Anti-Bush despite my dream in which I was Laura Bush and loved George and was so grateful to him for making me the First Lady that - although I knew he was really doing a bad job - I decided I was going to work for his re-election because being the First Lady was so much fun and I sure didn't want to give it up...

Thursday, January 25, 2007

America Needs Citizen Leaders

Bob Herbert wrote an elegant and accurate piece on the lack of leadership in this country. Entitled Long On Rhetoric, Short On Sorrow it really hits home not only on the bankruptcy of Bush politics, but on the timidity of Democrats in speaking up and forging radically different and necessary policy.

Admittedly, Senator Webb's response was a bright spot after the president's dismal "business as usual" State of the Union speech.

But Webb is only one man of moderate opinions, whereas we need a nation full of vocal activists. It will take a national movement to reclaim our higher ideals and create real solutions in regard to Global Warming, energy independence, restoring the financial strength of the middle class, alleviating the poverty of fifty million Americans, effecting election reform and restructuring corporate law so that we may stem the tide of corporatism and the threat of fascism (the merging of corporate and government power) which, if this merger continues unchecked, will control every aspect of our lives including ownership of our DNA.

Mr. Herbert suggests that the empty hole in our nation - which should be filled by educated, intelligent, enlightened and socially progressive leaders - must now be filled by her citizens. He believes each citizen must now rise to the occasion, get involved, become informed, run for local office, etc.

I agree that we lack leadership and that it is past time for the average citizen to educate him or herself and take the reins.

Yet, given our national addiction to escapist entertainment of all kinds - television, pornography, alcohol, gambling, shopping and video games - I'm not sure we have the time to devote to politics. After all, was it not our topsy-turvy priorities that allowed a man like George Bush to be elected?

The fact is that, as an electorate, we prefer to be convinced by sound bites instead of facts and prefer the immediate satisfaction of attacking science as opposed to the sustained effort needed to understand it.

Likewise, instead of thoroughly researching the positions of candidates and contemplating the gray areas of issues, we prefer quick and easy, black and white answers such as "voting makes no difference."

Why? Because becoming well-informed takes so much time. Because it is so humbling - and makes us feel so insecure - to realize our deficiencies in critical thinking. It can feel overwhelming when we first begin to sort through the enormous amounts of information (and misinformation) that abound and determine the truth about a person or an issue.

Yet developing critical thinking - being able to separate allegation from truth and supposition from fact, and then acting through our knowledge to bring about the highest good - this is what growing up is all about.

America is, sadly, a nation filled with adult children who refuse to grow up.

A growing percentage of our younger citizens - predominantly males - are remaining in adolescence far beyond their twenties or thirties. Many are living at home, have never had what we consider a "real" job and spend their lives in imaginary worlds such as those created by video games. They do not take responsibility for their familes or the fate of their nation, much less the world. Yet this is not just an American phenomena. Rehab centers for video games addicts – mostly males – are popping up all over Europe.

I suppose we can blame corporations for moving jobs overseas so "real" jobs don't exist. We can also blame corporations for creating all these "entertainment" distractions for ourselves and our youth. We can certainly blame the corporations that control media for “dumbing down” our nation and misinforming us but, really, that will hardly help us in the long run.

We must understand that the buck stops with each of us, with the choices each person and each family makes. It is our responsibility to understand when we are being manipulated, betrayed and sold down the river, and to object.

It is our responsibility to realize that injustice anywhere is, as Martin Luther King said, “a threat to justice anywhere.” If we are unwilling to look up long enough to see the big picture, if we insist on remaining narcissistic, if we prefer apathy and cynicism, well, as the saying goes: a nation gets the leaders it deserves.

It seems to be a characteristic of Americans that we seek to be entertained above all else. Contrast this with the idea that being an adult means – above all - taking political and moral responsibility for one's family, nation and the state of world.

The tale is told in this statistic: only 41% of us bother to vote. Within this group is the 5% that controls the wealth of this nation and which votes to maintain its own political power. Aided by religious fundamentalists (who vote in droves for socially oppressive policies) and upper class wannabes, this group of voters - approximately 21% of those eligible to vote - has worked to elect Republicans who have implemented extreme political and economic policies that oppress the poor (not just in the U.S. but around the world), extol imperialism, create war, erode civil liberties and contribute to the degradation of the planet.

20% vote against these policies.

The other 59% who do not vote - many of whom are poor and disadvantaged - may well be noticing that that their quality of life is deteriorating even futher and may be disgusted. But unless significant numbers of them are ready to rise up out of indifference to make a difference in the real world, then nothing much is going to change for the better.

To educate oneself about what is going on takes time and effort, the reward for which comes in the long, not the short term.

Can the majority of Americans change from short term to long term thinking? Mr. Herbert thinks so. I hope he's right, otherwise those who insist on escaping from the pain of responsibility now will be caught - along with the rest of us - by the pain of consequences yet to come.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Bush: Still In A Dangerous Fog

Anyone want a peace sticker?

How about this one, specifically for Iraq?

Nice thought, but it's a bit late for that second one. Frankly, I don't see where peace was ever on the Bush/Cheney drawing board.

The New York Times published an editorial, finally, that pulls no punches.

The Real Disaster states what is likely the truth: there is no disaster to be avoided in Iraq by withdrawing because Iraq is already a disaster.

It's Bush's disaster (and Cheney's and Rumsfeld's and Rice's and Wolfowitz's, et all as well, but since the President sold the country on it, it is primarily his failure) and he is not going to make it better by menacing Syria and Iran.

I hope we - and Congress - have learned that Bush has no concept of the Pandora's Box he unleashes when going with his "judgment."

Case in point: having failed in Iraq, please tell me how sending U.S. troops over the borders of Iran and Syria in search of "terrorists" - essentially invading Iran and Syria - is going to lead to anything but confrontations with both those countries and a dangerous escalation of this war?

Just as the U.S. invaded Cambodia as an excuse to protect servicemen in Vietnam, now Bush is going to justify invading Iran and Syria as part of the war in Iraq.

Do you ever wonder if Bush isn't one of those "born agains" who are hoping for the 'second coming' and actively trying to create doomsday? That might explain his fiasco of a foreign policy.

And, yes, accuse me of hyperbole, but isn't invading when you're losing what Hitler did? These kinds of doomed policies are usually the brainchildren of megalomaniacs and fascists.

For those who have not seen The Fog of War, the film interview of Robert McNamara who served as Secretary of Defense under JFK and LBJ, rent it. A must see, it's an education in which he shares the lessons he learned.

Meanwhile, here's another eye opener. David Brooks, who usually writes editorials (at least the ones I've read) criticizing Democrats, defending Bush and supporting the War In Iraq has now reached that place where so many of us have been for so long.

He is perplexed by Bush. He says Bush's new plan makes no sense and the President is being dishonest and unclear.

For him to come out with this analysis of Bush's "plan" is telling.

The truth is, Bush is playing "Calvinball." He's always made it up as he went, while spinning and lying about it, as has Cheney, as did Rumsfeld. Too bad people die as a result.

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel appeared on Charlie Rose tonight and said Bush has "squandered" another opportunity. (What else is new?) He had the opportunity to start over with the recommendations from the bi-partisan committee, unite the nation and bring this thing to an end.

But Bush doesn't want to bring it to an end. He's still itching to attack Iran and Syria. He's like General Curtis LeMay. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, LeMay wanted to attack Cuba even if it meant nuclear warheads would be fired at the U.S. and some of our cities destroyed.

Bush, with his plans to invade Syria and Iran even as our army is being destroyed in Iraq seems to have the same mentality.

But who really expected such a black and white thinker like Bush - who is insulated and supremely stubborn - to do anything different?

Not I. How about you?

Here are excerpts from David Brook's Times Select column:

January 11, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

The Fog Over Iraq
By DAVID BROOKS

"The Democrats have been fecund with criticisms of the war, but when it comes to alternative proposals, a common approach is social Darwinism on stilts: We failed them, now they’re on their own."

[Note: I find it incongruous that Brooks is criticizing social Darwinism. I thought one had to subscribe to that ideology to even be a Republican.]

"So we are stuck with the Bush proposal as the only serious plan on offer. The question is, what exactly did President Bush propose last night? The policy rollout has been befogged by so much spin and misdirection it’s nearly impossible to figure out what the president is proposing.

Nonetheless, here’s my reconstruction of how this policy evolved:

On Nov. 30, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki presented Bush with a new security plan for Baghdad. It called for U.S. troops to move out of Baghdad to the periphery, where they would chase down Sunni terrorists. Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish troops, meanwhile, would flood into the city to establish order, at least as they define it.

Maliki essentially wanted the American troops protecting his flank but out of his hair. He didn’t want U.S. soldiers embedded with his own. He didn’t want American generals hovering over his shoulder. His government didn’t want any restraints on Shiite might.

Over the next weeks, Bush rejected the plan and opted for the opposite approach. Instead of handing counterinsurgency over to the Iraqis/Shiites, he decided to throw roughly 20,000 U.S. troops — everything he had available — into Baghdad. He and his advisers negotiated new rules of engagement to make it easier to go after Shiites as well as Sunnis. He selected two aggressive counterinsurgency commanders, David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno, to lead the effort. Odierno recently told John Burns of The Times that American forces would remain in cleared areas of Baghdad “24/7,” suggesting a heavy U.S. presence.

Then came the job of selling the plan. The administration could not go before the world and say that the president had decided to overrule the sovereign nation of Iraq. Officials could not tell wavering Republicans that the president was proposing a heavy, U.S.-led approach.

Thus, administration officials are saying that they have adopted the Maliki plan, just with a few minor tweaks. In briefings and in the president’s speech, officials claimed that this was an Iraqi-designed plan, that Iraqi troops would take on all the primary roles in clearing and holding neighborhoods, that Iraqis in mixed neighborhoods would scarcely see any additional Americans.

All of this is designed to soothe the wounded pride of the Maliki government, and to make the U.S. offensive seem less arduous at home. It’s the opposite of the truth.

Yesterday, administration officials were praising Maliki lavishly. He wants the same things we want, they claimed. He has resolved to lead a nonsectarian government. He is reworking his governing coalitions and marginalizing the extremists. “We’ve seen the nascent rise of a moderate political bloc,” one senior administration official said yesterday.

But the selling of the plan illustrates that this is not the whole story. The Iraqi government wants a unified non-sectarian solution in high-minded statements and in some distant, ideal world. But in the short term, and in the deepest reptilian folds of their brains, the Shiites are maneuvering amid the sectarian bloodbath all around.

This is not a function of the character of Maliki or this or that official. It’s a function of the core dynamic now afflicting Iraqi society.

The enemy in Iraq is not some discrete group of killers. It’s the maelstrom of violence and hatred that infects every institution, including the government and the military. Instead of facing up to this core reality, the Bush administration has papered it over with salesmanship and spin.


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