summary by Dr. Judith Palfrey, President, American Academy of Pediatrics, here.

She's just one, by the bye, of the the vast majority of medical people and health organizations ("A.M.A." says it all) who've been behind Obamacare--even when it had Public Option so named--since the beginning. Once again: if Republicans and Blue Dogs want to run their 2010 campaigns AGAINST all of this, my advice would be on the order of "suicide is painless," as the old M*A*S*H theme-song would have it.

Point is ... President Obama's on a roll and knows it. So immediately after passage of the HCR Act, he was hard at work bringing aid and comfort to millions of home-owning families hoodwinked by bank-fraud or crippled by the unemployment epidemic that Wall Street and the Big Banks are responsible for in the first place. Some sort of "mortgage relief" will be put in place to avoid the horrors of FORECLOSURE for parents who face the prospect of homelessness for themselves and their children. (NYT here)

And speaking of the Great Recession, efforts to get us out of it and avoid it happening again should gain momentum on the coattails of the HCR victory. Maybe the Congressional Democrats will start doing what the American people put in them in the majority to do. Really, since 2006. And if you please, forget the phantom of bipartisanship. Doesn't exist for the "Hell no!" party, as recently dubbed by Sarah Palin. The so-far dystesticular Dems have now got a proven hero in Obama, and my goodness can it be so hard to give him back essentially the same REGULATIONS for the economic sector that the Reagan era took away?--which was the root-cause of our recent financial almost-apocalypse. And millions of kids on the street, or sold for medical research.

Finish regulating Wall Street and the "Too-big-to-fail" Banks; put the new Consumer Protection Agency in place; meanwhile above all get JOBS for the parents of these kids. That's the Obama/Congress agenda, post-HCR. The unemployment crisis is most distressing right now for most Americans, say the polls. Specifically, we need about 11 million new jobs just to get back on track and stay about even. The Obama team and Congress are working on so-called "jobs bills" right now, according to reports. Good ... though from what I've read, the solutions under discussion--like tax-breaks for hiring the jobless--fall ridiculously short of the figure just quoted. Like in the 200.000 range.

The Real Jobs Solution, which an emboldened Obama and his Congress must enact now, is the wherewithal to put the unemployed Dads and Moms directly to work for the Federal Government. Everybody knows our INFRASTRUCTURE lies a-crumblin' while there are, ironically, millions out-of-work who could be a-fixin' it? Bridges, roads, sewers, schools, parks. C'mon, it worked for FDR and the blighted economy of his day. And let's be be honest: about a third of the people in this country are paid for their work with their very own tax-money, as it is. It's also called Corporate Welfare.

Listen, we've already loaned about a 100 billion to the Banks and Carmakers; can't we loosen up a "loan" of a paltry 4 or 5 billion or so (from what I understand) to get people directly into those "shovel-ready" jobs we've heard tell about? Wouldn't be nice for the peasants to get a "bailout" for a change? Moreover, it would be a loan, of sorts: lent against the returns of a recovering economy. After all, the newly employed are going to sink those wages in the local Kroger for the family groceries, and to buy gas and oil from Fred's Texaco to take their kids for a Sunday drive. Now that they've got the money, and the joy of a job. It all comes back. (more)
************

#211 HCR--Public Option Passes!!! (sort of)

Just as the Blogman predicted many posts ago. Okay ... it dare not speak its name, but the Public Option is a part of the Bill passed yesterday, at least in embryo. As long as we're into health-speak, let's call it "sub-public" or "pre-public"--analogous to the medicalese of "sub-clinical" or "sub-symptomatic" or "pre-something-or-other" (like cancer)-- all euphemisms that physicians are wont to use as ass-coverage for conditions that are not quite there, but not-enough-not for the medicos to bet their malpractice insurance on it. In this case the condition is benign, and in a healthy state of viability.

For just barely visible in the full-body scan of the Health Care Act of 2010 is the germ of government-run health care. The GLOBAL ideal, ultimately. The sub-pre-public-option symptomology is right here:

The uninsured and self-employed would be able to purchase insurance through state-based EXCHANGES with SUBSIDIES available to individuals and families with income up to 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL = $22,050 for family of four).

FUNDING available to states to establish exchanges ...

Individuals and families who make between 100 percent and 400 of the poverty level and want to purchase their own health insurance on an EXCHANGE are eligible for SUBSIDIES ... Eligible buyers receive PREMIUM CREDITS and there is a CAP on how much they have to contribute to their premiums on a sliding scale. (CBS.com summary)

What you've just read is a LEVER that can lift the world--or, as the "losing" side, the Republicans and Blue Dog Dems, will soon characterize it, a CANCER that will grow into full-blown "socialized medicine." (Let's hope so.) They will do this, mark my words, when they discover that their "government-takeover" propaganda just isn't going to work, because the new bill is so overwhelmingly PRIVATIZED, at least on the surface. The losing side has actually "won" a great victory--the insurance companies have been SAVED--at least in the short term. Our NC Blue Cross CEO, for example, is quoted as being quite fond of the outcome, as will the American people, soon enough.

I'll get back to those key provisions in a minute, but the fact is that the new bill IS a bipartisan one--the Republican nay-saying ironically brought that about--a bill no different in essentials, for example, from one that Nixon (yes) was trying to work out with a Democratic Congress years ago (Watergate intervened), or, most notably of late, the Ted Kennedy-Mitt Romney program (despite the latter's denialism) of near-universal health care instituted for Massachusetts, a state with a powerful insurance-company presence, by the way. And that's the point. Except for Veterans and Medicarians, it will be much the same old market-place, buy-and-sell, private health insurance business as usual, under the new bill. Big-Health-Insurance got a windfall, in fact: 30 million new customers! They're still nominally in charge, for awhile.

However, the "reform" bill (by no means an "overhaul") has just enough reform in it to TAME the private insurance monopoly, and over time, I believe, to kick it to the curb. Setting aside the long-overdue prohibitions on pre-existing-condition exclusions, lifetime-coverage caps, and important others, the key words in the quote above are EXCHANGES, FUNDING, and SUBSIDIES. It doesn't take a Fred Hayek or anyone from the Chicago School to recognize "The Road to Serfdom" (DM #94-95)--call me a happy serf, then, when it comes to health care. For, in fact, Who's really in charge? You guessed it: the gub'ment--whether State, or ultimately Federal. They will have enormous LEVERAGE to control what's going on in those "free-market" Exchanges.

Of course there will be healthy competition among the various companies in this "food-court" (it's been called) approach to buying insurance, but the Feds are going to be paying close attention to Who gets What-and-How-much funding, and Where the buyer-subsidies will be spent. Even to the point of setting up their own stall if the private companies don't cooperate, price-wise. It's conceivable, and the precedent for going to such extremes is in the bill. Here it is: up until 2014 health insurers don't have to cover ADULTS with pre-existing conditions, so the government will. A special "temporary" entity, administered and funded by some federal agency or another, will be set up to insure "high-risk" folk who will not be eligible for coverage by private companies until that time. What can we call this little wrinkle?--unadulterated Public Option.

The KIDS get it six months from now. That's why the little darlin' pictured above is making faces at the insurance companies and their bed-fellows in Congress. (Let's pretend.) She's got a pre-existing condition. And there's nothin' they can do about it. No separate federal program though: Big-Health-Insurance must expiate its cardinal sin of denying coverage to high-risk children virtually NOW.

I'd like to see the Republicans and Blue Dog Dems run their campaigns this year on a platform of repealing THAT. Make my day.
************