Donkey Mountain

The Obesity Dividend

2009-11-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

There might be trouble ahead for the Pentagon. Even though every branch of the military recently met its recruitment goals, there’s reason to fear they won’t be so lucky in the future. According to an article in Wired, the upcoming generation of potential warriors is just too damn fat to make good soldiers:

More than three-quarters of the nation’s 17- to 24-year-olds couldn’t serve in the military, even if they wanted to. They’re too fat, too sickly, too dumb, have too many kids, or have copped to using illegal drugs.

The armed services are willing to grant waivers for some of those conditions - asthma, or a little bit of weed. But the military’s biggest concern is how big and how weak its potential recruits have become.

“The major component of this is obesity,” Curt Gilroy, the Pentagon’s director of accessions, tells Army Times’ William McMichael. “Kids are just not able to do push-ups… And they can’t do pull-ups. And they can’t run.”

America might be forced to abandon war as the basis of its foreign policy because we just don’t have enough people who are physically or mentally able to fight. Obesity will make us do the right thing.

Who could have thought that being fat, lazy and stupid would turn out to be our salvation?

Blessed are the peacemakers:

Another Dubious Milestone

2009-11-03T13:11:00.000-08:00

You might be interested to know that the Army is about to break a new record:

Sixteen American soldiers killed themselves in October in the U.S. and on duty overseas, an unusually high monthly toll that is fueling concerns about the mental health of the nation’s military personnel after more than eight years of continuous warfare.
The Army’s top generals worry that surging tens of thousands more troops into Afghanistan could increase the strain felt by many military personnel after years of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The October suicide figures mean that at least 134 active-duty soldiers have taken their own lives so far this year, putting the Army on pace to break last year’s record of 140 active-duty suicides. The number of Army suicides has risen 37% since 2006, and last year, the suicide rate surpassed that of the U.S. population for the first time.

The suicide rate in the Army, like the unemployment rate here at home, just keeps rising and rising. But the Army is on the case, and they’re taking proactive steps to deal with the problem. In conjunction with the National Institute of Mental Health, they’ll be conducting a five year long, $50 million dollar study “to better identify the factors that cause some soldiers to take their own lives.”

I’m no psychologist, but I think I might be able to save the Army some money here. Sending people half way around the world to be shot at, maimed or killed for no damn reason at all, for no goddamn reason at all, tends to be bad for their mental health.

That might be one of the risk factors you should examine over the next five years.

That’s Gratitude For You

2009-10-31T09:52:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton has been in Pakistan, and Friday she was forced to deal with something that’s rarely a problem for politicians here in America, the people:

During the visit and talks with Pakistani leaders, Clinton found herself repeatedly on the defensive from ordinary Pakistanis brimming with resentment toward U.S. foreign policy.

During a live broadcast of an interview before a predominantly female audience of several hundred, Clinton struggled to avoid describing the classified U.S. effort to target terrorists, and still try to explain the efforts of American foreign policy.

One woman asked Clinton how she would define terrorism.

“Is it the killing of people in drone attacks?” the woman asked. Then she asked if Clinton considered both the U.S. missile strikes and militant bombings like the one that killed more than 100 civilians in the city of Peshawar earlier in the week as acts of terrorism.

“No, I do not,” Clinton replied.

Another man said bluntly: “Please forgive me, but I would like to say we’ve been fighting your war.”

One woman even had the chutzpah to call US drone attacks “executions without trial.”

So the Pakistanis, or, as George W. Bush once called them, the Pakis, are getting restive. For some reason, they don’t like being used as pawns in US wars, nor do they enjoy being targeted in drone strikes. When you consider all we’ve done for them, you’d think they’d be better sports about it. I mean, if it wasn’t for America, they’d never experience the joys of things like Kentucky Fried Chicken, or Hostess Twinkies, or Bruce Willis movies. That’s gratitude for you.

No matter. Anti-American sentiment there is on the rise, which could threaten our efforts on the entire “AfPak” front. It’s just one more bad situation on our increasingly dark horizon.

Mere mortals might consider this a good time to reconsider their situation, to regroup, and maybe even rethink their entire strategy. But we’re not mere mortals. We’re Americans. What do we do when we’re losing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, while at the same time suffering a severe recession at home?

Easy: Put the screws to Iran, because a bankrupt empire can never have too many enemies.

We’ve Lost Nuristan

2009-10-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

We’ve lost Nuristan, and I feel fine:

ISLAMABAD - The United States has withdrawn its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan, on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban-led insurgency to orchestrate its regional battles.
The US has retained some forces in Nuristan's capital, Parun, to provide security for the governor and government facilities. The American position concerning the withdrawal is that due to winter conditions, supply arteries are choked, making it difficult to keep forces in remote areas. The US has pulled out from some areas in the past, but never from all four main bases.…
The province is now under the effective control of the network belonging to Qari Ziaur Rahman, a Taliban commander with strong ties to Bin Laden. This makes Nuristan the first Afghan province to be controlled by a network inspired by al-Qaeda.

I can hear the children playing at the school by my house as I write this. Traffic is moving along the road, same as always. Flags aren’t flying at half-mast. The US empire is still crumbling apart like moldy drywall. It’s just another day.

And why should it be any different? After all, we’ll get Nuristan back. We always do. On that day, the recovery of Nuristan will be greeted with the same indifference as its loss.

Occasionally, we Americans show some intelligence.

Here’s a funny coincidence. On the day we hear about our retreat from Nuristan, the New York Times publishes an op-ed piece about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan entitled, “Transcripts of Defeat.” (Highly recommended.) Here’s a quote from a Soviet commander at the time:

“There is no piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by one of our soldiers at some time or another,” he said. “Nevertheless much of the territory stays in the hands of the terrorists. We control the provincial centers, but we cannot maintain political control over the territory we seize. …
“About 99 percent of the battles and skirmishes that we fought in Afghanistan were won by our side,” Marshal Akhromeyev told his superiors in November 1986. “The problem is that the next morning there is the same situation as if there had been no battle. The terrorists are again in the village where they were — or we thought they were — destroyed a day or so before.”

Welcome To The New Normal

2009-10-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

According to this article from the Associated Press, we’ve entered the realm of the “new normal,” which means long-term high unemployment, which means we’re fucked.

Higher jobless rates could be new normal
WASHINGTON – Even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be gone forever and a weak employment market could linger for years.

That could add up to a “new normal” of higher joblessness and lower standards of living for many Americans, some economists are suggesting.

All of those lost jobs in construction and the auto industry are gone forever, and nothing is popping up to replace them. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that, even before the recession, “many jobs had vanished or been shipped overseas amid a general decline of U.S. manufacturing.”

Now we’re all caught in a vicious cycle where joblessness leads to decreased spending, which leads to more lay-offs and even fewer jobs, which leads to further decreases in spending, and so on. All the economists quoted in the article agree that we’re hopelessly trapped in the suck and there’s no visible way out.

So now is the time for that legendary American ingenuity to kick-in, right? Now is the time to invest in new industries and new technologies, to invent new models of economic development, or even launch another New Deal, right?

Wrong. We must think outside the box. In this case, that means getting your minds right and adapting to high unemployment as a permanent feature of American life, you dumb schmucks. It’s the new normal.

“This Great Recession is an inflection point for the economy in many respects. I think the unemployment rate will be permanently higher, or at least higher for the foreseeable future,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody’s Economy.com.

“The collective psyche has changed as a result of what we’ve been through. And we’re going to be different as a result,” said Zandi, who formerly advised Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and now is consulted by Democrats in the administration and in Congress.

It’s comforting to know that one of McCain’s former advisers is “now being consulted by Democrats in the administration” and by members of Congress. It’s also nice to know that this self-appointed interpreter of our “collective psyche” is probably counseling them to accept chronic unemployment as the new normal.

I don’t think this guy represents the pinnacle of economic reasoning, but there he is, pitching his two cents to the White House. And I’ve no doubt that the White House, in the interests of achieving that holiest of states — bi-partisan consensus — is taking his advice into consideration.

I wonder if this is also part of the new normal:

At rescued banks, perks keep rolling
NEW YORK -- Even as the nation’s biggest financial firms were struggling and the federal government was spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save many of them, the companies as a group were boosting the perks and benefits they pay their chief executives.
The firms, accounting for more $350 billion in federal bailout funds, increased these perks and benefits 4 percent on average last year, according to an analysis of corporate disclosures filed in recent months.
Some chief executives, such as Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America and Jeffrey M. Peek of CIT Group, the major small-business lender now on the brink of bankruptcy, each received about $100,000 more than a year earlier for personal use of corporate jets. Others saw an increase in the value of chauffeured services, parking or personal security.

Ralph W. Babb Jr., chief executive of Dallas-based lender Comerica, was compensated for a new country club membership, with an initiation fee and dues of more than $200,000. GMAC Financial Services chief executive Alvaro de Molina benefited from a $2.5 million payment from his company to help cover his personal tax bill.

I think I see the outlines of the new normal coming into focus, like the shape of a monster rising from a swamp. We accept the current level of 9.8% unemployment (a low estimate) as the baseline rate. We could even compromise and go a little higher, say, 12% maybe? Hell, if reality TV, wall-to-wall sports coverage and chemical food additives have done their job properly, we might even let it climb as high as fifteen percent before the great beast of the people finally lifts up its snout, smells something rotten and starts to get fidgety. Then we squeeze those remaining proles still lucky enough to have jobs in order to keep banks afloat and subsidize their CEO’s country club dues.

Sounds like a healthy economic model to me, except I’d hesitate to call it new. It sounds a lot like the oldest normal in history: a rich, tiny oligarchy living atop masses and masses of hopeless, poor dregs. All we need now is a new religion to cement the structure in place and keep it secure for the next two-thousand years.

Don’t worry. You’ll get used to life in the new normal. Cramped living conditions will bring your family closer together. As for a lack of work, look at the bright side: Monday mornings won’t suck so bad now. And you won’t miss your pride or dignity after they’re gone any more than you miss your baby teeth. Besides, Americans have always been known for their can-do spirit. We put a man on the moon. We defeated fascism and invented plastic. Surely we can condition ourselves to permanent unemployment and poverty? Just think of it as an adventure, like camping out.

Long live the New Normal!

Will The Real Founding Fathers Please Stand Up?

2009-10-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

In the winter of 1778, the father of our country was camped out with the harried and motley remnants of the Continental Army at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. They were defeated, hungry, and frozen; the entire army was on the verge of disintegration. Had they fallen apart, it’s possible that the American Revolution would have failed, and the glorious cause of American independence would now be remembered as just another bloody skirmish in British imperial history, not much different than the Siege of Khartoum or the Zulu War in the following century.

Meanwhile, the British Army was comfortably lodged at Philadelphia, where they enjoyed a steady supply of food sent not from England, but over land from … the farmers around Valley Forge!

The Continental Army was wasting away while the hated redcoats were dining fairly well, thank you very much, from the bounty of nearby Pennsylvanian farms.

How did such a travesty come to pass?

By operations of the invisible hand, of course, the last God standing in our hoary universe.

Local farmers didn’t like to sell their produce to George Washington because he paid in nearly worthless currency, the Continental, whereas the British paid in pounds sterling, the choicest coin of the day.

Politics had nothing to do with it. It was a shrewd, sound economic calculation. It was the invisible hand of the market.

I can hear Jim Cramer, or Lawrence Kudlow, or any of the other epidermal infections on CNBC spasmodically cheering them on right now: Take the smart money! It’s a no-brainer!

Thus, from the storied mists of America’s past, we’re offered a prenatal glimpse of our developing national character, not in the stalwart figure of George Washington, but in the mercenary behavior of colonial husbandmen — our true spiritual forebears.

George Washington, on the other hand, displayed some unsavory conduct that would probably get him cashiered in today’s warfare state, as well as subject him to great, gushing heaps of slander from the Morlocks on Fox News.

To wit: when somebody suggested to Washington that they simply confiscate all the adjoining farms and remove the locals in order to deprive the British of supplies, he refused. Such harshness, he argued, would be worse than the problem it was intended to solve. He recognized that wholesale violence against the civilian population would not only be futile, but counter-productive.

And it would also be immoral. The “horror of depopulating a whole district,” he said, “would forbid the measure.” (I lifted the quote from American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the American Republic, by Joseph Ellis).

So Washington refused, on both moral and strategic grounds, to implement a policy that’s now fairly standard in U.S. wars, and which flag-waving American consumers regard with bovine passivity: pacification. He refused to burn the village in order to save it.

How positively un-American.

You could say the concept of winning hearts and minds has undergone a slight transformation in the years between Valley Forge and Fallujah.

(This is not to say that George was an angel. He did publicly execute men caught sending supplies to the British in Philadelphia, and occasionally left their bodies strewn along the road as a warning to any other budding entrepreneurs, but that was regarded as an extreme measure undertaken because of dire necessity. Now it’s the military equivalent of a slap on the wrist, and we send American soldiers thousands of miles around the world to do such things on a routine basis. George Washington was responding to an immediate, pressing crisis. We’re doing it now because of … why, exactly?)

Who is more familiar to contemporary American eyes, a general cum politician with common sense and some small measure of humanity, or a bunch of opportunistic profit seekers scrambling to make a buck, regardless of the consequences? Which character type is today more celebrated, more envied, and more sneakily admired? Which type shanks his way up to the highest peaks of American public life?

Which type now makes the rules?

Who are the real founding fathers?

Next Fourth of July, don’t forget to tip your tin cup to the true progenitors of the American Way.

Biting The Hand That Feeds

2009-10-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure what’s more dumb, whether the idiots who did this got the swastika wrong, or whether they did it on a golf course at a country club where, it’s probably fair to say, a large percentage of the members agree with the sentiment:

The dumb shit teabaggers are alienating their own patrons.

This rabble just doesn’t understand. You can carry placards depicting Obama as Hitler or Mao. You can hint about how you’d like to see a military coup in the United States. You can even criticize big banks. But one thing you can’t ever, ever do, is vandalize a golf course. That’s an unpardonable sacrilege to the aristocrats who run your party, you fools. It’s almost as egregious as burning the American flag, saying ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas,’ or claiming that Ronald Reagan didn’t win the Cold War.

Looks like the sugar daddies in the Republican party are gonna have to clarify the ground rules for their barefooted army of useful idiots.

The Benefits Of Unemployment

2009-10-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

CNN is giddily reporting that all branches of the military have met their recruitment goals. The Army, they say, has even exceeded their quota. As usual, we’re not given any context for this ‘happy’ state of affairs. The story is left hanging in a void from which, I presume, we’re supposed to conclude that all is well at the Pentagon and that Americans are still patriotically taking up the standard in defense of their nation.

Go team!

I don’t suppose this has anything to do with it:

9.8% unemployment. That’s not including people who’ve given up looking for work or who haven’t filed for unemployment. Nor does it include thousands of impecunious serfs like me who are ‘under-employed,’ one of my favorite euphemisms which, around where I live, means ten dollars an hour, twenty hours per week, and don’t forget to smile and wear plenty of flair.

Gen. McChrystal might get his 40,000 new ‘trigger-pullers’ for Afghanistan after all. Funny how things work out, isn’t it?

America’s Most Sacred Shrine

2009-10-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

And now, via Salon.com, comes another heroic tale from the terminal stages of America’s decline:

Oct. 7, 2009 For the first time in a generation, Arlington National Cemetery has marked the burial of an unknown on its storied grounds. Only this time, 25 years since the last interment at the Tomb of the Unknowns, the identity of the body remains a mystery not because the ravages of war made identification impossible, but because in a bureaucratic error the cemetery lost the paperwork showing the identity of the remains.

Arlington recently installed a headstone marked “Unknown” above grave 449 in section 68 of the cemetery. “A grave marker has been placed at grave 449 in section 68 noting the remains as Unknown,” Army spokesman Dave Foster confirmed to Salon in a statement.

They lost the paperwork! I dunno, maybe the fax machine got jammed. Maybe it happened the afternoon they threw an office party celebrating Iraqi National Sovereignty Day. Who knows? Now this soldier, whomever he or she is, resides for eternity in plot 449, section 68. But rest assured, they died a hero.

But it gets even better:

But Arlington’s newest unknown, buried without special ceremony, is the exception to what was intended to be the rule. The cemetery buried someone in grave 449 -- likely relatively recently, since that section is an active part of the cemetery -- and then lost track of the paperwork showing the identity of the remains. In 2003, workers went to bury a newly deceased service member in that plot, only to find unmarked remains in the ground. Paper records had listed the plot as vacant.
Rather than publicly admit this error, Arlington quietly left the remains unmarked for six years. For those six years, passersby saw only an empty plot of green grass in spot 449, surrounded by stones etched with names.
This remained the case until this past summer, when Salon began working on tips from current and former workers at Arlington who said these kinds of mistakes occur with disturbing frequency at the cemetery, which calls itself “our nation’s most sacred shrine.”
At first, Arlington denied any problem. Salon asked the cemetery last summer, “Has the cemetery ever dug a grave only to find there is already someone there, though the grave is unmarked?” Cemetery spokeswoman Kaitlin Horst responded, “We are not aware of any situation like that.” Salon later produced internal paper records showing that the cemetery did not know the identity of the remains in grave 449.

When confronted with the foul up, they denied it, and they did so in language that would make any Pentagon spokesman proud: “We are not aware of any situation like that.”

We’ve gone from “Give me liberty, or give me death” to “We are not aware of any situation like that” in a scant 234 years. That’s what I call American exceptionalism!

Now the Army’s looking into into the mystery of plot 449, section 68, but won’t give any details, because, you’ll be surprised to learn, they “can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

And with good reason. They don’t know what’s in plot 449, section 68. It might be empty, or the headstone might have been placed over a soldier they’ve correctly identified, which means that the real unknown soldier is buried under someone else’s name. But whose? For all they know, the real unknown soldier might be at the Detroit morgue. The Army would be facing what the Salon author describes as a “ripple effect public relations disaster” as one falsely identified corpse leads to the discovery of another, and another. Everyone in section 68 might be sleeping under the wrong tombstone.

Whoopsie daisy! Fubar, you know? Just place flowers three graves deep in every direction from where you “think” your son is buried. You’re bound to hit the right one sooner or later. It’s the thought that counts.

We produce so many deaths and so many corpses the people in charge of handling them can’t keep up. Maybe they’re short-handed and need to hire some new help. Maybe Arlington National Cemetery is one of the few truly recession-proof industries in America.

So much for “our nation’s most sacred shrine.” Besides, didn’t that honor pass over to Goldman Sachs last fall?

When Plutocrats Cry

2009-10-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

The future looks bleak for our poor sclerotic plutonomy. First we don’t get the Olympics, then comes word that China, Russia, France and numerous Arab countries are laying the groundwork for eventually dumping the dollar, a move which will expose America as little more than a Third World country with credit cards and a big army. But I didn’t really begin to tremble until I came across this story from last weekend’s New York Times. Verily, the sky is falling:

Too Rich to Worry? Not in This Downturn

It turns out the other half — or at least the tiny slice who live at the top of the wealth pyramid — are not sleeping any better than the rest of America.
At a closed-door meeting of advisers to family offices — which serve families who typically are worth more than $500 million — I learned that the super-rich are just as concerned about the future as everyone else.
Even though the stock market has rebounded from its March 9 low, the family office advisers said many of their wealthiest clients were bracing for more bad news and wondering how it would affect their family unity.

Maybe the same way losing a home, a job, or your life’s savings affects your family unity; maybe the same way your family unity is affected when someone gets cancer and dies for lack of decent insurance, and the response from multimillionaires is to shrug their shoulders, tell us all to go eat cake, and then lecture us that national health insurance is socialism.

But I’m inching towards class warfare, which, as any self-respecting American plutocrat will gladly tell you, is just a false front for envy.

It’s also self-defeating, as the author of the article takes pains to point out:

Before you start laughing up your sleeve, be advised that this is not a good thing. When the super-rich get cold feet, the rest of America gets swine flu. They are, after all, the people who might finance new companies that create jobs, make big investments to support existing companies and spread their wealth throughout the economy.

True. Then again, they might also be the same people who’s stupefying greed created this whole mess in the first place. People who live in trailer parks don’t trade mortgage-backed securities.

The super-rich are learning how to cope, the article goes on to inform us. They are starting to look at their families “in ways that the average American can learn from.” Because, you know, us proles learn everything from the rich.

The basic issue for them is deciding what they want to do as a family now that they realize they cannot do everything. “You’re worth $500 million one day and wake up the next and it’s $350 million and you’ve pledged $100 million to the Met,” said Rob Elliott, senior managing director at Bessemer. “What are the family’s goals? Is it philanthropy or bringing along the next generation?”

Good gracious! Only worth $350 million with a hundred million pledged to the Met? I need a Valium and a glass of Cristal just thinking about it. But at least they’re coming to the realization that they can’t do everything. It’s nice they’re learning a lesson that most of us picked up somewhere around age ten or so. Better late than never.

They are also starting to understand “that they can’t have everything.” “It used to be, ‘I’m going to buy A and B.’ Now it’s, ‘I’ll buy A or B.’”

The mind reels.

But you know what’s really got them scared? The lurking shadow of Big Government:

The other risk to super-rich families is government action and increased regulation. They suspect it is coming but do not know how it will affect them. The result is that they are increasingly anxious about the future while still shell-shocked from the past year.

Lack of government regulation facilitated this recession, and they’re worried about … government regulation.

The mind reels. Wait, I already said that.

Yet Another Reason To Dislike George Will

2009-10-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

Does George Will read Donkey Mountain or Bad Attitudes? I doubt it, but compare this paragraph from one of his recent columns dated October 4, “Enter The White Queen,”and then read my last post, “You can’t Believe Impossible Things,” dated September 24.

Here’s Will:

Last Thursday, the president’s “engagement” with Iran began. This Wednesday, the U.S. war in Afghanistan will enter its ninth year. And U.S. foreign policy is entering a White Queen phase.

In “Through the Looking Glass,” Alice says she is unable to believe the White Queen’s claim to be 101. The Queen responds, “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.” Alice: “There’s no use trying, one can’t believe impossible things.” Queen: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

At the very least I want a couple of Oriole’s tickets out of this, or an autographed bow-tie. Brunch with Cokie Roberts, perhaps? I think George could hook that up if he really wanted to, don’t you?

You Can’t Believe Impossible Things

2009-09-24T23:44:00.000-07:00

We are asked to believe the following proposition: The United States can’t provide its citizens what every Western country offers as a matter of common policy, national health insurance.

On the other hand, the United States can achieve what no country has done before, win a war in Afghanistan.

Go to the board and write it two-hundred times, children.

It calls to mind a passage from Through The Looking Glass:

“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.

“Can’t you?” the queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

It’s Chess, Not Checkers, Stupid

2009-09-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

Running an empire is, to quote George W. Bush in a different context, “hard work.” Just take this example from Afghanistan:

KABUL: India’s growing influence in Afghanistan could “exacerbate” regional tensions and encourage Pakistani “countermeasures” in Afghanistan or India, a top US military commander says.
At the same time, General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the US and coalition forces in Afghanistan, has in his report to the Pentagon noted that “Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people”.
“Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including significant development efforts and financial investment. In addition, the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian,” the general said.
“While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India,” added McChrystal.

Uh, let me get this straight. Our involvement in Afghanistan is strengthening Indian influence in Afghanistan, which then pisses off Pakistan, who then aids the Taliban, who then fight us. This necessitates greater US involvement, which then strengthens India, which then pisses off Pakistan, who then aids the Taliban, who then fight us. This necessitates greater US involvement, which then strengthens India, which then pisses off Pakistan, who then …

I think I see the light: We need more troops!

All of this gets filtered through our dumb media and into our dumb brains as “fighting evil” or “fighting terror.”

Oh, by the way, we just can’t afford health insurance. No money, you see. Grow up and stop being so unrealistic.

Ever Get The Feeling You’ve Been Cheated?

2009-09-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

You have:

Obama supports extending Patriot Act provisions
The Obama administration supports extending three key provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of the year, the Justice Department told Congress in a letter made public Tuesday.
Lawmakers and civil rights groups had been pressing the Democratic administration to say whether it wants to preserve the post-Sept. 11 law’s authority to access business records, as well as monitor so-called “lone wolf” terrorists and conduct roving wiretaps.
The lone wolf provision was created to conduct surveillance on suspects with no known link to foreign governments or terrorist groups. It has never been used, but the administration says it should still be available for future investigations.
The roving wiretaps provision was designed to allow investigators to quickly monitor the communications of a suspects who change their cell phone or communication device, without investigators having to go back to court for a new court authorization. That provision has been used an average of 22 times a year, officials said.

So the Obama Administration is leaving some of the more loathsome aspects of the Patriot Act in place “for future investigations.” That’s another way of saying that the Patriot Act is, more or less, here to stay.

And it’s not getting any better on the foreign front, either:

More ‘combat enablers’ Afghan-bound
About 3,000 additional troops are headed to Afghanistan — but not as part of any new request from the top U.S. commander there, a senior defense official said Monday.
The troops are what the military calls “combat enablers” — noncombat troops who specialize in areas such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; explosives ordnance disposal; medical and mental health; and personnel administration. They will deploy in team-sized elements as opposed to larger units, according to the official, who asked not to be identified.
About 1,000 such troops also will deploy to Iraq, the official said, adding that both groups are being sent in response to existing requests by the theater commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq.

These soldiers, er, excuse me, combat enablers, are being sent in addition to whatever troop increases our current incarnation of William Westmoreland — Stanley McChrystal — is almost certainly going to request (and get).

There’s to be no public option on healthcare, and last Saturday the New York Times reported that little has changed on Wall Street in the year since Lehman Brothers collapsed.

The good new is that the recession is over; the bad news is that we’re in a ‘jobless recovery’. That’s another way of saying that ordinary working schlubs like you and me won’t notice any improvement, which is another way of saying that for ordinary schlubs like you and me there hasn’t been any improvement.

But the news today will be that Obama called Kanye West a jackass, and all the manicured fowl in the mainstream media will cluck cluck cluck about it as if it’s the most portentous scandal since Janet Jackson showed a boob at the Superbowl.

I think this is what court historians of the David McCullough/Arthur Schlesinger Jr. school mean when they praise the continuity or ‘fundamental stability’ of the American political system.

After The Fall

2009-09-12T12:58:00.000-07:00

The New York Times has a nifty little “where are they now” feature about some of the principle characters in last year’s financial meltdown. Ever lay awake wondering how your favorite Wall Street CEOs are doing in these tough times? I sure do. With me, it ranks right up there with, where the hell am I going to find a job and, how the hell am I going to survive when all my savings are gone on my list of major concerns.

Richard S. Fuld Jr. (Or, as I’ll always remember him, Dick):

THEN: As the long-time chief executive of Lehman Brothers, he made a big push to diversify the firm’s business mix. By 2007, it had accumulated a significant portfolio of risky real estate. When the credit crisis hit, the government refused to extend to Lehman the same aid it would later offer to other banks, like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Lehman declared bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008.
NOW: …During downtime, he commutes to vacation homes in Florida and Idaho. Friends say he plays golf and likes to hike up the mountain behind his house in Idaho.

E. Stanley O’Neal:

THEN: He was ousted as the chief executive of Merrill Lynch in 2007 after the firm built up a big portfolio of troubled mortgages.
NOW: … According to his friends, Mr. O’Neal puts a high priority on his workouts. He plays squash with his son at the New York Athletic Club and golfs in Purchase, N.Y., as well as on Martha’s Vineyard, where he owns a waterfront home.

Neel T. Kashkari:

THEN: His formal title was interim assistant secretary of the Treasury for financial stability, but Mr. Kashkari was better known as Treasury’s $700 billion man. He helped shape the bailout and headed the office that was created to buy troubled securities. “It felt like we were at war, and doing everything just to survive,” he recalls.
NOW: Since last May, he and his wife, Minal, have been enjoying a break at their cabin in Truckee, Calif., near Lake Tahoe. He spends his time reading, bicycling and trying to shed the 20 pounds he put on during the crisis. (He’s got five more to go.) The two even competed in the local chili cook-off. He will begin looking for a financial services job this fall.

Hiking, golfing, chili cook-offs, traveling back and forth between two or three homes. Gosh, how do these stoics take it? I think I would have split to Aruba by now, but that’s me. I must lack their grit. If I were in the same boat as these people, I’d be in Washington today marching with all of the other victims of Obama’s socialist coup d’etat.

Okay, so the the last guy isn’t a CEO. I include him merely for two reasons: He’s going to go down in conventional histories as one of the ‘Good Guys’ who helped prevent Great Depression II, when all he did was negotiate a deal to put our money into the hands of Wall Street bankers. That means he had to make sure the money didn’t come with any strings attached that they would find objectionable. He got them the best deal for our money. In other words, a great American hero.

Second, he’s trying to loose weight while competing in chili cook-offs. That’s like trying to give up drinking beer at Ocktoberfest, no? It’s either pointless and stupid, or hypocritical and dishonest. Take your pick, the end result is the same: They play golf at Martha’s Vineyard and take their workouts seriously, and we go broke.

And that pretty much sums the mentality of America’s ruling class, doesn’t it? Pointless, stupid, hypocritical and dishonest.

A Lesson In Doublethink

2009-09-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

…brought to you by George Will:

March 26,2003:

In fact, the war is going well. Just one week into a distant war against a durable dictatorship buttressed by interlocking instruments of terror, U.S. forces have moved more than 300 miles toward the capital. Iraq is not a “failed state” like Yugoslavia or Afghanistan, where, Gen. Wesley Clark believes, the Taliban was “the most incompetent adversary the United States has fought since the Barbary pirates.” Yet this war is demonstrating the U.S. military's astonishing flexibility, mobility, speed and precision. The oil fields have been saved. The war is on schedule toward certain victory. Yet two consequences of all combat --confusion and casualties -- have stirred a disproportionate public unease.

August 25, 2003:

Regarding the reconstruction of Iraq (when did the Reconstruction of the American South end? The 1870s? The 1970s?), the United States must resolve, as Victoria and Thatcher did, that the possibilities of defeat are unthinkable. This is necessary not because a happy Iraq, or a welcome cascade of political dominos, is or ever was likely in the near term. It is necessary because U.S. national security, meaning the war on terrorism and rogue regimes, must move on.

September 3, 2009:

After almost six and a half years, and 4,327 American dead and 31,483 wounded, with a war spiraling downward in Afghanistan, it would be indefensible for the U.S. military — overextended and in need of materiel repair and mental recuperation — to loiter in Iraq to improve the instincts of corrupt elites. If there is worse use of the U.S. military than “nation-building,” it is adult supervision and behavior modification of other peoples’ politicians.

When Republicans wage wars and engage in nation-building, we must persevere, failure is not an option, and those who question it are, at best, suffering from a disproportionate unease. Now that a Democrat is in office, Will suddenly discovers that our troops are overextended, that nation-building does not work, and to keep our troops “loitering” in Iraq is indefensible.

Four legs good, two legs bad; four legs good, two legs bad …

A New Strategy For Afghanistan

2009-09-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

I must have missed the briefing where Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced this new tactic for protecting the Afghan people:

Aid group says U.S. troops raid Afghan hospital
KABUL (Reuters) – U.S. troops burst into a Swedish charity-run hospital in Afghanistan and tied up patients’ relatives and staff, the charity said on Sunday, in what it called a breach of deals between the military and aid groups.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) said soldiers had entered its hospital in Wardak, south of Kabul, on Wednesday evening without explanation and conducted a search, including of female wards and toilets.
“Upon entering the hospital they tied up four employees and two family members of patients at the hospital. SCA staff as well as patients (even those in beds) were forced out of rooms/wards throughout the search,” SCA said in a statement. …

When the soldiers left, hospital staff were told to report any potential insurgents they treated to the NATO forces, the Swedish group said.

I dunno, makes me proud. How about you?

Herpes Makes You Strong

2009-08-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

Venereal disease will never be the same after this.

Chlamydia helps young men feel more ‘manly’: Swedish study
Young men who contract sexually transmitted diseases often view their afflictions as an affirmation of their manhood, a new Swedish study shows.
Upon learning they’ve been infected with a sexually transmitted disease, some young people simply see themselves as unlucky, while others undergo a maturation process which leads them to be more careful in their sexual habits, according to midwife and University of Skövde researcher Kina Hammarlund.

But members of a third group – consisting entirely of young men – succeed in transforming their diseases into a sign of their manhood.

With other male friends slapping on the shoulders and offering encouraging comments about “success with the ladies”, young men who contract diseases such as chlamydia or genital warts can come to view their infection as a badge of honour, rather than a serious health problem.

Genital warts as the new universal symbol of masculinity? Why not? I think it was Joseph Heller who pointed out what a weak symbol of virility the penis is: it’s limp most of the time and it’s primary function is urination.

Brothers Under The Skin?

2009-08-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

I spent some time in Russia back in college, and whenever I came back to the US I was always asked one of the following two questions: “Is it true the women there don’t shave their legs?” And, “You must be more appreciative of America now, huh?”

The answer to both questions was an emphatic “No!”

Contrary to then popular American perceptions, Russian women weren’t a bunch of scowling babushkas with ankles the size of bowling pins. Just the opposite. St. Petersburg was brimming with gorgeous, intelligent women. I dated a Russian girl with the equivalent of a high school education who’d read everything by Shakespeare and most of Mark Twain in translation (whereas I’ve met scores of American college graduates who barely know who Mark Twain was. Is he that dude that, like, wrote that one book, what’s it called?).

As for the second question, I wasn’t exactly sure what I supposed to be so damned appreciative about. I’d concluded that the only difference between a Russian and an American standard of living was a Visa card. It looks to me that our current malaise is proving me right. Americans are waking up to the fact that our inflated standards of living weren’t the result of divine favor or an organic consequence of ‘freedom,’ but simply an artificial credit scam that’s been buoyed along by a series of equally artificial bubbles. Now that the last one has burst, our leaders lecture us about the importance of saving and responsible borrowing (hardy har), and financial ‘reporters’ on CNN in two-thousand dollar suits (yes, Ali Velshi, I’m talking about you) give us helpful hints about how to tighten our belts in rough economic times, etcetera. Here’s an example of their sage advice. A while back I heard one of them say, “You should actually look into using those coupons you get in the mail.” Gee, thanks.

They also encourage us with heartwarming, lets-look-at-the-bright-side human interest stories plagiarized from Little House on the Prairie scripts about how the recession is making Americans re-discover what’s truly important in life (hint: it’s not money!). There used to be a series of commercials based on this theme. One of them showed an aging couple gamboling on a yard of lush green grass. He was wearing a propeller cap and playing the banjo, and she was doing a happy little jig and playing the kazoo, or something equally bizarre. The caption next to them said, There’s more to life than money.

The commercial was for CitiBank.

How not be more appreciative of living in a country where bankers can sermonize about how there’s more to life than money and then go squealing to Congress that they can’t possibly manage without their six-figure bonuses, and to suggest otherwise is a sacrilege against all that is good, decent, and American?

At least the crooks who rule Russia don’t sugar-coat their behavior with syrupy homilies and patronizing television commercials. Their manners are simpler: “We’ve got the money, the power, and fuck you.”

Now that the bottom has dropped out of the so-called American Dream (which was an historical aberration brought about by World War II), the similarities between the two countries are becoming even more apparent. Both countries ultimately bankrupted themselves by developing wasteful, gargantuan military machines while their people slid into poverty. We started out with more money so it’s taken us a bit longer, but we’re getting there. And both countries are ruled by ruthlessly acquisitive oligarchies who lack the barest shreds of public spirit and possess no positive or creative vision at all. The only difference is one of style. The Russians are tactless and brutal, while our our bosses are mild-mannered and polite; the Russians beat you over the head with a club, our masters speak in soft euphemisms while their accomplices pick your pocket.

There is one more important difference, too. On the rare occasions when one of our elites get caught in a crime, he can always go on Saturday Night Live or Dancing With The Stars and receive a complete makeover, and the American public, like battered wives, always takes him back.

American Political Tradition

2009-08-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

Here’s a brief civics lesson from Lincoln’s Secretary of State William H. Seward that I found in Richard Hofstadter’s American Political Tradition. He said that a political party is “in one sense a joint stock company in which those who contribute the most, direct the action and management of the concern.”

Not to be too simplistic about it, but honestly, do you really need to know much more than that in order to understand why Obama’s America is, in substance, eerily similar to George W. Bush’s? The largest contributors are managing the concern, and the largest contributors ain’t us. They are the same constellation of banks, corporations, armaments manufacturers and insurance companies that had the whip hand under Bush (and Clinton, and G.H.W. Bush, and Reagan …). They simply hired a nicer looking, more articulate spokesmen. Like all of his predecessors, he’s doing what he’s told.

Revisionist History, Texas Style

2009-08-22T13:00:00.000-07:00

The Texas State Board of Education seems to be worried that children aren’t bored enough by history, so they’ve decided to make it even more tedious. According to a proposed new set of guidelines for history textbooks, “Texas high school students would learn about such significant individuals and milestones of conservative politics as Newt Gingrich and the rise of the Moral Majority — but nothing about liberals.”

The first draft for proposed standards in United States History Studies Since Reconstruction says students should be expected “to identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority.”

Phyllis Schlafly? Good God. What have the children of Texas done to deserve this kind of torture? Isn’t the Texas State Board of Education familiar with the clause in the Constitution forbidding cruel and unusual punishment?

This kind of thing has become so blandly typical of today’s conservatives it hardly merits any comment at all (and, according to the article in the Houston Chronicle, the guidelines probably won’t even pass). It’s just another example of how the far right is running scared and has to resort to force in order to keep their ideas in circulation, whether by showing up to town hall meetings packing heat or coercing children to memorize the names of their ten-cent heroes. It’s the desperate, sputtering gasp of a dying movement.

The fact that conservatives want Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schlafly in history books is a tacit admission that they are, in fact, history baby! Engraving them in high school textbooks is the shortest and surest way to ensure that they’ll be forgotten and ignored by an entire generation of young Americans. Once the school system turns them into plastic icons like the Founding Fathers, the very mention of their names will induce fidgeting and/or drowsiness. With any luck, it might even foster a bit of rebellion. This thought comforts me.

Everything New Is Old

2009-08-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

Let’s take a break from brooding about healthcare, wars, rumors of wars, depressions, recessions, Blackwater’s Christian Death Squads, and all of the other gaseous effusions that signal America’s impending collapse and have a little lightearted fun instead.

I move that the following words be re-introduced to the English language. They’re in a glossary of obsolete seventeenth century terms listed at the end of Robert Graves’ Wife To Mr. Milton. Modern discourse surely has a place for some of these gems (it might be helpful to think about the mainstream media when reading through them):

Daggy: bedraggled like a sheep that has lain in muck.

To Droil: to labor.

Fliperous: flippant or frivolous.

Hinnies: mules dammed by an ass and sired by a horse (think Glenn Beck).

Lick-Dish: a servile person (Larry King, perhaps?)

Vapouring: talking nonsense.

Gricomed meant syphilitic. But there’s more. A “noblemen or knight was said to be gricomed, whereas a citizen suffered from the Neapolitan scab and a serving man suffered from the plain pox.”

A syphilitic hierarchy? The rich got gricomed and the poor got ‘plain’pox? Sigh. The poor just can’t get a break, not even when it comes to catching the clap. Nothing has changed, I tell you, nothing …

Now, in order to demonstrate the usefulness of these words in modern speech, I’ll use them in a sentence: The vapouring hinnies were gricomed and daggy after attending The White House Correspondents Association’s Third Annual Lick-Dish Convention; or, Glenn Beck was forced to take a week off from Fox News because he’s been droiling with a nasty case of the Neopolitan scab.

Which brings us back to health care …

Poll Watching

2009-08-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

I knew from the start that the war in Afghanistan would fail because our commanding general was named Tommy Franks. How in the hell do you win a war with a commander called Tommy? We’ve had George Washington, Winfield Scott, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Dwight David Eisenhower and … General Tommy?

What the F&%!???

Well, I have new, equally unscientific way of predicting the direction of American policies: Just look at what majorities of Americans want, and you can be sure we’ll get the exact opposite. It works every time:

A majority of Americans want single-payer health insurance. Result? It’s not even on the table, and now it appears that we won’t be getting a public option of any kind.

A majority of Americans are opposed to subsidizing bank bailouts and paying exorbitant bonuses for wealthy CEO’s. Result? Every banker on Wall Street gets a fat pay raise and tees-off the following week with a brand new set of Ben Hogan’s, courtesy of you and me.

So it’s with a great deal of trepidation that I report the following ‘good’ news: A majority of Americans now oppose the war in Afghanistan. It seems 51 percent of the people say the war is “not worth fighting,” and that can only mean one thing: more fighting.

How does my predictive model hold up?

Son of a gun, look at this! The Washington Post says, “Analysts Expect Long-Term, Costly U.S. Campaign in Afghanistan.” Screw the wishes of the American people, this is gonna be a long, hard slog:

Later this month, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is expected to present his analysis of the situation in the country. The analysis could prompt an increase in U.S. troop levels to help implement President Obama’s new strategy.
Military experts insist that the additional resources are necessary. But many, including some advising McChrystal, say they fear the public has not been made aware of the significant commitments that come with Washington’s new policies.
“We will need a large combat presence for many years to come, and we will probably need a large financial commitment longer than that,” said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the “strategic assessment” team advising McChrystal. The expansion of the Afghan security force that the general will recommend to secure the country “will inevitably cost much more than any imaginable Afghan government is going to be able to afford on its own,” Biddle added.

One might add that it will cost more than any imaginable American government can afford as well, but I suppose a ‘senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations’ is too busy kissing the asses of the high and mighty to notice prosaic details like that.

I’d like to offer this post as snarky hyperbole, but it’s not. Every day brings more evidence of the conflicting interests between this country’s elites and everyone else; and every day brings more evidence showing whose interests prevail. Not some time. Not most of the time. All of the time.

Just look at the polls.

An Unconscionable Affront To The American People

2009-08-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

Here’s Obama speaking out against wasteful military spending to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix today:

You know the story. The indefensible no-bid contracts that cost taxpayers billions and make contractors rich. The special interests and their exotic projects that are years behind schedule and billions over budget. The entrenched lobbyists pushing weapons that even our military says it doesn’t want. The impulse in Washington to protect jobs back home building things we don’t need at a cost we can’t afford.

This waste would be unacceptable at any time. But at a time when we’re fighting two wars and facing a serious deficit, it’s inexcusable. It’s unconscionable. It’s an affront to the American people and to our troops. And it’s time for it to stop.

I guess this doesn’t count as an ‘indefensible’ or ‘exotic’ project:

Some American troops will soon find themselves stationed at military bases scattered across the South American nation of Colombia with a mission to use advanced Predator drone technology to aid in fighting the drug trade and to combat terrorism, according to published reports Saturday.

Or this:

Israel Develops Military Robot Snake
Israeli defense researchers are working on a robot snake that can sneak through cracks and into buildings to send back sound and video of enemy movements — or even plant explosives.

So the latter snippet is from Israel, but we know where they get the money to fund their exotic projects.

Apparently, there is wasteful military spending and “wasteful military spending,” and good, sensible Americans know the difference.

Funny, when it comes to military technology the sky is the limit and science fiction is always becoming a reality, by golly; but mention single-payer health care in the United States and you may as well be suggesting we invest in time travel. Can’t happen. Impossible. Unrealistic.

I find this an unconscionable affront to the American people.

A Cure For Swine Flu?

2009-08-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

The solutions to some of life’s most vexing problems are usually right in front of our faces. Take this recommendation for coping with swine flu, made by our friends in Russia:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian soccer fans have been told to drink whisky on their trip to Wales for next month’s World Cup qualifier to ward off the H1N1 swine flu virus, the head of the country’s supporter association (VOB) said Monday.
“We urge our fans to drink a lot of Welsh whisky as a form of disinfection,” VOB head Alexander Shprygin told Reuters.
“That should cure all symptoms of the disease.”

My kind of people, the Russians.

I was lucky enough to spend some time in St. Petersburg in my twenties, and a Russian friend of mine, noticing I was feeling a bit ill, told me I should drink vodka. “My friend’s a doctor,” he said, “And he told me that if you’re coming down with a cold, a little vodka is good for you.”

I explained that I wasn’t coming down with a cold, but had a stomach ache instead.

“Oh,” he said, “a little vodka is good for a stomach ache, too.”

I replied that my stomach ache was from vodka, lots of it, consumed the night before.

Guess what he said?

“Vodka is the very best cure for a hangover.”