Fighting the Future, with Paul Krugman and a Dick named Morris

Paul Krugman read my mind this Sunday, meaning at leas one of us is telepathic:

The last time a Democrat sat in the White House, he faced a nonstop witch hunt by his political opponents. Prominent figures on the right accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of everything from drug smuggling to murder. And once Republicans took control of Congress, they subjected the Clinton administration to unrelenting harassment — at one point taking 140 hours of sworn testimony over accusations that the White House had misused its Christmas card list.

And GOP pollster Dick Morris has confirmed the veracity of my precognative powers:

Republican pollster Dick Morris told conservative political activists that newly elected Republicans should shut down the government next year. Morris said the party must elect lawmakers who will stand up and say "No" to President Obama's requests for more government spending and predicted a repeat of how Republicans forced a shutdown under President Clinton after they won control of Congress.

"There's going to be a government shutdown, just like in '95 and '96 but we're going to win it this time and I'll be fightin' on your side," Morris said at the Americans for Prosperity Foundation Conference on Friday in Washington.

Now, that's not exactly campaign trail material, but it's a fascinating glimpse into what Republicans may put into action should they win back control of Congress. Morris' suggestions, memes and talking points frequently end up in GOP campaign materials, so we'll be keeping a close eye on this one to see if Republicans will back up his promise for a government shutdown.

It's also quite interesting given that Morris was a Clinton campaign operative in 1995 and 1996 when the Republicans forced a showdown over government spending. (A gamble which, of course, didn't help them much politically. Clinton was able to win reelection in part by running against the GOP's obstruction.)

I've been saying it ever since nostalgia for the 1980s decayed into a sick and futile parody of itself: '90s Retro is coming, baby. You barely survived it the first time. Now get ready for round two and this time the President really is black. To paraphrase Jello Biafra, the 2010's may suck but at least they won't be boring.

From Your Cold, Dead Hands

Today, in a 5-4 decision that should surprise absolutely no one, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that gun ownership is an individual right. I know. "Duh," right? Apparently, this is only news to constitutional scholars and the court system that draws it's members from them.

Apart from restating an obvious, on the ground fact, this ruling once again proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that John Roberts and Sam Alito are the bought, paid-for, and kept whores of the knee-jerk, Wrong Wing, conservative ideologues who handed them their jobs in the first place.

The court was considering a restrictive handgun law in Chicago and one of its suburbs that was similar to the District of Columbia law that it ruled against in 2008. The 5-4 decision does not strike any other gun-control measures currently in place, but it provides a legal basis for challenges across the country where gun owners think that government has been too restrictive.

"It is clear that the Framers ... counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty," Justice Samuel Alito Jr. wrote for the conservatives on the court.

[...]

Alito said that the court had made clear in its 2008 decision that it was not casting doubt on such long-standing measures as keeping felons and the mentally ill from possessing guns or keeping guns out of "sensitive places" such as schools and government buildings.

"We repeat those assurances here," Alito wrote. "Despite municipal respondents' doomsday proclamations, (the decision) does not imperil every law regulating firearms."

Sir, with all due respect (that is, none)...bullshit. And you know it. You know it, and you don't care, because you've spent your whole life imbibing this brand of NRA bullshit. The NRA's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, has already said, “We’re going to go everywhere cynical politicians attempt to pervert, defy or nullify the decision,” and they won't stop until they've got the whole chicken coop sown up. Hell, they won't stop until every one of this Empire three hundred and fifty million citizens has a Glock 17 strapped to their ass, ready to go at a moment's notice.

Today, the halls of Remington, Smith & Weston, and Charter Arms are ringing with jubilation. They've won, their butt-boys (like LaPierre) know it, and they're going to make sure they keep on winning, regardless of the human cost.

Not that that really matters. If you're a citizen of the West your hands are already covered in the invisible blood of your fellow man. Why not slather on a few more layers by "accidentally" shooting your wife and child in a fit of work-stress-related rage?

I used to favor gun "control" measures, whatever their source...then, one day, I realized favoring such policies is a self-defeating exercise in Playing The NRA's Game. It's a Game they've spent forty years rigging, and thanks to Our (former) Glorious Leader, George Jr., and the shaved apes he placed inside the Nation's Highest (and I do mean highest) Court, their efforts are finally paying off.

Except this Empire armaments industry has always reaped extraordinary benefits from careful manipulation of the "democratic" process. Hate a gun-control advocate? Brand him/her a communist terrorist socialist in disguise. Then, all you have to do is sit back and throw money at his/her Primary or General Election opponent(s). Should your candidate ever express concern about the amount of gun-related homicides in this country, or our massive cultural addiction to adolescent Rambo fantasies, all you have to do is remind them of how they got their job in the first place. And that they could loose it just as easily.

But assume the worst and suppose a gun "control" law actually makes it on the books. No problem. Sue. And sue. And sue. Tie up the local, state and federal judiciary for as long as it takes because, remember, you're right and they're wrong (whoever "they" are), so fuck them, their fat wives, and their so-called courts. Don't worry: if you need more lawyer money you can always tell the NRA's rank and file to "remember Ruby Ridge." Or Waco. And watch the money tree grow.

In mixed company its best to avoid mention of those unfortunate incidents. Instead, quote from Gospel of Reagan, chapter 6 verse 66. Repeat along with me, kids: "If Guns are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns."

(Bonus points if your handpicked Legislative lackies regularly decry "frivolous lawsuits"...you know, like those brought by individuals against corporations who've screwed them out of pensions, poisoned family members, or dumped toxic waste into the local water tables.)

The real irony is, Wayne LaPiere is right. Over a year ago he told the Conservative Action Committee "Our founding fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules." Thus our two hundred year history of genocide, frontier violence-as-justice, and our Do What We Say or Die foreign policy. Furthermore, the return of the Armed Maniac to the national, political stage (more of them every day, as seen in this campaign ad from the National Socialist State of Arizona) will only encourage those of us who honestly hate guns to go out and buy them. For personal defense, of course. This will, in turn, further enable the Iron Mongers among us, allowing them to pack "our" government with their handpicked allies, ensuring more Judicial homicide enabling. So it goes.

I'll let George Washington Universe law professor Paul Butler have the last word, he being a law professor and all.

It’s not every day when four justices of the Supreme Court accuse the other five of having blood on their hands. The majority opinion doesn’t immediately lead to any change in a specific law, almost like the court is afraid of what it is setting in motion. But the dissenters were correct. Sooner, rather than later, the blood will flow.

Health Scare #5: Eric Massa Admits Love of Grabass on Glenn Beck

Gay Bashers of Not-Too-Distant Future Claim Apocalypse Imminent, Obama-era Navy Full of Gay

Rep. Eric Massa's resignation from the House of Representative's is a intergalactic bummer on a lot of fronts. For one thing, his tales of a vast, left-center conspiracy to oust him from office over health care "reform" made him the new It Girl of the Rupert Murdoc's noise machine, Faux News. Every time Glenn Beck interviews a guest, somewhere, a kitten dies.

But what an interview. And what a wonderful opportunity to showcase a madman and claim, “He is a gigantic Progressive,” as Beck did. “And I think I'm pretty clear on where I stand with Progressives.” If nothing else, it's a good excuse to laugh at Glen Beck's demagogic style. But first, the apparent facts:

Former representative Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) has been under investigation for allegations that he groped multiple male staffers working in his office, according to three sources familiar with the [Congressional Ethics] probe.

The allegations surrounding the former lawmaker date back at least a year, and involve "a pattern of behavior and physical harassment," according to one source. The new claims of alleged groping contradict statements by Massa, who resigned his office on Monday after it became public that he was the subject of a House ethics committee investigation for possible harassment.

I'd like to propose a joint investigation into allegations I've just made up that Representative Massa is completely out of his gourd. How else can you explain his statement that, “I wasn't forced out. I forced myself out,” which came in the same breath as this: “And goodness only knows what kind of allegations they're gonna throw at me.” They?

"If someone on my staff thought I was un-Congressional, that I was inappropriate, I own that. That's why I resigned." But he seemed to have no trouble blaming anonymous “attackers.” Glenn displays little interest in figuring out who these attackers actual are during the interview, seemingly more concerned with being a total bastard. Rather than wring an actual accusation out of his guest, Beck implores Massa to think of the “damage” he's doing to “your lovely wife" his children and "the country.”

Massa thankfully avoids this proto-fascist trap and repeatedly apologizes...while simultaneously making sure we all know he's the real victim here. “What my attackers don't get—and trust me this is all planned and calculated—we'll leak this, we'll leak that—”

Despite Beck's stupidity, its not hard to figure out which attackers former-Congressman Massa might be thinking of. Rahm Emanuel's showertime fun, whether true or not, is now a story for the ages, and a mental image I'd rather get out of my head. Does Rockin' Rahm just wander the halls naked, ravaging interns and lobbyists, foaming at the mouth and spouting obscene, Lovecraftian gibberish unfit for human mouth parts to pronounce?

Seriously, though, I can believe Rahm is a dick. He may, in fact, be exactly the kind of dick George W. Bush found in Dick Cheney. Those not rendered impotent by the thought of arguing with Naked Rahm in the Congressional showers, I ask you, join me in solving the overpopulation crisis and consider arguing with Naked Dick Cheney. There. Now you all know my pain. Stew in it.

But you'll have to watch the whole interview to really enjoy the pain. Let it settle in there. The centerpiece comes when Massa pulls a photo album out for Beck. Identifying several photos, he declares, “It looks like an orgy in Caligula, and anybody who's been in the Navy knows it.” Cue the Village People and expect Pat Robertson to jump on this new evidence of the Gay Navy, set to bomb Colorado Springs with absolutely fabulous Tomahawk missiles.

The worst part of all this? Massa may have once believed in a single payer health care system, yet at one point he plainly states, “We're never gonna get there,” conceding the debate before it even begins. In this he's the perfectly groomed “Progressive”: bloodless, devoid of balls, and stupid enough to go on Glenn Beck's TV show and admit the Navy gave him a life-long love of playing grabass.

It's no wonder Emanuel went after him, in the showers or otherwise. Bullies have uncanny senses. They can sniff out psychological weaklings across miles of swampy ground, and our capital is the biggest swamp going. Your nearest grade school can provide all the examples of this that you need. And Rahm Emanuel is nothing more than a sixth grader who can't let go of that time his older brother paid someone to beat him up, back in third grade, and must now beat your ass in turn.

In the grand tradition of small minded jocks from sea to shining sea, Rahm views politics as a game. He talks of “scorecards,” “winning,” and “loosing.” He's called his boss' natural constituency “fucking retarded,” when they dared try and do his job for him and twist some Conservative Democrat's arms. Note that he apologized to the head of the Special Olympics rather than those whom he actually declared “fucking retarded.” One would think intelligent {rogressives would take a hint from this: Rahm Emanuel is not our friend. Never was and never will be. This is the man who strong-armed NAFTA past the few Progressives who doubted its wonderfulness back in 1994. He does not give two shits about us.

In his year in office, Emanuel's displayed a Machiavellian willingness to play paddy-cake with whomever he can, regardless. The man has no principals. He's not even a man. Rahmbo is an Aristotelian political animal, a so-called “realist,” who'll sacrifice it all for the “big win.” Whatever that means to a millionare Richard Daley fundraiser, Bill Clinton adviser, and former-Freddie Mac director. As my old St. Louis connection used to say, “Never trust a politician from Chicago.”

Or...never trust a politician. The conservatives are all theocratic monstrosities, and “progressives” like Massa make even Teddy Roosevelt look like a rational being (albeit a racist, ecocidal one). At least Teddy's “muscular Christianity” propelled him to get the occasional Big Thing done. Would he knuckle under to every threat the American Taliban threw at him? Or is it Rahm who, scarred by his experiences in Clinton's White House, reacts with shame a horror at the thought of every little conservative backlash? Is he the one tossing red meat to the mouth-breathers while reducing “our” so-called “team members” into rambling shells of themselves with showertime shakedown sessions?

Many have called for Emanuel's replacement, from Sarah Palin to Michael Moore (who's agent, Ari Gold, oddly enough, is Rahm's brother). I'd echo that sentiment if I thought it went far enough but I say, throw all of them out, from our Glorious Leader on down to the last, yellow-bellied, slime-sucking lobbyist on K Street. March every white man with a suit and tie out of Washington and lead them, like the Piper, into the sea. I think I know a song that might get them all going.

In the Navy
by scorpiomusic

Memo from the Climate Scientists: We're All Screwing Ourselves

Via Climate Progress, "a project of the Center For American Progress Action Fund," overseen by Dr. Joseph Romm (author of Hell and High Water) comes a chart n' graph-laden Illustrated Guide to the Latest Climate Science everyone interested in facts should at least glance at sideways before opening their mouths.

The gist? We're screwing ourselves as a nation, as a species, and doing it faster and more thoroughly than even the most pessimistic number crunchers ever though possible. But with all that snow on the ground, don't try to tell anyone about global warming. No. Obviously God Himself has answered those effete, elitist scientists with a triple handful of "treacherous," continent-ravaging storms. That's what we get for letting evil secularists study problems without their partisan blinders firmly stapled into place, and issue uncensored reports.

My dentist paused in the act of torturing my teeth to reveal his own ignorance. "Well," he said, glancing out the window at dead, Midwestern grass, "the climate's changing all the time."

Sure, Doc. But that's not the point. It's changing faster and more radically because of what we do. We, the collective entity known as "the human race" are senselessly murdering our biosphere thanks to a combination of ignorance, willful-stupidity, gross incompetence and greed. Blithely labeling this problem "Global Warming" or (as it was re-christened under Bush) "Global Climate Change," is itself a symptom of our wider, cultural myopia and unwillingness to confront the problems we create for ourselves.

Personally, I told my dentist, I like to cut through all the bullshit and lies and just call the problem what it is: the Apocalypse. Or, at the very least, an Apocalypse. As Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel spent years trying to teach us, there's always another Apocalypse around the corner. Only the concerted efforts of those fighting the "good" fight prevent them from destroying us hundreds of times over.

My problem with Dr. Romm? He (and thus, his organization) have fallen into a trap. By critiquing the Bush-era's Apocalyptic policies, decrying the "politicization" of a global crisis (as if global crisis' occur in the Ideal universe of Plato's Eternal Forms, far removed from politics) he, his organization, and the PAC that funds it, have all fallen into the very trap they hoped to set at Dubya's feet. They have politicized themselves by entering the arena of America politics. And bloodier, more unforgiving stage you will not find this side of Restoration-era England. They have ceded the high ground, because the American System (to use Henry Clay's term) as its currently constituted, requires them to get down in the mud, with paleolithic assholes, like the Republican Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell. Who, in his White Presidential Power rally response to Our Glorious Leader's State of the Union Address, brazenly declared (in a nod to Dominionist voters across the Old Dominion and throughout the national TV audience):

We are blessed here in America with vast natural resources, and we must use them all.

Because obviously, if we don't, the terrorists will win.

This Apocalypse is not insolvable. The simple fact is, the vicious plutocrats who control the ruling institutions of American (and, to a large extent, global) society do not care. They don't give a high, holy fuck about you, me, the plant, or anything on it unless they can turn a profit by converting whatever-it-is (you, me, our homes, our fellow citizen's lives) into a market derivative. Forget the politicians, as Saint Carlin said,

"Politicians are put there to give you the illusion you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long-since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State Houses, the City Halls, they've got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control all the news and information you hear. They got'cha by the balls. They spent billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well we know what they want: they want more for themselves and less for everybody else...They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking...You know what they want? They want obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it..."

So what are you doing reading this? Time to climb into your S-Fuck-UV, sit in traffic for an hour, making sure to kill your quota of polar bears, show up five minutes late to your designated cube and waste another ten minutes getting a multisyllabic reaming from your asshole boss, who's surely in the same sinking boat as you, as all of us, are. But may all the gods lend you aid in getting him to recognize that fact. After all, "The climate's changing all the time." Nothing wrong here. Go back to sleep.

What Anti-War Movement?

Via Democracy Now: "It has now been eight years since 9/11. The United States is still engaged in Iraq and is escalating its wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan with no end in site. Speaking at the Bluestockings Bookstore on the Lower East Side in New York, Arun Gupta, a founding Editor of The Indypendent, takes a critical look at the failures and future of the once massive anti-war movement."

Health Scare #1

The Struggle For Today is Not Alltogether For Today; It is For a Vast Future Also

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

What if the American People Learned the Truth?

An uplifting series of rhetorical questions from Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX 14th)

Michael Crichton and the Boundaries of Scientfic Prognostication

The author of Jurassic Park, Congo, Sphere, and a half-dozen others much better than State of Fear or Next, speaks at a National Press Corps event in 2006. This is about an hour and a half with the obligatory question time.

Tune in Saturday night for part three of our continuing quest through Godzilla The Series.

Old Assholes Never Die, They Just Move to California

I'm not surprised to find California's Attorney General coming out against Proposition 8, officially washing his hands of the damned thing in a publish-before-the-weekend-and-hope-no-one-will-notice filing with the California Supreme Court.

Like John Kerry before him, AG Brown was all for Jim Crowing gays and lesbians out of marriage before he turned against it.

Asked about his change of position, Brown said Friday evening that since his initial comments the day after the election, he and senior lawyers in his office had looked closely at the court's precedents and at the recent marriage ruling and concluded they couldn't defend Prop. 8.

"We have a conflict between the amendment power (through voter initiatives) and the duty of the Supreme Court to protect minorities and safeguard liberty," Brown said.

Fundamental rights in the state Constitution, including the right to marry that the state's high court has recognized, "become a dead letter if they can just be amended" by popular vote, Brown said.

To which I can only ask Brown, "Why in the hell couldn't you have 'looked closely' at these court precedents before the election? That might've done something to, oh I don't know, influence debate, perhaps defeat this evil bit bit of ballot measure bullshit. Prop 8 passed with all of 52%, you fool. And don't give me any of that, 'State's Attorneys General should be above the fray,' bullshit. If you believed that for a moment you be right there in court, defending Prop 8 as the law of your land, whether you like it or not (since that's pretty much the Attorney General's job). Now, you feckless hack, now matter whether you fight in the court or not, the Court of Public Opinion will find you guilty of being a hypocritical jackass with a moral compass as skewed as Berkley undergrad's sexuality...but nowhere near as fun."

Instead, Jerry Brown chose look "closely" at the resounded "No," that greeted his May appearance before the Court, in defense of California's previous gay marriage ban. No trouble defending that one, though it was clear (even to a neophyte like me) that "traditional marriage" (whatever that might mean) is dead, at least in California's public sphere.

Does Jerry Brown hate gay people? Difficult to say. As a former governor of that great republic to my south (inheriting his father, Edmund G "Pat" Brown's office in the manner of an Adams or a Bush) and a current practicing Catholic, Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown hails from The City itself: San Francisco, Seat of the Gay Conspiracy. You'd think that would have some effect on the man...until you learn that this was the San Francisco of the 1940s and 50s--an international mafia battlefield if ever there was one, when you couldn't spit without hitting a pinball joint or a piece of flesh from around the world. Then you think, "Maybe the effect wasn't all for the best." Jerry Brown's San Fran is light years removed from what I selfishly consider my San Francisco. The City where (as I knew they would) my gay brothers and lesbian sisters rolled right out of their sin-drenched beds on the day after Election Day and filed suit against Prop 8.

I've held off commenting on this issue out of fear, honestly. I just sold a short story to a Latter Day Saint who's hosted my website free of charge for the last nine frickin' years. Any serious discussion of Proposition 8 must involve a discussion of the Mormon Church's role in passing it, something I damn site don't want to get into.


But fuck it, I'll get into it. After all, its a hard white elephant to ignore when the New York Times can run headlines like, Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage.

“We’ve spoken out on other issues, we’ve spoken out on abortion, we’ve spoken out on those other kinds of things,” said Michael R. Otterson, the managing director of public affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormons are formally called [check out that little condescending aside from the Newspaper of Record--D], in Salt Lake City. “But we don’t get involved to the degree we did on this.”

The California measure, Proposition 8, was to many Mormons a kind of firewall to be held at all costs.

“California is a huge state, often seen as a bellwether — this was seen as a very, very important test,” Mr. Otterson said.

[:::]

Shortly after receiving the invitation from the San Francisco Archdiocese [and bully to you Catholics for reaching across the Gentile-Saint divide; look for a Catholic-Sunni jihad to follow in 2009--D], the Mormon leadership in Salt Lake City issued a four-paragraph decree to be read to congregations, saying “the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan,” and urging members to become involved with the cause.

“And they sure did,” Mr. Schubert said.

Jeff Flint, another strategist with Protect Marriage, estimated that Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts.

And I am not surprised. “What we're about is the work of the Lord," M. Russell Ballard, one of the Twelve Apostles that make up the Saints' Quorum, told his flock, "and He will bless you for your involvement.” Of course he will. It's an opinion shared by every god-fearing American threatened by the idea of two fags getting hitched, whatever their denomination.

That's why I cannot join with my brother's and sisters who marched on the Temple in Salt Lake City, for two reasons: (1) I'm against protest marches. Riots are simpler and much more effective in the long run. (Don't knock them--riots won us every one of those supposedly-inalienable "rights" we supposedly possess.) And (2): this was not the Church's fault.

Not alone, at any rate. In the end its the direct fault of every individual who worked to pass Prop 8, including all who funded it, volunteered for it, and all those ignorant-ass, Uncle Tom niggas who voted for it. Any organization that marches on the Salt Lake must also stage a march on the Southern Baptist Convention, the California Archdioceses, and wherever the hell Methodists consider sacred, too.

Organized religion will be the ruination of this species. Whatever utility it might've once possessed has long been outweighed by its reliance on exclusion and Other-ing. These are religion's organization principals. No matter how universal (that is, "Catholic") a faith may claim to be, fundamentally it rests on a cleaving of the world into "Us" and "Them"; worshipers of the true god(s) and worshipers of the "false". Right now, I'm worshiping a false god so polymorphus and complicated organized religion doesn't even know what to call it and so calls it "secular humanism" with a dismissive wave.

I'm deluded, you see. I just don't understand how they'll be anarchy in the streets if we allow gays to check "married" on their income taxes. I've failed to realize that my hot red-headed roommate's romance with an even hotter red-headed latteslinger would sound the death-knell of Western Civilization if it ever received state or (God literally forbid) church recognition.


More than anything, I'm surprised to find an old foe leading the attack to make sure we all go back to ignoring gay people, or treating them as diseased.

The Yes on 8 forces' brief was filed by Kenneth Starr[!--D], the former Whitewater special prosecutor and now dean of Pepperdine University law school. He argued that the court should preserve the people's lawmaking powers by upholding the initiative and invalidating 18,000 same-sex weddings performed before the election.

Kenneth-Fucking--STARR! Oh, Jesus himself would start a' rollin in the grave if he saw his saints (Latter-Day or otherwise) allied with the Beast!

Norman Solomon on Getting Out of Iraq (November 21st, 2005)

Originally published at AlterNet. Note how nothing has changed.

If the Pentagon had been able to subdue the Iraqi population, few in Congress or on editorial pages would be denouncing the war. As in so many other respects, this is a way that the domestic U.S. political dynamics of the war on Iraq are similar to what unfolded during the Vietnam War. With the underpinnings of war prerogatives unchallenged, a predictable response is that the war must be fought more effectively.

That's what the great journalist I. F. Stone was driving at when he wrote, a few years into the Vietnam War, in mid-February 1968: "It is time to stand back and look at where we are going. And to take a good look at ourselves. A first observation is that we can easily overestimate our national conscience. A major part of the protest against the war springs simply from the fact that we are losing it. If it were not for the heavy cost, politicians like the Kennedys [Robert and Edward] and organizations like ADA [the liberal Americans for Democratic Action] would still be as complacent about the war as they were a few years ago."

In the United States, while the lies behind the Iraq war become evermore obvious and victory seems increasingly unreachable, much of the opposition to the war has focused on the death and suffering among U.S. soldiers. That emphasis has a sharp political edge at home, but it can also cut another way -- defining the war as primarily deplorable because of what it is doing to Americans. One danger is that a process of withdrawing some U.S. troops could be accompanied by even more use of U.S. air power that terrorizes and kills with escalating bombardment (as happened in Vietnam for several years after President Nixon announced his "Guam Doctrine" of Vietnamization in mid-1969). An effective antiwar movement must challenge the jingo-narcissism that defines the war as a problem mainly to the extent that it harms Americans.

Brought to you via Once Upon a Time...

The Half-Assed, Trillion Dollar Proposal

I see one of my Congresspeople, David Wu (D-OR1) is teaming up with a Yale law professor named Bruce Akerman to propose another Way Forward in Iraq. Far from the non-binding resolutions proposed by Congressman Wu’s dickless wonder-colleagues in the Senate, the two’s plan calls for an actual act of Congress…thought not one, it should be noted, that a majority in either House of Congress is willing to support, despite overwhelming evidence that the continued occupation of Iraq is quickly growing as unpopular at home as it has always been abroad.

So call the Wu/Akerman plan “starving the fire.” They call it the "Half-Trillion Dollar Solution." How about calling it the “just one more cigarette” solution. Basically (they write in the American Prospect) Congress will give Our Glorious Leader an ultimatum:

It is Congress's job to restore fiscal balance first, by placing an overall limit on Iraq war expenditures. Congress should limit this president to spending half a trillion dollars on the Iraq war -- and no more.... [T]he president would have no choice but to sign this ceiling to get short-term funding for his war.

You hear that? A half a trillion and no more. Just one more half trillion dollars and no more. Nada. Zip. That is it young man, no more. And when we go to the lake you are to have no dance party. God if I catch you in our wallet again I swear I will snatch the black right off of you.

How absurd it is that we are still debating this. How absurd that my Congressman actually believes Our Glorious Leader will do the sane, rational thing and Bring the Boys Back Home before the money runs out. Because if there’s one man in this country known for sanity and reason his name is George W. Bush.

The Iraq War (I still prefer the Daily Show’s “Mess o’potamia”) will go down in history as the first Ignored War of the twenty-first century. It might as well be taking place on the moon for all the effect it’s had on America’s national shameless march into obese, drug dependent, indolence and work-related injuries. I swear…never has living in an imperialistic superpower felt so…disappointed. We’ve reaped no rewards from this fiasco, and done horrible evil to a people most of us refuse to believe exist. No destiny manifested itself in the Iraqi’s sands; we’re carving that out now with blood and ammo. There are no gods left on our side (unless you count Pat Robertson’s) and we can all see what’s going on for ourselves if only we are willing to look, read and listen. The Iraq War will also go down in history as one of the best documented bits of blood shed in history.

Yet we still manage to go through our day. The peace protests have dwindled, the marchers have dispersed, the glass windows remain unbroken and most of us are just trying to get through the day. War is…gross. It’s hard to watch. It’s harder to go through, after all…part of the reason we’re here and not over there, enjoying the triple digit heat and the roving hoards of bullets.

More likely Our Glorious Leader will decide to let the troops stay right where they are. He’s already hinted that “finishing the job” will be the work of a President who’s name isn’t his. Perhaps he plans to leave the whole damn thing to Jeb, a final Frat prank from older brother to younger. In any case, don’t believe for a second he values the lives of “our troops.” He won’t hesitate to led their funding dry up and leave them stranded in hostile territory, their equipment falling apart, their meals riddled with parasites. As if he’s the first President to leave them so for short-sighted political gain. He’ll probably turn right around and shout, “You see? Those damn Democrats tied my hands. They left our troops balls up in the war zone before the job was done. So remember…vote Republican come November.” After all, he is still George W. Bush, and he still approves his own messages.