Troops care for troops.  Veterans care about veterans, and family members care as best they can about those among them who serve, but I’m once again feeling like a dead man walking as reports about the aimless military effort in Afghanistan are filed, along with news this week that government officials have mishandled the remains of many of those killed in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The United States may be pulling substantial forces out of Iraq,  but analysts have suggested for some time that a residual force of about 50,000 will remain indefinitely.  The much ballyhooed Afghan surge, along with the promise of a showdown with the Taliban, sounds illusory.  There appears to be a falling out between U.S. officials and Hamid Karzai, such that the Afghan leader tends to look more and more these days  like Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States’ pick as first president of the former republic of Vietnam.  Karzai (and perhaps his wise guy brothers) is said to be disillusioned with American leadership in his country and doesn’t think U.S. military tactics are working.  Reports suggest he might want to cut a deal with the Taliban and Pakistan.

http://www.williampfaff.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=470

It’s said the American people are tuning out on the current wars.  Yet, thousands and thousands of troops serve.  Some keep getting killed.  There’s no end in sight, and as yet, no draft.  Afghanistan has gone on longer than Vietnam.

And now, it seems some of the recent fallen slated for burial in the “sacred ground” of Arlington National Cemetery can’t be accounted for.

http://www.salon.com/news/arlington_national_cemetery_investigation/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/06/16/army_says_deputy_spent_millions

James Carroll, a Boston-based author who wrote extensively about the Vietnam War, has a piece up today on the The Daily Beast.  Carroll’s father was an Air Force general, and both of his parents are buried at Arlington.  He says:  “A military force that does not faithfully care for its fallen members is in far worse shape than even its anti-war critics imagine.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-11/the-armys-graveyard-disgrace/?cid=hp:mainpromo3

During my most desolate time, working through the meaning of service in Vietnam – for well over ten years after actually being there – I was very aware that partisans along the divide then wanted to use veterans.  The left led the charge to pillory us, and the right wanted to wrap us in the flag.  I also experienced time and again people appearing in my face, to tell me what I’d gone through and what it meant, even though they had never been there.  And so it goes.

I can relate to Odysseus, and really, it might have been more fun being a mythical Greek king.

But I was not a soldier; I was an Air Force tech who spent a year on a combat flight line in Vietnam and happened to be there for the Tet Offensive.  A year, in and out.  Thanks for the memories.

http://www.williampfaff.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=468

My father though spent nearly six years in the Army, from December 1939 to August 1945.  He made master sergeant in the U.S., went to OCS, and then shipped to England as a second lieutenant.  He went through Utah Beach,  and, in addition to Normandy, is credited with taking part in engagements in Northern France, the Rhineland, the Ardennes, and Central Europe.  He was in Bastogne with George Patton’s Third Army, and was among the first Allied troops to open the German border, to see and deal with the Nazi-run death and slave labor camps.  He was awarded a Bronze Star and discharged as a captain.

I had never known the whole story about my father’s actual, detailed service, because he never spoke of it.  He couldn’t.  He drank heavily over many years and lost his family.

In just the last few months I have reconnected with a cousin on my father’s side.  Her father, and another brother besides my father – three of five brothers in all – served in World War II.

I met my cousin recently, along with her father and mother.  My uncle can’t easily get away from the memories of his service either.  It’s what he relies on for conversation.  Three times during my visit he showed me some German binoculars, and told me how a kid in in an Italian port city agreed to swap them for a pack of cigarettes.

These kinds of memories are very strong for people who served, as these men did.

They can kill as well.

Turns out my uncle, my father’s last surviving brother, now 87,  saved my father’s papers, and his daughter gave them to me.

They flesh out all that I suspected about my father’s service, which was very sketchy to me when my mother and I worked on his funeral over thirty years ago.

While preparing for this reunion, to get the whole story and, very likely, to pay final respects to my uncle,  I also spoke to a veteran’s agent in the Massachusetts town where my father grew up and is buried.

I was cross-checking records with the agent, and he confirmed my father’s service record, contained in the state’s database.

Then we talked a bit.  The agent said he knew which cemetery my Dad was in, and said he would be going there over Memorial Day weekend to stick flags into the ground next to veterans’ headstones.

So the picture of my Dad and his service is complete, finally; and this gives me a chance to refresh and restore his image in the family.  He was the real thing.  Whatever anyone might think of war, he did it.  And he paid for it.

I know where my father is buried.  My family knows too.  We’ll take care of it.

Making my entrance again with my usual flair, (Performance is everything. Tell the suckers what they want to hear.)
Sure of my lines (I read my Mantra book faithfully every morning.)
No one is there. (Thank God, those who make up their own minds don’t like it here.)
Don’t you love farce? (Fooling the fools is so much fun for me and my bank account.)
My fault, I fear. (What fault? There is always a lefty to blame.)
I thought that you’d want what I want– (If you don’t, you will by the time I’m finished.)
Sorry, my dear. (I’m only sorry there are so many other clowns to compete for the spotlight.)
But where are the clowns? (Are you blind? The audience is full of them.)
Quick, send in the clowns. (If you really need any more, call Michael Steele, Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. They have millions at their disposal.)
Don’t bother, they’re here. (How many fucking times do I have to tell you the same thing. Oh, oh, Frank Luntz isn’t going to like that.)

The organizers of this Circus Politicians Arouse the Crazies three day extravaganza chose as its last ringmaster Glenn “Big Emotem” Beck to titillate all factions of the empathy barren conservative right so they could somehow learn to love each other and live under one tent. He didn’t disappoint either the right or the left when he screamed, “All we’ve heard, the Fox News host complained, is “we need a big tent. We need a big tent. Can we get a bigger tent? How can we get a big tent? What is this the circus? America is not a clown show. America is not a circus. America is an idea. America is an idea that sets people free.”

Right Glenn. It gives shysters like you the freedom to CPACem, Conn the People to Anger the Country, so “conservative” War Hawks can make the people so afraid, they will cheer as the lions eat and torture the world on behalf of those poor billionaires who stop paying taxes after the first $109,000 they earn and receive Medicare because they have earned it. Once the circus owners believe those fighting for real freedom are consumed, the cheering fools including “Big Emotem” will be next.

I never thought until the Internet showed me the light in the last few years, so many Americans would be this foolish or that I would watch them act out their fantasies on my TV. All the theatrical techniques I learned as a theater major in college didn’t prepare me for Rush and Glenn’s P. T. Barnum acting skills nor did I ever dream that the French farces would be so overshadowed by the show put on daily by the Repothefacticans in Congress.

Below are a few highlights, or lowlights for the informed, from this spectacle of greed and ignorance uttered by the speaking clowns who were sent in by the circus owners to sing to the hypnotized fearsome.

Glenn Beck:

“Dick Cheney a couple days ago… says it is going to be a good year for conservative ideas, (wiping the sweat from his brow) it is going to be a very good year. But it is not enough just to not suck as much as the other side.” “What made us sit there at the john making us vomit for four hours? What are we suffering from?” “The real problem is progressivism (scrawling the word with chalk on his signature blackboard) This is the disease in America, we have a right to fail, but what we don’t have a right to is healthcare, housing or handouts.” “It’s like somebody sticking a screwdriver in your eye and somebody else pulls it out and puts a pin in your eye. I don’t want stuff in my eye.” “I’m a recovering alcoholic, and I screwed up my life six ways to Sunday. I believe in redemption, but the first step to getting redemption is you’ve got to admit that you’ve got a problem. I have not heard people in the Republican Party yet admit that they have a problem.”

Jason Mattera: (Young America’s Foundation spokesman)

“It’s always a delight to participate in CPAC. This is like our Woodstock. Except unlike the left’s gathering, our women are beautiful, we speak in complete sentences, and our notion of freedom doesn’t consist of snorting cocaine. Which is certainly one thing that separates us from Barack Obama. On the cocaine front, I do believe many young people in America viewed Barack in the same fashion as they do drugs. It was a substance to experiment with. But like most narcotics, the hangover afterward has them thinking, ‘what the hell did I just do?’”

Ryan Sorba: (Representing California Young Americans for Freedom who took the stage to condemn the conference for it’s association with a group of gay Republicans)

“I’d like to condemn CPAC for bringing GOPride to this event. Guess what. Civil rights are grounded in natural rights. Natural rights are grounded in human nature.” (Sorba then addressed one member of the audience who stood up to shout him down) The lesbians of Smith College protest better than you do.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.):

“Obama (through economic policies she labeled ‘Bailout Nation’) — is leading the country toward an economic collapse on the scale of 1920s Germany and 1940s Argentina. People can indulge in Fantasy Football, but you can’t indulge in Fantasy Economics, it just doesn’t work.” “The joy of being an American is that we get to choose. We get to choose our destiny. Whether it’s decline or whether it’s greatness, it’s in our hands to make the choice. . . . It sounds to me like someone is choosing decline.”

Rick Santorum:

“Political correctness is reigning in the military right now. Some people say: [Do] whatever the generals say [on DADT]. I’m not too sure that we haven’t so indoctrinated the officer corps in this country that they can actually see straight to make the right decision.”

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC):

“The federal government is assaulting almost every sector of our free-market economy at a time when I fear America is teetering toward tyranny.” “(Mocking Obama’s charisma and oratory skills who delivers ‘ false hope and empty promises’) I hope Americans will expect more from their next president than a great speech. You can’t govern from a teleprompter. Just because you are good on TV doesn’t mean you can sell socialism to freedom-loving Americans.” “With our country drowning in debt, if we can’t give up pork for one year and won’t even try to balance the budget now, there’s no reason to think we’ll ever do it.” “Frankly, sometimes I feel like I’m trying to hold back the tide, and the constant fighting can be tiresome. If I couldn’t come here every year and plug into (your) renewable energy source, I wouldn’t have the strength to even show up at Waterloo, much less win the battle.”

Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio):

“I was in the White House for a meeting a few weeks back and we were talking about the economy and jobs and I was explaining that these Democrat policies, you know — cap and trade, national energy tax, government takeover of our health care system, card check, higher tax rates — all of this was paralyzing business owners because they had all of this uncertainty. And you know no small business owners can plan, invest or hire new workers in this kind of environment. But the president didn’t like it. He looked at me and he slapped the table and said, ‘Boehner, it’s not my policies that are paralyzing these employers. It’s you Republicans who are scaring them.’ I said, ‘Mr. President, the American people aren’t scared about what we have to say. They’re scared by the policies that are being promoted by your administration and your colleagues up on the Hill.’ I told him, ‘well here is the thing, the American people want leaders who will listen they don’t need any more lecturers coming to Washington.”

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.):

“Now’s the time for all of us to do all we can to preserve what makes this country great. If you can give, give. If you can speak, speak. If you can write, write. And if you can run, run.” “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job, and a depression is when you lose your job, and a recovery is when Nancy Pelosi loses her job.”

Newt Gingrich:

“I’m not frightened by bipartisanship. It will be tough. It will be hard. But if we are going to have three years in which the president loses energy, Pelosi and Reid become isolated, the left cracks, we can’t just sit back and hope that the world will let us wait… We should be brave enough to stand up and say let’s work together until we finish defeating the left and then we won’t have to work with them as much.” “Candidly, we should adopt rules that say even when they are in a small minority, down to the last 15-20 left wingers in the Senate, the last 100 or so in the House, we should still have rules to allow them to bring their ideas to the table because we should not be afraid.”

Tim Pawlenty:

“The implication is, we’re kind of bumpkins. Well, history is on our side. The Constitution is on our side. We’re on the side of freedom. We’re on the side of individual responsibility. We’re on the side of free markets. We’re on the side of rule of law. We’re on the side of limited government. And, like Grant, we fight. When you listen to the elites and the pundits talk about the tea party movement, when they talk about us conservatives, they may not always say it explicitly, but implicit in their comments is, ‘Maybe they’re not as sophisticated.’ They don’t hang out at chablis drinking, brie eating parties in San Francisco. As eagle-eyed cultural savants and Wal-Mart aficionados point out, brie and chablis aren’t exactly haute cuisine. And both are, in fact, available for purchase at Wal-Mart.” “I think we should take a page out of her (Tiger Woods’s wife) playbook and take a nine iron and smash a window out of big government in this country.”

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa):

“I don’t want to meet with the president of the United States (on Feb. 25) to see what other kind of toxic stew he is going to serve to us. And it is a toxic stew. We don’t want a pot full [of toxic stew], we don’t want a spoon full. We don’t want a bowl full or a cup full… We want it dead.”

These hucksters fed a lot of pablum to the suckers and they ate it up. The over confidence whether real or pretend exuded over the entire show under the tent. The more over confidence the better to me because an over confident opponent is very vulnerable to real attacks with the truth. Come November, a long time in political time, I believe that conning the American people will collapse the tent and the foolish hopes to take back the congress followed in 2012 by the presidency.

The Repugs have been sent to Obama’s outhouse to Shit Or Get Off the Pots. They know it and are now wiggling like crazy to free their dumb asses. The stink the GOPers drop into American political discharge has not reached enough Americans, but if Obama’s long-term plan works, it will reach them before voting in November.

Obama’s plan reached its second stage with his State of the Union address where after waiting patiently through his first year as president, he began the attack phase. The launch became more immediately successful than planned once the House Repugs allowed him to have its House Retreat session televised which started the GOPers inevitable march to the outhouse. If I’m right about Obama’s plan, all Repug lying, deceit and hypocrisy tactics will no longer work nearly as well except on those whose brains are frozen and ears only hear what they want to hear regardless of the facts, logic or history presented.

The first stage was simple and excruciating to those voting for Obama on the hope he could actually have some success in changing partisan Washington mowing down as many lobbyists as possible in the process. As one of those voters, of course I knew that it isn’t Washington that’s broken, but our entire election system that quickly snuffs out the vast majority of those congress critters and executive branch leaders who go to Washington to bring change. I don’t buy into those who claim Obama’s naivete is being crushed by those ruthless Repugs. He knew who and what they are and who they really represent- the Corporate Communists.

For his plan to work during the first stage, he needed to use the best weapon anyone has against this group of compassion-less hypocrites, give them enough rope and they will hang themselves. The most modern and robust example, Dubya and The Dick. That meant spending an entire year not fighting back against congressional Repug PON and Waterloo tactics no matter how emotionally tempting.

Obama does possess remarkable restraint- probably too much at times. He was clearly the right man for this job. When vicious attackers think they are winning, they become careless and don’t notice the noose that is about to lasso and strangle them. Although Obama is now fighting back in all areas. For the rest of this post, I am only going to address health care reform. It can’t take a back seat to the economy and jobs because it was Obama’s biggest legislative agenda his first year and with all its complexity the best area to defend against foolish, fear mongering, fact-less proclamations.

Obama revealed his health care reform tactics during a surprise press conference on Feb. 9 just after Sen. McConnell and Rep, Boehner held their meeting with the media at the doorstep of the White House after leaving the meeting with Obama to plan the Feb. 25 Summit Clash of the Titans. Well, only one Titan, the Repugs, definitely are far from Titans, hopefully more like road kill after the Summit. The Repugs will be in Obama’s den where he determines the agenda and sets the rules. Not a fair fight from the start.

Allow me one emotional digression before listing selected paras from the transcript of that press conference that reveal in Obama’s words how he will likely keep the Repugs from escaping until they are thoroughly pummeled. Sen. McConnell sobbed on the Senate Floor (link includes video) on Friday talking about his long tenured chief of staff who was heading for K Street to make his delayed fortune while spending his Senate career catering to Wall Street and helping them and his boss to ruin lives and our and the world’s economy. This sobbing senator is the same leader who never gives a damn about the hundreds of thousands of Americans dying due to our sick health care system and is doing all he can to murder millions more by killing health care reform.

Here are the paras:

Now, bipartisanship depends on a willingness among both Democrats and Republicans to put aside matters of party for the good of the country. I won’t hesitate to embrace a good idea from my friends in the minority party, but I also won’t hesitate to condemn what I consider to be obstinacy that’s rooted not in substantive disagreements but in political expedience.

My hope is that this will be the first of a series of meetings that I have with leadership of both parties in Congress. We’ve got to get past the tired debates that have plagued our politics and left behind nothing but soaring debt and mounting challenges, greater hardships among the American people, and extraordinary frustrations among the American people. Those frustrations are what led me to run for President, and as long as I’m here in Washington, I intend to try to make this government work on their behalf.

So I’ve got these goals. Now, we have a package, as we work through the differences between the House and the Senate, and we’ll put it up on a Web site for all to see over a long period of time, that meets those criteria, meets those goals. But when I was in Baltimore talking to the House Republicans, they indicated, we can accomplish some of these goals at no cost. And I said, great, let me see it. And I have no interest in doing something that’s more expensive and harder to accomplish if somebody else has an easier way to do it.

So I’m going to be starting from scratch in the sense that I will be open to any ideas that help promote these goals. What I will not do, what I don’t think makes sense and I don’t think the American people want to see, would be another year of partisan wrangling around these issues; another six months or eight months or nine months worth of hearings in every single committee in the House and the Senate in which there’s a lot of posturing.

What I agree with is that the public has soured on the process that they saw over the last year. I think that actually contaminates how they view the substance of the bills. I think it is important for all of these issues to be aired so that people have confidence if we’re moving forward on such a significant part of the economy as health care, that there is complete transparency and all of these issues have been adequately vetted and adequately debated. And this gives an opportunity not just for Democrats to say here’s what we think we should do, but it also gives Republicans a showcase before the entire country to say here’s our plan; here’s why we think this will work. And one of the things that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell both said is they didn’t think that the status quo was acceptable, and that’s, right there, promising. That indicates that if all sides agree that we can’t just continue with business as usual then maybe we can actually get something done.

To your question about the 25th, my hope is that this doesn’t end up being political theater, as I think some of you have phrased it. I want a substantive discussion. We haven’t refined exactly how the agenda is going to go that day. We want to talk with both the Democratic and Republican leaders to find out what they think would be most useful. I do want to make sure that there’s some people like the Congressional Budget Office, for example, that are considered non-partisan, who can answer questions. In this whole health care debate I’m reminded of the story that was told about Senator Moynihan, who was I guess in an argument with one of his colleagues, and his colleague was losing the argument so he got a little flustered and said to Senator Moynihan, “Well, I’m entitled to my own opinion.” And Senator Moynihan said, “Well, you’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.” I think that’s the key to a successful dialogue on the 25th or on health care.

Let’s establish some common facts. Let’s establish what the issues are, what the problems are, and let’s test out in front of the American people what ideas work and what ideas don’t. And if we can establish that factual accuracy about how different approaches would work, then I think we can make some progress. And it may be that some of the facts that come up are ones that make my party a little bit uncomfortable. So if it’s established that by working seriously on medical malpractice and tort reform that we can reduce some of those costs, I’ve said from the beginning of this debate I’d be willing to work on that. On the other hand, if I’m told that that is only a fraction of the problem and that is not the biggest driver of health care costs, then I’m also going to insist, okay, let’s look at that as one aspect of it, but what else are we willing to do?

And this is where it gets back to the point I was making earlier. Bipartisanship cannot mean simply that Democrats give up everything that they believe in, find the handful of things that Republicans have been advocating for and we do those things, and then we have bipartisanship. That’s not how it works in any other realm of life. That’s certainly not how it works in my marriage with Michelle, although I usually do give in most of the time. (Laughter.) But the — there’s got to be some give and take, and that’s what I’m hoping can be accomplished. And I’m confident that’s what the American people are looking for.

Also.

Basically, much of the Washington establishment has decided that, despite the deficits they howled maniacally about two minutes ago, a few more wars should be immediately undertaken, minus any help from gay and lesbian service members, of course, and paid for by the elimination of Medicare and Social Security.  Well, that would be nice indeed, and who could complain, but isn’t two lost wars enough?  These things do run up, just like the credit card bills they are, and consumers can only watch one war at a time on their notorious flat screens (that they’re still paying off at usurious interest) and wonder that the Administration that told them a few days ago that the  government had to “tighten its belt” just like everyone else also still seems open to an extra war or so.  Sarah Palin runs around regurgitating gobbledlygook about “common sense,” but somehow common sense is never understood as reticence about starting wars; common sense means something about old people working until death, which minus Medicare, will at least be sooner.   Common sense also seems to mean that ordinary people are willing to sacrifice their futures and a decent life at home for a never-ending parade of Imperial ventures abroad, which only further aggrandizes its proponents as it exacerbates the shocking disparities in wealth and power Americans have come to accept as the “Free Market.”  In what free market, pray tell, would everybody be shopping for Predators and SAMmies?

With all the wars, war provocateurs like the CIA and NSA, weapons, and other police state bloat (excluding the equally disturbing and lavish militarization of local law enforcement) we’ll easily spend a trillion in one, ONE, year on wars even if we don’t start any more of them, which seems at this point unlikely.  This leads me to the inescapable question for which I have no ready answer:  as a people, as a society, what the fuck is wrong with us?  We step over homeless in the streets, we watch neighborhoods deteriorate under waves of foreclosures, and yet we gape in amazement and envy rather than anger and demands for justice at the astonishingly small cadre of people who have so obviously robbed us all blind.  The Republicans offer them tax cuts, and the Democratic Administration appoints them to its economic team, and lo and behold, a lot of people on both left and right end up unnervingly angry.  The answer?  Let’s have another war; if you can’t find a job, I hear Blackwater’s a pretty good place to work.

Admittedly, if those were my policies and record, I’d probably punt like that, too, and have done so routinely in nightmares from which I’ve awakened in a pool of sweat.   If I were Obama, I’d probably have Palin envy by now, and if I were a Democratic congressperson, I’d be as nervous as a whore in church.  The only thing the Dems have going for them at this point is the Republicans, and they’re stupidly tossing that overboard to get their war on, or at least let their righty fringe do so.

CHNN NEWS FLASH:  People do not want to hear about any more wars, declared or undeclared, nuclear or no, until the current two stop costing trillions.  Media, please make a note of it.

I don’t know if as Chris Mathews believes, that history was made Friday when President Obama challenged the House Republicans at the opening of their two-day caucus retreat. I do know that although it marked another step in the long-term GOPer strategy to win big in November, it marked a huge misstep. When they drew up their strategy after realizing that Obama was going to be the 44^th president, they never dreamed they would screw up their second step. The initial step was for all Repugs to pledge a no desertion oath then spend the first year of the 111^th Congress saying and voting “No” to everything, only offering vague, simplistic proposals they knew the Dems couldn’t accept while riling up ignorant, vulnerable Americans with lies and propaganda.

Then at the right moment, the second step (which turned out to be Friday) where they would hypocritically profess that all along GOPers have been denied a seat at the table and their many excellent ideas were viciously being ignored. The Mantra for this step: “So, if the President and the Dems are finally willing to listen to us, we can work together. It’s wrong to call us the Party of No. We tried hard but just were shut out. We just didn’t want big, socialized government to take over. We are the wounded heroes who will fight for the right ideas. We have a new Contract for America.” Then for the third step to win the November mid-term elections big, the uncompromising GOPers would say, “We tried but those misguided, socialist Lefties, including the President, just won’t see the light. You the voter, have no choice but to save America from historic debt by voting for Republicans who have the new ideas that will work for you not Washington and bring this tragic, wasteful spending to an end.”

When the Repugs saw how much Obama’s favorable ratings were falling and how little the weak-kneed Dems were fighting back, they saw a great opportunity to launch the second step and were so giddy with anticipation, they agreed Thursday night to a White House request that TV could cover the sporting event live of Obama stepping into their House to serve him the coup de gras. They even invited their immediate family to join them to watch the slaughter. (Here is the speech and Q&A session along with the transcript.)

You would think these geniuses would have learned from his campaign and first year in office that they had invited a very knowledgeable, intelligent and skilled politician who might be prepared for their attacks and would fight back smiling often to ease the pain for the family members watching their loved ones being stabbed in the heart over and over.

MSNBC’s two-hour special Friday night (see end of this post for all the links) shows some of the best excerpts from the lame attempts by the Repugs to trap Obama and then discover they were the ones in the trap as overly confident leader of the event Mike Pence learned from the first question launched at the President. Fox News covered this event live and when early on they discovered how bad it was going for their co-horts, they stopped the coverage and started talking about what they hoped viewers would have witnessed in a vain effort at damage control. Luke Russert, son of Tim who in this MSNBC report (at the 6min point) right after the event, said a participant told him that it was a big mistake letting the cameras roll.

Take a look at this exchange, the last of the afternoon, with Rep. Jeb Hensarling from Texas and how Obama made him look like the fool he is. No Repug after that exchange decided to continue the lost fight. Prior to Jeb, Marsha Blackburn had at length explained how all her good health reform ideas were being ignored. I would like to have seen her face when when Obama said he had read her ideas well before the booklet was handed to him today and that some had been embraced and some embraced with caveats. He then proceeded to explain that the ideas in the Dem bills were pretty similar to those proposed by Howard Baker, Bob Dole and Tom Daschle two years ago, “pretty centrist ideas.” Obama told her, if you listened to how you Republicans framed the debate you would think I was proposing some Bolshevik plot. You’ve given yourself very little room to negotiate with us because you have demonized us so much to your base.

Chris Mathews at the end of that segment made an excellent observation, sometimes he succeeds, that Martha was a hypocrite because from the beginning of the Bush 43 administration, she and her colleagues had ample opportunity and power to implement all of her ideas and did nothing. “That is how Republicans always do things whether it is with Truman, Clinton or Obama. They never offer anything when they are in power.”

Before the KO/Rachel,/Chris Special, Alan Grayson on the Ed Show expressed the frustration that most progressives have with Obama when he said that although the president had done everything he could to achieve bipartisanship, he has been too accepting and nothing has gotten done. “I was beginning to think that the President was suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome because he has let himself be held hostage for a year now.” I understand and share Grayson’s frustration, but Obama since his 2004 Convention speech made bringing blue and red states together the basis of his message for change. He had to show he had made every effort. When I watched Grayson which I love to do, I agreed with him because I hadn’t watched Obama’s performance yet. We were wrong considering the Repugs made the huge mistake of allowing Obama into their den and the sleeping bear woke up and roared, roared in a skilful and professorial way that should scare the hell out of the Repugs if they are smart enough to realize it, which I doubt they will.

Below the Special links are other links evaluating the climatic event. Watch, read and enjoy unless you are a RWA or hardcore contrarian.

MSNBC Two-Hour Special Covering the Most Important Segments

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#35153097 15:31

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#35153132 7:36

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#35153199 9:35

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#35153285 1:23

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#35153362 3:45

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#35153519 12:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#35153718 5:26

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#35153831 7:41

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#35153913 7:21

Now’s the GOP’s Time to Strike “Republicans need to do what the Democrats seem unwilling or incapable of doing, and that is to dramatically change their approach.” (Did Obama wait until just the right time to strike a dagger in the heart?)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-29/the-gops-next-move/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsC1

GOP Solutions Booklet for America finally being released with copy handed to Obama Friday

http://www.gop.gov/solutions

Obama talks to House Republicans in Baltimore in rare, televised debate

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012902401.html?hpid=topnews

Obama rumbles with House GOP

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=7B3C43A3-18FE-70B2-A82FFE065C5692BE

The President Obama we voted for: I’ll let a smart friend explain why Obama beat the GOP and won back his base, at least for a glorious day by Salon’s Joan Walsh

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/barack_obama/index.html?story=/opinion/walsh/politics/2010/01/29/obama_and_the_house_gop

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/01/29/obama_gop/index.html Her friend Mike Madden’s post

Obama Dominates at Republican Retreat: Obama engages GOP House leaders in a lively Q&A on their turf — and wins. If only U.S. politics were always this unscripted.

http://www.alternet.org/news/145477/obama_dominates_at_republican_retreat_

C-SPAN likes idea of regular Obama-lawmaker exchanges

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/78815-c-span-likes-idea-of-regular-obama-lawmaker-exchanges

The news for liberals and Democrats is depressing in the first year of the meek Obama Administration and filibuster-crippled Congress culminating in the election of Scott Brown and the Supreme Court free speech decision announced today rolling back restrictions on corporate spending on federal campaigns. Wall Street and the bankers are drooling as this week they doll out $144 billion in bonuses. Both Obama and the Congress have shown they will not restrain, let alone seriously punish, those who have heavily damaged the U.S. and world economy.

The last year has made clear that the Corporate Communists, as Dylan Ratigan has labeled them, hold far too much power. The CCs, just as earned or stolen money is never enough, have no desire to rein in their ever increasing money-power. The voice and power of the people is being drowned out.

As usual, the M$M seems to have missed the major lesson from the Mass. Election. This was not a triumph for the Republicans and a disaster for the Democrats. It actually was a disaster for both and a triumph for the people.

Independent voters make up 51% of Mass. voters. They were sending a message to both parties and the Obama Administration. They want leaders who are as angry as they are about Wall Street and the insurance companies. Someone like Scott who claims he will get tough with both. That’s why they voted for Barack who promised he was an outsider bent on cleaning up Washington. Much was promised; little was delivered when all those insiders became his key appointments. Obama has been unwilling to fight for the few outsiders he nominated. Even with the Christmas bomber, Obama let his nominee to run the TSA languish until this week he quit in disgust. 176 other White House appointees are still unconfirmed. The Republicans put up a fuss and Obama caves issue after issue.

Mass. voters are very familiar with health reform and all its incumbent problems due to heartless insurance companies because they bravely voted for serious reform to provide universal health care in their state. They watched Obama and Congress give away a very modest public option that would have only affected five percent of Americans. They know and have felt the impact of a severe recession thanks to the CCs. In his victory speech, Brown never said the word Republican once. The movie character who yelled “I am mad as hell and won’t take it any more!” worked for a Boston TV station.

If you examine the character and beliefs of national guard, Lt. Col., judge advocate Brown, he is unlikely to be the spokesperson for all those independent voters across America who are also extremely angry. Independents make up a third of more of the U. S. electorate and they are desperately seeking a real leader. No Republicans have emerged especially when it has Beck and Limbaugh as the nominal spokepersons. There is one Democrat who could fill the void.

A man born of teacher-parents who grew up in the tenements of the Bronx working his way through Harvard graduating summa cum laude in three years. A man who earned a Harvard law degree and worked as a law clerk for two very different supreme court justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia as well as two other opposite-poll judges, Abner Mikva and Robert Bork. A man who then obtained a masters in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government and has passed the exams for a Ph.D. in government.

A man who teamed up with a fellow Bronx High School of Science graduate and started an innovative telecom business that began on the second floor of a funeral home and grew to be a $2 billion-a-year business, on the Fortune 1000 list, and traded on the New York Stock Exchange. A man who reported a worth of $31 million as a freshman U.S. Representative.

Yes, if you haven’t already guessed, I am talking about outspoken Florida congressman Alan Grayson. After just a few years amassing considerable wealth in business, Grayson decided to leave in 1994 and return to law representing whistleblowers, who witnessed fraud against the Government. After the war in Iraq began, Grayson was the only attorney who was willing to pursue such cases, in the face of hostility from the Bush Administration. Congress called on him four times to testify about contractor fraud in Iraq.

Grayson shot into the national limelight last October when with only a few Republicans within earshot, dramatically declared the GOP health care plan is “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.” No matter how much the media or the right wing has attacked him, he has not backed down. He is impervious to anything but what he believes. He can’t be bought because he has substantial wealth. He came from modest roots and understands the pain Americans are currently undergoing. He is a very effective voice of the people who could lead them in a very needed uprising.

Below is a list of YouTube videos where you can see him in action. If you know of a potential leader who can energize the people in a positive fair way devoid of ideology as effectively as Grayson, tell me who it is. Elizabeth Warren could be another candidate so there are others out there.

YouTube videos

$1.2 Trillion Slush Fund: Congressman Alan Grayson Grills Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn 1-13-09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj0JAfq4esk&feature=channel

Alan Grayson on the Worst Deal Since Manhattan Was Sold for $24 in Trinkets 2-11-09 Deal with Citigroup 306 billion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-DOwLnQ4nk&feature=channel

Alan Grayson: Is there any way to save the system other than showering taxpayer money on banks? 3-5-09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jO5Z-9yy54&feature=channel

Grayson to Geithner: What Rules Do We Need to Prevent the Taxpayer from Being on the Hook? 3-26-09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZLiu_9Q2FE&feature=channel

Alan Grayson: “Which Foreigners Got the Fed’s $500,000,000,000?” Bernanke: “I Don’t Know.” 7-21-09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0NYBTkE1yQ&feature=channel

Rep. Alan Grayson on Rachel Maddow: No One Cares About Bipartisanship 10-20-09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWbTzbadG0I&feature=channel

Alan Grayson Introduces Amendment to Stop People From Going Broke or Homeless 10-20-09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCylyNv-RHw&feature=channel

Grayson v. Broun on the Constitution ACORN 10-21-09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKz5ZHM8kFM&feature=channel

Alan Grayson on Hardball: Is Dick Cheney a Vampire? 10-22-09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0sgwv0rNUA&feature=player_embedded

The vacuous babble surrounding the war is probably the worst example.  Washington had long ago decided that McChrystal’s victorious escalation would not be denied, and all the theater in between then and now was just that.  No poll, no demonstration, nothing short of turning the entire war effort over to ACORN could have stopped the war from continuing, but the pseudo-suspenseful “dithering” was nonetheless relentlessly treated as news anyway, since it provided lots of cheap fodder for snappy soundbites and offered a needed rebranding of an unsettlingly shopworn war that had long since stopped selling as many commercials as it used to.  And as luck would have it, though, the media had long since stopped meaningfully covering these wars, since they provided so much cheap local content without the annoying need for actual reporters “on the ground,” so any costs associated with another decade or so of war was somebody else’s problem.  Ratings gold for free!  Well, almost.

Similar clouds engulf the climate debate, and of course for the same rea$ons.  While the great majority of the earth contemplates drought, fire, and inundation, we soberly query as to whether the whole thing is just the product of hippies’ stoned imaginations, basking in the glow of their sand candles and thinking how much pot and patchouli those “billions of dollars” in research grants would buy.  Of course, the interesting part of the story: that some shady corporate funders have moved into “opposition research” and are manipulating the media with timed barrages of fake “evidence,” is completely lost, while three sentences from the purloined emails are dutifully and exhaustively parsed to see if they really make thirty years of climate science inoperable.  Can you blame me, or anyone else, for tuning such shit out?

Again and again, self-defeating and aberrant political behavior is rewarded and continued, whatever the polls and voters say, and we are gradually being taught that even bothering to talk about it is like pissing up a rope.  By our guardians in the Fourth Estate, no less.  They choose a narrative and dedicate their lives to making it play out, which it generally does, the rare exception like the near-survival of the Public Option only proving the rule.

But now that we know that each morning we open yesterday’s paper, and each evening we turn on last week’s news, and these bozos have the gall to further insult our intelligence by blaming us for not exercising our rights as citizens, when the products they offer are clearly designed to produce just that result.  When they speak grandly of “ordinary Americans” they speak only of those they have successfully misinformed, a group always fewer in number than they imagine, and who always turns out to be stupider than the most “ordinary” American anyone has ever encountered.

To a thinking American, turning on the TV or opening a newspaper to hear, yet again, that (A) is based on logic, facts, and evidence, but (B) is better theater and a lot of stupid people seem to like it, so we went with (B), is the real reason for the decline of the Mainstream Media.  No one needs to watch to know how it ends, and for that sort of entertainment, I’ll take “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” any day.

We report, you decide, indeed.

Of course, it wasn’t ordinary Americans that came up with this genius idea, unless you consider Tom Friedman ordinary; all along we’d been taught that our “defense” dollars went toward preventing violent confrontation, as the deceptive name for them implied.  Of course, it turned out that our defense dollars really did nothing except to create violence, and peskily, not always the kind we like, as we found out on Sept. 11, 2001.  But as is often the case, failure created opportunity, which was pretty necessary at the time because all evidence pointed to the glaringly obvious notion that our lavish military spending was clearly to blame for that disaster, so those whose lifestyles couldn’t be maintained without the most extravagant military spending on earth had to swing into action.  The people, benighted pansies that they were, needed war to become glamorous again, and this time the media wasn’t going to be asking any impertinent questions that might sully that goal. (Given the fact that the our media outlets have since lost whatever vestigial credibility, not to mention viability, they retained before this decision, you have to wonder whether they’re all owned by defense contractors and/or cult leaders….)

In short, the eager acquiescence of the media and the gradual but effective brainwashing of the citizenry came home to roost seven long years ago, when George Bush, the dumbest and least trustworthy President the country has ever had, could go on TV and announce a second war and everybody thought it was a great idea, although its goals were as phony and its end just as predictably disastrous as the last.  Bush was a terrible president in many ways, but as far as selling suicidal wars, he will go down in history as a champ….  Not only isn’t he blamed for his idiocy, but he is exalted for it, as Obama’s embrace of said idiocy shows.

What Bush did back then was worse than legitimizing war; what he did was de-legitimize peace, and although a lot of people will undoubtedly get rich off that change, democracy died in that awful winter of 2002-2003, as Obama’s shameful capitulation yesterday made all too clear.

War is all we have left, but thank heaven that old “Vietnam Syndrome’ has been well and truly vanquished.  Otherwise people would get unpleasantly uppity.

No, he doesn’t sound sure of himself and, despite donning his CIC chain mail for a speech at West Point, he may be be projecting weakness, just as Dick Cheney, our great, snarling former vice president, says he is.

But there may be more to it than simply cowering under Cheney’s glare, or because of the messy table which Bush and Cheney left behind.

Oh?!!  Why?

I read a stray story over the week-end about the Kennedy assassination; and the writer put forth the “grassy knoll” theory, supported by the famous Zapruder film from that time, which seemed to show at least one other shooter than Lee Harvey Oswald that day in Dallas in November 1963, a shooter who blasted a hole in the front right of Kennedy’s head as he sat in his limo, cruising through Dealey Plaza – a wound which, according to the writer, suggested a CIA conspiracy to kill the president.

Here’s another take on the Kennedy/CIA dynamic from another writer, James Douglass:

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/12/02/james-w-douglass/

So the question raised by some is whether, in the eyes of certain people in the government, Kennedy wasn’t tough enough at the time (thus, the assassination), and – considering Obama’s dilemmas and our current wars – whether the new Democratic president, and his CIA chief, Leon Panetta, are now fearful of the CIA.

Well, gosh, I don’t know about that; but, as far as Afghanistan is concerned, it sure looks like it’s in for a dime, in for a dollar.

Cheney, in his latest armchair generalisimo comments on Obama’s leadership, has denied that he or his former boss are responsible for any backsliding in Afghanistan, just as they keep saying they kept us safe and did everything right in Iraq, including, presumably, crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s legally.

And as the Obama war policy for Afghanistan is rolled out, sure-as-shootin’, the national media will treat it all in its usual “he said, he said” manner, giving Cheney his due, tit for tat.

Yet, about Iraq, there’s more going on today, debate-wise, than many Americans may be aware of (maybe even Cheney), since there are, even six years after the invasion, new questions being asked about that war.

But the questions are not being asked here.  Can’t have that.  They’re being asked in London, at the Chilcot hearings.

Over the week-end, Jeremy Greenstock, the former UK ambassador to the UN,  said the Bush administratoin was “hell bent” on invading Iraq and didn’t want to wait for a second UN resolution on the matter.  This is not news really, but Greenstock drove the point home that, even today, while the invasion might – might - be seen as legal in a narrow sense, it was not legitimate politically because a wider consensus within the UN was never established.

Also this week-end, the Chilcot hearings heard that the former attorney general to Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister, wrote opinions in 2002 which questioned the legality of a proposed, preemptive US/UK invasion of Iraq.

http://www.docudharma.com/diary/17534/iraq-war-inquiry-day-four

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6938002.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/27/truth-uk-guilt-iraq-chilcot

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/01/iraq-memo-smoking-gun-goldsmith

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/vickiwoods/6673300/Chilcot-Iraq-hearings-An-inquiry-with-everything.-.-.-except-answers.html

As Kurt Vonnegut would say:  And so it goes …

American military male homophobes incessantly whine that to allow gays into my foxhole means I could be seduced or raped and so I couldn’t concentrate on killing the enemy because those fags wouldn’t be there to protect my ass, but to attack it. Lesbians aren’t technically allowed in the foxhole, yet if allowed to have sex, they are equally a threat to battlefield success. Those claims are not the reasons why homophobes have so successfully maintained gross discrimination in a military that has become a fair playing field for all other minorities. Their shouted reasoning is so absurd it’s hard to believe how homophobes have retained their power almost one year into Obama’s presidency.

Religious Homophobes claim some man a long time ago in a culture far different from America today wrote that God demands that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. So even though there is no proof that the bible author prophet talked to a God whose proof of existence hasn’t been proved and ancient cultures are far different than modern American Christian culture which has changed in so many ways since then, these fanatics insist everyone must hold to the ancient idea of what constitutes a marriage. This utter nonsense has still carried the day in recent elections. As with military homophobes, the professed religious arguments used in elections is not the real reason why this outright discrimination has caused so much needless hardships and suffering.

The RWCAs (the C is for Cowardly) have made one ridiculous argument after another about Barack Obama before and after the election. Movie/TV comedian John Cleese believes the right of the Republican party are crazy. In a recent interview published in Vanity Fair magazine, Cleese said, the right of the Republican Party is a group of people who are very prejudiced, and are very emotional about their prejudices, without by and large having many powers of analysis or introspection. When Obama was elected to office, he just caused them to feel crazier and crazier, because he’s clearly so much saner than they are. The response of most people to feeling crazy is not, “Oh I must be crazy, so therefore I should try to become saner.” It’s actually to become even more crazy.”

Despite the debt, home foreclosures, suffering and death that America’s health system causes, 30-40% of Americans make outrageous claims for the status quo and fight hard against their best interests.

What fear could possibly cause this illogical, cruel thinking? The fear of having the most basic beliefs about life challenged with facts and logic. Regardless of political or religious beliefs or economic standing, it is frightening for anyone to have to face the reality that a basic tenet used to live their life could be wrong.

Magnifying the fear is the fact that fear has been the primary motivator used to teach these illogical base beliefs. Fear of abnormal sex (is there such a thing?), mortal sin, a forever life in hell, government taking away your freedom, etc. are used to hold the believer steadfast and beholden to those spreading the fear.

The fearmongering regarding sex has throughout human history for the vast majority of cultures made the naked human body dirty and something that must be covered up. That’s crazy. Animals can lead happy lives without clothes. Clothes should be used for protection or decoration, not to inhibit sexual desire. In Japan both genders can take public baths together without sexual desire rearing its head because both genders can compartmentalize physical and mental cleansing from sexual desire. It does no harm later to sexual desire in the bedroom.

Leaders of any gender or gender variation who use fear to teach illogical beliefs, usually for economic gain or power which results in economic superiority, are doing grave harm. Playing on someone’s inner fear is far worse than most of the reasons we imprison people. If some male wants to screw a sheep, how is that a crime? How did American culture make sodomy a crime for so long? How is it so hard to prove that crying fire in a theater is a very serious crime. Do we have to have Obama assassinated before the Becks of our culture are held to account?

There is no easy solution to bring sanity to those Americans trapped by inner fears instilled by selfish leaders until the inner fears are dealt with. The best solution I know of rests with public education. Not by teaching against the base beliefs because most schools could never find enough agreement to develop a curriculum. It would involve showing students the value of making all decisions for themselves and keeping an open mind while doing that. To learn that self-introspection and skepticism are invaluable life tools. That compassion and giving to others makes a more cohesive, real problem solving community. That working together means sacrifice and compromise.

Life is a series of never ending problem solving. When children are taught to do what the adults tell them and not make each decision for themselves, these students when adults easily fall prey to vulture leaders. We should give far more emphasis early in the public education process to emotional and life skills and not take the easy rode of making education purely academic. Concentration on just the academic results in testing and “capitalistic” grading on who is better and who is worse. There are at least eight types of intelligence and our current public education system says that if you are weak in academic intelligence and strong in others, you are not as good as your fellow students. That is silly beyond belief.

Finland has a better education system than we do in America because they do teach these fundamentals along with the academic. They score highest in world testing not because they are better at academics but because they consider teaching the highest form of employment and education elementary to any success in life. They know how to instill the love of learning and skepticism. Americans simply don’t. Our current Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wants to give even more emphasis to teaching to the test so our students can be even more insecure and lag further behind Finland and other wiser countries. And political debate will grow even more ridiculous if that is possible.