Crumbling Faith...

“I’m an anarchist – I don’t make rules for other people. I make rules for myself.”

-Utah Phillips

Utah Phillips, legendary songwriter and labor activist, passed away last week at the age of 73. Phillips was born in 1935 and as a young man he served in the army. The gore and human waste he witnessed during combat duty in the Korean War left him angry and deeply disturbed and when he returned to America Phillips feel into a life of destitution and alcoholism. He hopped freight trains and moved from state to state and shelter to shelter; then, in his later career as a folk-singer and songwriter, Phillips wove the characters he met along with the anarchist philosophy he’d adopted to create meaningful music that shone a light on injustice and hinted at a better method of structuring society.

Fingers in the Dyke

All around us we are seeing an erosion of this particular “capitalist” system. Similarly as to how I feel about communism or socialism, I don’t believe there is anything innately wrong with capitalism. All three systems work fine on paper because they are essentially theoretical. The problem is the people and the inevitability of corruption. That’s what we’re seeing today. It’s taken longer than it did to rot out communism but corruption is devouring our own political and economic system from within.

Consumer capitalism is an economic belief system built primarily on faith. If we all believe things will get better, and keep on spending accordingly, then the system will persist into perpetuity. The economy has been floating on credit cards for the last twenty years. I used to have a problem with the credit cards and I am telling you it’s the same thing as gambling. You are spending money you don’t have assuming that eventually your personal financial situation will catch-up with your spending lifestyle.

But once we lose our faith and decide to hold onto our money instead of sacrificing it on the altar of consumerism then the system breaks down. This “economic down-turn” is ultimately a monster of our own creation – we’ve allowed our faith to crumble.

A Long Retirement

Scott McClellan, the former Press Secretary for the White House, has just released a scathing documentation of his time served with President Bush called “What Happened.” In it he paints a grim portrait of an intellectualy incurious President whose policies are based more on instinct than intellect. More ominously McClellan portrays Bush as a man capable of subtle self-deceptions that allow him to justify and rationalize any wrong-doing.

Of course on cue the administration has sent out their attack dogs and circled the wagons. The memoir of a man who worked with Bush for seven years has been dismissed as a hatchet-job from a disgruntled former employee. That right there is the Achilles Heel of the Bush Presidency. One of Bush’s most loyal supporters essentially defects and the Bush instinct – instead of reflecting on the defection and asking why it happened – is to block and counter-attack. It is an Old Testament eye for an eye reaction and I believe it is in the Bush genes. They are a clan seemingly incapable of self-reflection. They espouse their love of Jesus while practicing the preaching of Moses and Mohammed. Pre-emptive war, overwhelming force, destroy dissent, shock and awe; there’s never even the consideration of turning the other cheek.

Well George W. is still a relatively young man as far as soon to be ex-Presidents come. He will have plenty of time to reflect on his decisions rocking in his chair out on the ranch.

Politics, Ugh…

I don’t know where I fall politically anymore. I’m so disillusioned with it all - I just want the government to leave me alone. It seems though that we have to have leaders. That being the case could we get anyone in office capable of honest self-reflection? Or is it a pre-requisite of higher office that one has to believe them self incapable of wrong-doing?

Enough Faith Already

So I guess I’ve had enough of all this “faith.” Here’s what I want. Ideally I want a shift of power back to the states and local governments. On top of that I want a government that is ruthlessly pragmatic. I want policies determined on feasibility – not ideology. If the bastards have to take my money then I want it to be used – not wasted.

Summer is Here!

Anyway – summer is here and the students are gone. I’m gonna get off all this depressing politics and economic bullshit. It’s put me in a funk and I’m starting to bore myself. Until next week:

Madbob@madbob.com

Hearts and Minds

The Incredible Terrible Saga of Sami al-Hajj

During the first phase of Bush’s “War on Terror” a host of suspected dissidents were rounded up and sent to the U.S. military’s secretive detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Guantanamo Bay is U.S. territory leased from Cuba; though the Cuban government has never cashed the U.S. checks for that land. The reason a military prison was constructed and harbored in that unlikely location is because attorneys for the Bush administration felt that the legal status of Guantanamo Bay was ambiguous and as such prisoners held there would not be subject to the normal regulations that govern the capture, holding, and interrogation of foreign POW’s. As a result of this legal ambiguity Guantanamo has been a haven for incredible abuse of both the prisoners and the legal system in general.

One of the early stated goals in the “War on Terror” was to win the “hearts and minds” of the Afghani, Iraqi, and by extension the citizens of the whole Middle East. Now I understand perfectly well that when you go to war there is going to be a lot of what they call “collateral damage” – meaning innocent civilians, women and children, will be killed. It is an inevitable consequence of dropping bombs and shooting bullets. Collateral damage is one of those calculated risks. The bad guys are so bad that it behooves us in the long run to blow up civilians to get to them. I don’t agree with the logic – but I understand it.

But every so often another story pops up that makes me shake my head and say “really? That’s how we’re going about winning the hearts and minds of the people whose countries we are invading?” I just learned the details of one of these stories. It involves a man named Sami al-Hajj who has spent the last six years at Guantanamo Bay. You might ask what al-Hajj’s crime was? It turns out that he was captured because he was a cameraman for Al-Jazeera – the most popular Arab-based news outlet in the world. The U.S. at the time was working under the assumption that Al-Jazeera was actually in cahoots with Al Queada and they interrogated al-Hajj on dozens of separate occasions in order to try and get him to confess this link. He never would because, according to al-Hajj, there is no link between Al Queada and Al-Jazeera.

Nevermind the truth though – let’s assume Al-Jazeera actually was tied in some way to Al Queada. Was capturing a cameraman and holding him without charge for six years the right thing to do in order to win hearts and minds of the Al-Jazeera viewers? Keep in mind Al-Jazeera is essentially the CNN of the Arab world. While I had never really paid attention to al-Hajj’s story until I heard a recent report on his release you can bet that every Al Jazeera viewer knew it inside and out; backwards and forth. This is because Al-Jazeera ran an hourly update on the captured cameraman. Every single hour of every single day for six years Al-Jazeera viewers were reminded that a cameraman had been locked up on an island 7,900 miles away on an island in the middle of the Carribean Ocean.

Can you imagine the damage that was done because of the obstinance and lethargy of the U.S. system of – of what? Military justice I guess, illegal detentions, “non-lawful combatants.”

Because We Can

Is there no one in charge with an iota of common sense? This guy knew nothing – he was just a regular working guy doing his job. We got no valuable information from him. We handed our “enemies” a powerful and compelling tool of propaganda and even when we realized, and we must have realized fairly quickly, that Al-Jazeera was going to bombard the middle east with this story we essentially flew world opinion the bird and said “we’re holding him anyway because we can.” That’s all this exercise is – a big old “because we can.” We’re big and we’re bad and we’re powerful and we will do whatever we want and then we’ll pay our lawyers to tie everything up in court while we pat ourselves on the backs and say “hurray for the red white and blue.”

Incidentally Sami al-Hajj was released from Guantanamo Bay. He was never charged with any crime and he was never tried by any tribunal. They just picked him up, took away six years of his life, and then let him go.

If this is the best we can come up with in order to win the hearts and minds of the people of the Middle-East then we need to get some better brains in D.C. pronto.

[Or, is this all part of “the Plan?”]

e-mail: madbob@madbob.com

Keep on Drinking...

A Long History of Stupid

I’ve just started reading a biography of long-time FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and as a result I’m learning quite a lot about the history of this country and the tradition of our government cracking down on dissent. This latest episode of our history is far from the first time the Bill of Rights has been superseded and suspended in the name of “security.” I have yet to grasp the logic of suspending freedoms to ensure security when I thought that the whole thing we are trying to secure in the first place is freedom; but I digress.

Anyway here are some interesting factoids I’ve picked up thus far. Remember when in protest of the French dissent against the “War on Terror” our Congress made the brilliant move of re-naming French Fries “Freedom Fries?” Seems like a pretty creative manifestation of nationalistic stupidity, right? Wrong. During World War One our Congress re-named Sauerkraut “Liberty Cabbage.” Our current stupidity isn’t even original! How do you like that?

Think the threat of terrorism is a new thing? Wrong. Just prior to and then after World War One the Red Scare developed. Anarchists and Communists were on the rise and there were actually a series of letter bombs and bomb attacks that riddled the nation’s capitol and industrial power figures.

These attacks lead to a complete abridgement of the freedoms granted in the Bill of Rights. Anyone suspected of being a communist, a socialist, or a sympathizer; essentially any Russian factory worker, was rounded up in mass arrests and many were unceremoniously deported so quickly that there wasn’t even time for an appeal.

Prior to these post-WWI round-ups, in the year 1901, William McKinley, the nation’s 25th President, was assassinated by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz. The assassin was upset because McKinley had been touring the country talking about prosperity and Czolgosz felt that the prosperity in America was enjoyed by the wealthy but built on the exploitation of the working class.

Today I can’t help feeling that we’ve farmed out that exploitation and as a result the threat to our government isn’t coming as directly from within the country but instead from foreign enemies who see American foreign policy as the implement of exploitation. But it is the same dynamic – wealth being built on the backs of the poor.

There has always been the argument that increasing wealth increases prosperity for everyone – from the CEO on down to the factory worker. I vacillate on this argument. Sometimes I think it’s better to make some money than no money. But then I also think hell, I’d rather be poor and jobless than poor and working in a factory for 16 hours a day.

Graduation – Keep on Drinking

So graduation is coming up; an exciting time in the life of any young student. The whole world is one big possibility. In America many of us are told from a very young age that we can do or be whatever we want. Essentially there is a lot of truth in that statement. We need only look to our current President George W. Bush or our 29th President Warren G. Harding to see that mediocrity is no impedance when it comes to attaining the position as the country’s highest-ranking administrator.

In Bush’s case the boy from Connecticut spent a good deal of his young adult-hood staring at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. In fact it wasn’t until he was 37 years old that he gave up drinking. Since then he went on to be the Governor of Texas and the President of the United States for the last seven and a half years. He’s managed to start two wars, mangle a handful of governments, scuttle the economy, waste the goodwill of the rest of the world, and generate an animosity abroad towards Americans that is unparalleled in the short history of our country.

Jeez – it makes you wish the guy had just kept drinking.

To sum up; while you certainly can do and be whatever you want it is not necessarily beneficial for everyone to realize that potential. Be it destiny or free will there are those amongst us who might do the rest of society a favor by staying on the couch, taking bong rips and playing the latest version of Grand Theft Auto.

How’s that for inspiration?

e-mail: madbob@madbob.com

Breakdowns and a Potentially Meaningless Race

Eight Bells Silenced

The 134th running of the Kentucky Derby, America’s longest continuous-running competition, turned out to be a major bummer. The 5-2 favorite Big Brown won with ease and looks to be a serious threat to win the Triple Crown for the first time in decades. The only filly in the race Eight Bells ran her heart out to finish second. Unfortunately she also ran her legs out, breaking both of her front ankles as she galloped a quarter mile past the finish; she was euthanized on the track. I suppose that’s part of the allure of horse racing – triumph and tragedy all rolled up into one big ball of mint julep and horse-shit; the salt of the earth mingling for one day with the old-money elite and the new-money celebrity. The Kentucky Derby is an incredible spectacle but I don’t know if I can stomach horse-racing any more.

It was Barbaro’s breakdown in the Preakness two years ago that put me off eating meat and now this. To me there is nothing better than a good race but from now on I think I’ll just follow races between humans. At least in auto-racing only the hillbilly drivers get killed. My wife points out also that it is the choice of the human drivers to risk their lives but I think fate or destiny could be sited as well. Did Dale Earnhardt Jr. ever really have a choice whether or not to get behind the wheel? What would he be doing instead - Plumbing? No, in my mind those madmen behind the wheels of those over-powered vehicles have as much choice as I do when I get up at 6:30 on a Monday morning to go punch a clock in a warehouse big enough to fit all of Jay Leno’s cars along with Imelda Marcos’ shoe collection. Sure, I could do something else – but the consequences would be staggering.

A Horse Race of a Whole Different Color

I tuned into the Kentucky Derby thinking it would be a nice distraction from politics and the wars we’re involved in. Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks on “obliterating Iran” are getting some attention in the media. Those with a semblance of foresight are pointing out that these kinds of comments end up galvanizing the Iranian public behind the regime that is in power. (See 2004 U.S. election for an example of perceived threats unifying a population behind a failed leader).

It’s interesting this notion that Iran is threatening our troops. If one takes the time to look at a map of the Middle East it becomes clear that we are the ones doing the threatening. Iran is a large country with a number of countries sharing borders including Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Iran is literally surrounded by foreign troops and sympathizers. Imagine if we had been declared a member of an “axis of evil” and then found foreign troops amassed on the borders in Mexico, Canada, and Cuba. It is impossible for us here to really understand this kind of justified paranoia. A sneak attack by a handful of nut-jobs is one thing; but the world’s most powerful and technologically savvy army, that has already completely ruined a thriving metropolis and sent two and arguably three countries spiraling into chaos and violence, is sitting on your borders and even their potential future leaders are threatening nuclear obliteration – well that’s a whole another story.

Enter the Fear

This is one of the single scariest moments in our brief history that I have witnessed. We have a lame duck President in office who has staked his legacy on transformation through military means of the Middle East. He and his advisors believe with a faith most of us don’t understand (or share) that what they are doing is true and right and for the greater good of America and the world. The most likely successors to the Presidency are talking about dismantling these manipulations in the Middle East before they even have a chance to take hold. All that Bush Incorporated has worked for going back to the Nixon administration could be for naught.

But there is one last Hail Mary that the President could toss to keep the plans and dreams of the neo-conservative movement alive and that is an invasion of Iran. Assuming the next President is a democrat it would tie them up in an economic and military mess for their entire first term and likely they won’t get a second. If McCain gets the nod it just gives him a nice running start on what he’s already agreed are sound policies.

These final eight months of Bush’s eight years are treacherous. If it goes a certain way it could make this whole zany roller coaster of a Presidential race we’ve been watching essentially meaningless.

Let’s hope that’s not the case.

As always e-mail me your thoughts and notions. Madbob@madbob.com.