Ferguson

Hope is a four-letter word
Make that money, watch it burn 
--Counting Stars, One Republic 

I the Lord your God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children
to the third and the fourth generation
of those who hate me
--Exodus 20:5 

For there is but one essential justice
which cements society, and one law
which establishes this justice.
This law is right reason, which is the true rule
of all commandments and prohibitions. 
--Cicero
 _______________________

America's distraction du jour is the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The Grand Jury decided not to indict, as the officer did not shoot Brown in a premeditated act.

Life is supposed to be sacred, and anything with a whiff of heresy in contravention of that belief makes us feel uneasy, at best. Yet what did we feel when our President ordered a very premeditated drone strike which killed a 16-year-old American teen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki in Yemen?

After the targeted kill, former Obama Secretary Robert Gibbs stated that the boy's father was to blame for the young man's murder ("should have [had] a far more responsible father.") Where is the responsibility in the face of that convoluted, biblical argument?

Is death by drone a Presidential prerogative not subject to court oversight, and is a police shooting something different? Dead is dead, right? Further, how many children have been killed as collateral damage to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Do we weep equally for them?

When a cop kills, he may be subject to a Grand Jury investigation. The President is the same fallible man -- why is he not held to the same legal standards?

Murder, Inc.

Well I'm hot blooded, check it and see
I got a fever of a hundred and three
Come on baby, do you do more than dance?
I'm hot blooded, I'm hot blooded
--Hot Blooded, Foreigner

--Why'd you do it? Why did you kill him?
--He had bad breath
--Murder, Inc. (1960)

When Smith attacked Mr. Clutter
he was under a mental eclipse,
deep inside a schizophrenic darkness
--In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
________________

["Murder, Inc." is a re-post of a 9 April 2011 entry.]

February 1, 1968, B. G. Loan, Chief of the Vietnamese National Police, executed what was a guerrilla, Vietcong soldier or terrorist (take your pick, as this designation is irrelevant to this discussion.) Whichever, the recipient of General Loan's attention was shot dead on a Saigon street corner.

This was called field adjudication at the time, and in a perverse way this shooting was understandable and strangely appropriate. The killing was done in hot blood during a period of extensive combat.

However, this photo was a galvanizing moment which enabled the U.S. to pivot against the war. From 1 Feb 68, there was not a chance for the U.S. to win the war in Vietnam. Even though the execution was explained as a consequence of guerrilla activity and war crimes and due to a pervading wartime mentality -- despite any possibly legitimization of the act -- the pure violence was a turn-off to the American public.

The stark reality of the brutality was the final straw which broke the American voter's backs. That one death symbolized the futility of the shooting match in a black-and-white manner, in a way that no amount of debate could achieve. Gen. Loan's photographed action was the beginning of the end.

That was 43 years ago, and now we allow a U.S. president to issue a death warrant without anyone blinking an eye. In 1968 the U.S. public recoiled from the sight of a naked street-corner execution; in 2011, we exult at a presidentially-ordered murder of a thug in cold blood, no better or worse than a VC member on some Saigon street corner.

Why the recoil then, the approval now? The only difference is that Loan had the stones to pull the trigger himself in broad daylight. Why do we glorify a once and future president when both are akin to cold-blooded killers, something we once found so repugnant in the not-so-distant past?

Are we so disconnected from our national policies that we accept this violence in passing as business-as-usual? What does it mean to be an American today vis-a-vis war and assassination?

The lesson from Loan's/Obama's assassination is that any government with a tenuous hold on a situation will resort to desperate acts. Though the South Vietnamese restored short-term order via brutal tactics, NOTE: Saigon no longer exists.

When regimes execute people on street corners the end in nigh. Gang-style executions are symptomatic of bankrupt policies. If the U.S. was being successful, it would not have to resort to such activities.

Perspectival View

--Obama Squared

______________________

Everything is relative (fr. Lew Rockwell).

Kissin' Cousins

The only one who could ever reach me
was the son of a preacher man
Oh yes he was 
--The Son of a Preacher Man,
Dusty Springfield 

 They are not "job creators" as Mitt Romney tells us.

They've been waiting for economy to die

so they can make billions - billions - on scams,

flim-flams and political, military muscling

--fr. Vultures' Picnic interview 

Aw shucks, it ain't nothing but possum tails,

owl gizzards, and grits fried in bear grease.

And then that there gravy --

that's just goat's milk with vulture eggs

and mashed catfish eyes   

--Kissin' Cousins (1964)

___________________

Some commentary spurred by the two bumper stickers in the Helen shop -- "WWRD: What Would Reagan Do?" and "Support Your Local Militia". 

Y'all folks on the more enlightened coast might not understand the obdurate nature of many Southeasterner's ignorance. (We understand that this stalwart conviction bleeds across the Midwest, too.)  While it is heartening that only 38% of respondents in a recent Gallup poll gave Romney's RNC speech positive marks, Americans are still impressible to manufactured emotions which define the unbridgeable chasms of modern politics.

Who cares what Reagan would do?  One thing is certain: Reagan would not be parading his issue across the stage like the good Republicans today preaching their family values.  Nope -- ballet dancer Ron Jr. and perennial malcontent Maureen would not have provided cozy bookends to that icon of the right.

We are such fools to devour the images which we believe define us and will make us safe.  We see Reagan on a screen, larger than life, and remember his presentation, forgetting the actuality of his term.  We see Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry or Josey Wales character and feel better. We see George W. Bush's or Reagan's ten gallon hat and feel secure; somehow, the bogeymen will not get us.

But what we refuse to see is that the bogeyman is already here, intertwined with every facet of our lives.  However you define the bad man, hovering in a convention hall among your fellows in silly hats will not save you.  Crying for less government will not extricate you.

Symbols and their real world referents have lost their connection.  Reagan and Eastwood represent Hollywood, which represents the distortion of truth and manufactured emotion.  Hollywood can only provide us real men before whom we suspend our disbelief.

Ann Romney's speech served the same function of delivering an image of ourselves of which we are not  actually a part.  She tried to feel our pain, but with her own personal Swiss bank account of $3 Million, we again see another disconnect between words and actuality, symbol and referent.

Surely the government has usurped powers and functions not intended by the Founding Fathers, but can or would we change that fact?  Does any man who aspires to be President actually intend to dilute the power to which he so desperately aspires?

While her husband Mitt has surely been a successful venture capitalist, how will his personal success translate to  into a benefit for the average American should he be elected?

This year, the choice is clear.  We can either elect a venture capitalist vulture, or award a second term to President Obama, a man who bailed out failed venture capitalists.  The center -- which defines America as we know it -- is gone.

It's a Hobson's Choice.

Notorious B. H. O.

I know. You know I know. 
I know you know I know. 
We know Henry knows,  
and Henry knows we know it
--The Lion in Winter (1968)

My grandma had a picture of J.F.K.
above the kitchen table.
Now I like Tupac, but the day ain't gonna come
when your grandma looks at a picture of Tupac and says,
"That Tupac was a great man"
--Chris Rock, SNL

I see you walkin' on your beat
Searchin' strangers on the street
Especially the whores you meet
It's a shame such a disgrace
--Mr. Policeman, Rick James
__________________

Ranger Question of the Day:
How do U.S. presidentially-mandated kills in Yemen
differ from those called by President al-Assad in Syria?
_________________

Biggie Smalls is no longer with us; how unfortunate. The new gangster culture idolizes members like Biggie, 50 cent and Tupac because they stopped a few 9 m/m rounds. Enter the latest gansgta whom we will call, Notorious B.H.O.

B.H.O. does flybys from Hellfire missiles, as opposed to pimped out slabs. However, unlike the new gangstas, B.H.O. subcontracts his bitchfags out to the poor white and Latino boys, and we idolize him for it. This is presumably B.H.O.'s idea of "nearsourcing".

Nobel Prize winner, assassin -- our President can claim some diverse company.

I Want You to Pay

When knowledge is limited - it leads to folly...
When knowledge exceeds a certain limit,
it leads to exploitation
--Abu Bakr
___________________

The WaPo today has an interesting triumvirate of editorials today critical of President Obama, using words like shamelessness, pure politics, no good reason regarding his decisions on our current wars. (Charles Krauthammer is the expected lone hawk, and his is simply a generic attack on the War Powers Act.)

Eugene Robinson, erstwhile Obama cheerleader, has consistently turned away of late. He wrote:

"In essence, we are using military means to pursue political ends that lie beyond our reach. Obama should realize that this makes no earthly sense . . . There was no evidence [in Obama's address] he had considered the possibility that the war is being perpetuated not by rational pursuit of our national interests but by its own inertia (Why Does the Afghanistan War Go On?).

WaPo cartoonist Anne Telnaes offered an update on the Uncle Sam poster (above) in line with Obama's philosophy.

Home Invasion

Do you think if you get General Aidid,
we will simply put down our weapons
and adopt American democracy?
--Black Hawk Down (2001)

Vengeance is mine, saith the lord
Romans 12:19

So you kids are, what?
Some kind of mod squad or something?
--Mod Squad (1968)
__________________

On the news program "60 Minutes" this past weekend, President Obama said of the Osama bin Laden assassination,

"Justice was done. And I think that anyone who would question that the perpetrator of mass murder on American soil didn't deserve what he got needs to have their head examined"

The words were flip and unpresidential, the sort one would expect from a Right-wing cheerleader or George Bush himself. The president is not a mental health professional and knows little or nothing about examining heads, nor does he have a grasp of what two shots to the head does to a person's head.

America was founded on the principals of free speech and thought. Last we checked, those rights are still intact, and we don't need a president shaming those of us who would dare to question his oh-so-brave decision.

Yes, Osama bin Laden was a bad actor, but he was never adjudicated guilty, nor can we prove that his fingerprints were on the attacks of 9-11-01. Sure, he claimed responsibility, but it is the nature of a terrorist organization to take credit wherever and whenever it can. However, the claims are not credible until proven in a court of law.

Self-aggrandizement is not evidence, nor should any man be judged guilty by the president without a judicial stamp of approval which = a court finding of guilt. If OBL was such a bad actor, why wasn't he tried in absentia and appropriately sentenced?

We are not comfortable with the adulation bestowed upon professional killers like Seal Team 6. Having professional hit men wearing our national uniform is more discomfiting than having OBL hiding out in some shit hole, backwater town somewhere west of bum fuck China. Our soldiers must kill on the battlefield, but this does not make them murderers; it makes them soldiers.

When soldiers must shoot people in their bedrooms this makes them as bad as home invasion criminals. Ranger will be called soft in the head, but he thinks anyone favoring murder and mafia-style hit squads is more in need of a psychiatrist than he.

One must be vigilant to rise above the seduction of mass hysteria and maintain the basic values of a humanistic society. The simplistic mantra that OBL was a "bad man" does not make his murder any more palatable.

On this same 60 minutes episode, Andy Rooney equated the death of OBL with that of Adolf Hitler -- a strained analogy if ever there was one. Hitler's wars, with our contributions, killed at least 50 million people; the atrocities of 9-11-01 are not comparable. Thousands were murdered daily in German death camps -- OBL's claimed acts, despicable as they were, pale to insignificance in the analogy.

The average U.S. citizen lacks for perspective. There was a time when advocating for the protection of Jewish lives was considered anathema in Nazi Germany. The approximately 3,000 killed in the 9-11 attacks are small potatoes compared with the number of people who starve to death each day worldwide. Are American lives more sacred than those of others?

In its most basic sense, justice is defined as the administration and procedure of law. If we are dispensing Old Testament "eye-for-an-eye", law of the jungle justice, then yes, the president applied justice.

However, if we take our Constitution literally, Seal Team 6 was used as nothing but an instrument of vengeance.

Murder, Inc.

Well I'm hot blooded, check it and see
I got a fever of a hundred and three
Come on baby, do you do more than dance?
I'm hot blooded, I'm hot blooded
--Hot Blooded, Foreigner

--Why'd you do it? Why did you kill him?
--He had bad breath
--Murder, Inc. (1960)

When Smith attacked Mr. Clutter
he was under a mental eclipse,
deep inside a schizophrenic darkness
--In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
________________

February 1, 1968, B. G. Loan, Chief of the Vietnamese National Police, executed what was a guerrilla, Vietcong soldier or terrorist (take your pick, as this designation is irrelevant to this discussion.) Whichever, the recipient of General Loan's attention was shot dead on a Saigon street corner.

This was called field adjudication at the time, and in a perverse way this shooting was understandable and strangely appropriate. The killing was done in hot blood during a period of extensive combat.

However, this photo was a galvanizing moment which enabled the U.S. to pivot against the war. From 1 Feb 68, there was not a fart's chance in a windstorm for the U.S. to win the war in Vietnam. Even though the execution was explained as a consequence of guerrilla activity and war crimes and due to a pervading wartime mentality -- despite any possibly legitimization of the act -- the pure violence was a turn-off to the American public.

The stark reality of the brutality was the final straw which broke the American voter's backs. That one death symbolized the futility of the shooting match in a black-and-white manner, in a way that no amount of debate could achieve. Gen. Loan's photographed action was the beginning of the end.

That was 43 years ago, and now we allow a U.S. president to issue a death warrant without anyone blinking an eye. In 1968 the U.S. public recoiled from the sight of a naked street-corner execution; in 2011, we exult at a presidentially-ordered murder of a thug in cold blood, no better or worse than a VC member on some Saigon street corner.

Why the recoil then, the approval now? The only difference is that Loan had the stones to pull the trigger himself in broad daylight. Why do we glorify a once and future president when both are akin to cold-blooded killers, something we once found so repugnant in the not-so-distant past?

Are we so disconnected from our national policies that we accept this violence in passing as business-as-usual? What does it mean to be an American today vis-a-vis war and assassination?

The lesson from Loan's/Obama's assassination is that any government with a tenuous hold on a situation will resort to desperate acts. Though the South Vietnamese restored short-term order via brutal tactics, NOTE: Saigon no longer exists.

When regimes execute people on street corners the end in nigh. Gang-style executions are symptomatic of bankrupt policies. If the U.S. was being successful, it would not have to resort to such activities.

[cross-posted @ milpub]

The Watchtower

All I've got is three chords
and a red guitar and the truth
All I've got is a red guitar
and the rest is up to you,
--Along the Watchtower, U2

Why not think about times to come,
And not about the things that you've done,
If your life was bad to you,
Just think what tomorrow will do
--Don't Stop, Fleetwood Mac

Do or do not. There is no 'try'
--Yoda, Star Wars
________________

As the Wall Street Journal and other conservative outlets assiduously laid the ground for the release of the bad news, in the form of the CIA enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) logs, President Obama firmly ensconced himself in the fence rider's position.

Yes, we will release the torture memos, but we will not stir up any dust actually letting Congress and the Justice Department do what they should do. Not exactly change you can be proud of. It is like putting perps behind the glass in a police line up, in perpetuity. You may look, but you may not touch.

In a sense, one can understand. Obama is a political animal; you don't make it to the White House lacking that qualification. Why should he expend political capital on an ugly business, when Susan Boyle may yet give us all hope of a better day? He is standing on the watchtower viewing his constituents' response.

What is the meaning of this gesture? It seems movement without progress, a formula which characterizes the entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).

"[T]he administration plans to propose redacting parts of the memos. In addition to the prisoner names, certain operational details of interrogations are expected to stay secret. . ." vWhat could possibly remain secret, and what is the rationale? There is no middle ground.

The President cannot be anti-torture, yet defer prosecution of torture. It is disingenuous.

"White House spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to comment Wednesday on how the administration plans to handle the memos."

The memos are crummy little pieces of paper, with as little value as a GM stock cert or the average 401K. the crux of the biscuit is how to handle the illegal activity authorized by the memos.

In comments redacted from the online version of the article:

"[Obama] is wrestling with political pressure to distance himself from now-abandoned Bush administration programs while keeping on his side an agency that is critical in the fight against extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Portions of CIA Memos to be Released)."

This implies the CIA's loyalty must be purchased by the president via judicial compromise. However, the CIA does not work for the president but the taxpayers of America.

A senior administration official said, "[Obama] doesn't want to do anything that seems to be undercutting [the CIA] at the very time he needs them.]" But the U.S. does not need the help of a criminal agency or rogue elements thereof.

What we do need is a purge of the network that produced such criminality. The seine net should include the Departments of Justice and Defense, as well as CIA elements that compromised the legal requirements of a liberal democracy. Democracy and legality are not pick and choose concepts. You are or you aren't.

The big argument from the torturer's side is that "their activities were approved by the Justice Department at the time." Nuremburg, anyone? That precedent negates the faulty argument that allows the administrations and the CIA's sidestepping of legal consequences.

What is at stake are the issues of trust and accountability -- as Paul Krugman wrote yesterday, the soul of the nation has been rent. The taxpaying citizens are realizing that their leaders are a nepotistic mutual support society.

This same behavior has knocked our financial sector to its knees. Our own home-grown pirates hold us as a nation hostage, demanding tribute, exploiting our trust and patriotism.

We are holding a portfolio of toxic goods.

The End of our Rainbow

The problems of this world cannot be solved
by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited
by the obvious realities, but only by people
of vision, confidence, hope and imagination
--George Bernard Shaw

If you had had a sudden change of heart
I wish that you would tell me
so don't leave me hangin' on the promises
you've got to let me know
--Where is the Love?, Roberta Flack

Hate baby hate
When there's nothing left for you
You're only human
What can you do?
--New Sensation, INXS
________________

Re. the graphic: Yeah, right on. Classify this entry under "Culture Wars".

Sometimes my sap-meter just redlines. Tonight, in short order I was exposed to Trace Adkins' Arlington (And every time I hear, twenty-one guns,/I know they brought another hero home, to us) and Susan Boyle's rendition of I Dreamed a Dream on "Britain's Got Talent". "And even Simon liked her," the new Good Housekeeping seal of approval. *Sigh*.

You can imagine the glurge that "Arlington" is about. Ms. Boyle is the case of a doughty and homely, never-been-kissed, "almost 48-year-old" who harrumphs onto stage to jeers, only to be embraced by the once-hostile audience for her heart-tugging rendition of Les Miz's "I Dreamed a Dream". All within three minutes, mind -- a new sensation!

The sturdy Ms. Boyle was interviewed, if you could call it that, this morning by once heavy-hitter Diane Sawyer who had to feign incredulity with the contrivance. Are we really this naive?

Who buys this pap? A woman who describes herself as "a garage" sings: "There was a time, when men were kind/And their voices were soft/And their words were inviting," and the audience hops to its feet on cue, shrieking for this brave woman with the audacity to hope and sing of such things which were probably never her truth.

To dream the impossible dream. . . And speaking of the audacity of hope, it seems Obama had lost his die-hard constituency in our fair city.

The day ended with a late trip to our local food co-op. Sensing I might be a subversive activist, one of the clerks approached me on the checkout line: "Did you hear, Obama will not bring charges against the torturers? This is the first time I have been deeply disappointed by my vote." Others rallied around concurring. A pall hung over this last redoubt of liberalism in Tallahassee; no one was wearing their Shepard Fairey tonight.

"Where is the change?" he asked glumly, to no one in particular. And that was our hope: That our nation would be reinstated as the bastion of freedom and respect for human rights that it once was, before the Bush years tamped it down. The hope was that Obama would do a 180, and fully reject the abuses done in our name. A full rejection would require recognition of and amendment of those wrongs. Judicial review would be a part of that process, which has sadly been co-opted now.

In announcing that CIA operatives, including contractors, who followed Bush guidelines for torturing prisoners will not be prosecuted for these actions, Obama launched a pre-emptive strike covering those who might plead the Nuremburg Defense (New Interrogation Details Emerge).

I'm still hopeful, but things seem less bright/shiny/clean with this executive decision.

Fiddler Crabs

We live in an age lit by lightning
After the flash we're blind again
--Over You, T-Bone Burnett

Blessed are the peacemakers:
for they shall be called the children of God
--Matthew 5:9

Somebody, help me now
(I'll take you there)
Help me, y'all
(I'll take you there)
--I'll Take You There,
The Staple Singers
________________

We support. . . fill in the blank.

American's reality has been condensed into bumper sticker slogans. It's all we have time for. It is a patriot's duty to have a flag lapel pin and a magnetized yellow ribbon. However, the simplicity of our rhetoric fails to encompass our reality. Shibboleths do not substitute for rationale.

Ranger feels a free-floating anxiety when contemplating the changes occurring in the U.S. To say we are moving towards socialism is inadequate to the complexity of the problem. All eyes are on the economy, but the bailouts are merely symptomatic of an underlying disease and are merely palliatives.

America has become a sound byte parody of what we once were. The dearth of rational thinking destroys the concept of democracy as the bailouts destroy the concept of capitalism, as practiced in the recently deceased U.S.A. (of blessed memory).

The slogans guide us, like, "Too Big to Fail." What does this mean? Simply: The fat cats in government that grew fat through financial dirty dealings are bailing out the fat cats who are too big too fail, in a masturbatory cycle. The government and the financial houses are now interbred and have become common law partners.

The Obama bailout is exactly similar to Bush's. Paulson and Geithner are pressed from the same mold. The national treasury is being transferred in large part, and the voters have no control. It would be instructive to have a congressman -- any congressman -- discuss the long-term consequences of the success or failure of the bank bailouts.

It seems the U.S. government and the taxpayers have become underwriters for big finance, while the little guy is always one flush away from catastrophe. If the bailouts are successful, are our leaders going to break up the banking interests, or will it be business as usual until the next crisis? What is this griffin financial beast that has the government and taxpayers in a stranglehold?

Everybody wants the president to succeed, thereby allowing the nation to do so; to wish otherwise is absurd. But while the bank bailouts may help the bankers, it is not addressing the underlying systemic problem. It is time to get real and beyond any cult of personality. There are no national saviors.

Bush, Obama, et. al. are meaningless constructs re America. It is not the man that must succeed, but the nation. If the man falters, Congress must take the lead. Disturbingly, they have not shown that ability in the past eight years.

If Chrysler has a 60-day window to come up with a successful business plan, our leaders should be held to the same stricture.

Hope Against Hope

--Patrick Corrigan (The Toronto Star)

Baby, even the losers get lucky sometimes
Even the losers keep a little bit of pride
Yeah, they get lucky sometimes
--Even the Losers, Tom Petty
_________________

Two Ranger predictions, for near and for far:

[1] Mr Madoff's accountant will receive less jail time than did the shoe-throwing protester in Baghdad.

[2] Obama will be a one-term wonder. He'll burn out out as he falls from the stratosphere.

He will be supplanted by Republican party candidate General David Petraeus. The campaign will hinge on the fact that Obama's policies did not allow the U.S. military to win the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©). Petraeus will be the closest thing America can front as a hero.

It will not matter that he lost the war, because Obama will not have let him win it.

Game, set, match, Republican-style. Even the losers are winners. It is the Christian way.

Hell House

--Patrick Chappatte
(Le Temps, Switzerland)

All of these steps, these combinations
and permanency, is the road to hell
--Czech president Mirek Topolánek
(EU President Blasts US Spending)

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the
collective wisdom of individual ignorance
--H. L. Mencken

No stop signs, speed limit
Nobody's gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobody's gonna mess me round
--Highway to Hell, AC/DC
_________________

It's a sad state of affairs when a European realizes AC/DC is your national prophet of doom.

Since Mirek is a Pink Floyd fan, we'll also give another musical hat tip, from that group's "Heaven and Hell": Did you exchange/A walk on part in the war/for a lead role in the game?
Those lyrics, Mr. Topolánek, describe most of our vaunted political leaders today.

The Obama administration is looking for an international bailout in its continued Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) in Afghanistan and beyond.

"The extra troops he is ordering to Afghanistan in combat and advisory roles can make a difference, as can additional U.S. civilian specialists to help Afghanistan build governing competence.

"But even those U.S. approaches have risks and limitations, as Obama made clear in explaining why he must overcome skepticism in Congress about spending billions of dollars more on State Department and foreign assistance programs.

"'Make no mistake, our efforts will fail in Afghanistan and Pakistan if we don't invest in their future,' he said" (New war Strategy Will Require Outside Help.)

The President of the U.S. is not and should not be the proponent of Afghani or Pakistani governments. Hey Mr. President: the American people need and deserve investment in our lives and our economy. You are here because of Mr. Bush's failures in this department -- take note.

There is no time for Obama, Clinton and Gates to play politics with insoluble problems in the sandbox. We cannot afford to invest in Afghanistan if we cannot invest in America.

Obama says the war in Afghanistan is crucial to protecting Americans against a repeat of the 9/11 attacks, yet no proof is offered that al-Qaeda possesses this operational capacity. Justifying his latest moves, he spoke Friday of an "uncompromising core" of the Taliban that is beyond reconciliation and must be defeated militarily."

The last statement is so innocuous and blandly accepted that it is easy to miss its extreme significance to the PWOT rationale. It says the U.S. is committed to a culturally-based war and is willing to utterly destroy the Taliban elements of Afghan society. It says that U.S. policy is as intransigent as that of the Taliban.

The U.S. is willing to destroy their way of life to protect our way of life. But. . . this is not what democracy is all about. Killing people is not an exercise in freedom -- it is the most extreme form of discrimination. The Taliban cannot be defeated militarily, only culturally, and that is not achievable this side of genocide.

The "Afghan government" is a figment of a neo-con frame of mind. Even the AP reports it is, "(R)ife with corruption and unable to extend its authority beyond the capital, Kabul." Afghanistan can not be "reconstructed" as that implies a precondition of being constructed. This is the illusion of COIN, financed by hard-earned tax dollars.

Obama describes al-Qaida as "a cancer that risks killing Pakistan from within." Is it al-Qaeda, or Taliban, or a combination thereof? And how has this become a U.S. strategic interest? Are we so big we cannot fail? Will we continue to fight open-ended wars until we achieve our victory? Will the fight for Pakistan, Korea and Taiwan finally bankrupt a national treasury based on sleight-of-hand?

The accelerated war in Afghanistan is the same old thing, packaged as a winner. What will it take for our leaders to focus on our daily realities? Terrorism is far less a threat than the decaying economy. While they sanction boogeymen-chasing in mountain passes of Afghanistan and Pakistan -- places you will never find on a AAA vacation tripych -- Americans are losing jobs faster than you can say "mujahadeen".

America today is like a leper. We pretend we are a vibrant, viable superpower, but the dead tissue indicates otherwise.

The U.S. cannot afford the safety the PWOT is supposedly providing.

But Wait -- There's More!

Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who, in their greatest cost,
Seek nothing but commending
--The Lie, Sir Walter Raleigh

At the end of the storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark
--You'll Never Walk Alone,
Rodgers and Hammerstein

It could probably be shown by facts and figures
that there is no distinctly native American criminal class
except Congress
--Pudd'nhead Wilson, Mark Twain
_______________

Today's world is rife with sensory overload.

Forget the hopeless muddle that has become Lost and the 5-second cuts in almost every domestic cinematic production -- the bailouts and stimulus bills + two wars provide more than enough distraction for one country. Add to that a President who is not quite ready for Prime Time and whose message of Change is melting faster than a double-dip of Rocky Road in a Tallahassee August and you get -- pressure.

In psychology, it is hypothesized that schizophrenia is caused by the inability to filter out the extraneous stimuli that surrounds modern man. This personal psychoses could be extrapolated to our entire society.

The problems are so great and manifold that the organism (=society) enters a shocked, protective posture which is called mental illness when manifested in the individual, but market anxiety or any number of euphemisms when characteristic of a society.

The cures that are being thrown at the problem also seem schizophrenic, or at least overlaid with a heavy veneer of denial. Paul Krugman wrote today, the Obama administration seeks to maintain the current financial system, "albeit somewhat tamed by new rules," whereas he [Krugman] sees the "failure of a whole model of banking (The Market Mystique)."

We give away the farm, then criticize a wolf (A.I.G. executives) for killing a chicken.

Analogizing the U.S. banking system to that of a distressed patient in crisis, early intervention went lacking, so the patient's condition is now stat, on its way to being code. What do the professionals do? That's right -- administer a heavy-duty palliative, like morphine. Everything feels better, while on the way to the morgue.

If the patient should survive, he can be warehoused on life-support for some time, albeit in a radically underfunctioning state. To vie with the president's recent crass comment on disabilities, The Really Too Big To Fail banks become like Jerry Lewis's Muscular Dystrophy poster children: they will never walk alone. (But we won't call it socialism, no sir.)

And all the while, the taxpayers are ridden for all they are worth while they get to "hold" some of these toxic assets; yet if any profit is to be made from this situation, it will go back to the private investors who will take a soft "risk" by buying them back. So the bankers will further profit from the problem they caused.

But what is to be done when the citizens see the irony of their situation through little glimpses like the A.I.G. brouhaha or Mr. Madoff's scheme? Those were ones we saw, but how many have gone unseen? The Congress, President and Secretary of the Treasury act duly outraged toward the bonus-takers, but it was their policy which enabled the rip-offs.

This can only happen because members of Congress are in bed with these guys, though we have the illusion of their separateness. However, all one must do is filter the chatter and isolate the facts. Facts -- unlike politicians -- do not lie.

The fact is that everyday loyal, hardworking taxpaying Americans are the victims of our government and financial institutions, both of whom prey upon our lives. The taxpaying citizen is the pivot man in a national circle jerk. We have reached a point in our history where being a pimp is more honorable than being an investment banker.

At least with a pimp, you know you're getting taken for a ride.

On the Radio

I dial it in and tune the station
They talk about the U.S. inflation
I understand just a little
No comprende, it's a riddle
--Mexican Radio, Wall of Voodoo
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A Reminder:

Join Ranger on Blog Talk Radio tomorrow (3/5/09),
7 p.m. EST. The Program is "The Political Atlas"
phone: 347-215-8092

Topic: Obama's on the War on Terror

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