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.