swampslogger

2009-03-02T16:56:00.000-08:00

ONGOING FINANCIAL CRISIS
The downturn is proceeding ominously.No one seems to know just what the solution is. So far the huge "bailouts" for banks and insurance companies has not produced any noticeable effect. What becomes painfully obvious is the interconnectedness of it all.
A common objective most often mentioned is "getting the credit flow going again". This is akin to when one sleeps on an arm and it goes numb from lack of circulation. Once the pressure is removed the tingling begins and the arm returns to normal activity.

In the present instance the problem is a toxicity. It is almost as if gangrene has set in. In many instances the only remedy is amputation. The pure capitalist course is to accept the results of the risk taken and live by the consequences. Sounds simple enough but apparently there is too much else at stake. Can't understand just what all that is but the powers that be feel the necessity for sparing the malefactors.

On the sidelines, definitely still smarting from the bruises of the election, sit the disgruntled Republicans. Their only mantra is "cut taxes". Other than that there has not been a single positive suggestion. Interestingly they register shock at running up the deficit. Must be they thought that was their prerogative exclusively.
Boehner, the spokesman, continually carps at wht ever is proposed.

Meanwhile, in Washington, at a great gathering of "conservatives", the self proclaimed guru ("successor to Bill Buckley"), held forth for twice his allotted time to exhort the gathering to obstruct in every way possible, President of the United States Obama's proposals. This most unAmerican diatribe was greeted with applause and hoots of glee. It is a sad commentary on the depths to which the proud Republican Party has fallen. There are few, if any, moderate Republicans left. The neo-con infection is still ravening the fragile psyche of the non-Liberals.

The most ridiculous charade of all is to cast the current recovery program as a Socialist plot to destroy the country. Ironically it has been the Republicans who initially nationalized the banks when the crisis broke. Bush and Paulson went pall
mall to the Treasury to rescue the banks and Wall Street. Hypocrisy is certainly not alien to politics and it is brazenly employed by both parties.

My optimistic hope is that time will bring about the needed resolution of the current mess.

2009-01-20T17:36:00.001-08:00

What is most effective?

There is abundant discussion or opining about what President Obama should or shouldn’t do, what he will or will not be able to do. At this point in time, prior to his inauguration, Obama, in my opinion, made many important positive moves. His appointments strike me as intelligent. How the mix works remains to be seen.

What is lacking in most of the discussion is our relationship with (not to) Iran. The neo-con’s, plus Bush and Cheney’s ham-fisted attempt at the democratization of Iraq has helped establish Iran as the dominant player in the Middle East. It is imperative that now the U.S. and Europe recognize this and handle it accordingly. To do that requires recognition of Iran’s interests. Focusing on the singular issue of a nuclear program and asserting that it poses dire consequences for the world is not productive nor in our best interest. Iran will use its resources to promote its perceived best interest as best it can. This is manifest in its support of proxies Hezhbolla and Hamas. While Iran’s influence grows our position weakens

The central crisis point in the Middle East is the Israeli / Palestinian struggle. Israel is currently attempting to stop rocket attacks by Hamas from Gaza. Obviously, Hamas cannot manufacture rockets. It gets them from Iranian sources. The borders are porous and it appears impossible to stop the flow of arms into Gaza, or Lebanon for that matter.

The point is that it is in now imperative that Iran be negotiated with if any progress is to be made. To do that high-level talks must be initiated with no preconditions or prejudicial statements or positions taken. Pure and simple open discussion has to be engaged in where Iran can put its grievances on the table. Perhaps I’m naïve to think that this can be achieved. Nonetheless my experience has been that allowing one’s opposite to state their case openly is the best way to establish what the problems are and what needs to be done to solve them.

To date blunt militaristic measures have proven to be not only ineffective they definitely exacerbate the problems. Six horrible years in Iraq are obvious examples of how not to function. Poor understanding of the situation leads to poor decisions. Our foreign policy decisions have been based on immoral motives for decades. That has been a fatal flaw. Communism is no longer the bogeyman. Today’s super capitalism is our greatest threat. Our government has become captive to the corporate overlords. Our legislators have become beholden to corporate largess via campaign contributions. Those contributions have actually been corporate investments that have paid off more handsomely than Madoff’s clients were misled to believe.

Our current economic crisis is a crisis of morality. Over several generations our countries moral fabric has been weakened by individual’s self interest at the expense of moral integrity. The very success that has lead to our general affluence has undermined the national character. The incessant pursuit of capital gain has lead to successive crises such as the Savings and Loan scandal, the dotcom bubble and the housing bubble that brought about the current cataclysmic financial meltdown. The much adulated financial guru, Alan Greenspan, presided over the latest fiasco and had to confess that he was surprised to learn that his expectation of enlightened self-interest would prevent the financial wunderkind from fouling their own nest.

Now amid the chaos and rubble of our, and much of the world’s, economic collapse we greet our new president. The corporate grip on our government may or may not have been weakened. Frankly I am afraid it would be dangerous for Obama to attempt too stringent a revision of current policies. Hopefully he will lessen the influence lobbyists have on writing the bills that are purportedly in the common interest. The pharmaceutical bill was written by lobbyists and included the prohibition of government discounts. It definitely should be amended removing that clause. Likewise people should be able to purchase foreign drugs; the FDA isn’t doing too good a job of checking domestic products.

2009-01-20T17:32:00.000-08:00

Market meltdown

The Cape Cod Times editorial on the “market meltdown” with the subheading “ big business can’t be trusted to police itself” is right on the money.

I am saddened, ashamed, and disgusted at the plight the financial community and our government has visited upon the country. Saddened at the losses, not of the big money hedge funds and other greed driven financial entities, but of the small investors who trusted the system to protect them.

I am ashamed of our government watchdogs that saw the whole catastrophe brewing and not only did nothing but rather cheered on the excesses. Conservative ideology diligently dismantled the regulatory mechanisms put in place after the previous depression, led by Phil Gramm and John McCain.

I am disgusted that the institutions such as Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s and Fitch were either complicit in giving AAA and AA ratings to financial bundles that were of such high risk that today no one is able to backtrack the transactions to their source. Or they are guilty of malpractice in not doing the diligent risk evaluation they are paid to do.

There are sufficient grounds for a criminal investigation into the malfeasance of those involved. I fear however that the bailout package will be “sheltered from court review” as reported in the Cape Cod Times.

Now that the horse is out of the barn and the barn has burned down an excellent book that describes the history of this meltdown is “Bad Money” by Kevin Phillips.

Phillips details how searchers for profits had to scramble after the technology bust in 2001. They recognized that the burgeoning housing market contained the greatest asset source. Led by the federal government’s penchant for debt, in the midst of a costly war, handing out a multibillion dollar tax break to the already wealthy, the money grubbers utilized the removal of banking safeguards to devise “financial innovations” that were based on subprime mortgages. Very high risk investments that were resold in packages that were again resold all over the world. The profitability of debt was so great that the instinct of greed in the financial world created the, now famous, housing bubble.

It did not happen all at once and people like Alan Greenspan recognized what was happening years ago. Being happy to see so much wealth created, for a select group, he did nothing to sound the alarm. If/when the bubble collapsed the government would bail them out. That has been the history of “boom and bust” for decades.

Privatize the profits and socialize the debt. That is the legacy of this Bush conservative government?

2008-11-24T18:15:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of Thanksgiving I would like to thank all those who have refrained from posting any rude comments to my blog. It gives me a comforting sense of privacy to think that no one reads them.

2008-11-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

Fifty days before Obama is the REAL thing. The financial crisis worsens and the automotive industry goes to the brink of disaster. These are heady days. It may get worse before it gets better but the important thing is that it will get better. The stock market is edgy about the BOTTOM. The housing market is also looking for that elusive territory. This to me is more exciting than a Patriots game squeaker.

It was thought to be the end of the season when Brady went down. His backup, Cassells had not played in a real game. Now the Pats are in contention for the league title and Cassells has proven to be an excellent passer and scrambler. Hopefully this is a good portent for the new administration. Already the critics are jumping on Obama for various reasons, both real and imagined. I feel more and more confident that he knows what he is doing, and even more so , that he knows how to do it. He has put together a solid brain trust and knows enough to seek advice. His instincts will guide him to recognize the best advice.

The automotive moguls made themselves look as foolish as the are by flying in to D.C. in their private jets and asking for help. Wisely the legislators have told them to go back home and work out a feasible long range plan where they won't be coming back (perhaps on commercial jets) in six months or a year for more money. They have fought emission control and better gas mileage for years.(The argument was it would cost jobs) The profits from the SUVs and trucks were so good they ignored the increase in market shares of the small foreign cars.(Now where are the jobs going?) How blind they were. They didn't even seem humble at the hearings where they almost demanded huge loans "because they are a key element of our economy". I've detested those behemoths (SUVs) from the beginning so I feel vindicated that they are getting their just desserts.

If anyone knows how to tell the market bottom I'd love to hear it.

2008-11-16T17:42:00.000-08:00

Following the results of the election I waited a while to write this. My immediate reaction was too euphoric to be trusted. In the mean time the reaction of the world has become evident and it is a very thrilling spectacle indeed. It was never imagined that so many people would be expressing so much relief at the demise of an American administration. We knew our reputation was at a low ebb internationally and here at home the president hit the lowest rating (only exceeded by the congress) that any president ever had.

Now the problem is for the new president to bring sanity to a disastrous foreign policy, tackle the infrastructure deficit, rescue an abused environmental program, correct a totally mismanaged health program, and as an aside solve the financial crisis that our legendary economic community has foisted upon the world. All this at the same time burdened by an astronomic national debt. Why anyone would aspire to the reins of leadership under such circumstances is awfully difficult to comprehend. David had it easy against Goliath. Goliath was a stupid oaf,David had a secret weapon. The world fiscal crisis is no Goliath and we have no secret weapon. Paradoxically it has been necessary to rely on the same people that created the crisis to solve it. So far the results have not been impressive, to say the least.

Bush in 2000 was installed by fiat of the supreme court. Obama got fifty two percent of the popular vote. The Bushites are whining that "almost half" of the country voted for Palin, opps, I mean McCain. The extreme element of the losers are turning violent. Hate crimes, racist rallies, and nasty slogans, i.e. "he's not my president" a bumper sticker no less, are popping up all over the country. Usually levelheaded Maine has some loonies. This frothing at the mouth from overheated zealots will hopefully soon burn itself out as the unemployment problem exceeds the passion of politics.

With a firm hand at the wheel and a level head Obama will begin to right the ship of state. Our job is to be calm and not over anxious about immediate results. It didn't happen overnight and it won't be corrected overnight. It is my hope that Obama's willingness to talk (negotiate) with the Iranians will help to disentangle the Gordian Knot that the Middle East has evolved into. Bush's weak handling of the Israeli-Palestinian question where the question of settlements was concerned, that is one of the key points of contention, simply accepted the "facts on the ground" as a basis for not requiring Israel to return to the 1967 borders. Currently regarding Iran it is realistic to accept "the facts on the ground" that Iran is, thanks in large part to the miscalculated invasion of Iraq. the dominant, most stable state in the region and has vast influence over the neighboring counties. We must treat Iran as a worthy partner in solving the entire M.E. dilemma. Ahmadinajad will likely be replaced in the next Iranian election and a more rational leader will emerge.

This is a momentous period in the history of our country and the world. We have a great opportunity to capitalize on it.

2008-10-26T18:29:00.000-07:00

From most of the polls it appears that Obama will be elected. As Colin Powell said it will be a "transformational event". I has been eight long years since I said "anybody but Bush". I never envisioned that those years would be so terrible. How our country could be taken over by a pack of idiologues that ran it into the ground not only here but throughout the world is too sad to think about.

Our national psyche has some serious problems. We can't feel sorry for ourselves. We did it to ourselves. A large part of the blame goes to our hyper commercial system. It is Capitalism on steroids. Unquestionably capitalism in a democracy is a wonderful combination, but it has to be tempered by concience. There must be limits to the extent that unregulated business is permitted to go its merry way with disregard for moral restraints. I feel strongly that safeguards such as bond rating services, Standard and Poor and Moodys, were malfeasant in their mistaken ratings of AAA and AA for the mortgage bonds that turned out to be toxic. When money is leveraged 30 times there must be a red light that goes on somewhere.
It was also the total lack of restraint that drove millions to secure loans they could not possibly repay. Of course the brakes should have been applied by the gimlet eyed bankers who gleefully solicited and wrote up contracts that, though profitable, they knew would eventually be found fraudulent down the road. Stifling their conciences they hoped it would happen far from their doorstep. That it happend on such an enormous scale shows how fast and how vast the financial system extends. It not only contaminated the U.S. but a great portion of the world. Those other countries, greedy themselves, cannot feel kindly toward the U.S. for handing them such hot potatoes.
With the change in administrations dare I expect that the EPA and other governmental agencies will now do their jobs honestly and not at the beck and call of corporations? In 2000 I saw the corporations lining up behind Bush and feared the consequences. It all came to pass.
There are fundamental changes I am hopeful of. Health care has to be reformed. Eventually there needs be a single payor system if we are ever to control costs. The tremendous overhead and paperwork stagnation of the present mess can't be tolerated. Then our infrastructure is in bad shape from years of neglect. Putting money into this program is a super job creator with a useful payback. Next we must upgrade the educational program and fund it. Not just hyperbole but real action and follow-up. The environment is sadly deteriorated from too many years of not only neglect but depredations and exploitation.
The tax structure must be changed to dissuade manuacturers from exporting jobs to other countries. Disallow offshore addresses that allow corporations to escape properly owed taxes.

The Iraq war and the increasing involvement in Afghanistan is looming over everything and how that is resolved remains to be seen. At least now we will have a rational head as commander-in-chief so I am hopeful that a reasonable solution will be found.

That is entirely beyond the ability of any administration to accomplish in one session. Let's hope our legislators will kick their oppositional habits and cooperate for the good of the country -- for once.

Now that the conservative socialists have become socialist conservatives there may be a glimmer of hope that there is an opportunity to get some things straight.

2008-10-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

Two weeks plus to go!! We have been two years getting to this point. Pretty well worn out on it too. Eight years ago I would have unquestionably voted for McCain. Now things have changed so dramatically I can no longer abide the man. His sucking up to Bush and his gang has turned me against him decidedly. He is like a dog that has been kicked but comes back looking for love.

The final straw, that to me showed very poor judgment, was his choice of Palin. That is utterly irresponsible. "He'd rather lose an election than lose a war" yet he is willing to jeopordize the country to spark a faultering campaign. 'nough said on that.

Of course the biggest surprise, even though it was anticipated by many, is the financial mess. The S&L debacle was bad enough but now the whole world is caught in the turmoil. Boiling the miscreants in oil would not be severe enough a punishment for the wholesale grief that has been brought upon the nation and the world. "The market can police itself because it is self corrective". Unfortunately, not when human greed and avarice, an aspect of human nature, take command. Just like the lousy war in Iraq, we are in the mess so the only question is how so we get out of it? It is to some degree satisfying to see the bloody capitalists having to resort to that terrible socialistic notion of nationalization. I wonder if it occurs to them that there is a function for government after all? If for no other reason than to bail them out when they screw up. As I've said before, "privatize the profits and socialize the debt".

It is late now and I don't have the energy to belabor all the points I'd like to make so I'll close.

2008-09-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

The Silly Season

Both political parties have had their conventions now. Both have gone overboard to vilify the other.
The surprise with the most clout of course was Sarah Palin. I first learned of her when she appeared on the cover of Alaska magazine. Having recently been to Alaska I was aware of some of the problems they had up there. Mostly political corruption on the part of Murkowski and Stevens. The governor and senator. Palin made a name for herself by fighting the old boy system and getting a better deal for Alaskans from the oil companies.

She has an attractive family and is a beautiful women in a physical sense. She is also a strong conservative Republican. Then there are other endearing qualities about her. She is a life member of the National Rifle Association. She denies global warming. She enjoys hunting and brags about being able to field dress a moose. Hunting moose is like shooting cows in a pasture. She endorses hunting wolves and bears from planes and helicopters. She advocates drilling for oil in the ANWR, a wildlife refuge. Her latest project is the natural gas pipeline to be built by a company she is on the board of. She has to be a cold hearted cookie to espouse all those things.

She tries to convey sweetness and light but in reality is a Dragon Lady. She probably can out Cheney, Cheney. We don't need anymore of that kind of hubris. The conservatives are bent on lower taxes and less regulation. Those twin items alone have led to the dismal state of our infrastructure and the deregulation of banking practices leading to the financial fiasco of the sub prime mess that is costing our citizens their jobs and homes. Combine that with our rapacious foreign policies, over reliance on our crippled armed forces, despite the defense budget being 60% of our total expenditures, our under funded education programs, the atrocious treatment, or non-treatment, of our returning wounded. The cost of the unwarranted Iraq war in lives and treasure is overwhelming evidence of poor decision making and scandalous mismanagement.

The health care system is way out of whack. There is more money going into the administrative
cost than is being spent on actual health care. In the auto industry alone health care costs exceed the cost of the steel in the products. Having the multiplicity of insurance companies with their arcane restrictions is an inefficient way to provide care. Health care providers are driven to distraction and expense to keep up with the paperwork alone. Arbitrary allowances and non-allowances drive both consumers and providers crazy. Yet the conservative answer is more private insurance. Because of the high overhead premiums are beyond the reach of many Americans. Using high deductibles to lower the premium puts many people at risk. By extending the Medicare program to be a universal system there would be tremendous savings. How does that get paid for? Obviously taxes would have to pay for it. However the increase in taxes would be far less than the present cost.

McCain claims to fight the special interests. How is it then that he has the most notorious lobbyist, ex senator, Phil Gramm, as his economic advisor? Gramm engineered the Enron Loophole that relaxed regulation of the commuication rules. This directly led to excesses that caused the collapse of Enron which in turn cost stockholders and employees their life savings.
Many of McCain's campaign crew are either part time or full time lobbyists. Are they supporting him in order to be put out of business? Certainly not!!!! Some things never change.

The convention was heavy on McCain's military family and his service. There is no question that his imprisonment for five years was an extrordinary ordeal. That he survived it is a miracle. He came home to a hero's welcome. He has been playing off that his whole career in government. He has stood for welcome changes in campaign financing. I applaud that. He stumbled once in the Keating Five scandal and was censured by the Senate. He is human but no superman. When Bush/Rove slimed him in the South Carolina primary race it finished him. He gritted his teeth and resolved to make another try at the right time. He pandered to the Bush/Rove Evangelical
base in order to retain a conservative constituancy. He built on that foundation. Nonetheless some do not consider him a true conservative. His opposition to many of Bush's ideas caused him to be dubbed a "maverick". To his credit in his speech he admitted that "the Republicans came to Washington to change it and Washington changed them". the neo-conservatives remodeled the Republican party into the most corrupt. highest spending. most corporate oriented party and administration we have seen. Bush's famous tax cuts, that the Democrats went along with, together with the high expenses of the Iraq war put us deep in the hole. Now our national debt is in the trillions and we are financing our government by borrowing from China and Japan. Some conservative government. It is difficult to believe that things could have gone so wrong in a relatively short time. Bush inherited a great surplus and managed to turn it into a huge deficit.
In spite of McCain's promise to change things it is hard to see how he can do that with the baggage he is carrying.

2008-07-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

Limbaugh – the Terrible

In the New York Time magazine, the fount of all wisdom, of July 6, 2008 was an article by Zev Chafetz about Rush Limbaugh. It was based on extensive interviews that Limbaugh had granted him, including visits to Limbaugh’s lavish estate in Florida.

To begin with Limbaugh does not appeal to me on any level, politically, intellectually, morally, aesthetically, emotionally or, least of all, entertainingly. To avoid responsibility for anything he expounds about he smugly states “I’m an entertainer”.

In indeed he falls into the same category as P.T. Barnum, a showman who opined that “there was a sucker born every minute”. Just as P.T. Barnum was immensely successful with his exploitation of oddities and miscreants through his understanding of the weaknesses of human nature and its perversities, so too does Limbaugh strike a similar chord in some, and like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, lead them unquestioningly along.

The article is the only one I have read about Limbaugh and I found it extremely interesting and informative. It explains a lot about who he is and how he came to be the personality and character he is today.

From early on he eschewed formal learning and relied mostly on his own intuition. Being inherently independent he arrived at his own conclusions based on his own limited understanding.

Rush Limbaugh is a menace to the nation. At this critical time, when the need for unity is paramount, he is a polemicist, a divider of the most virulent type.

As a tactician his Rovian resort to mischief is a destructive influence that creates animosity where amity is called for. His demonic glee at (what Rove considered) the success of Operation Chaos is a most recent manifestation of his strategies. His commentaries were designed to accentuate differences and complicate the campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Orack Obama. He attempted to sow distrust and confusion, in a word, create chaos.

Limbaugh considers himself now to be the absolute leader of the “conservative movement”, with the demise of Bill Buckley. He characterizes Bill O’Reilly as “Ted Baxter”, the overbearing and comically stentorian newscaster on the Mary Tyler Moore show. He likewise dismisses Sean Hannity as a bush leaguer, and not even in his rearview mirror. Limbaugh claims to be the intellectual engine of the conservative movement. The question is what is intellectual about Limbaugh? He rails against the Eastern intellectual elite that overwhelmingly support Obama.

What is particularly egregious, to my sense of conservatism, is his definition of it as akin to “greed is good”. He’s unalterably opposed to human welfare but a strong cheerleader for corporate welfare. His support of the plan to privatize Social Security is right in line with the Prescription Drug Act. Both are designed to allow the siphoning off by private interests vast profits for which no benefit accrues to the consumer. Limbaugh criticized John McCain for using Ronald Reagan’s name. He says “McCain and Reagan should not be used in the same sentence”. Reagan’s conservative slogan was “get the government off are your back”. That meant deregulation of nearly everything in order to allow corporate greed to flourish and run roughshod over the market place. Non regulation over the past several years has endangered our environment, our healthcare, and our educational system. The present sub-prime debacle is a direct result of non oversight of our financial institutions. Let’s revive the other Reagan mantra “are you better off now than you were eight years ago?” Indeed a striking contrast!

Perhaps the prima facie evidence of Limbaugh’s resistance to facts is his rejection of the global warming thesis. It has been amply demonstrated that the oil and gas industry has spent many millions of dollars in their effort to discredit sound science by attempting to imply that there is a question to be debated. The facts have been established, the rest is obfuscation.

Finally, what is conservative about a program that never mentions conservation?. Instead the simplistic notion of “drilling” all over the place is given as a solution to our problems of energy deficit. Ignored is the fact that it would take ten years to get additional gas to the pump. The obvious fact is that drilling and continued gross consumption of petroleum products is obscenely profitable to Exxon, et al. Just recently T. Boone Pickens has begun a campaign that he spent $50 million on to promote wind energy. He has purchased millions of acres of land in the mid U.S. continent to establish the wind farms that he feels are the answer to getting us off the petroleum kick. “You cannot drill your way out of this mess”, Pickens states. “You’ve got to find alternative sources of energy”. Now here is the oilman, the owner of British Petroleum,(BP) espousing alternative fuels because it is the right thing to do, it is best for America.

What is the solution to the Limbaugh menace? Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Assuming he is a good man and really does have the desire to benefit the country as a whole, not just the corporations. Also recognizing his singular talent for persuading many people of his ideas, he must be reformed. It is necessary to enlighten his benighted understanding of the true cnservative ideals. Those are: 1. Responsible management of the government.2. Protection of the nation against all enemies both foreign and domestic. 3. Promotion of a true free enterprise system, one with a level playing field, free from undue (unseemly) influence of one interest over another. 4. Keeping universal well-being as the criteria of acceptability. 5. Sufficient regulation to ensure honesty and efficiency in all agencies without undue or excessive overburden. 5. Taxation commensurate with the necessary agencies and programs for the universal welfare. (Theodore Roosevelt said “The purpose of government is the welfare of the people”.

It seems the “conservative movement” as Limbaugh mimics from Buckley, is a vestige of the old fear of communism. Communism was anathema to capitalism and vice versa. For a period, the Cold War confrontation was the cause celebre of our nation. The conservative movement was at a loss for a demon when Communism in Europe collapsed. Needing some focus the next best target of opportunity was the “liberal menace” as Buckley conceived it. “We stand athwart the tide of history and say Stop” to liberalism; was Buckley’s mantra. That was, in my estimation, a good thing at the time. After the Roosevelt era the liberals had become too entrenched and needed to be stop. It is the neo-cons that need stopping at this point.

Now that Limbaugh has accumulated his wealth and no longer has a need to prove himself it would be well for him, and the country, if, like Bill Gates, he turned altruistic and gave back to the country that has been so good to him. To do this he can become a uniter instead of a divider. Join forces with the “change” generation and mitigate the likely leftish shift. Adopt the true conservative stance rather than a fascistic one of tyrannical rule, ala Cheney, and his dark secretive Darth Vader imposture. Thus spake Swampslogger , the seeker of truth and rightness.

2008-06-27T11:10:00.000-07:00

Got the deck stained (Solid acrylic), two coats. Glad that is done. The drive is newly covered with gravel instead of crushed stone. Looks good but I think the load was less than 5 tons. The guy came back with some extra but it is still light. Trimmed the Holly bushes yesterday and am still pooped today. Took five barrels of cuttings, plus heavy branches, to the dump today. Whew!!! We have been using those collapesable canvas ones. They are great, light and storeable.

`Glenn Greenwald has taken Kieth Olberman to task for his agreeing with Obama's vote for the FISA bill. G feels that O should fight against it because it weakens the Constitution. John Dean, on MSNBC opined that the bill still leaves the Telecoms vulnerable to criminal charges and Olberman picked up on that suggesting that O has a secret plan to nab the Telecoms later for illegally complying with Bush's request for information about calls. Apparently Bush can give the Telecoms a blanket pardon that will prevent any future action against them. Ho hum. That's politics. It won't be long, if it is not already in the blogs, that O is sleeping with H.

As the stock market goes down, California burns, the mid-west floods, and folks start coasting down hills to save gas it becomes difficult to watch a "news" program anymore. The best antidote I know of are the Lawrence Welk rerun shows. Sat. and Sun evening on PBS. They provide an hour of pure entertainment. They even recognize they have the reputation for being "corny", but that only make it better. Lawrence left the farm in N. Dakota in 1925. that is the year I was born and started his musical career. Here he is 83 years later still being appreciated.
The next best is a RedSox game.

The new era will be dominated by broadband coverage throughout the country. The post industrial era is the information era and compared to most other countries in the world the leading country in technology, the US, is the lowest percentage covered by broadband.????
Another new era is the energy deficit. As gasoline becomes more costly what many of us have been deploring, the SUV phenomenon, and the intransigence of the administration to do anything about increasing gas mileage requirements for cars and trucks, has in a very short time caused a dramatic turn around in the automobile industry. Even last year this time who would have thought that SUVs would almost be outlawed and truck sales decimated? There is a lot of fuss and feather about oil drilling here and there but all that will take a decade to make an impact. At least McCain has come out with a statement that conservation is not just a personal virtue. It is an imperative. That is a nice smack in the face to Dick Cheney, the energy guru and benefactor of the oil industry. The frantic dash to convert corn to ethanol has been debunked, but only after it has had a disastrous effect on the entire food industry and caused prices to rise inordinately. Another administration screw-up.

David Brooks wrote a paean to Bush for finally getting something right. He lauds Bush for going against all his advisers and ordering the "surge". Saying the surge has made a tremendous difference in Iraq is a stretch. The most that can be said is that the situation there is fluid.
There are many factors at play. Two significant ones are the Sunni change in Anbar, where the Al Queada wore out its welcome through its stupid bloodthirstiness and the Sunnis turned against them, and the tactic of al Sadr to call a truce, for the time being, in Sadr City. The surge occurred in the same period, that's all. Then again, a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.

What has become starkly obvious is that the world situation is not going to change for the better in the near future. The "American way of life", living high off the hog while much of the rest of the world wallows in poverty and we consume 80 percent of the world energy yet are only 25 percent of the population, producing the vast amount of air pollution and not willing to control it, will need a painful revision. If we were to understand the situation we would be willing to do our part to improve things but we are not being told the facts. We are fed the "feel good". formula of " "you are worth it, even if you can't afford it".

` Another six months will be a long wait but at least the past seven years will hopefully begin to mend.

2008-06-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

Hello there blog. Don't seem to get to you as often as I'd like. For a retiree life seems awfully busy. Been working in the yard a lot lately. Now that the grass is growing rapidly I question the advisability of putting fertilizer on it. The driveway is bordered by 2x6s and they had sunk into the ground so far the lawn was growing over them. Raising them required a pick and shovel job that is not easy on ones back. After a few session I got them up and reasonably even. There is one however that fell victim of the car tipping it over. That's for another time. the heat last two days is in the 90s. Almost too hot to play golf!!! I'll take a cart instead of walking. That should make it doable.

Had the house power-washed along with the patio. Tremendous difference. Like it had just been painted. In the back some steps from the patio had rotted out. A neighbor had removed a retaining wall built of 6x6x8 timbers and wanted to get rid of them. It was just what I needed for the steps. With a chain saw and a lot of grunting and groaning the steps came out quite good. Cleaning up the patio after the power-washing proved to be difficult. the water from the hose puddled and then left a thick residue that was messy to scrape up. Next is having the trim on the house painted and getting a load of gravel for the drive. I think I'll leave the tree trimming till fall.

O yes!! We have had a nomination race that doesn't seem to go away. Plucky Hillary has apparently lost finally to Obama. Her campaign has been "suspended". Whatever that means.
The focus is now on Obama vs. McCain and the mud is starting to fly in earnest. Both candidates have questionable items in their backgrounds and I'm sure that will be exploited to the extreme as the months pass by. There will be a lot of "That's not fair" being exclaimed, but hey, politics isn't about fairness, it's about winning by what ever means.

In spite of the pundits proclaiming a tight race I feel that the tide of change is in Obama's favor. McCain looks older as the days go by. His much younger second wife seems to hover nearby to catch him if need be. Obama's sketchy background has to be filled in and amplified as well as his program spelled out more fully. His speech before the AIPAC assembly almost nauseated me and I felt he laid it on too thick in his promises to Israel. Unless we can be more supportive of Palestinian needs we are going to remain in deep trouble over there.

Bush, making a non-victory lap through Europe, is almost a laughing stock. He has no clout, no
viability and the Europeans are simply waiting to see who will hopefully improve thing in the world. Anything will be better than the past administration. Back in 2000 I loudly proclaimed
"Anybody but Bush!!!". The country didn't listen to me so they got what they asked for. Sorry.
I told you so.

I'm confused about the privatization of our intelligence agencies. So many ex-governmental officials have gone into the private sector as heads of intelligence gathering agencies I can't tell if that is good for our country or not. Private firms are generally considered more effective than governmental ones. And the conservatives are all for shrinking government but at what cost?
If the job gets done a lot better it may be worth it but an awful lot of guys are getting awful rich in the bargain.

In spite of the terrible state of our economy the has-beens of government are getting rich writing books about their time in the seats of power. Tommy Frank started off the General's series with his blatant defense of his ineptitude. Sanchez followed by debunking the notion that there was unanimity about the Iraq war. Bremer has tried to rationalize his debacle. Colin Powell is still smarting from his being used, but has not gone into print on the subject.

In spit of the heat I'm off to the links. So there.

2008-05-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

Email to Dr. Blackburn, Philosopher, Cambridge Univ., London, Eng

Thank you for inviting me. It is undoubtedly presumptuous of me to approach you with my deliberations but age has its privileges. Age, in the sense that I have been thinking about human intelligence, or lack thereof, for many years and do not exclude myself from that affliction. I do have a doctorate in optometry and have had a keen interest in the study of perception. Also I have endeavored to find some cogent explanation of how one "thinks". Philosophers and neurophysiologists seem to, after great expositions, admit they really don't have a clue.

An article in the Sunday NYTimes, January 28th by Peter Edidin, mentioned your removal to Cambridge (congratulations, some hefty people have preceded you, like B.Russell, and L. Wittgenstein)
In it he also stated you had a web site and encouraged visitors to begin a "meaningful interaction". Thus my presumtuousness.

After watching a PBS documentary on "The Search For Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence" and hearing those enthusiastic folks speak of how, "there just has to be life out there and it might be trying to communicate with us", I felt compelled to write down my own feelings about the matter.

This project (SETI) embodies several concepts and assumptions. Mankind - to our knowledge - is the one life form that "thinks".
By mankind's definition of that term. Just what "thinking" is has received much attention from diverse disciplines.
Rene' Descartes, in his writings, has stated- "Cogito ergo sum" which we accept to mean - " I think, therefore I am". He doesn't state. or claim to know, what "thinking" is - it is simply something he does. From this he concludes that, because he can do it, and does do it, he exists.

I don't feel it is especially important to decide if Descartes' reasoning is valid. I'll defer to you philosophers on such matters. What does concern me is the part that language plays, that is, do the conventions and limitations of language constitute a contamination of reason?

Individual language styles themselves become more controversial than what is being discussed. Since thinking and reasoning are inextricably bound up in language is it possible to get off that merry-go-round? Mathematics appears to be the highest form of objective reasoning. ( Use of the word "highest" injects the relativistic aspect language imposes!) Through the evolution of mathematics theoretical physicists have broadened concepualiztion in both the macro and micro dimensions. We now have a greater notion of the universe and have ten dimensions and strings to ponder.

The above is taken as evidence that mankind, the thinkers, is something marvelous. All this thinking is equated with intelligence. Again language poses a problem. use of terms such as "intelligence" and "reasoning" are not as objective as a "square" or a "circle", both of the latter being definable in precise fashion. All of the above is leading to my premise that mankind, a different kind of life form to be sure, is still only one kind of life form. The evidence that humanity has been and is abusing itself and its environment, which includes all other forms of life, is undeniable and increasingly overwhelming. Wouldn't that, by definition, be unintelligent?

Thus the word intelligence purports to define a quality mankind lays claim to but which it assiduously avoids manifesting.
One of Rodenberry's better lines is- "Beam me up Scotty, there is no intelligent life down here!" In the face of mankinds dysfunctionality it is the height of arrogance for us to presume that elsewhere, life as we know it, has taken all the same wrong turns that we have, to arrive at a state of condition roughly analogous to our own and is at all interested in us.

More likely the rationale' that has led to a program such as SETI is an unconscious desire to either escape from our misused faculties or hopefully find a higher source of intelligence to save us from ourselves.

If indeed the Big Bang is the explanation of the origen of our presently perceived universe and we are merely manifestations of reconstituted star dust what, and here language fails, do we represent? Are we a neural construct with a central processing unit that dreams up perception. Is the body a manifestation of the mind or vice versa? Does the "mind"-'body" connection exist or do we need a new paradigm?

One of the vexing aspects of the "intelligence" argument has to do with the misapplication of it. As with the present world food supply: In spite of the abundance of food people are starving because of maldistribution. So too, intelligence applied to technological achievements, is not used to solve social problems in the same degree. Maybe because human nature is so rotten men turn to philosophy. Can you come up with some answers?

Thank you if you have bothered to read this,
DonB

2008-05-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

May 16, 2008

Republican National Committee

Attention: Tim Morgan and other officials

I am in receipt of your solicitation for the 2008 election campaign. You ask: “have you given up?” “Have I abandoned the Republican Party”? The answer is: I disavow the control of the Republican Party by the ideological neoconservatives. In that sense the party has left me.

The likes of Tom DeLay and Imhoff do not represent my ideas of how to govern our nation. The fact is I was a John McCain advocate in the year 2000. The dirty trick of Karl Rove in South Carolina was abhorrent. John McCain would not have led us into Iraq in the hubristic manner that Bush misleadingly did.

The Bush administration’s penchant for cronyism has caused great harm to the party. Brown in Katrina, the ineptitude of Bremer in Iraq, the Darth Vader image of Cheney: Our undiplomatic foreign policy has been disastrous for the country and the party.

John McCain,and any other Republican candidate in the November election, is at a huge disadvantage due to the negative feeling nationwide for the past seven and one half year’s misadventures.

Republicans will have to wait for the Democrats to screw up royally before they will get another chance.

Regretfully,

2008-05-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

This piece was submitted and printed in the local paper.

Dear Editor, I propose this piece as a “My View” item or a letter. Thank you.

Looking for a renaissance

After seven and a half years of the “dark ages” it is with hope and trepidation that the incoming administration can bring a new awakening to our national psyche.

Actually I’m very sanguine that our country is capable of overcoming, in due time, the difficulties imposed by the eight years of Bush’s Imperial rule.

Rather than rehash and recite the missteps and mismanagement of the current incumbency I look forward to improved foreign relations, a sane energy policy, environmental responsibility, and technological advancement.

In the area of health care I’d like to see a single-payer system that lessons, to a large degree, the present administrative overburden. “Health-care plans” that have shareholders and high paid administrators and CEOs are not giving the “health” aspect of care that is needed. The exorbitant premiums could be reduced significantly.

The American Heritage group’s claim that governmental programs will “dictate” onerous conditions for consumers is ridiculous. There are no private insurance plans of any kind that aren’t engineered to deny as many claims as possible. In the insurance industry it is called “loss control”. Insured individuals are constantly fighting to have claims recognized. Insurance companies constantly use loopholes to deny claims.

Health-care at his roots is a product. The product has a cost basis. Care providers must be paid for their services, facilities, hospitals and clinics, have costs that must be met. All of these categories must be looked at critically to reduce exorbitant charges currently going into excessive profits.

Controlling administrative costs is of greatest importance. The most efficient system is a single-payer type. Obviously this is a governmental agency. Horrors! What a tax burden! Hold on, what is really happening is exchanging a profit oriented system for one much less expensive. The myth of competitiveness in the marketplace has long been discredited by the collusion among private concerns to maximize profits. The so-called “free enterprise system” would be great if it were truly free. Unfortunately it is controlled and manipulated by politically connected entities that prevent the competitive forces from freely functioning.
All aspects of our economy, be it banking, finance, insurance, farming, medicine, pharmaceuticals, etc. are protected by high paid lobbyists whose job it is to see that legislation is written that works to the best interests of their clients. Who represents the consumer? Our legislators? They promise to fight for us against special interests. What happens is they no sooner get elected than they seek funds from those special interests in order to get themselves reelected? The consumer’s interests are given lip service but the regulations favor the big spenders.

The ballot box only functions every few years. “Throwing the bums out” doesn’t prevent a new set of bums from taking their place; but mostly the old bums retain their jobs in spite of their poor performance.

A good influence of the current recession and world mess is that has grabbed the attention of more people. People respond most strongly when their pocketbooks are threatened. Now is a good time to call our legislators to account and demand pledges of responsibility.

But in reality the entire health-care system should be drastically reengineered. There are too many exotic specialties and not enough general practitioners. Physician’s Assistants, (PAs), could be more universally employed. With relatively little augmentation the Medicare system could be adjusted to cover everyone. The tax burden for such a change would be a fraction of the cost of the present system. The reduction of paper work alone would be a boon to providers.

Due to the retirement of the baby boomers having begun it is long past time to remove the cap on Social Security taxes. The top of the S.S tax scale excludes those dollars beyond $90,000. In this era of astronomical incomes for several categories of employees it is imperative that those high earners pay their full share of the Social Security tax. It is not a TAX INCREASE – it is equalization. This alone would likely alleviate the shortfall that is projected in the next few decades.

With the demise of the current administration perhaps the criterion of what is good policy will be less influenced by ideology and more by reason and practicality.
The prospect of ongoing expenditures associated with the Iraq debacle is staggering. Our own infrastructure has been sadly neglected because of the diversion of funds to war expenses. Hopefully China will not run out of funds for us to borrow.

2008-04-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a catch up piece.This is an overview of the situation leading up to the Iraqi war.

And the year of the Iran - Iraq war -1980’s

Iraq --an aggressive brand of Pan Arab nationalism similar to Nasser’s

Iran --a revolutionary dictatorship of clerics.
A death struggle between fear and faith.

Neoconservatives -- late ‘60s – small group of liberal intellectuals got turned off by Vietnam, black power, and student revolution era --one explanation of a neocon is a liberal who has been mugged by reality.

The first generation neocon was Sen. Henry (Scoop) Jackson, Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The primary concern of this group was communism. The magazine- Commentary and an article by the “Committee on Present Danger” related to earlier idea of left-wing version of world historical struggle.

“Human Rights” at center of Carter foreign policy was a threat to “friends”, (dictatorships) in Nicaragua, South Africa, Iran. They were seen as bulwarks against communism.

Jean Kirkpatrick in Commentary “Dictatorships and Double Standards” argued that human resource do-gooders undermined America’s “friends”. Reagan agreed and he named Jean Kirkpatrick as the Ambassador to the U.N.

Reagan, a neocon champion-- they treated intellectual combat as an extension of the political and even the weaponized kind

Reagan prevented putting “morality and foreign policy” plank in party platform. Reagan had different concept, not only defeating communism but promoting democracy around globe.

Robert Kagan -- feared America’s drift, became a staunch Reagan revolutionary. Worked under Elliot Abrams concerning South America

Reagan supported authoritarian regimes in name of national interest, even in regimes that committed genocide such as against the Kurds.

Ideals – transformational power of American values.
After end of Cold War neocons drifted
Kirkpatrick -- I am a liberal: in foreign policy.
In foreign policy the conservative tradition is minimalist realism, this reflects ideals as well as national interest. Kirkpatrick supported invasion of Haiti on behalf of elected government.

Sen. McCain felt involvement in messy wars like Bosnia led to “quagmires”.

“Vital national interest” precluded our involvement in Yugoslavia and Ruanda -- it was not our business. Kirkpatrick urged use of U.S. unrivaled power to pursue its values and interests. Those values might be universal but only one power, the U.S. could secure them. Somewhat like Britain in (Kipling’s) “white man’s burden”.

Kirkpatrick dismissed liberals “international law” with only airy “humanitarianism “on their side. “

“The present Democrat leadership simply does not have the stomach for world leadership”.

Kirkpatrick dismissed Bush I’s “realism” wished to restore higher aims of Reagan

Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) became foreign policy of Bush II. Written under Wolfowitz guidance the new threats were everywhere and the remedy was American power everywhere. But not in the cause of democratic values, the DPG advocated “democratic forms of government and open economic systems” only as a gesture. The objective was to remain dominant power in the Middle East and preserve U.S. and Western access to oil.

Kirkpatrick and Pentagon hard-liners parted ways.

Critical of all of Jean Kirkpatrick’s article indulging right wing dictators international order was no good without freedom.

Hard-liners had no use for international alliances and institutions as they got in the way of America’s freedom to act.

Kirkpatrick allied with William Kristol and his Weekly Standard, summoned America to “benevolent global hegemony”. The first goal - taker over the Republican Party, then the nation, then the world. Kirkpatrick and Kissinger then formed “project for the new American century”

It included Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Pearle, William Bennett, James Woolsey. Most found places in Bush II’s administration. PNA see day letter to Clinton advocating Saddam overthrow, Details of how not included, signers disagreed

Clinton signed “ Iraq Liberation Act” now official foreign policy. Wolfowitz and mid-level officials in Carter Pentagon wrote “Limit Contingency Study”, reviewed threats to interests outside Europe, ended up focusing on Persian Gulf oil: possible invasion of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia by Iraq to seize oil. Following Iran – Iraq war tilt was toward Iraq.

Reference – Sal Bellows’s “Ravelstein”- Bloom, Wolfowitz

Wolfowitz went to Cornell where his dad taught math. Influenced by Allan Bloom there :then to Chicago where Leo Strauss, Bloom’s mentor taught.

Wolfowitz was behind the ouster of Marcos in the Philippines and appalled at leaving Saddam in control in Iraq after Gulf War. 1991

Decision not to finish off Republican Guard and allow helicopters led to massacres of tens of thousands of Shiites and Kurds who had risen up against the regime.

Cheney et al, didn’t want to undermine Schwarzkopf’s field authority or risk breakup of Iraq, or if new regime were installed the Saudis would object.

Wolfowitz wanted Iraqis to do it themselves.

Wolfowitz out during Clinton years but never stop talking and writing about. Wolfowitz and Khalilizad (current Ambassador in Iraq) wrote in the Weekly Standard a piece called “Overthrow Him”

Richard Pearle introduced Bernard Lewis, Princeton professor who became an adviser on the Middle East, to Sen. Jackson and Daniel P. Moynihan who is an ambassador to U.N..

Pearle was an impresario, he personified the neocon insurgent, absolutely sure of himself, and his ideas, recruiter of intellectual talent, preparing to seize ultimate power. Albert Wohlstetter introduced Pearle to Chalabi. Pearl’s idea was to put Chalabi at head of an army of Iraqi insurgents and back them with American military power and cash. Cheney, Secretary of Defense under Bush never came through after encouraging the Shiites and they were butchered. Wurmser proposed a complex grandiose scheme to realign and stabilize the Middle East by strengthening Israel, negating the Palestinian question. “Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein” by American enterprise Institute.

“It reads as if a graduate student were feverishly trying to apply the half digested comments he had learned in a classroom with Leo Strauss to subject matter he’d learned in a class with Bernard Lewis”

Wurmser wanted to reform Iraq to traditional values especially the Shiite religious tradition (about which he knew almost nothing). After Kuwait and the Kurdish uprising, Bosnia etc., this new kind of war became known as humanitarian intervention i.e. liberal hawks. The preferred intervener was the U.N. in 1994 Bosnia and Ruanda showed the U.N. not up to it.

The conservative Republicans felt “they didn’t have a dog in the fight” and held back. They tied Clinton’s hands to use the American military to fight “distant obscure wars, or provide security in the inevitable messy aftermath”. “Nation building” was anathema to Republicans.

The result was a wounded (Lewinsky) Democratic president whose two halfhearted gestures of international leadership were attacked and constrained by a Republican opposition in Congress

What the war in Iraq was hoped to accomplish. Though “the whole appeal of the idea lay in its audacity, it would be one violent push, shove history out of a deep hole. By a chain reaction, a reverse domino effect, war in Iraq would weaken the Middle East, to dictatorships and undermine its murderous ideologies and begin to spread the balm of liberal democracy”.

With a will and imagination, America could strike one great blow at terrorism, tyranny, under development, and the region’s hardest saddest problem.

This brought about some strange pairings. Instead of left and right it was interventionist and anti-intervention, revolutionaries and realists. Old-fashioned realists from the Republican establishment were on the same side as the anti-imperialist leftists and far right isolationists, liberal vets of humanitarian wars became uneasy allies of administrative hawks.

It’s hard to tell the administration’s intentions, they’re secretive, possibly hypocritical, possibly sincere. Liberalism shouldn’t be undertaken with missionaries zeal. The attempt to impose on the theocratic and autocratic Middle East from outside by force, on the simple faith that people everywhere long to be free -- end of story.

Kanan Makiya-- architect and Iraqi exiled intellectual, worked on (Plan for Postwar Iraq) opposed by Said. Became enamored of Chalabi and thought he would be good leader (Future of Iraq Project)

Ahmad Chilabi --- Jordanian banker, convicted in absentia of fraud, embezzlement, theft and forgery. He became a choice of the CIA and Pentagon for future role. Fell out of favor then back in ????. Makiya felt Chalabi (INC, Iraqi National Congress)the most likely of Iraqi leaders to go democratic, despite his many failings. It is from this source, Chalabi and Pearle, and the exiles they produced to bolster Bushes already plan for war that much misinformation was fed the Bush administration.

Since the CIA was totally in the dark yet trying to suck up to the president and no one else had a clue, the scenario was played out successfully, even to the extent of convincing Colin Powell, who was very much opposed to war with Iraq, that Saddam had WMD and chemical and biological assets. CIA head Tenent came up with the assertion that it was “a slam dunk” the information was correct.

Subsequent events.proved all of the information to be false or twisted to suit Bush’ plan. The Commission to Investigate 9/11, led by Keane and Hamilton had as its executive administrator Phillip Zelikow, a scholar from Indiana U. who had worked for the Bush campaign and written a paper that was subsequently pick up by the Bush gang and utilized as rationalization for the war. The commission came up with much damning evidence. The group itself however did not write its report, Zelikow did. It turned out to be a thorough whitewash, in large part this was due, it turns out, because of Zelikow’s association with Karl Rove. So the story continues to unfold of how this administration has orchestrated the most horrendous blunder in our history and continues to put up a defiant front claiming that all the blood and treasure loss “was worth it”. Bush and his crew have unintentionally played into the hand of both bin Laden and the Iranians and the M.E. is less stable now than it has ever been since Lawrence of Arabia was raging through the land.

2008-04-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

We have gotten through the first quarter. The housing crisis is in full bloom, as are the crocuses. Are we in a recession? Depends on your particular situation. If your neighbor lost his job it's a correction. If you lost your job it's a recession.
The campaign goes on endlessly. McCain needs money and an answer to his remark about staying in Iraq for 100 years. Hillary is gamely (stubbornly) hanging tough. Obama is having to put up with the chatterers who enjoy character asassination.
Joan Walsh, an editor for Salon was quoted by Limbaugh. She was pleased by the compliment, even if L didn't mean it that way, simply because of Ls larger audience.
It is a sad commentary that a large number of people find what L says to be of interest. He is so often off base and bloviating that I can't stand even the tone of his high pitched voice. Salon is slanted for the most part but it does have good writers with resonable ideas. It also gives both sides, R & L, blogs an airing.

I was amused at the meeting of Bush and Putin. I can imagine Putin thinking of Bush as a jolly fellow of low regard. Frankly the bone of contention over missiles in Poland is a no brainer. We couldn't tolerate missiles in Cuba, why would Russia countinence them on their border? It is American hubris that turns other countries off from us. We seem to be taking the wrong tack on this business of being the reigning superpower. We obviously can't run the world with our military and our administrators can't even run our government. The legislators seem to play the part of a Greek chorus, chanting incantations and making ineffective protestations.

Robert Reich's book "Supercapitalism" spells out the loss of voice for the citizen.
He decries the status of corporations as "persons" having the same rights as persons.
K Street seems to be more effective in legislating than Congress. Mitch McConnel says that campaign contributions are "free speech". The fact is they become bribes when the legislators depend on them regardless of that the average citizen thinks.
News accounts often announce that legislation designed with some beneficial intent, such as reducing auto emissions, "is blocked by lobbyists". How can "lobbyist" block legislation unless it is through intimidation of legislators who are dependent on them for contribution (bribes).

In general the whole moral fabric of the country and the world is being tattered by the loss of a healthy sense of responsibility on the part of individuals. Agency heads are constantly being found irresponsible in their duty to oversee the work of their eemployees. The FDA is lax, underfunded, in checking pharmaceuticals and food products. The VA is derilict in taking proper care of veterans whether wounded grieviously or just trying to get readjusted.

The so called "healthcare system" is in disarray with costs going through the roof.
Standards of care are not maintained and the average citizen is increasingly hard pressed to keep up with the costs of almost everything. Medicare is way over the limit on costs. That is part of the Social Security problem. Legislators agonize over
raising tax percentage or lowering benefits. To me on immediate and simple way to alleviate the crisis is to eliminate the cap on income subject to SS tax. That is NOT a tax increase, it is simple equity. What is holy about income over $90,000? Why is that excluded from the tax?. It means those high incomes pay a lower percentage over all than tha lower incomes. That is simply an inequity that is long over due for correction.

Of course the most stupid inequity of all is the diversion of billions of dollars down the drain in Iraq that could be applied to our crumbling infrastructure, our schools, our research for alternate energy sources, our police forces, and the rehabilitation of our armed forces and National Guard.

2008-01-27T13:42:00.000-08:00

STATE OF THE UNION--

What is Bush going to say tomorrow?. "Our strong economy is having a hiccup, and will respond to my stimulous package". The remedy for the hiccups is to blow into a paper bag.. We can see that the Decider knows just the trick to set things right. He can deliver the "blow" but the bag seems to have hole in it. It is sad that the Promiser has so far been promising the moon but delivering only moldy green cheese.

From the blogs I read the consensus is that the cooperative (synchophantic) media and the corporate lobbyists have many times the influence the average citizen has. Real issues such as foreign policy changes that could ameliorate international turmoil are never asked by the press or brought up by the candidates. Those critical matters are what have to be addressed. The health care fiasco issue is smothered by the bogeyman of "socialized medicine". The most efficient way to eliminate the overburden of administrative costs (huge salaries and bonuses for CEOs of health care plans) is to develop a single payer system. (Shudder!!!) But don't we already have at least part of one? It's called Medicare and Medicaid. Just move the age requirement down from 65 to 0 and you have it. Then reign in the pharmaceutical scam by changing the present law to make drugs competitive. The argument about high costs of research are countered by pointing out that advertising budgets are a multiple of research expenditures. The drug ads are atrocious anyway. Their aim is to induce fear much more than inform. Their curtailment would go far to reduce many symptoms that they induce. These matters seem too sensitive to get into the discussion.
That is exactly why they should be dicussed.

The campaigns are getting testier and nastier. Sure signs that panic is setting in.
The money is on Clinton vs. McCain. If McCain chooses Lieberman as a running mate and Hillary chooses Obama I think I'd have to go with the latter. Call it a double revolution, a female and a black. That is some change.

2008-01-14T05:30:00.000-08:00

2008-01-09T17:10:00.000-08:00

First Iowa then New Hampshire

The polls were terribly wrong. It is not the first time nor will it be the last. The media goes into a feeding frenzy on the latest news story and grabs whatever is available. The pollsters are happy to sell their wares regardless of quality or, in this case, timeliness. They missed the real story because it occurred so late and precipitously. The News Hour's Jim Lehrer called his correspondents to task for missing the boat, but in a jocular fashion. The media does a poor job of bringing out the important issues but rather goes with the flow of what is currently the apparent BIG story. Judy Woodruff claimed that the paucity of manpower was to blame for not being in the right place at the right time. Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan.

The so called "debates" were more humorous than enlightening. I take that back. Huckaby vowed to make the U.S. so strong no power would dare to attack it. American history tells us that a ragtag bunch of farmers took on the most powerful nation in the world at the time and wrested independence from England. Then Ron Paul correctly pointed out that our foreign policy in the M.E. was largely to blame for bin Laden's attack on the U.S. Foreign policy expert Guliani immediately said "foreign policy doesn't have anything to do with it". These guys want to lead the world and they can't find their own back side.

A strange item popped up in the news. A conference in Norman, OK that discussed "bipartisanship". There is a novel idea. They took the radical stand that our elected representatives should work together harmoniously and intelligently for the good of the country. How naive can they be? Do they think that the National Rifle Assoc. and other big corporate lobbyist are going to allow their, bought and paid for, stooges to waste time on such nonsense?.

The word of the campaign so far has been "change". That is a shibboleth that means different things to different people. It however allows the voter to put his or her own slant on it. Then the question becomes, how sincerely do you come across when you say it?

On top of all the rhetoric is our concern for the economy and how we are going to cope with ever increasing prices on our basic needs such as food, health care and the price of energy. Added to this administration's and Congress's misdeeds is the current policy of subsidizing corn production and its diversion to production of ethanol. Basically I think ethanol produced with corn is inefficient and costly. Secondly it has skewed the price of all food products dependent on corn because of corn's inflated price. Iowa farmers love it as does ADM and other huge corporate agri-businesses but the cost goes to the consumer-- us.

Health care in the U.S. is proving to be not only too expensive it is not of high quality. Again, Guliani claims our health care is the best in the world. He's wrong.
Statistics show the U.S. lags behind most industrialized nations in several categories. Health care has become commoditized. The basic elements of health care have been overlain with administrative costs that multiply the consumer's cost. It all started when the idea of "pre-paid health care" came into being way back at least to the 30s. In the blue collar neighborhood I grew up in there were two physicians within a block of us. Believe it or not, they made house calls. They weren't always paid in cash. Sometimes it was in vegetables or milk, and sometimes nothing. then came health insurance plans with cash set aside for medical bills. The MDs noted this pot of gold sitting there and gradually increased the size of the handfuls they extracted. Over the years those MDs moved out of the neighborhood and into high priced enclaves and office suites where they couldn't afford to take the time to make house calls. The "premiums" for the health care plans began an accelerated rise as the rate of increase in medical care steadily rose. Entrepreneurs saw the opportunity in bundling health care and marketing it as one does any commodity. The pharmaceutical industry also recognized the opportunity to capitalize on the business. Recently they counted a coup when a bill was passed outlawing negotiated drug purchases and drug purchases from foreign countries. All these goodies are paid for by lobbyist influencing legislators with contributions (free speech). Then those contributions come back to the corporations many times over, paid for by --us.

Obviously the situation is not as simplistic as I've outlined but the basic elements are there. Somewhere down the line (over the dead body of Mitch McConnel) the money influence will have to be eliminated. The anemic McCain-Feingold Bill does very little to stem the flow of "influence cash" to legislators. What is especially galling to me is the steady stream of solicitations I get from organizations that are fighting to get the government to do what it is supposed, by law, to be doing. The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Act, are all violated continuously by the government that is supposed to enforce them. That corruption shit has to stop. If "change" is meant to deal with this problem I'm all for it.

2007-12-20T10:33:00.000-08:00

As the year 2007 draws to a close it seems as though the country has been marking time; just waiting out the present administration. The Democrats have been unable to bring the war to a close or the troops home, as they had pledged, The ability of the President to hold his ground, with the help of enough Republicans in Congress, has been a frustrating exercise in futility for those hoping to cease the death toll of our troops from rising. Despite a slower rate of fatalities the number continues to increase. Each day seems to bring out new revelations of wrong doing in this administration. Fortunately the courts have reversed many of the Bush claims to "executive privilege". The secrecy of the last seven years is a sure sign of covering mismanagement. The latest revelation shows that the present improvement in the Iraq situation is due primarily to the implimentation of a strategy that had been submitted as long as three years ago. Both Cheney and Rumsfeld brushed it aside preferring to insist that the war was a short term affair and not worth the time and effort. Instead of listening to those who felt "intelligence" was the key to slowing the IED deaths, that represent 60% or more of troop fatalities, billions were wasted on gimcrack attempts to foil the devices.

A recent book documents the influence Richard Pearle has had on the rationale for the Iraq adventure. He seems to be the source of most of the misinformation and misinformation givers that were used to justify the invasion. Intelligence in people is similar to electrical potential. If used properly it is a benefit to mankind. If it is applied incorrectly or intentionally misapplied it is a very destructive force. Bush, being the intellectual lightweight that he is, was a simple person, easily misled. Apparently considering himself a Messianic leader he was convinced that the vast American military should be used to bring Democracy to the Middle East. Some bright people like Thomas Friedman and David Brooks at first thought there was a chance it could be pulled off. What they could not know in advance was the astounding hubris and ineptitude of Rumsfeld and Cheney when it came to making critical decisions. The assumptions they made [proved the dictum - "to assume makes an ass of u and me"].
Disregarding high level military and civilian opinions to the contrary, and manufacturing "information" to support their preconceived decisions, they barged ahead, unfortunately with the approval of an impotent Congress. Thus we have been stuck in a morass for the past five years.

The present Congress, drastically changed, but not enough, has not shown much improvement in its ability to rein in the executive office. What is blatantly obvious is the slavish dependence politicians have on lobbyist's contributions and the effectiveness of money to buy votes. A sad state of affairs that does not show much promise of improvement in the foreseeable future. What it will take to correct this problem is not readily apparent. May we have a happier New Year than the past seven have been.

2006-12-22T08:54:00.000-08:00

Our trip to St. Lou, driving, made me change my mind about flying. Now with Denver causing airline delays across the country I'm not sure how it is best to go. Now we will be here in Syr. till after Christmas. It's good to be still for a while. Yeterday we participated in Cindy' 5th grade class Chrismas party and it was great fun to see all those happy, eager, smiling faces. We were amazed to see the numbe of projects the kids engaged in. They are very creative and joined in enthusiastically.

In checking out a blog in the Ageless Project, another '25er called CmdrBob, I was impressed with one of his entries discussing the NSA wiretapping program. He made a good case for the necessity to make diligent efforts to glean information about those intent on harm to our country. He also acknowledged the risks of having the government "spy" on citizens and the improper use of some types of information. He obviously doesn't feel Bush is the greatest leader but agrees with the need for surrveilance.

He also was impressed with Newt Gingrich's assesment of the current situation visa vie the Islamic Jihad. Gingrich calls it a Third World War and says the sooner we gear up for it the better off we will be. I'm tending to think in those terms also. We let Hitler run loose way too long before confronting him. The same may be true if indeed the intent of the Islamists is to restore the Islamic domination of the world. Hard as that scenario is to conceive of it has been shown that determined individuals with fanatic zeal can tie strong nations up in knots.

One ray of hope that I see on the horizon is the emergence of non-jihadist Islamists who are speaking out against the current terror campaign and seeking moderation.
Also, in Iran, the source of much opposition to the West, the student population is once again showing a rebellous attitude against the current outrageous policies of the regime. They object to the poor economic state of affairs as well as concern for the felt increasing isolation of Iran due to its nuclear ambitions. They feel Iran has the right to pursue a nuclear capability but question weather or not it is worth the cost internationally.

The current impasse in Iraq for the elected government to unify the various sects and the question of U.S. effectiveness in attempting to quell the civil war there is vexing our nation. Bush' inepness at diplomacy and the difficulty of gaining militarily is causing greater concern for the final outcome. We don't want another humiliating defeat, as in Viet Nam, but too we agonize over the needless loss of life in such an ill conceived and mismanaged endeavor. Heaven help us---please!!!!

2006-11-10T20:36:00.000-08:00

WOW !!!! How decisive can it be? "Throw the bums out" was the call of the day.
I never expected the full "run of the board" that occured.Then the swift removal of Donald Rumsfeld was another welcome surprise. As the latest inept move by Bush his letting Rumsfeld go after the election rather than much earlier probably cost the Rs at least a couple of important seats. Additionally it pleases me to see the repudiation of Rove, as the Napolean of politics, being humiliated. Another "nasty",
currently under investigation for some irregularity, who deserves humiliation is Grover Norquist, of the Americans For Tax Reform club. His quest for "tax reform" is to give the big money people carte blanche to keep their ill gotten gains and to hell with everyone else.

Now it is up to the Dems to produce some worthwhile legislation and help Bush find a more useful course to follow. Analysts have been talking about the need for each party to move toward the center. If that is where the majority of citizens are that is a good place to be. Moderate Rs and moderate Ds should be able to work together to accomplish good legislation rather than ideologic head banging. Time will tell.

It is imperative that the ME situation be resolved at least to the point of stability. It is in the interest of all countrys, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq to find a stable state of affairs. The Israeli, Palestinian problem requires outside influence and pressure to come to a viable solution also so there is much opportunity for sagacious heads to prevail and get past the deadly tit for tat that goes no-where.

I would like to see a thorough examination of the U.S. position and evaluation of our interest in the ME. Obviously oil is the prime concern but it is also our achilles heel. As long as we remain shackled to our dependency on oil from the ME, and the continuing felt need for our presence there, we will be faced with the dire consequences of being "occupiers" of sacred lands and for whom many jihadists are willing to give their live to drive us out. We have the basic technology to utilize alternative energy sources, what we lack is the poitical will to pursue it. That has to change. Hopefully the new Congress and Senate will face this challenge

2006-11-06T21:41:00.000-08:00

In the New York Times of Nov.6,2006 there is a lenghty article by Dexter Filkins entitled "Where Plan A Left Ahmad Chilabi". It printed out at 22 pages. It is well worth the time to look it up as it gives an authoritative report of the rise and fall and influence of Chilabi, a key player in the Iraq War. Previous blogs of mine have mentioned the prominent goverment officials who had dealings with him and how he manipulated them and how they used him, first as a source then as a scapegoat. He has his side of the story also and the Bush team doesn't come out smelling too good.
His main promoter was Richard Perle, serving on the Defence Advisory Committee. Recently Perle has denounced the Bush administration for its incompetence and poor judgment. The story has legs, as Chris Matthews might say, and it comes into clearer focus every day.

2006-11-06T20:36:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow will be the big referendum on how the country feels about our govermnment, or lack of it. Because it is such a catastophe, because it is entirely the result of the ideologic hubris of the Bush administration, I will NOT refrain from saying-"I told you so". Right from the race for the Republican presidential nomination I figured Bush was hand picked by the big money interests and this turned me off from him. Then the campaign his people ran, under the direction of Karl Rove, and the way they slimed Sen. John McCain in S. Carolina I was even more disgusted with them. There has been one thing after another that has confirmed my distrust in the Bushies.

One of my main concerns is the devastation they have visted on the environment. The cynical disregard for water and air quality all in the name of protecting the bottom line for large corporations. Bush has proven his allegiance to big money. The total disregard for energy conservation, actually encouraging profligate oil consumption by not increasing gas mileage requirements. His recent discovery that "we are addicted to oil" is laughable if it weren't so pathetic.

The real tragedy of 9/11 is the role it allowed Bush to assume as a "war President". Naturally the country rallied around the flag under such an onslaught. Then he betrayed the trust of our nation by embarking on his ideologic mission of toppling Hussein on the pretext that Iraq posed a threat to us. All this is now unravelling as more and more facts surface to expose the fiction spun by the Administration to convince the country to go to war.

So tomorrow the people will voice their disaproval and disappointment with those who led us into such a costly debacle. It will take much time, if ever, for the U.S. to regain the trust of the world and our good name. Bush has much to answer for. If they had just asked me six years ago all this could have been avoided.

Now if they want my advice, and probably no one does, I say let the Democrats have a go at it the next two years and while they are doing their own screw-up the Republican moderates can get their house in order so's to be ready for the mext presidential election in 08. Unfortunatly John McCain is so enamored of retaining Bush's "base" that he may just lose the Independents who can't stand the religous right. John better start saying some "moderate" things and distancing himself from the Bush agenda or I won't accept responsibility for the outcome. Just remember--"I told you so".

2006-10-28T08:43:00.001-07:00

Well it was Sept since I last chatted. Now Halloween is upon us and the Christmas sales are in full swing. The economy is sluggish, home sales are way down and prices are slipping. Next week we will have the mid-term elections. All my ranting and raving seems to have had an effect (even though no one admits to reading my blog).
The Republicans are heading into a real bashing at the polls. This is tha culmination of a sequence of scandals and books revealing the seamy underside of the current administration. Bob woodward's book, "State of Denial". the last of three previous lauditory expositions about Bush, lambasts the way the Bushies have failed to face reality. Their "stay the course" mantra however has been changed, actually it has simply been dropped,nothing has changed. A committee headed by James Baker is due to report --- after the elections--- on how bad things really are and maybe suggest changes in the "course". The current Iraqi leadership is floundering badly amid a tremendous increase in internecine killing. The failure to produce the necessary troops and police to quell the violence is stalling the time when they can "stand up so we can stand down". While the fighting continues no rehabilitation gets done and the Iraqis fall deeper into despondency and rebellion against the occupation.
Another favorite Rovism Bush likes to use,"We must fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" has been proven as vacuous as many other "talking points" Rove has come up with. Here is my latest letter to the editor.
Dear Editor,
I believe it is necessary for the U.S. to face squarely the energy issue. Our dependency on oil from the Middle East is keeping us from being able to establish a foreign policy that is realistic. Realistic here means non-confrontational nor exploitive. If our “national interest” is shackled to foreign oil we are forcing confrontation with the “national interest” of the Muslim nations who do not appreciate our desire to subjugate them through democratic governments of our choosing..

The whole “terrorism” phenomenon is directly linked to the occupation by foreign troops in, and the undue influence of the U.S. over, Muslim countries. Robert Pape, a political science professor at Chicago University, has done an in depth study of the suicide bomber’s motivation. His book “Dying to Win” graphically describes his work. Each case shows that the individual was primarily motivated by the desire to drive the occupiers from the homeland. Because defense of the homeland is a sacred duty it is not “suicide”, which is prohibited, but “martyrdom”, which is rewarded.

The failure to be sensitive to Muslim beliefs is what has driven the Iraq war to the terrible state it is in now. The myopic ideology of the Bush administration is what causes it to claim we have to “fight terrorism over there so we won’t have to fight it here“. The 9/11 tragedy was the result of our armed forces being in Saudi Arabia. That “occupation” infuriated bin Laden to the point of desperation and his diabolical plot to harm the “occupiers”. It isn’t that “they hate our freedom”, they hate our arrogance and manipulative influence on Muslim countries.

So the basic problem is our voracious appetite for oil beyond which we can supply ourselves. The solution is not more oil but to curb our appetite for it. Very little has been done along that line. Again Bush chooses business interests over the country’s welfare. The entire spectrum of energy resources must be pursued more vigorously and intelligently. Something the current administration is obviously incapable of.

2006-09-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

It has been some time since the last post. The Red Sox have gone down the tube and the Iraq war has gotten real nasty-- and several more American soldiers have been killed. The daily slaughter of Iraqis is sickening. It is immposible to understan the mentality of people like that.
During the summer I've read a few books trying to understand the situation better.
The expert on the ME is Bernard Lewis and one of his books is "What Went Wrong?".
This is not about us but about how the Muslims view their current situation in the world. How did they get left so far behind? At one time they were the most enlightened people on earth and ruled most of the known world. The crusades eventually broke their grip and at the same time brought their enlightenment back to Europe that was in the midst of the Dark Ages. The West then took the initiative and ran with it while the Muslims pulled back isolated themselves content to believe that their prophet Mohammed had given them the last and true words of God. Now their humiliation and vexation over the corrupting ideas of the West are causing them to find explanations that the Mullahs use to foment hatred and aggression against the West. Thom Friedman stated the he felt the Islamic faith has to go through a reformation similar to the Catholic church before it can break with its jihadist position.
Another book about the ME is "Cobra II". This is a comprehensive review of what has transpired from before 9/11 to the current status. It is a revealing narrative of the utterly ideologic basis for decisions by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush that were totally irrational and contrary to the advice of military expert and public opinion.
Their stupid blundering has led to the current bloody stalemate in Iraq.
The Report of the 9/11 Commission is another account of how unprepared and inefficient the past administrations have been in dealing with the Islamic radicals.
Because of political considerations the Commission avoids putting direct blame on individuals but it is plain to see where the fault lies.
I will limit this diatribe because previously I found the longer ones cut short.

2006-07-06T13:22:00.000-07:00

The 4th of July has come and gone and we are into the Cape's notorious "tourist season". the roads are clogged and the weather has turned muggy. Can't wait to get up to camp where I can enjoy the muggy weather.

Headlines these days are mainly Bush's bashing of the media for "outing" another one of the administrations data mining operations, this time the banking and money transfer data. Bush claims theis hurts the national security status. That's BS. Secretary of the Treasury Snow was touting the extensive monitoring of money transfers months ago. As I see it, the administration goes about its ham handed way, botching up everything it touches, and then blames the media for giving it bad press.

Most recently the N.Koreans shocked everyone by launching several rockets of various ranges in spite of threats of dire consequences by policewoman Rice. The fact that the long range rocket that was most feared fizzled less than two minute after launch was sort of anticlimatic. It showed the threat to our nation was not so bad after all. It also saved us the embarassment of attempting to shot it down with our own faulty antiballistic missile missile.

Speculation is that the purpose of N. Korea going ahead with the launches is to get our attention and get the U.S. to deal with them directly. According to a former Korean expert, Wendy Sherman, what N. Korea wants is a security guarantee from the U.S. that they will not be attacked. Next it is important for them to get "respect" and not be treated as pariahs or bad children that need discipline. They are a failed state and in need of all sorts of aid. There leader probably is a little kooky, but then so are a number of other "leaders". To lead them out of the darkness they must be assured we will not zap them, not that we could even if we tried.

There is no question that the U.S. is the preeminent military power on the globe at the presnt time and that power can be projected anywhere on the globe. The problem is the present U.S. leadership is so ideologically hide bound that it can't project anything but its own incompetence.

The best thing to come along so far is a movement entitled Unity08. The idea is to marshall all those who see the short comings of the present political mess.
Look it up on Google and add your comments to the program.

2006-06-05T14:51:00.000-07:00

The only way that "negotiations with Iran will get off the dime is for Rice to shut up. Everytime she opens her mouth she threatens Iran. that is not conducive to dialogue. At the same time Cheney alienates the Russians in one of his "speaches" (tirades). Next Rumsfeld makes remarks that annoy the Germans. Aren't these the two countrys we are trying to get on our side of the Iranian negotiations? Typical Bush crowd "diplomacy". It seems to me that the international community should tell the the U.S. to bug off and stop trying to run the whole show. Sure we are the 800 pound gorilla but do we have to act that way all the time?

The Iraq situation goes from bad to worse. Now Shiites are fighting Shiites are fighting Sunnis who are fighting everybody.
The government which is suppose to control all the mayhem seems to be largely the cause of it. Because the longer the U.S. is involved the more the Iraqis hate us for killing them. that is understandable. The government is tainted as being a product of the occupation and American influenced. "Staying the course" is proving more and more costly without constructive results. It is past time to pull out and let the matter take its course as it inevitably will.

2006-06-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

My "letter to the editor" commented that it was foolish to reject out of hand the letter from the Iranian president. The Iranian letter was obviously an attempt to communicate. My point was "let's talk". Talking is better than killing. The Bush administration is very diplomacy challenged. Their notion of negotiating is " my way or the highway". Therefore I was pleased and surprised to see a headline today that "Bush will talk". As usual the devil is in the details. The caveat is "if the Iranians stop the nuclear refining process". It seems that every procedure that might break a stalemate is hedged by "condidtions", usually something that is known to be anathema to the other party. Instead of just going with the status quo and getting on with the "talks" there has to be the ritualistic dance of arguing about some nit picking detail. Rice has to throw in the threat that the use of force is still on the table and is fearful that any thing really "diplomatic" would be seen as a sign of weakness.In my estimation all the weakness is above the shirt collar. Rice also maintains that Iran must be "punished" if it does not agree to the proposed terms. Why musr we be the bully of the block and assume we have the right to tell everyone else how things should be? It is a good idea to have a neighborhood watch but what we are doing amounts to vigilantism. We demand to be above the international law. Since Bush we have alienated most of the countrys of the world. We are considered a rouge elephant. Our legislators have been derelict in their oversight responsibility. It is ironic that the only indignation shown to any of the many problems facing the nation is the FBI raiding a congressional office. It is understandable that with all the corruption charges being brought lately that legislatorss would not care to be treated like mere common citizens.

Bush ignored the Kyoto Protocol saying it would be bad for our economy. Instead he claimed that his plan for voluntary reduction of emissions would work because that is what he did inTexas. It turns out that the idea did not work in Texas and it hasn't worked for the country. Time and again this adinistration has proven to be an ecological disaster: even worse than Reagan.

Bush claims to be distressed about the deaths in Iraq yet he shows no inclination to stem the waste of oil by gas guzzlers.
Thom Friedman points out that we are not only paying for our war effort we are financing our opponent's war through high gas prices. The best result of high gas prices is the reduced sales of the big SUVs and trucks. This is hurting GM and Friedman says that the sooner Toyota take over GM the better off we will be.

The tragedy in Haditha, where Marines killed civilians in retaliation for a roadside bomb is the result of the lousy war we shouldn't be in. I feel for the poor guys who have been subjected to the brutalities of this senseless conflict. Those IEDs have been the cause of over 50% of our fatalites and an uncounted number of maimings that have shattered the lives of those men and women

2006-05-20T08:17:00.001-07:00

The Red Sox are doing better lately. That is one bright spot in the day to day goings on. The Iraqi situation is pretty much status quo. Bickering and sectarian jockeying for advantage in the "new" government. Democracy does not spring full blown out of a few "elections". There appears to be the need for the civil war that will be the coauldron out of which comes the distilled product still to be determined. The hope is that it will be a unified Iraq, however the sectarian violence portends deep divides that sre based on religious beliefs that are intolerant of any deviation. Democracy demands tolerance and compromise for the greater good. Religious fanaticism is anathema to those ideals. Thom Friedman stated that "until Islam goes through a reformation, as the Catholic church did, and frees itself from theological domination it will continue to wallow in sectarian strife."
As if Bush didn't have enough on his diminishing plate the illegal immigrant problem has blossomed into a national crisis. This situation which has been growing for decades, and ignored by successive administrations, has commanded the headlines for several weeks now. Our democracy requires that representatives be elected to carry out the duties of government. It is the duty of the electorate to make judicious choices when electing representatives. Thus it ultimately is the electorate that is responsible for the government's functioning. If one votes and then forgets about it there is no oversight as to how effectively the government runs. "When the cats away, the mice will play". This adage applies to explain how the corruption, mismanagement, and misdirection of government occurs. Democracy does not work well with ideologues in office. Once in they feel compelled to carry out the agenda their ideology dictates regardless of other views. Their zeal causes them to see opposing ideas as heresy and they take on the characteristics of the religious fanatics. In the current presidential term the legislative bodies are controlled by the Republican majorities. The margin of winning the presidency was very small. In other words close to half of the electorate made a different choice.
Because of the legislative rules however the majority can effectively shut out the voice of the minority. Committee chairman are all of one party. They control what bills are voted out of committee. Under such procedures there is little or no opportunity for the minority to have any influence over legislation or presidential appointments. The result is that almost half of the electorate has little say in what gets done. That is not representative government, it is restricted representation. That is not true democracy.
When ideologues control government the country's welfare depends on how good the administration's judgment is. In the present administration the judgment has been
anything but good. The lofty intentions motivating government policy have been sadly
defeated by poor, or no, planning, poor, or no execution, stubborn refusal to recognise, let alone, admit to, mistakes in policy or judgment. Frantic afforts to suppress criticsm and total lack of candor or transparency. It's as though a secret society was running the show. Hey! Who am I to act as though I had all the answers?
Fortunately the use of a blog is a way to vent safely since nobody reads these entrys but me.
My social committments are minimal and confined to the golf course and singing.
Both are pleasant pastimes and nonthrearening to anyone---except other golfers and
singing partners. The sun is out, the living is easy--- so what am I bitching about?
I guess I just hate to see a "post turtle" that I cant help down.

2006-05-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

Bummer!. The Red Sox have gone into a slump on the road. Next they play NY at Boston. That will be interesting. NY now leads the league.
An old Texan labeled Bush a "Post turtle". Asked to explain he said, "if your driving down a country road and see a turtle balanced on top of a fence post you know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, and he doen't know what to do while he's up there, and you just want to help the dumb shit get down."

At last Colin Powell has spoken out to the effect that he voiced his concerns about going into Iraq, also expressed to General Frank, Rumsfeld and Bush that the troop strength should be far greater then planned. Rice claims she doesn't remember what all Powell said but that the Pres. listened to everyone and then made his decision.
It is apparent from other facts that the decision had been made long before that. All the discussion and going to the U.N. was merely a formality endured with mounting impatience. Hopefully the President's abysmally low confidence ratings will forestall any continuation of the grand design to remold the Middle East into a democracy. As Thom Friedman said, "better a nuclear Iran than another Rumsfeld run war". Friedman also said that the best way to deal with Iran is to explicitly state that if they or any proxy were to harm another country with a nuclear weapon they would be subject to devastating nuclear retaliation. We have dealt with a Russian threat of "mutually a assured destruction" for close to fifty years and things have gone along fairly well. Little desert kingdoms hardly pose a real threat. Let us be realistic. Of course the rhetoric is about Nuclear threats, the reality is about regime change. The naive notion that democratic elections produce democracy has been dissproved in Palestine with Hamas, an avowedly belligerent group, winning an election

2006-04-17T09:18:00.000-07:00

it's interesting to follow the discusion about the Rumsfeld rumble. Some military people,retired and current, are speaking up in R's defense. My read on the comments is that R is being "damned by faint praise". What has yet to be determined is, were R's decisions correct, or at least good ones, under the circumstances?. His apologists say he listened, his critics say he intimidated. Again, my read is that among those in power there was an arrogance and casualness affecting the decisions that brooked no desention and punished criticism (Shinsecki's removal). General Frank is cited as one who worked well with Rumsfeld, easily aquiesing to R's ideas. Also Frank neglected reports from his field commanders that the Fehdaheen(sp?) were posing an ominous threat to the advancing units. These were strong forces that were being bypassed in the rush to Baghdad. The Fehdaheen had been established by Saddam as a parallel army to put down a feared uprising by the Shiites and it was widely disbursed in the South. There were also tremendous arms and explosives caches made ready. These are the apparent source of all the IEDs that are so deadly to our troops currently. Frank was intent on Baghdad and impatient with such reports. He also is quoted as calling Zinni a traitor for critisizing the battle plan. Frank was outspoken about the conduct of the war and he also retired as the fight turned nasty.

Whether or not the controversy gains momentum or is squashd remains to be seen. I think that, as Chris Matthews says, "it has legs". Bush by nature sticks by his decisions and his people. He not only seems oblivious to the discontent of the public, he seems to have no concern for the future of the Republican party. ?????

2006-04-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

The last attempt I made to post was summarily closed and all the text was lost. Bummer. No big loss, it was just more of my harangue about the Bush administration and its latest gaffs. Then the latest was his admission of leaking info that was clasified, until he declasifies it, which may have been after he leaked it to "Scooter" to give to Miller, who never printed it, and about which, Scooter lied to the federal prosecutor, Fitzgerald. That matter is still in the works and may have interesting ramifications.

Criticism of Donald Rumsfeld, and his handling of the wars is growing as former military Generals come forward to voice their opinions about his management style, mostly intimidation, not inteested in team building or taking recommendations. His predictable rejoinder was, "why didn't they speak up when they were in command?". They reply that any questions raised or remarks made were turned aside and point to Gen'l Shineseki, who was simply booted when he spoke up. However, Rumsfeld's boss, the supreme leaker in chief says Rumsfeld is doing a heck of a job and ha wants him to stay despite calls for his resignation. This is typical of Bush to be too vain to accept such advice, in spit of all the evidence to the contrary. He just cannot make good decisions. It is a fatal flaw.

2006-04-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

There was an article in the Christian Science Monitor recently which I felt compelled to write the editor about. It always strikes me as unfortunate that people have their minds made up and then attempt to fit the facts to suit their fantasy.

Letter to Editor March 30, 2006
Re: John Hughes’ article “With patience in ……” Mar. 29, 2006 referred to comparisons between the Iraq war and the Vietnam war as “careless talk”. It indeed is a valid comparison. Both wars were based on trumped up charges. The public was lied to intentionally to gain support for both wars.
Hughes states the “U.S. faced Viet Cong and North Vietnamese military units whereas in Iraq the enemy is comprised of faceless terrorists”. Actually in Iraq the foe is an insurgency against the U.S. occupation and increasing manipulation of the electoral process. The Shiite majority is being forced to accept a disproportionate representation of Sunnis.
Comparison of casualty numbers in Vietnam and Iraq is as dumb and meaningless as comparing Iraq casualties to traffic fatalities. This is purely a Rove “talking point”. Also, attributing attacks on Iraqis by Iraqis for the purpose of gaining T.V. exposure to discourage U.S. citizens is simplistic, as are most of Bush’s assertions. The Iraqis, by their historical nature, are engaged in a civil war because of their religio-ethnic differences. The U.S. cannot impose democracy merely by forcing elections and, so called, government formation.
The Bush Iraq adventure, (gamble), has been, not only poorly planned, it has been mismanaged from the beginning and consequently overly drawn out. All of the problems being faced today were foreseen before the war and summarily dismissed because of ideology and wishful thinking.
The Muslim nations are theocracies, generally under secular dictators. The populace may not like that, nor prosper under such conditions, but until they themselves come to the realization and resolve that only they can bring about change it is futile for the U.S. to assume the responsibility to do it for them.
The list grows daily chronicling Bush administration mismanagement and poor judgment. Unfortunately we can’t just vote “no confidence” and bring about a change.

This , of course never saw print in the paper but I had the fun of getting it off my chest. One of t

2006-03-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

Following the daily news concerning Iraq and seeing the polemics that characterize the comments I'm struck with how complex, and difficult to understand, the whole situation is.
There are new books coming out on a daily basis purporting to tell the REAL story.
The President is currently attacking the media for not telling about the good things that are happening over there. In effect he is saying that the opening of hospitals, schools, and businesses should counter the grim images of bombings and sectarian killings, that many consider civil war.
While the military is preparing for withdrawals in the near future Bush intimates that the next president, or presidents, will probably have to deal with the problem. His apparent strategy for victory is more of the same. His once perceived bold leadership is now looked upon as stubborn stupidity, denial, and incompetance.

Panels of "experts" compare Iraq with Vietnam. The parallels are striking. A flawed premise, a bogus claim of national danger, and a stampeded Congress. Former White House staff chief, Alexander Haig and former White House speech writer, Ted Sorensen related how former Whiz Kid, MacNamara was deluded for many years during and after Vietnam before realizing what a horrible mistake it had been. His book is a mea culpa of the sad saga. General Abrams stated that ten years in Vietnam didn't teach us anything. We repeated the first year's mistakes ten times.

Finally the legislators have put together a blue ribbon committee to review the situation and assess means and methods of exticating ourselves from the current mess. The likelihood of there being any useful policies forthcoming is slim indeed. Yes, that is cynicism. Having been around eighty years one can be excused for that. Sen. Feingold has introduced a motion to censure the President. Another suggestion, likening it to recent business deals, suggests we buy out Bush's contract. If we had a Parlimentary government it is a cinch there would be a "no confidence" vote and we'd get a new set of leaders. The problem there is--where would they come from? Cynicism again!

Hey, the good news is that this winter has been mild enough to allows those of us who don't mind the cold to play golf fairly frequently. Like today was absolutely beautiful. Three birdies and one bogey. Didn't win though. Maybe next time.

2006-03-15T17:24:00.000-08:00

Now the wheels are coming off!!! All the news programs are jumping on the low ratings for the Pres. All sorts of questions and specualation are being entertained. In the Senate, Sen Feingold is submitting a resolution to "censure " the Pres. That is a desperation move by a potential presidential candidate to get his name in the press without "McCain" preceeding it.

The Congress is wrestling with the necessity of, once again, raising the debt limit. It now exceeds 8 Trillion.(?) True, Bush has never vetoed a spending bill, despite wailing continually about getting the debt under control,(his favorite pitch is for more tax cuts for the upper brackets). In the Senate, while many decried "ear marking", which has, over the past number of years, steadily increased, at least one Senator said "It isn't the Pres. that makes the laws, it's the Congress", if we don't have the backbone and common sense to limit spending on pet programs then we have no one to blame but ourselves" Obviously the first law of politics is "get reelected".
One does that most effectively by "bringing home the bacon". So now where does the fault lie? It is in the home districts that reward "bacon bringing" by reelecting. "Tip" O'Neil profoundly stated that all politics is local. That is exactly what he was referring to.

One thing keeping the administration's boat afloat is the burgeoning economy. Despite the out sourcing job losses there is an improvement in the unemploymet figures. Nonetheless real income continues to decline. The gap betwee the "haves" and the "have nots" continues to increase. This is an increasingly bad sign for the country as a whole.

Having been opposed to the administration's policies from the beginning I must admit taking some satisfaction in seeing the failure of those policies. "Second term burnout" is a frequent phrase now used. The administration needs new blood, many say. The rejoinder is --Not. Bush
does not admit mistakes or even shortcomings. He is not likely to bring in someone new to the team. What standing would that person have?. Can anyone imagine Cheney or Rove, not to mention Rumsfeld, letting someone tell them they were wrong? Bush would feel naked and out of his element having his "inate sense" questioned. The whole scenario regarding Iraq, which is the keystone of this administration, is the big gamble to change the world and validate the neo-con premises. Unfortunately the basic premises, the assumptions, were wrong. Sound reasoning was supplanted by wishful thinking. Ideology replaced rationality. Bold objectives shown so brightly that the details were dismissed. disregarded, or argued to be inconsequential.
The latest book to recap the successive mistakes that have accumulated is called "Cobra II".
Written by a jounalist who closely followed the war from inside Iraq, and a retired military officer who recognized the errors that were being made all along. Poor generalmanship, together with poorer Defense Dept. leadership developed into the over all fiasco we see today.

To get off the topic of Bush I want to comment on what has been my life experience. Being born in 1925, my early years were influenced by the recent WW I. As a kid playing we frequently would refer to "how it was done in the Army", as we demonstrated some activity or other. In 1939 I was 15 and just about to enter High School. By the time I was 17 I was thinking about what branch of service to go into. To avoid being drafted I enlisted in the Navy while 17. I spent two and a half years in the Navy. Getting out in '46 I enrolled in college, in 1950 I graduated from college as the Korean "police action" heated up.

I was married in 1955 and even then the Viet Nam situation was brewing. That horrible, unnecessary war consumed the 60s. Then there was Grenada and Haiti spats. Regime changes were engineerd in Iran, Panama, and a number of South American countries. We took a shot at Libya to emphasize our displeasure at bombing airplanes. We supported Saddam in his war with Iran and led him to believe invading Kuwait was OK too. The Gulf War was our way of saying "No". That is not OK, but we still wanted him as a buffer against Iran so we betrayed the Shiites in Iraq who thought they would get help in overturning Saddam. Not! We apparently were in a muddle even then as to what to do about Iraq. Along comes the junior Bush and says,"someone told me that since the 9/11 tradgedy we can now blame Hussein and have an excuse to grab the oil patch. Every effort was then bent to create a war frenzy--"we'd fight them over there so we didn't have to fight them here". As if the guys who engineered the plane hijackings and destruction of the Trade Towers couldn't find a way to get here as well as fight in Iraq. It is a catchy phrase but irrational. Despite millions of dollars and super hype about "Homeland security" we are now more vulnerable than we have ever been. The current bouhaha over Port management is at last bring ing into the open how poor our port security has been and is.
It appears that "Homeland Security" played a large part in the Katrina debacle.
Bush not only formulates lousey policies that have left us practically friendless in the world, he finds ways to select inept people to carry them out.

So now the current crisis is Iran. My fear is that the beleagered Pres will once again pull a pre-empt to wrap himself in the flag and claim he is saving the US from another mushroom cloud.
Can we possibly survive another three years of this mismanagement?

2006-03-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

Well !, as Jack Benny used to say. Things are not going very well in Iraq. How come? Our esteemed President and his trigger happy V. P. have repeatedly assurred us that things are getting better. It seems the insurgency is getting better at what it does certainly. My concern that sectarian rivalry would lead to civil war is coming closer to reality.

The missteps of the administration multiply day by day. Everyone agrees that surrveilance in all regards is essential for intelligence gathering. Why can't Bush do it legally? Why can't his crew handle the Ports management in an open manner? How can a presidency be so inept at governance? It is difficult to know what Condoleeza is doing in the realm of diplomacy. Sending Karen Hughes abroad had disastrous results. Is Rice doing any better? Diplomacy is not this administration's long suit. Their notion of how to deal internationally is to shake the mailed fist under everyone's nose. When cautioned about possible insurgency in Iraq Bush responded-"bring it on". Not very couth. Besides, it seems impossible for Bush to express even the simplest ideas in sentences of more than five words

The Katina debacle is not going away. Just released tapes show Bush being briefed on the possible consequences of flooding and levee failure. His assurance that all possible aid would be available has been tragically proven wrong -- and still is continuing. All levels of government have been shown to be inadequate to the task at hand. The debacle of the stranded trailers in a muddy field, worth $300,000,000, exemplifies the ineptitude of the administraition's functionaries.

Bush has been great at rhetoric and miserable at action. To help slow the growth of the deficit cuts have been made in Veteran's Health Care availability. Cuts have been made in Education, Pell Grants, No child Left Behind Program, Student Loan Guarantees. Medicare and Medicaid Programs are cut. The prescription drug bill has proven mind boggling for most seniors but a bonanza to the pharmacuetical giants. Those greedy gougers inserted provisions in the law preventing "shopping by the government for lower cost drugs".

A recent poll of nearly 1,000 GIs in Iraq indicate 75% want to go home, some right away, some within 6 months, some in

2006-03-01T18:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Editor,

It is not amnesia that Democrats suffer from. They simply have no effective leadership or a program to be lead.
However Marvin Hoovis claims Democrats accuse the administration of "concocted false information to justify going to war with Iraq" which is both "incorrect and inappropriate". The "facts" to be looked at are that both Democrats and Republicans realize that it has been well established, documented and accepted by persons seeking objective information that Bush, Cheney, and Wolfowitz, etc. all lied, stretched the truth, and/or misinformed.

Back in the 70s Wolfowitz was advocating pre-emption of the oil patch to prevent the Russians from getting it. 9/11 was pounced upon as a reason to not only crush Bin Laden in Afghanistan but to mislead the country into thinking Saddam was in cahoots with him and a real threat to our well being. In fact Saddam and Iraq was in terrible shape.and, being a secular state, was threatened by Bin Laden also.

The entire article is a Karl Rove scenario of "talking points" that have been amplified by Rush Limbaugh, et al to keep the "base" mollified. the Bush lovers also get their spin on events from the Fox News. It is interesting to watch and listen to that crew talk each other into condoning the ruinous policies of the present administration.

Thus we are stuck with both major political parties in trouble. One leaderless and the other mislead.

Don B

2006-02-15T17:28:00.000-08:00

This is the fourth time I am doing this page. Previously I'd try to edit it and it would disappear. That's OK, I'm just sounding off. It doen't impact the course of events.
My taxes are done and mailed in. Now I'm happily anticipating the refunds. I'm required to have a certain amount withheld each month despite the demonstrated fact that I don't owe that much in taxes. As a contribution to the profligate present administration I accept the fact I'm forced to lend them the money temporarily. That puts me in the same category as the Republic of China. We both finance the debt that knows no limit.
At times like these it would be helpful to have the opportunity, as the British have, to cast a "no confidence vote" on the performance of Bush and his cronies and form a new (better) government.
Hardly a day goes by that some new foul-up isn't uncovered. The rare expertise this administration exhibits is the way it spins the essential questions thus avoiding, in their estimation, the need to reevaluate their policies.
The canned answer to the WMD reason for the Iraq war is- "everybody believed they had them". That avoids the fact that the decision to invade Iraq was made long before 9/11. The 9/11 catastrophe gave them perfect cover, if not legitimacy, to scare the shell shocked Congress into granting war time powers to the President. Now those "powers" are extrapolated into blank check privilege to circumvent any law that is inconvenient to their purposes.
Abuse of surrveilance by the NSA has not publicly been demonstrated so far but the fact that abuse has been a fact in the past is reason enough to challenge the lack of limits on the Presidency. Ultimately it may have to be determined by the Supreme Court. Now with the politics of the court altered to the right, that presents another iffy proposition.
On C-SPAN a Republican legislator claimed all sorts of "progress" in Iraq's infrastructure. This in spite of the fact that Rumsfeld gave the excuse for the failure of the infrastrucure on the fact that the troops were not trained to set up governments nor capable of monitoring all the key aspects of electricity generation , water availability, nor sewer lines. Some contradiction there.
To listen to the legislator one got the impression that Bagdad was a mecca of routine commerce and

2006-01-17T14:40:00.000-08:00

It was stated earlier that I was interested in finding an objective analysis of the Iraq debacle and was led to George Packer's book-- "The Assassin's Gate". It proved to be a fine book, and as with all human endeavors had the author's imprint. Most of the book sounded convincing to me and I have every reason to believe it is essentially true. Paul Bremer, Bush's replacement for Jay Garner, the first American civilian Iraq Administrator, has written a book about his year in Iraq and apparently disputed some of Packer's comments as untrue. Then on the Tim Russert Show, when closely questioned about some disputed statments, brought out that he had privately held one view but publicly stated another. I'd hate to have everything I've said or done held up to public scrutiny so I can sympathize with Bremer. Nonetheless he has been given much criticism for his handling of his administration of Iraq. First I'd like to review Packer's book and then comment on things in general.

Book Review

Title: The Assassin’s Gate

Author: George Packer

The author is both tough-minded yet sufficiently sensitive to register all the complexities of the Iraqi debate. He is a chronicler and an intelligent guide. So says Christopher Hitchens on the book jacket.

What is generally lost in the “soundbite” type of reporting and the polemics that pass for discussion is the story of what the Iraqis have endured and are enduring. Here is where Packard excels.

The author has his own opinions and clearly states them but does not allow them to suppress nor exaggerate the conditions as he sees them. He welcomes the demise of Saddam but questions the wisdom of the war.

Packer was an up close witness to the prewar debates as well as the war’s carnage. He cuts past the simplistic recriminations and sets forth an objective analysis and commentary of the causes of the war, it’s ineptness at preventing chaos, the divisive nature of the tribal and religious factions in Iraq, and the cost in life and treasure on both sides.

There were key elements that occurred prior to the war that Packer learned from his contacts. Richard Haas, director of policy planning -- State Department, relates he became aware of more and more “bureaucratic chatter“. When he met was Condoleeza Rice on key foreign policy issues, the discussion on Iraq was cut short when he began to state the State Department’s misgivings about a war . “Save your breath” Rice interrupted. “The president has already made up his mind“. There was no weighing of pros and cons “the decision was not made -- it happened -- you can’t say when “.

One document written by Philip Zelikow, ,( instead of Richard Haas of the State Department),at C. Rice's request, a University of Virginia professor, contained a short eloquent statement of principles and a new passage on preemptive war. This was immediately taken as the justification for war with Iraq. The new Bush doctrine. This was a combination of Bush Sr.s realism and the neo-con’s idealism. An internationalism combining our values and national interests with the protection of peace by preempting threats to peace. In doing so we would, if possible, use a coalition of the willing or, if need be, go it alone.

Another important figure was Andrew Erdmann, an academic who wrote a Ph.D. thesis at Harvard. Haas had taught with Erdman’s adviser plus Erdmann's name was passed along by Paul Zelikow. Haas asked him to write a memo on postwar reconstruction. He applied the ideas of his dissertation to a series of case studies from two world wars through recent conflicts such as Bosnia and Kosovo.

Meanwhile at the Pentagon a new unit, Office of Special Plans was overseen by Douglas Fieth, Pentagon undersecretary for policy. Fieth, out of government for 20 years had been fired by Reagan’s national security adviser William Clark but then was brought to the Pentagon by Richard Pearle. These activities and writings were devoted to bolstering the hard-line policies of the Likud party. Fieth was a card-carrying Likud member, according to Packer.

“Special Plans” was an idea of Wolfowitz and goes back to 1976 when he advised the CIA and was more alarmist about the Soviets than the intelligence agencies. The operation was led by David Wurmser and F. Michael Maloof, who worked for Pearle under Reagan and the Defense Department. Wurmser collected raw data largely from defectors in the Iraqi National Congress (an exile group) in order to prove the assumption of Saddam’s ties to Al Qaeda and the likelihood he’d hand off W. M.D. to terrorists. Their job was to prove the assumptions with “found facts“.

In the eyes of the Pentagon civilians the intelligence agencies were held in very low esteem. A new method was to be used starting with the higher insights of political philosophy rather than evidence from the fallen world of social science.

It is interesting to follow the activities and functions of many of these individuals. Wurmser ended up in Cheney’s office. Maloof had his clearance revoked but his work wound up as bullet points in policy papers from Special Plans and piped to the White House directly by Luti and Schulsky (Fieth’s buddies). The vice president’s office was allied with the neo-cons through Scooter Libby and Rice’s national security director for the Middle East, Elliot Abrams.

In this fashion the intelligence gathering and its utilization occurred. Apparently general debate was avoided in which unwanted objections might contravene the foregone decisions.

Luti, a former navy captain, a Newt Gingrich aid and Cheney adviser, was a strong supporter of war with Iraq. Because Zinni, the former head of Central Command and Bush’s envoy to the Middle East expressed doubt about an Iraq war Anthony Luti, in conversation, called Zinni a traitor.

Packer ties several other scholars and experts on the Middle East together with the Iraqi National Congress. This group theorized about means for changing the complexion of the Middle East. Ahmad Chilabi was a leading figure in this group and the darling of the Pentagon and the CIA until he fell out of favor.

Troop strength, as suggested by a Marine major at the National Security Council, based on experience in Kosovo, was 500,000 to secure Iraq. State and Defense were at odds over every issue of the postwar period. Richard Haas of State cited failure on Rice’s part as the National Security Adviser. Instead of helping to reconcile the differences between State and Defense, and introduce arguments that deserved consideration, Rice proved more skillful at seconding the president than obliging him to consider a range of ideas and resolving them in a coherent manner.

All through the lead up to the war ideas or evidences contrary to the progression to war was effectively ignored. The avowed antipathy for “nation building” during the election campaign was unceremoniously dumped as plans progressed for “regime change“.

The Pentagon and Oval Office proved bulletproof against concerted opinions of a wide range of advisory agencies that agreed that security and reconstruction of postwar Iraq required large numbers of troops as well as international cooperation.

The expectations that the White House and Department of Defense, Rumsfeld, held were largely wishful thinking based on their own theoretical concepts and the misinformation given by the exile groups. The war was to be short (“shock and awe“) and the Armed Forces welcomed as liberators with the withdrawal of the forces in quick succession. “Mission accomplished”. All caveats and cautionary notions were simply dismissed.

I’m curious about the author’s ability to quote Oval Office conversations. Is he a mouse in the woodwork,?. I assume he is quoting persons present.

Please read “ The Assassins Gate” because it contains much detail regarding the people involved and gives nuances I’m too impatient to put down here.

2006-01-15T19:01:00.000-08:00

Ageless Project on Blogger Buzz -

This is a great idea to allow us seniors to express opinions and tell of some of our experiences. It is in a way a "vanity press" and gives us the satisfaction of seeing our words in print.
The daily news frequently prompted me to write to the "editor" but I became discouraged at the lack of interest manifested.
Now I find satisfaction in laboring over my blog to my heart's content.
If anyone cares to read my blog the name is;swampslogger
That name refers to my experience on a Search and Rescue Team as well as my current obsession with the Iraq war.

2005-12-30T14:26:00.000-08:00

Christmas is past, today is my 80th birthday, then new year is fast approaching. I'm reminded of an old movie short titled-"The March of Time". Back then time seemed to march very slowly, nowadays it goes by in a blur of speed. Today time is overfilled with events and the confusion of profusion.

For Christmas I received a book titled-"Assassin's Gate", by George Packer. I looked forward to reading this book and it has proved to be all that I had hoped for. The author has written an objective, non-polemic, background of the Iraq war. What I've read so far has been very enlightening regarding the many players that have had a part in developing the current scenario. Packer says that the '30s leftists who were concerned with the world class-stuggle later turned realist and then when the Cold War was over and the U.S. was the uncontested super power decided that they could accomplish their modified aims through the projection of military power- they are today's neo-cons.

The Iraqis in exile were urging a variety of initiatives. Wolfowitz had already made known his idea to preempt the Middle East to protect our oil interests. Enter David Perle, Kanan Makiya, and Ahmad Chilabi. These people, Makiya and Chilabi were the Iraqis, insinuated themselves into the policy making programs at the time. Chilabi was the most overtly aggressive suggesting that he would lead an insurgency against Saddam by enlisting the Shiites and Kurds provided he was backed up by U.S. military assistance and cash.

The Iraqis were urged to rebel but Cheney, Secretary of Defense, under Bush l, quashed the use of U.S. troops to support them stating that "we don't have a dog in the fight and shouldn't get into that quagmire." After the Gulf War, for whatever reason, Saddam was allowed to use helicopters. He used them to bomb and strafe the Shiites and Kurds unmercifully. This went on
until the "no fly" zones were imposed in North and South Iraq. Chilabi stayed safely in Washington, D.C. He is now a major player in the new Iraqi government as Oil Minister.

Now it is taking three years to train Iraqi soldiers sufficiently to protect Iraqi citizens. The Bremer lead provisional government scorned the use of the defeated Iraqi Army to maintain order and allowed chaos to run rampant. The remaining infrastructure was allowed to be destroyed also completely devastating an already severely depleted land.

The positive aspect of the Iraq War is the grandious notion that only through mlitary might can the snake pit of totalitarian governments in the Middle East be reformulated in the democratic mode and thus provide a stable, viable, environment for the Arabic populace. This is a noble motive and the goal could possibly be achieved by a more adroit, coalition building, U.N. led consortium involving most major countries of the world. Obviously the current, in your face, my way or the highway, you are either for us or against us, non-diplomatic, policy is counterproductive.

2005-12-20T10:38:00.000-08:00

Now we know the Shiites will form a coalition with the Kurds. That will set the tone for the constitution formulation. If the Sunnis feel they are getting a bum deal they will make things tough. As Sens. Joe Biden and Linsey Graham have said, "the next six months will tell the story".They urge the Administration to exert heavy influence on the deliberators to come up with an equitable formula for sharing the wealth among all factions.

Back here at home the legislators are hurrying to adjourn for the holidays. In a deft manuever Sen. Stevens of AL attached an amendment, to drill in the ANWR, to the Defence Appropriations bill. Hopefully the Senate will reject it as it has in the past. Here is one of those controversial items that stirs up much debate. One "know it all" commentator, George Will chooses to demean the environmentalists for opposing this measure. Via his own contorted logic he equates environmentalism with "collectivism" which he then extrapolates to "communism". Such stupidity marks a lot of the, so called, discussion of current matters. I am much concerned about our environment. If there were no governmental oversight, as lax as it is, our water would be as bad as it is in Russia or China. The same for air pollution. These people who decry "regulation" would be the first to complain if their quality of life were affected. Not controlling pollution is simply "fouling our nest". Duh!
The President has again acted the cowboy, disregarding laws because he is the Commander in Chief and is above the law of mere mortals. His excuse is that he needs speed to react to the terrorists. The laws that exist allow him just that as long as he gets the necessary authorization within 72 hours. He doesn't want to do that. He's too busy defending the nation. Duh!!!!

2005-12-15T08:55:00.000-08:00

It appears things are coming to a head in Iraq. At least there is an election. Much hope is riding on the event. My feeling is that Bush, as he has in the past, is engaging in wishful thinking in projecting a rosy outcome for the Middle East. That is greatly to be desired by us all., of course. We want resolution to this vexing problem. It remains to be seen what effect the election, with Sunni participation, will have on the insurgency.
The problematical fact is, however, that the various factions will find it difficult to reach a satisfactory compromise on the devisive elements. We see the ill effects of partisan politics here in our country and we've been at it now two hundred years. Tribal and religious affiliations have a far greater influence in Iraq than what divided our Founding Fathers. Then there is the recent history of domination of the majority Shiites by the minority Sunnis and the dual problem of revenge coupled with desire for restoration to power. A volitile mix in a terribly unstable country.
Bit by bit Bush is acknowledging the fallacy of his reasons for pre-emptive war but insists we are better off now than we were. This rationale itself is fallacious. Saddam was never a credible threat to the U.S. Iraq was a hollow shell of a country. Saddam spent his fortunes on his palaces and let the country go to hell. Obviously he stockpiled tremendous caches of armaments, which likely, we sold him. But his feeble attempts to acquire a nuclear capability was more for show and bluster than any serious intent to attack the U.S. It would be akin to a mouse attacking a German Shepard. Being a secular dictator, Saddam was more a target of binLaden than a co-conspiritor.
The real reasons behind Bush's rabid rush to war will eventually come out and we will all be surprised, to some degree, by what motivated it. There are many people who conjecture about it but a lot of them are pushing an agenda of their own liking, not necessarily being objective. Our elections next year will be a referendom on the war to a large degree and we'll see what people think about it.

The current flap about torture is so typical of this administration. They talk out of both sides of their mouths. "We have laws against torture but we want to be able to resort to it if, in our judgment it is neccesary". This in the face of the Senate and House voting overwhelmingly to pass McCain's amendment.

2005-12-02T19:40:00.000-08:00

This is another point that I feel is important to make. Very little coverage is given to it in the press.

Stumbling block to Middle East peace.

In January 1970 there was a best seller book titled: “The Late Great Planet Earth“, by Hal Lindsey. This book laid out a scenario for the end of the world according to a literal interpretation of Bible prophecies.

There have been many doomsday books and many predictions of when the Earth will be transformed in some cataclysmic manner. Some are nonreligious but a large number of them are based on biblical prophecy. What seems to have escaped much attention (at least by the press) is a movement, springing primarily from Hal Lindsey’s book, called the Christian Zionists.

Zionism, by a definition in the Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide, is “a movement were the reestablishment and development of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel”.

The Christian Zionists and associated evangelical Christians, mostly in the U.S., but also from others around the world, over the past two decades, have poured millions of dollars in donations into Israel and formed a tight alliance with the Likud and other Israeli politicians seeking an expanded “Greater Israel”.

That sort of “reaching out” would be eminently commendable were it not for the motivation behind It. The rationale behind this movement is the literal interpretation of the “end of days” prophecy. The Christian Zionists are acting on the belief that the modern State of Israel is the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham, the second coming of Christ and the final battle of Armageddon, when the Antichrist will be defeated.

What the Christian Zionists are doing is positioning themselves. They want to be on the right side when the time comes. In order to ensure that they have this advantage they have been “pressuring the U.S. government away from peace negotiations and toward an annexationist policy that has a direct negative impact on the potential for change in the Middle East”, says Gershon Greenberg, a senior editor at the Jerusalem Report newsmagazine.

Not all Christians in the holy land agree with the Christian Zionists. They say that “Christian Zionism transforms faith into a political ideology and one that needs an enemy” says Rev. Rafik Khoury of the Catholic Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem.

It is the political activism of the Christian Zionist movement that bothers me, and I’m certain will bother others if they are made aware of it. Certainly people are entitled to their religious beliefs and undoubtedly those beliefs influenced their political choices. Where the dirt hits the fan is when the religious beliefs become fanaticism and allow no compromise.

Fortunately concern is growing, including that of some Evangelicals, about the ultimate serious, even disastrous, consequences attendant upon the Christian Zionist’s influence on U.S. and Israeli policy.

This current Republican administration is rife with adherents to the Christian Zionists cause. Ralph Reed, an ardent religious rightist, and Republican Party strategist, has formed “Stand for Israel”, a project to build grass-roots advocacy for Israel among U.S. Christians. Christians Israeli Public Action Committee (CIPAC) lobbies Congress to oppose any limitation on Israel’s action. This group effectively blocked President Bush’s peace proposal, “the roadmap”. We have heard very little about that. This in spite of the fact that many consider the Israeli - Palestinian problem a key to settling much of the Middle East unrest.

Tom DeLay the House majority leader, is quoted as “seeing no occupied territory, I see Israel”. Former Rep. Dick Armey, ( R ) of Texas, proclaimed his support for “transporting the Palestinians to other countries”.

Some point to a coalition that is tilting the Bush administration toward Israeli supremacy. The neo-conservatives, the Jewish lobby, and the Christian Zionists, who provide the grass-roots political punch as a prime Bush constituency.

There is a group of 15 Christian denominations in Jerusalem, from Greek Orthodox to Quakers, that formed an ecumenical movement called Sabeel (“the Way”, in Arabic) which works to counter extremism on both sides. Sabeel held a conference called “Challenging Christian Zionism”. Some 500 Christians from 31 countries came to Jerusalem to discuss ways to check the growing influence of Christian Zionism.

Jews also are concerned, and they should be. Ironically the ultimate goal of the Christian Zionists is the conversion of Jews to Christianity.

While our media is commandeered by the momentous matters of the Peterson, Martha Stewart, Kobe Bryant, trials there are significant issues not being brought to the public’s attention. I feel the Christian Zionist movement demands to be aired much more publicly. Something that has so much political influence and, to my way of thinking, is so negative and obstructionist to a just peace for Israel and Palestine, deserves to be more generally discussed.

Footnote: The material for this piece is primarily from an article in the Christian Science Monitor of July 7, 2004. It was also aired earlier on the Bill Moyer program on PBS .

2005-12-02T18:16:00.000-08:00

I finally got the procedure right to post a photo. It may not be confusing to others but I am eminently confusable.
Expanding on previous comments it is satisfying to see mentioned more frequently recently that the initial impetous for our going into Iraq was OIL. Since we are seriously addicted to oil and have been on a binge (Detroit is finally choking on the SUV glut) of over consuming our share of the world's energy supply it is understandable that oil is considered a "national interest". Apparently we are aware of that, and also ashamed of it, because Bush never admitted that it was the prime rationale for the war. To honestly state that the Middle East was in danger of being confiscated by some power not of our liking and therefore we must act preemptively to protect our national interest was beyond the imagination of the mental midgets of this administration. 9/11 was the fortuitous occasion to grab the flag and rally the nation to a bogus threat of immanent disaster and mushroom clouds if we did not defang Hussein.

Token gestures were made to the obviously dysfunctioal United Nations. This den of thieves was heavily in cahoots with Hussein over the oil for food program. The administration was aware of it but didn't make a fuss because too many of our own people were in the game also.
The French and Germans were equally culpable plus more interested in protecting their contracts and assets than going along with Bush's reckless regime change scheme. There was nothing in it for them.

Here we are today, the flag tarnished, the subterfuge revealed,billions upon billions squandered, and 2100+ brave souls lost as well as untold thousands mutilated by wounds. The havoc and mayhem perpetrated on the Iraqis will probably never be accounted for. In less than two weeks the Iraqis will vote on a government. Bush will tout this as a major accomplishment. What happens next is not a positive prognosis. The likelyhood of civil war is great. The involvement of neighboring counties is a real possibility. Where that leads is difficult to imagine. The net result of all this is far from the optimistic picture painted three years ago. Iraq is far from a democratic beacon, more like the vortex of a severely unsettled Middle East.

Meanwhile back in our own baliwick we have daily headlines of graft, corruption, duplicity, and ever widening scandals concerning politicians. Washington has always been thus. It goes back to the earliest Congresses. The only explanation is that it must be human nature. The founding father were well aware of that fact and it is to their credit that they devised a system that functions in spite of it. More or less. Winston Churchill is credited with saying-"You can count on the Americans to do the right thing-- after they have tried everything else".

2005-12-02T18:13:00.000-08:00

On a lofty peak

2005-12-02T18:06:00.000-08:00

2005-12-01T21:44:00.000-08:00

2005-12-01T21:23:00.000-08:00

On another blog I found a link to the talk given by Col. Lawrence Wilkerson.
I was able to print out the transcript (26 pages) and found it extremely interesting.
The Col. served as Asst.Sec'y of State under Colin Powell for four years. That means he had the inside track on what was happpening during that time. His candid remarks and answers to questions pretty much confirmed my own conclusions about how things are done in the Bush administration. Very narrow input of ideas and very uninformed as to reality. Mostly wishful thinking.
Also he answered my question about an objective book covering the Iraq war. It is by George Packer, titled "Assassin's Gate". I hope to read it soon. I'll let you know how I viewed it.

2005-11-30T08:44:00.000-08:00

In my previous blog I inserted a book report on the "Rise Of The Vulcans". I feel that this gives a good description of where the key players in Bush's administration have come from. Another book that I found interesting was called "Bush's Brain". This book may have a hidden agenda but I think it is true in many respects.

During the 2002 presidential primaries Karl Rove & Company did a real smear job on John McCain. In spite of that, once Bush was elected McCain threw his support behind Bush. Although it is obvious that he disagrees with many of Bush's policies McCain has remained a true Republican and a good soldier and makes positive statements about Bush's policies. Although this is perplexing it seems apparent that McCain has presidential aspirations in 2008. His strategy appears to include not alienating the large corporate element that has supported Bush from his own support.

It is interesting to speculate who might run with McCain in the next presidential election. It would be my preference if Colin Powell were to accept that position. Condolesa Rice is another possibility, but not one of my choice. In the meantime we are going through the debate about defining an endpoint for the mess in Iraq. Obviously an abrupt withdrawal and subsequent Civil War is not a good scenario. So far the debate has been polarized and no feasible plan put forth. The important thing right now is that the current strategy for the war is being questioned. Hopefully putting light on the subject will bring forth a more coherent plan.

Since much of the discussion that occurs today goes back to whether or not the war was justified. It continues to bring out some of the old saws as such as weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons, tie to Al Qaeda, the promotion of terrorism throughout the world etc. etc. I think that the subject of weapons of mass destruction is very weak in the sense that considering the decrepit nature of the Hussein regime it is highly unlikely that any sophisticated nuclear device would be forthcoming. Secondly even if weapons of a nuclear type were to be developed there was no feasible way that it could be delivered outside of Iraq. Iraq has no Air Force capable of delivering something like that. So to me that is a very weak argument. The subject of chemical weapons development appears to have been based on very questionable information from a source dubbed "Curveball". The German intelligence agency is on record as disclaiming any credibility for this source citing he was an unstable personality and they put little or no credence in what he had to say. Nonetheless the Bush administration's need for information that bolstered their purposes exploited it, much to the embarrassment of Colin Powell.

One of the things that is becoming very obvious in discussions regarding postwar planning is that the Bush administration has little or no understanding of the nature of the people of the Middle East. again misinformation was apparently supplied that indicated the Iraqi people would greet an American invasion with rose petals and parades. That proved also to be entirely faults. Even today conflicting polls indicate the Iraqi people, in general, would like the Americans to leave. Some however, say that is not the case and that the Iraqi people want the Americans to stay to maintain the so-called peace. Obviously there is no peace and although many people say let's mention the progress that has been made instead of concentrating on the mayhem that is being committed daily and we'll get a better picture of what's going on there. Much hope is being placed on the tentative steps being taken to form an Iraqi government. It is very problematical that any hastily conceived Iraqi government will be able to establish the law and order that is necessary to bring peace to that area. Obviously the Sunni element which had enjoyed favorable treatment under Hussein is not going to capitulate easily. If in some manner an arrangement is made that satisfies the Sunni's so much the better, how likely that is to happen is yet to be seen.

In attempting to get a clear picture of what might be close to the reality of the situation I find the talking heads, the expert panel's, the various commentaries, all seemed to be attempts to spin the topical bits of information to bolster a point of view. I'd delight to find a book by an objective, knowledgeable, readable author that might lend credible insight to this mess of a situation. If anyone has suggestions I'd appreciate them.

2005-11-22T12:41:00.000-08:00

Book Review submitted to library.

Title: Rise of The Vulcans

Author: James Mann

Who are the Vulcans? They are an inner circle of advisers to G. W. Bush who, over decades in some cases, have a long shared experience in government dating back to Nixon, Ford, Reagan and the first Bush administration.

Because they have been working together in a variety of governmental positions, both high and low, for so long a time, they adopted the name of “Vulcans“, after the Roman god of fire, the forge and metalwork. Donald Rumsfeld’s careers started as a congressional representatives from his home state of Illinois. He brought in a protégé, Richard Cheney. Colin Powell’s start was in the ROTC in college and he rose through the Army’s ranked quickly. Richard Armitage also started with the military at Annapolis and distinguished himself during three tours of duty in Vietnam. Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleeza Rice were academics whose interests and expertise brought them to the attention of governmental and political leaders.

The book “Rise Of The Vulcans” gives a very good account of the backgrounds of these people. Their interest in government, their egos, and their abilities are demonstrated. This book is well documented with footnotes and attributions.

From Cold War detente under Kissinger in the ‘70s to the present posture of “preemptive war” under Bush is a fascinating saga. The current administration’s adventure is problematic. The unilateralist reliance on superpower military might is a departure from previous administrations. The book describes how these attitudinal change came about. I felt that a glaring omission was the large part played by Carl Rove, as the political adviser, and Bush’s heavy reliance on Karen Hughes, in his decision-making.

For a controversially elected President, with no strong mandate, a promise of “compassionate conservatism”, and “NO nation building“, Bush has taken the country into dangerous and expensive territory. How the current tumultuous situation plays out is yet to be seen.

2005-11-21T20:03:00.000-08:00

Contempletive

2005-11-20T20:45:00.000-08:00

I'm new to the blogger scene but would like to participate. There are many things going on these days that I have strong opinions about. I wish to get them out and responded to. I have no delusions about my being omniscient or that the basis for my opinions are from totally unbiased sources. It is very difficult to know nowadays. I try to determine the validity of information and test it by what I call "the ring of truth".

The issues of the day are discussed or commented on by "spin" specialists. They seldom have the "ring of truth".
Partisan "talking points" come across like so many parrots squaking. In this category I place "entertainers" Rush Limbaugh and G.Gordon Liddy. Sean Hannity also has the typical razzmatazz music and gravely sounding side voices that can be extremely rude and uncouth.

For years I have decried the damage caused by the liberal influence in our schools, laws, churches, and media.
I consider myself a conservative and have voted Republican most of the time until the Bushes came along.
The candidacy of John McCain gave me hope but his star was shot down by the dirty tricks of Karl Rove. It appeared to me that the "big money interests" had decided George W. Bush would be a good front man for their purposes and subsequently backed him strongly. The manner in which he was injected (not really elected) into the Presidency was not a proud moment in our history. Since Bush has been head of the administration, with his reliance on V.P. Richard Cheney, he has assembled a group of syncophants who he loyally backs, and gives medal to regardless of the quality of their services. The hopes of the big money interests have not been misplaced. Their bet has paid off handsomely.

Now I decry the damage done by this administration. Very important, for me, is the degradation of the environment. The changes in laws, the disregard for existing laws, the skirting of laws by executive order, are all done in the name of "helping the economy". That translates into relaxing pollution regulations because requiring adherence to the stipulated standards would weaken the bottom line of the polluters. No consideration is given the deleterious effects on peoples health or the environmental impact.

The secretive nature of policy decisions is abhorent to our democratic process. The energy plan (and its secret planning) was anathema to the needs of the country at this time. My understanding is that "conservation" was a bad word. Cheney made the classic remark, widely repeated, that"conservation may be a personal virtue but has no place in an energy policy". Today they are eating those totally idiotic words.

The tax giveaways and the continuing effort to make them permanent when the deficit is skyrocking in the face of natural catastrophies and war debts is unconscionable. Add to that the totally irresponsible inclusion of billions of pork in the budget and we have a picture of dysfunctional government and legislation.

Of course the total mindlessness of the Iraq war is a puzzle to me. How the country got suckered into it is
the lingering question of doctored intelligence. This will eventually be sorted out I hope. The spinelessness of our elected representatives in allowing themselves to be stampeded into granting war powers to the President is finally being brought into focus. At long last some have found the backbone to speak out.

Well, that should suffice for an introduction. If anyone reads this and wishes to comment pro or con I will welcome the opportunity to discuss things in a gentlemanly manner.