Iraq has Solutions- but not useful ones

Iraq and the US campaign there have been historic in the contemporary sense--events that could influence over a two year period or until the next election cycle. Yes, even history has been shrunk down to Republican Party dimensions-- so dominant have been the "politics only" style of running the US government. It was a Republican political success -the entire Iraq campaign from the business planning, to the fund raising, to the feeding of contracts to Republican friendly contractors, to the huge war profits pumped into the economy, to the mindless escalation of energy prices--a Party success of unparalleled proportions. Everyone knew that the build up to the invasion was a big lie--most ignored reality and supported the war. It is hypocritical now that so many more condemn the war--but mercifully war has that effect even when the coffins of our soldiers are carefully hidden from view. The military performed well but has provided excellent cover for the political operations that have flourished under the guise of the liberation of Iraq--for as the undeniable facts show-the liberation of Iraq is a mirage and the ethnic warfare for control over the vast wealth of the country has just begun. The future of Iraq is uncertain but there are many , many workable solutions but none have a sufficient relationship to the Republican Party position in the elections of 2008 and that is the problem. The business of the next war may be more important to the elections in 2008 and Iraq may be left to drift unless the Democrats stumble into taking over policy developments -which when done from the Congress-- only portends that things would be even worse in Iraq while the Iraq majority with guns and bullets do the work we hoped they would do with ideas and ballots.

Draft Not Needed to Limit War

The draft won't limit the initiation of force- oh it would be different if there were a universal draft- we would have more personal engagement to the power elites if their own children had to go off to earn their copororate dividends by risking their lives in combat-- Mr. Rangel we owe you a great national "thank you" for putting that thought into the mainstream.Using drafted soldiers would not really affect the decision to use force it would really only go to the end war public pressure as the casualties might begin to mount. We have seen the innate appeal to Americans to support troops once committed to combat. The modern constitutional interpretation of war powers- and post 9/11- gives unlimited discretion to commit troops to the Executive. The all volunteer army has shown it runs out of volunteers in these confused and unclear policy situations like Iraq--we have had to move national guard forces into the theater of combat and extend tours of duty to maintain person power as needed. This has been an effective drag on continuing to escalate the military role. The best approach to avoiding war is to interdict the cycle of wars tied to presidential re-election campaigns. With all due respect the hundreds of $billions, loss of thousands of lives, and further destabilization of a critical region was a too steep price to pay to unseat one petty dictator in Iraq and re-elect a mere politician in Washington, D.C..

Putting the Pub back in Republican

I think there was some small degree of soul searching in DC last night but a whole lot more heavy drinking among the rePUBlican establishment-- a particularly bitter defeat because of the arrogance of the defeated party--they thought they could just Rove the Democrats again.
The Democrats for their part have the high ground now because they do not have to defend the misCONDUCT of the war in Iraq-- they don't have to come up with answers about how to do it better- beca-a-ause it was their idea not to do it at all. And certainly it was their idea not to do it alone, and it was their idea not to do it so that we could accommodate the fund raising for the 2004 re-election of President Bush. So the Republican "spin artists" that want to put the burden of resolving the war on the House and Senate Democrats will be disappointed--the people already know who started this mess and who has made it even worse.
The Democrats will look into the things that led up to the invasion and they will be harsh as they should be when a leader misuses information to set off a war. More important though the Democrats will begin to find a voice to resonate with the public on things that are much more important than Iraq-- economic opportunity, jobs/careers; energy independence, and the almost completely ignored topic of the effects of industrial/commercial activities on the environment-- that story about the disappearing fish has some importance--what kind of world will we leave to our children's children.

GOP WINS AGAIN- yeah, they probably will

As a Democrat, I feel a need to start wearing a bag over my head--like the football fans in New Orleans-- call the Democratic Party the - "Has -Dems :because it seems there ain't no more of Dems. It was bad enough losing the Count to Bush in 2000. Then the debacle in Ohio in 2004 with the long waiting lines in the black neighborhoods effectively suppressing the vote in many Ohio communities . Now 2006 with all the newspapers using the polls to sell their big expectation stuff only to find that on election eve--there is no lead in the polls it's a statistical dead heat-- well that all well and good because now the rank and file know that they are needed and they must turn out; but turning out and being counted are different things. How many people will be turned away in the inner cities because they don't have a quality picture ID-- or that didn't hear about it before they went to vote. How many will be turned off by long waiting lines in places like Detroit where a new voting machine system will be in place. The Democrats to their favor seem more energized and more determined-- but what they lack are leaders and leaders on the technical side of fund raising and electronic campaigning. Having a message and getting it are still at odds in Democrat universe.

Did He Think That God Wouldn't Notice?

SEEMS that the leader of the faith based people has resigned... In the middle of campaigns to ban gay marriage .
They used to call them busy bodies or gossips-- now they call themselves "best friends" or spiritual guides or concerned this or that and such ...but there have always been people who want to tell everybody else how to live their lives.
They sometimes come at you with history--"The founding Fathers.." bit--or they come at you with a Bible in one hand and a mouthful of anger and judgment- the religious authority bit--but almost always with these "movement" types we have found that they talked the talk but couldn't walk the walk--Now the leader of the faith based people --who have been hammering away at gay rights and gay marriage to destroy them both--turns out to be GAY-- not only that but BUYING GAY SEX--Whoa!! the faith based people must be spinning in their graves and they ain't even dead yet!
This is the kind of moment in a play where Shakespeare would say the Very Vaults of Heaven would Crack...but you know-- with these particular faith based folks you wonder if Heaven has anything to do with it at all-- (what is that ...is that a whiff of Sulphur !)
I saw the faith based folks supporting a war that has taken many lives--not quite a thou shalt not kill crowd-- I saw them get on board to bring down reproductive rights--well at least that was with the thought of preserving life--then I saw them go after Gays to turn them into a kind of second class citizen -even amending the Constitution- be-e-e-c-a-a-u-u- s-e the faith based folks don't like what Gay people do--how they live--how they choose to live. And they have pretty much judged them and called them everything but a child of God.
Well it turns out the Gay folks aren't so different from the faith based folks after all-- and it turns out- and this is a HOOT- both groups(while at war over gay rights) are being led by Gay people.
Personally, I have gay people in my family, among my close friends, and even if there weren't I would hopefully feel the same way-- if you want someone to think your way ..fine ...try and convince them( I always welcome Jehovah Witness especially when they get me out of the shower, all cold and wet--I greet them warmly-- cookies and milk anyone? --and thank God when they leave--is there a more welcome sight in all of nature than the backs of a group of Jehovah Witnesses--I think not!).
But who is so cool that they can morally condemn other people? I mean unless they are hurting someone else--like a spouse abuser, a child molester( even if he is a congressman in charge of preventing child molesting); and I am thinking here that Fate, Karma, Universal Justice-- somewhere there is a special place for the secretly Gay religious leader who condemns Gay people in the name of God ( there's that Sulphur smell again--that is so weird!)
I'm expecting denials and worse before this story is over-- but for now I hope people think about this next week when they vote in several states to take away some of the civil rights of Gay people which is just another way of saying Children of God.
So maybe the faith based folks need to amend their definition of holy marriage-- one man and one woman-(and one other man preferably by the hour but we won't talk about that.... or the Sulphur).

They Finally Found the WMD

News and Politics....newsflash to all listeners and all ships at sea....

President Bush has finally found a weapon of mass distraction in the Iraq war – Senator Kerry's Mouth

—yes this deadly device has been discovered deeply implanted in the 2006 election campaign.

Kerry's mouth is the best hope so far for the Republicans that they can hide the public's outrage at the last six years under six minutes of a campaign speech by Kerry.

Some people can't take a joke and evidently some people can't tell a joke! ... ..but in the world of gaffes this was a giraffe--it's big ,spotted, and everyone notices

Kerry's bad standup routine has been followed by Bush and Company and their bad acting routines: Republicans sounding like they are reading from a script : Kerry insulted the troops—Kerry was talking about Bush it was clear-- so the insult routine is just an act—

I saw one clip and it looked so mechanical that somebody needed to look behind the Republican speaker to see if there was a hard drive to make his mouth move…

but the people have seen this act before for example when we were about to go to war in Iraq—the Iraq nuclear program; the Iraq chemical warfare program—so we will see will the voters accept the insult act or not…

My guess is that the news media will do a lot of business on this story—and in the process people will think about our troops in Iraq – and some will go vote - who might not have— and some others will wonder-- is our leadership as courageous and devoted as OUR people who are serving in Iraq?