I Said That. Didn't I Say That? I Think I Did.

A Sarcastic Comment from the Rabbit Hole

(Just because Bush is gone doesn't mean Alice has found her way home.)

Pakistan may overshadow Afghanistan in Washington talks

Well! People are getting nervous now? Nothing like waiting to the last minute to worry about the Taliban and al Qaeda getting close to nuclear weapons! After all, so many more people get to die in the last minute scramble to keep that from happening! Or to fail to keep that from happening!

Whatever!

Just don't say, "Well, who would have predicted this?"

Me. I did. And since I'm no one particularly special, probably lots of other not so particularly special people did too!

It's the particularly special people who are being particularly stupid.

Step into Clemsy's Flashback machine!

Friday, November 02, 2007

A Little Nudge from the Rabbit Hole

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov. 1 — For much of the last century, the mountainous region of Swat was ruled as a princely kingdom where a benign autocrat, the wali, bestowed schools for girls, health care for everyone and the chance to get a degree abroad for the talented. Now the region is the newest front line in the battle between Islamic militants, who are sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and Pakistan’s nervous security forces. For the first time, heavy fighting has moved beyond Pakistan’s tribal fringe and into more settled areas of the country. LINK

Okay, here's the chain of events as i see it:

1) 9/11

2) Invade Afghanistan... don't get bin Laden... push him and Taliban into Pakistan...

3) Invade Iraq (no wmd... no democracy... lots of chaos... dead end...)

4)(Taliban and Al Qaeda grow stronger in Pakistan)

5) U.S. worries about Iran maybe, maybe even probably, getting nukes 10 years from now. Lunatics call for bombing of Iran.

6) (Taliban and Al Qaeda grow stronger in Pakistan)

7) Kurdish militants kill lots of Turks in Turkey. Turkey threatens cross border action into Iraq (Predicted in this blog long ago.)

Slow motion slide into some deep level of Dante's inferno? The recent events in Pakistan show the growing confidence and power of the Islamic militants in that country spreading like a cancer.

Hello? Hello? Anyone home?

Pakistan has nuclear weapons. (Never mind that iceberg! The passengers in 'A' lounge need more caviar!)

Post of July 15, 2007:

It's Pakistan, Stupid.

Al Qaeda has regrouped. They are poised, once again to strike the West. However, while the Bush Administration continues to talk about how our big problem in Iraq is Al Qaeda (which is a big lie... al Qaeda in Iraq ranks fifth as a threat), al Qaeda and the Taliban, allowed to move into the rugged terrain on the Pakistani-Afghanistan border by "I'll Get Him Dead or Alive Later" Bush, is making life miserable not only for Afghanistan but is also starting military operations against Musharrif's government in Pakistan.

Britain's most senior generals have issued a blunt warning to Downing Street that the military campaign in Afghanistan is facing a catastrophic failure, a development that could lead to an Islamist government seizing power in neighbouring Pakistan. LINK

Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal, no?

But Iraq is a bigger threat?

Boom.

Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas

Beyond Christmas

Life in the country has presented me with a deeper contrast to that of the city than I ever would have expected. The round of the seasons is marked by much more than the calendar and change of temperature. The slow rhythm of the year beats around me, and I have fallen into step with it beyond putting the snow tires on the car.

Atrium doors look out to the West from my home. The property had been logged in the past and the new forest has not yet filled in the view to the ridge where the Adirondack Mountains begin. Behind that ridge the sun will set this evening at the furthest southern point of its yearly march, a progression of about 50 degrees from its northernmost setting six months ago. I never expected so great a change, or the slow shadow play back and forth. The inspiration for a Stonehenge is comprehensible to me now and the accuracy of those standing stones no great mystery, just careful observation. Tomorrow, the sun will set just a tick of the compass to the north.

So we celebrate. What a wonderful and human thing to do for the Solstice marks a paradox. On the one hand, the light is returning. There will be spring and summer beyond. On the other, the world has leaned from the sun for six long months, and its effect will take that long again to counter. Now is the dark time for those of northern climes. For much of our history and beyond, these would be months of siege. Our great grandfathers would have watched this evening’s sun set with trepidation, for the coming spring would shine on the freshly dug graves of those laid low by the scythe of King Death: Winter.

So we celebrate. So we thumb our noses at our greatest fear and look beyond to our greatest hope: a warm sun and a harvest good enough to put on weight and strength to stem the following winter. What a wonderful and human thing to do.

Many find this a time of deep melancholy and depression. Theirs may be Christmases remembered of other’s joy and cheer. But if we part the veil behind ‘Jesus is the reason for the season’, we find a deeper, primal reason that goes beyond Jesus, to the root of the inspiration for all myths associated with this, the darkest day of the year. We light the night in defiance of the Dark, we raise our voices in song and cheer and renew our filial bonds because only together as families and communities can the Dark be endured and Hope renewed.

It is from this spring that Christmas draws its power. One need not be Christian to drink from it.

A joyous Solstice and Christmas to you, your families, friends and communities.

Peace,
Clemsy

Sarah Palin: No Second Thoughts

Remember when Sarah Palin said she didn't even blink when asked if she would accept a place on the McCain ticket? Of course she didn't! That metaphorical blink indicates rolling a question around in your head, looking at it from all angles, comparing it to what you actually know about the subject.

You know, thinking about the question.

So basically she said, "I had no second thoughts." I believe her. I don't think she has any second thoughts.

I mean, "Seeing Russia from Alaska" as a basis for foreign policy experience? An enlightened society would have gently guided her off the stage, smiling and using a soothing tone of voice.

In the attempt to inspire my high school students to think a bit deeper than the words going by on a page, I offered them the following model (I have to admit, I took the idea right out of one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.):

There are your first thoughts: the thoughts that acknowledge the words coming into and going out of your head. However, your first thoughts don’t really do much with those words, or care where they go. The ones coming in get filed in some part of your brain labeled “Oblivion,” while the ones on their way out, either through your mouth or your pen, are very likely to read or sound like the twisted wreckage of a fogbound highway pile up.

Or like Sarah Palin’s folksy, wink punctuated syntax:

I know that John McCain will do that and I, as his vice president, families we are blessed with that vote of the American people and are elected to serve and are sworn in on January 20, that will be our top priority is to defend the American people.

(Above diagram courtesy of Kitty Burns Florey at Slate, who's opinion of this sentence goes like this: "I had to give up. This sentence is not for diagramming lightweights. If there's anyone out there who can kick this sucker into line, I'd be delighted to hear from you.")

Second thoughts are necessary to sift out the meaning of words coming in and construct meaning for words going out. Without second thoughts, even flipping burgers can be dangerous.

So, when asked to become vice-president of the United States to a 72 year old guy with a cancer history, Palin's second thoughts should have gone something like this:

"Wow. I didn't ask myself if I'm even qualified. I should probably blink and think about this."

(There’s also third thoughts, and I suspect that people who can function at that level are those ‘intellectuals’ we've all been warned about. Horrors.)

I think this model gives us a valid tool for answering the question, “What do the people who are enamored by Sarah Palin have in common… with Sarah Palin?”

One solution is to check the certification of the all the teachers in Real America.

Or the drinking water.

Or something.

A Little Advice for the Republican Party

But first...

From electing (arguably) and supporting the most dangerously incompetent, ideologically bankrupt administration in the history of the United States, to electing a black man by the largest margin a Democrat has won by since 1964, the American electorate has my head spinning.

I'm all red spotted and bruised from continually pinching myself.

Of course, there's the exasperating fact that Americans continually and consistently wait until after the sudden stop before opening the chute, but whathehell... Obama will at least take the shovel out of the hands of George Bush (who will certainly be digging furiously between now and January twentieth.)

One just hopes that the ladder reaches the top of the hole. Hard to tell from down here and we won't know until we either reach the surface or run out of ladder.

Now to what's important:

Hey! Republican Party! Jettison your damn base!

This election completely rejected your lizard brain. You know, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, James Dobson, Richard Land, Ann Coulter, etc., etc., ad nauseum. Those folks wouldn't know a decent civil liberty if it bit them on the face. The only one they recognize is the one that says they can define everyone else's because they're right and everyone else are traitors, communists, atheists, intellectuals, eat sushi, drink red wine and live in some part of unreal America (aka "the city").

And that particular civil liberty? They made it up. It doesn't exist. It's neither self-evident nor inalienable. It's also not in the Bill of Rights.

This is the demographic of any culture that's always more than ready to don their brown shirts and start making the kind of history we say "Will Never Happen Again" when the fires are finally out. They want everyone to wear the flag on their lapel, throw away their birth control pills, walk in straight (certainly not gay) lines, enjoy getting trickled on (Oooh... Kinky but economically counterintuitive), allow the poor to go stuff themselves (unless they accept their white and heavily armed version of Jesus) and most importantly get the damn war with Iran underway so it can spiral out of control and bring about the Second Coming and the End of Days.

Let's stress that last point. They want to bring about the end of the world. Okay? They're crazy! But they have a right to be that crazy and I'll always defend that right. They do, after all, play an important role here.

Your base (You know how you say that in Arabic? Al qaeda. Isn't that a hoot?) is the barometer of the health of the American Revolution. Bush and Company have utilized them very cleverly in order to generate some nationalist fervor and frighten the squeaky liberal mice into the woodwork. They've been so successful the past eight years they've started to think they can really take over the country and convince us that Thomas Jefferson was actually a Southern Baptist.

Can we put the genie back in the bottle now please? It's really only fair since the left turned it's back on their base a long time ago. Indeed, it's been so long since anyone other than a lefty has heard from Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky they might as well be on another planet. Dennis Kucinich hasn't been taken seriously since... Has he ever been taken seriously? Paul Wellstone is dead. The really and truly far lefties are so pissed off they burned their Democratic Party membership cards years ago and laugh uncontrollably when they hear Barack Obama described as anything near liberal.

All that's left of the Democratic electorate is a bunch of underinformed moderates who McCain could have won over if he (or his Keepers... I still can't believe he chose her. Damn but didn't he look like he'd finally escaped the evil kidnappers at his concession speech?) hadn't chosen Sara Palin. I mean, that was a stunning mistake. Leo Strauss certainly would have approved the intention, but he was probably smart enough to realize that the American people weren't that stupid.

So, c'mon. Left-wing extremists are making a lot of noise, but they're well outside and far away in their free speech zone and everyone else is making believe they don't even exist. So will you please put a cork in your crazies? It's your only hope as a party.

They consider Barack Obama the enemy and really resent him undoing their little coup. They'll start undermining his presidency just as rabidly as they did Clinton's (who lefties also consider 'not one of them') in the hope that something like an illicit blow job will shake out.

Because he's not legitimate, just like anyone else who doesn't believe in their well ordered, narrow minded, positively medieval little world.

Wake up Republicans. Tell your crazies to go home and get back on the meds.

Please.

You had your chance and you blew it in every way and at every level conceivable.

Let us have a turn.

The Presidential Debate and The Limits of Power

I watched the debate last night and thought McCain looked like a crotchety old curmudgeon and Obama played a prevent defense. Seems just about everyone agrees it was a draw which really gives the night to Obama, who now has the momentum and isn't weighted by the most ludicrous, if not dangerous, running mate choice in the history of American politics.

However, afterward I watched Bill Moyer's Journal. He interviewed Andrew J. Bacevich, author of THE LIMITS OF POWER: THE END OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM.

During the 1990s, at the urging of politicians and pundits, Americans became accustomed to thinking of their country as "the indispensable nation." Indispensability carried with it both responsibilities and prerogatives.

The chief responsibility was to preside over a grand project of political- economic convergence and integration commonly referred to as globalization. In point of fact, however, globalization served as a euphemism for soft, or informal, empire. The collapse of the Soviet Union appeared to offer an opportunity to expand and perpetuate that empire, creating something akin to a global Pax Americana.

The indispensable nation's chief prerogative, self assigned, was to establish and enforce the norms governing the post-Cold War international order. Even in the best of circumstances, imperial policing is a demanding task, requiring not only considerable acumen but also an abundance of determination. The preferred American approach was to rely, whenever possible, on suasion. Yet if pressed, Washington did not hesitate to use force, as its numerous military adventures during the 1990s demonstrated.

What ever means were employed, the management of empire assumed the existence of bountiful reserves of power — economic, political, cultural, but above all military. In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, few questioned that assumption. The status of the United States as "sole superpower" appeared unassailable. Its dominance was unquestioned and unambiguous. This was not hypernationalistic chest- thumping; it was the conventional wisdom.

The discussion rendered the debate a ludicrous sideshow, a true image of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The man voiced thoughts that have haunted me for years. Everyone needs to watch it. Then buy and read the book.

Then mail it to their congressional representatives.

Imagine if just a few thousand did that?

Sarah Palin is No Pig

I take my figurative language seriously and demand that it be used accurately and efficiently. The recent use of "putting lipstick on a pig" by Barak Obama is a case in point.

No, I don't believe he was referring to Sarah Palin, although I'm sure his campaign people are chuckling at the shit storm it created. In fact, Obama was probably referring to exactly what he was talking about: John McCain and the Republican Party. Now he could have used Sarah Palin in this regard, but he didn't.

No. It's the republican reaction, and a few deranged Clinton supporters who believe McCain/Palin is the next best thing to Hillary Clinton, who have accused Obama of referring to Palin as the pig.

That's inaccurate and shows poor comprehension skills at best.

The image does work, however, in the following way:

The metaphor works well because the of the pig's reputation of wallowing in mud, being greedy and engaging in all manner of immoderation (Is that a word? Should be.) So, we call people who act like that pigs. Fair enough.

Now, what should we call a political party that indulges in economic orgies like unregulated piss-on-everyone-down-below economics, unnecessary war that reaps profits upon profits, and panders to corporations, especially Exxon-Mobile and such, like cheap whores looking for a date?

Of course! They're pigs!

Sarah's not the pig, dammit! Get that straight.

She's the lipstick.

Now, whether or not putting lipstick on a pig, as in smearing Sarah Palin on the Republican party, actually works remains to be seen.

Up Next: The Last Straw

You know, a couple nights ago I woke up at about 2 a.m. and the thought crept into my head, "McCain may actually win." From there it grew into a sleep eating monster and that was it.

I gotta say, while Obama ain't no savior, he's also not a republican, blind faith, magical thinking nightmare. Twice, enough votes were stolen, and enough third party votes cast to make the difference.

That's the nature of America today: about half blind faithers, willful ignorants and FDA's (the D stands for dangerous, figure the other two out for yourselves), about half people who actually know what's going on, and a bunch who get their opinions from ads and talking heads.

This election is the threshold. If the repubs get four more years, Jefferson's American ideal is done with. Did you see that sea of white faces at the RNC? They believed what they were hearing and saying. Of course they did. They weren't talking to you or me.

They couldn't care less if we live or die. We aren't part of their tribe. Of course Palin is forgiven and protected for her daughter's indiscretion. (Imagine if it were Obama's daughter) Of course O'Riley's are ignored and forgiven. Of course Limabaugh's drug addiction is dismissed. They're on the inside.

We're nothing. We're other. To them, we're not even Americans.

Consider this: If the Dems were so much the same as the repubs, we'd be eating moldy bread in some camp in the desert. Now. Today.

Don't think so? Look at what they've already done.

More of us will die if McCain gets elected. Lots and lots and lots. One way or another.

I swear I will delete politics from my life if the Republicans win this time. I've had enough.

As for Obama, let me quote Howard Zinn:

"...Yes, there are candidates who are somewhat better than others, and at certain times of national crisis (the Thirties, for instance, or right now) where even a slight difference between the two parties may be a matter of life and death.

I’m talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes—the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.

But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice."

It is a matter of life and death. No question. Vote for Obama. Please. THEN KICK HIS ASS THE DAY AFTER HE WINS.

If the unthinkable happens, my slogan becomes "Go, lemmings! Go!"

And mood stabilizers do become an option.