Leaving Baghdad ( Part One)

There may be tears in Baghdad, definitely some in many homes in the U.S. as our troops leave Iraq- a season of homecoming joy hopefully awaits thousands of brave men and women in uniformed service.  I expect there are deep doubts and fears that spur tears that will fall and stay in Baghdad, to the extent that a feeling of safety was connected to the U.S. military presence, it too will be leaving.
There were some moments in this road to and from Baghdad that are remarkable - that stand out in memory.  For me, like the tips of undersea volcanoes that breach the waters- stepping stones to the eye, but in deeper reveal- they are great mountains.  The first was the incredible silence over my City the day after the terror attacks in New York City, the raw feeling in my eyes, and the silence as air traffic and commerce seemed stilled.  How we talked in hushed tones.  Then the revelation that our government had been asleep at the switch, National Security Advisor  specialist in defeating the Soviet Union, might not even have known what Al Qaeda was.  How they featured then dropped the pursuit of Bin Laden.  Then how Bin Laden appeared in Republican reelection campaign ads, the Boogie Man.  No one said hey wait--dint you promise to bring him in?  We paid Pakistan to help hunt him down; turned out he was living large in Pakistan.  A spectacle:  Presidential candidate saying - My opponent would not even have gone to war...ahh, the humanities!

We turned on the war machine as a TV event, shock and awe on Friday night special.  We sent our soldiers on a blind alley rush to Baghdad with reporters looking goofy in military garb- flinching at every remote blast. Sandstorms grounded air support- oh, if there had been an army there to oppose us--such poor, poor leadership.  The glory was vain, Saddam was hanged but it was a big lie that he brought down the Towers--a lie many Americans still believed.
Eight years of war and my country seemed stranger each passing day, a government taught us to fear, the American spirit, crushed underfoot like a spent cigarette because leaders failed and wished us to believe nothing greater was in us.  I remember a disabled war veteran, taking off his artificial leg to pass an airport screening. We spent billions annoying citizens, reinforcing the big scare.
Teaching fear and limitation, but it was merely the first of many such waves-- later we were too broke to make jobs here -the new jobs that fuel the economy and make even more jobs; debt has made us unable to grow--I guess they forget or some never knew- America is tougher than words of doubt.  It was tough enough to fight poverty in the 60's, fly to the moon in the 70's, meet cold war communists in the 80's- somehow, a pile of loans does not seem to equate to nuclear missiles in Cuba.
Again the teacher brings a message of fear, to a creature of hope and determination.  In the animus of our nation, as if the body politic were a human body, the  national skin reacts to the irritations of those repeated doses of fear... a burning sensation.

the real Job Creators

I hear Republicans,  Speaker Boehner in particular, speak of the need to give more resources to "job creators" lower taxes, freedom from necessary rules(my God look at what they have done to our chickens!).  By this they mean major Corporations and medium to large businesses across the U.S.  But they are wrong, these are definitely not the job creators in the U.S. economy.  It is as plain as Pinocchio's nose when he answers hard questions, corporations take far more than they give, it is what they do- the reason or purpose for their existence to create profits.  Corporations use public resources as if they were business lunches.  Privilege after privilege rests in their hands. They get to pretty much determine if, when, and how much they will pay in taxes. Have free reign to arrange books and records, freely send whole industries abroad and still are able to sell those products here as if they were made here with American workers.  No the real job creators are consumers. Those of us who go to stores and Internet and buy things.  We create jobs.  We create demand for products, goods and services which are met by business to a better or worse degree.  Businesses- well they hire people and pay wages from--the money we consumers spend.  They hire as few people as the can- and for some weird reason, most Americans agree with that, even when it means that companies are understaffed, replace full time experienced workers with casual part time employees, and lower wages- which as we all know reduces jobs because we consumers don't have as much money to spend.
So the President has it right, this is the time to spend money on infrastructure, build railroads, fix bridges, as many things as we can to employ people. We should take risks to see if we can ignite a solar energy boom, or spark green products, renewable energy devices.  Big oil drains us- charging more and more for the privilege to poison our air, the oil by the way is free when taken from the ground.  The idea to get the economy moving and sustained is to increase jobs by putting more money in the hands of us-- consumers, savers, new car buyers, home buyers, clothes buyers, electronics buyers-- us, the JOB CREATORS of America.

the opposite of governing...

would be to put the federal budget on a path of automatic cuts of specific amounts- the so called  sequester (quickly, when Congress raised the debt ceiling to avoid US default on its obligations, they passed 1.2 Trillion in cuts unless the supercommittee came to an agreement).  Sequester cuts would be made without the careful judgment needed to obtain a reasonable result.  It treats for example dollars needed to feed children, or operate hospitals equally with dollars used to buy new office furniture. There are some lower cuts for certain low income and social security type programs, but those cuts tend to affect the most vulnerable of Americans. The Department of Defense for example would have managed cuts of 450 billion over ten years but feel that to double those cuts under the sequester would remove funds needed for military families, significantly reduce the effectiveness of the military. Whether true or not, it is apparent that substantial cuts to highways, schools, military and many more federal functions need careful consideration, the Congress acting in good faith  to do its best for the American people.

The Constitution requires only a few things, but one is that there be an annual consideration by the Congress of the national budget and a determination of how and for what we spend. The sequestration condition to the budget ceiling is Constitutionally flawed in that it restrict the powers of the next Congress to do what every Congress must do- use its best judgment to determine spending. As a policy it reflects a disregard for fundamental democracy.  Do the people have a right to decide--then to change that decision--the answer except for fundamental rights is  -YES; and the Budget Control Act says a very arbitrary, narrow and unthinking --NO. If it keeps the sides at the table to resolve the problem on a long term basis, then it would have served an important and useful purpose.

Catch a Flea-- Miss an Elephant

The revelations of sexual child abuse at Penn State University raises a bitter question about oversight of college athletics by the NCAA.   They take in huge amounts of money, an organization dominated by males, and conspicuous for their own exploitation of college athletes- who generally work for room, board, and tuition at most while this organization rakes in $billions.  They are also known for investigations of individual athletes and institutions, deep probes that focus on even slight violations of their ever growing sets of rules on recruiting and KEEPING MONEY AWAY FROM ATHLETES.  Many people have been swept up in subsequent criminal investigations for giving money or gifts to athletes.  Now, this august body of men, has apparently missed a situation characterized by an eyewitness to rape of a child--how could this be? How could a regulatory body that can sniff out an unpaid car rental miss on a decades long pattern of rape and sexual assault by a prominent coach at one of its most famous member institutions.  Why did the public in effect pay the NCAA to watch a practicing child abuser work on the sidelines?  These questions might seem harsh or unfair--but so too does the sight of so many highly paid men overseeing so many unpaid athletes, making sure they don't get paid- that there is a 'purity' in recruiting talented young people---when all along there was something like this going on- young boys assaulted by one of the leaders of a bell weather franchise.  Is child safety at least as important as, for example : making sure the poor inner-city athlete stays poor while you make billions in TV revenue from his/her skilled performances? Here, there was a public record more than ten years before the scandal hit the news of a rape by an institution's senior coaching staff member- and that phrase from the investigations of Cam Newton, Reggie Bush, and USC forfeiting a championship--" NCAA investigators have uncovered..."  Now, it is the NCAA and its $775 million annual revenues that are being- uncovered.

Large and small views of the world: The Danger of High Blood Pressure

Large and small views of the world: The Danger of High Blood Pressure

Infrastructure...

My life on a T-shirt, yes

voter suppression left an impression

not soon to be lost, imagine wardrobe costs:

conservative voter liberation,

against labor org limitations

and the incredibly WRONG  right wing

yes, WRONG WING attacks the West Wing

and the best things in t-shirts

are not wet anymore, that would harass

those beautiful...glasses, we are  brittle edges

drifting on the cusp of freedom, borrowed time

upon  ignored infrastructure

it crumbles but much more important- social ones

Will America once again fear its children

growing up so loose now, almost feral

Right Wing song, wrongs 'neath a shadow

so long, and growing, sowing

seeds of dim sighted greed.  When

comes the harvest, my life on a T-shirt

would be grim...

do you know where your children are

or more important, alone on mean streets in the night...

do you know where ...their children are?

GOP - Hey we're living here!

A living Constitution was the faultless legacy of a group of fundamentally flawed men, elitist, racist...rapists, even worse if destroying men who try to escape from immoral slavery is accounted for in human terms.  Yet they produced a living social contract that has endured and been given rebirth by the sacrifice of millions of brave men and women---and in the middle of it is the critical idea--our elected leaders represent us--the living people, citizens who comprise this nation--and in the important technical details-THE CONGRESS EACH YEAR IS REQUIRED TO DETERMINE HOW WE SPEND OUR PUBLIC ASSETS. It is not to be done once to bind us forever, it is meant to be responsive and flexible not fixed and tyrannical. So we cant have a Budget unless it conquers the debt from the Republicans Iraq war, mismanagement of the economy until it collapsed, the bailouts and bank business, the bonds based on the liar loans [that someone should be in jail for- in Barry Bonds lied what did these Wall Street guys do?].
So when they read the Constitution in the House, through tears- --did they forget the parts they don't like---let's get to the point-- this Budget weirdness of the House Republicans shows why they are unqualified to lead, why they once again have turned against the people in favor of their Corporate masters--who paid for them true, but did not elect them--their duty is owed only to the people.  

What is the magic of $100 billion or 33 billion in cuts of aid to the poor and needy that we would shut down essential government- NOTHING it is either a principle which does not vote nor breathe- or an order from a higher authority--[no not God- they only believe in God when they go to war to kill someone in HIS name-] their Corporate handlers--the Conservative billionaires who - by this Budget nonsense and appearance- are really running the GOP.

If our Constitution, laws or customs forbid us from increasing government revenues--then they must be changed-- they do not and there are so many harmless ways to raise monies to rid us of debt- including just collecting the taxes in corporate profits that should be paid-  that it is simply mind boggling that these "mis-leader" can say what they say without fear of an instant lightning bolt--see this is further proof they don't believe in God, they would surely all be flinching like a flea on a scratching dog when they speak such falsehood on the subject of this country being-- broke.

Republicans and the full moon...

there is always a full moon over Republican-land, it is the way to explain the ravenous appetite for power and so little effort to use it for the benefit of the country.  The recession has savaged America, it was brought on by a Governmental indifference, and  needless, pointless $2 Trillion spending spree in Iraq---oh, you remember, the ringside seat in the Iraqi bloodletting, civil war, get rid of Saddam and turn the country over to terrorists. Yes, oh the wisdom of that choice---I mean it re-elected Bush, but Court-appointed Presidents are maybe prone to hyperbole- Weapons of Mass Destruction threatening America...hmmm. If there were a droplet of a poison in any country in the world, then we are threatened by a weapon of mass destruction.  Kind of makes you wonder why we bother to have 2, 000 nuclear warheads primed and ready---when a few ounces of toxin might provoke our enemies to consume their economies and ruin their futures...like Bush did. Maybe we need to Plant a Bush among our enemies.
Ahhh but the Full Moon-  howling the Constitution as if we should return to rule by rich white men and slavery, and obedience to the almighty dollar. Ruining healthcare reform because Insurance Companies want to kick sick children out of coverage; .convincing Americans that they have lost freedom - to dump their illnesses until death upon the public by not having healthcare insurance [ I suspect next will be a lets all start smoking and drunk driving while fondling our big guns] and when the finally invent the laser gun that can incinerate a man or building...they will be there to insist there is a right to bear arms.I am surprised we don't all get to own a nuke.
Turning down rapid rail funds in Florida- thousands of jobs hundreds of careers, because it was a Democrat idea...well if you had any ideas besides becoming a pimple on the butt of progress GOP, you would not be who you are--- howling at full moon, always a full moon in Republican-land

GOP will have to have better excuses...

Can't pick winners and losers... Can't aford healthcare reform...can't spend to create jobs..can't have public service jobs...can't rebuild crumbling bridges...can't have kids as smart and well educated as Europe and much of Asia...Can't get business to reinvest trillions they have taken out of the economy in the months before the recent mid-term elections( can't be anything other than coincidence there I am sure)

So shallow the pool of talent the value of their ideas, it is alarming that they will have power and money to shape the political agendas for the coming election cycle...but they will.  The Supreme Court has handed the nation over to commercial interests who have no real concern with national progress, for them viable markets and the military are enough-- and that is likely all we will have if the GOP continues to roll with the flood of corporate money.  A nation at a crossroads, and the GOP has us in their plan-- yes, their idea of America is the land of sleeping sheep. They spend their time destroying a worthy presidency, pandering to the whims of their business masters, cutting off public needs--and now we will pay more for health because so much was spent to destroy out attempts to put a sane policy into effect- that sick people, especially sick children should not be denied healthcare.

They block jobs and demean every effort to create a non- petroleum economy, despite the tons of snowy and pollution evidence they deny human activity is poisoning our environments, for them air and water are industrial privileges, the automobile makers should be free to dump carcinogens and deadly toxins into our bodies. The raise record funds from insurance to stop a plan to improve health here, give us longer, healthier lives- in exchange they will limit our ability to sue for incredibly harmful medical mistakes.  The feast on American misery...but no one should blame them.  The obstruct the will of the people for two years and some people give them more votes and support--as if they cannot see  it is the GOP, their tax and national policies which has taken their careers, jobs and futures.  Now because it is possible they will cut taxes further on businesses, take away more things government is needed for by the poor and middle class and continue a will deception that the debts of the idiotic Iraq War are not the base of the pyramid of national debt.

Even a nation of sheep can bear only so much before they begin to wake and question--- why the Party that represents business- seemingly to the exclusion of life itself-  cannot bring business to do what it should do--- invest and grow in an America that has given them so, so much.

Republicans will make the economy worse

well they have too, it is the source of their power--anger over the way Government has lavished billions on business and seemingly nothing on the people who need jobs and better incomes, young people entering the workforce. Just as in the 80's and 90's when Republicans legislatively supported the export of US careers overseas- even an online tutor might be helping your child lean English from Pakistan or India-they will now have to do what they can to sicken and weaken the economy.
They successfully sabotaged the jobs and small business portions of the Obama Recovery plan, and these are the same political forces that destroyed the US economy, banking and finance systems during the Bush Era--so they are quite accomplished at this; a track record of proven effectiveness. They have taken power in the House--the press has disappeared- no one asks them what they have done to improve the economy--stopping Health care for uninsured Americans did produce a lot of jobs- lobbyists, communications expertise--and our insurance premiums Will rise for the money spent to defeat and dismantle a precious life saving healthcare reform law. But they have done little else--they support spending on war- even one like Iraq that produces no discernible advantages from 2 Trillion dollar investment---a nation there on the brink of civil war, a place where Christians must flee for their lives; a haven for terrorism--well I guess before they had Saddam and the innuendos of weapons---yes Republicans will need a lot of anger over the next two years to cover what they will not do for the American people, as they take away the sole effort to aid the people--the Obama Agenda. I thin the one good thing is that now we will hear a lot more news about the end of global warming, even as the sun emerges from the lowest levels recorded and begins to singe our hides---ahh, but then again we will be cutting out spending that might make things better, I guess we will have to be pleased with that, we reap what we have sown, a certain harvest of gain for business, we will have to work to avoid pain for everyone else. The GOP will work to make things worse; they are quite good at what they do!!