American Realistan

“Nobody loves me but my mommie
- and she could be jivin’ me too!”

It’s hard for a Deciderer inside the Beltway these days, what with no one understanding why it was necessary to release wanted terrorist Luis Posada Carilles from custody after all those years of spouting voluminous aphorisms such as “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

As the book George claims to revere more than any other says, “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matt 7:16 )

And where is the respect for the Edjimikashun Predzidint? Not only is Kansas abandoning their rigid adherence to his treasured “Abstinence Is All You Need” program, but when George speaks in Latrobe, Pa. at the Benedictine-run Saint Vincent College, which is headed by his handmaiden, the former head of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives program - Jim Towey - why, there will actually be a protest against George, the Commander Guy!

Has the National Guard forgotten how to deal with protesters? Oh, wait! They’re all in Iraq or Afghanistan, with the remaining few cleaning up Greensburg, Kansas right now. No time for predzidents!

And what of his ability to reach out to the American people for love and understanding? That seems not to be working too well right now either. Viewers are abandoning the “mainstream” media in droves, especially from the ill-considered Glenn Beck of Official Oval Office Offal Eater CNN. As a result, it’s so much harder to get the American people to see the necessity for the veto of the oil war funding bill, a vital act necessary for the White House to reverse the lie that his approval rating is emptier than a $4/gal. gas tank in a suburban Humvee.

But what of his inner circle of Bushies? They are True Red and loyal, aren’t they? Maybe not. At least 20 have abandoned him in the last six months worth of his hour of need. Few are banging on the front doors of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to apply for the many vacant positions for vacant partisan minds.

Will he be able to draw replacements from the business community from which most of them sprang? Not if the National Association of Manufacturers is any indication. David Sirota reports that the membership of said business group are tired of their leadership sucking Republican big toes like Dick Morris during a visit by the DC Madam’s girls, and want to pressure the Congress to cease “lobbyist-written trade policies” which are “hurting domestic manufacturers (aka. NAM members).” Money talks, and the Bushitter walks!

But is this not the group which contains the Havemores, George’s base? How could they be thinking of their own welfare at a time when their leader needs their assistance? It’s an outrage! It’s mutiny! Why, he should call out the Praetorian Guard, er, the military!

(Psssst! Don’t look now, George, but the retired generals are taking up the cause of those generals still on active duty, those who cannot act against you due to the oath they swore upon commission as officers. The retirees - Generals Wesley Clarke, John Batiste, and Paul Eaton - are buying media time for an ad campaign [Watch it!] intended to further erode public support for your failed oil war in order to save what remains of the American military. May the Freeway Blogger add this topic to his efforts to impeach George!!)

Don’t think George is completely without friends! There’s always the broad shoulder of Wealthy Texas to cry on. But as Jon Ponder of Pensito Review puts it, “There’s no hope George Bush will learn anything from his failed presidency.” Not even to rely upon crooked Texans like Tom DeLay, who will be too busy covering his own sorry hide to worry about George’s.

It’s a good thing George already knows how to pose with a guitar, for then we’ll all understand when he sings:

“Now you see why I act funny baby,
When I do the things I do”

Only we won’t be laughing.

[Abundant obsequious apologies to BB King for abusing his famous lyric for political purposes!]

When disaster strikes a community, as it did Greensburg, Kansas, one expects that the president will offer aid to the recovery effort.

But prior to this, Bush has done everything in his power to prevent aid from reaching American citizens in need due to local natural disaster. For example, The Kansas National Guard only has about 40 percent of the equipment it is allotted available to use in the recovery because much of it is in Iraq.

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said Kansas lacked about half of their dump trucks and front loaders necessary for recovery efforts and debris removal. More than 20 percent of its Humvees and 15 of 19 helicopters were sent to Iraq, the governor added. Kansas Emergency Management spokeswoman Sharon Watson said because of the shortage of National Guard equipment, the state was rushing to hire contractors to help clear debris.

To make matters worse, a second deadly tornado hit another area of the state, leaving Gov. Sebelius to lament, “We have the need for National Guard in two different parts of our state now.” Unfortunately, Iraq and Afghanistan have more of them than does Kansas. only about 70 Kansas National Guard troops were available to supplement about 40 troops already in Greensburg.

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I have a hard time listening to Republican blowhards who present themselves as the answer to all of our problems, so forcing myself to listen to the entire Republican debate took a lot of effort.One thing I have to note is that MSNBC sent up softball pitcher Chris Mathews over fireballer Brian Williams, who threw heat against the Democrats. If MSNBC had a real sense that presenting the news is much more important than making it, they would have the honesty to reverse the order and send up the softballer to moderate the Democrats and sic Williams on the Republicans. Then we might get a real sense of where the Republican candidatess stand on the issues.

As it stands, Brent Budowsky considered the debates “a waste”:

In neither debate did any of the candidates saying anything important, or memorable, or relevant to the outcome. What we heard, in the Democratic debate, and now the Republican debate, was a feast of gaseous emissions in a political discourse already too polluted. None of the Democrats were JFK; none of the Republicans were Reagan; none of this was a surprise; and none of it mattered either to the quality of our national discussion, the standings of the candidates, or the verdict of history, will which remember none of this.

We will not get that debate from a leadership class that is obsessed with the politics of its own advancement and lacks the courage, clarity and honor to make the hard decisions of life, death and blood that the situation urgently calls for, and our people urgently pray for.

I agree.

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A tisket, a tasket,
Impeachment if we ask it…

Two of my regular readers (they know who they are!) independently sent me certain details concerning Nancy Pelosi reversing her declaration that Impeachment was “off the table” due to the huge outcry to do so by the delegates to the California Democratic Convention.

This comes hard on the heels of Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s call for impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Kucinich was supported by Mayors Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City and John Shields of Nyack, NY; Washington State Senator Eric Oemig; Arcata [CA] City Councilman Dave Meserve; and former government officials, including Daniel Ellsberg; David MacMichael, a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency and a member of the steering committee of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity; and retired Army Colonel Ann Wright, a career diplomat who quit in protest the day the war began.

Much more on the flip side.

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Before I continue, I want to point out
that some of my comments following
will appear to be extreme at first.
Please go with the flow until you see where it goes.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reports a decline in overall military readiness which might take years to “reduce” the risk to the nation’s security, such as it now is. One reason for this decline is, despite lots of claims to the contrary, Pentagon is having poor results in their attempts to recruit new troops despite reducing standards to the point that convicted felons are allowed to enlist. The Arizona Star wants to see some kind of oversight over these convict enlistees in order to prevent “harming America’s war effort.”

But in order to perform this logical duty, the Pentagon would need more officers, but it seems that they already are falling short of the necessary numbers without meeting the oversight duty needs requested by The Arizona Star even if they are promoting officers beyond their experience, threatening the quality of the military officer corps at a time when quality has never been more necessary.

That’s why one has to wonder why General Pace is insisting on shooting himself in the foot with his loaded mouth.

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“There is no real sense of job security,” says Duke University Professor Gary Gereffi. “I think that’s a kind of anxiety we’re unfortunately starting to live with. The longer [a factory has] been in existence, the more vulnerable your job probably is,” Gereffi says.

The working class are called the statistical middle class due to their position on the income spectrum. Economic class models used by researchers like Dennis Gilbert or Thompson and Hickey estimate that roughly 53% of Americans are members of the working or lower classes. The majority of the statistical middle class enjoy relatively low job security, often needing two incomes to meet their needs. This makes such folks vulnerable to Middle class squeeze due to downsizing, competition from lower-paid foreign workers and contractors, and the elimination of unions. Does this sound like your situation? Not sure? Steve Daniels of WTVD, Raleigh NC, offers some important tips that’ll help you recognize if your job could be in jeopardy.

The situation is beginning to be noticed in the Congress, the last place problems seem to attract attention.

“Greed, in my humble opinion, will destroy America,” says Walter Jones, the Republican North Carolina Congressman who’s tired of hearing from his constituents who are losing their jobs, even those making those french fries he renamed freedom fries. At least those fast food jobs aren’t going to end up in Mexico.

In Reynosa, Mexico, there are 200 American factories employing nearly one hundred thousand people - ten Reynosinos for the price of one Tar Heel. Rochelle Richardson is losing her job at the Eaton factory in Johnston County to a factory in Reynosa. She says she understands why her factory is closing. “If I had to make a business decision like that and let 10 people do what one person does, why not?” Rochelle says.

The stock response to this is to return to school and get educated. Computer classes are a very popular course, but as a person who is involved with computers as a profession in the real world for thirty years, I can attest that things aren’t very rosy for us old timers. Dozens of us are Microsoft MCSE’s, yet we keep our current employment because the pay as an MCSE doesn’t match what we make now as industrial controller systems techs.

William Bedford of the Canada Free Press puts it thusly:

History teaches us that progress in the work place, while eliminating thousands of jobs, creates thousands of new ones. And human workers still will be needed to build, program and maintain those millions of robots that are heading our way. The term, artificial intelligence however would be better used to describe the eggheads who believe that they can teach computers to think for themselves.

The fact is, a computer, no matter how amazing it appears to be,
is still only a machine that any fool can render useless
simply by cutting off its power supply.

But that doesn’t stop workers from seeing more education as the way out as this sadder-but-wiser would-be computer programmer can attest. She ran up $22,157 in student loans for a certificate she has not been able to use, discovering that her computer skills weren’t good enough, even after obtaining extra schooling, to get an office job.

We’re going to be joined on the other side of the page break by readers from Blogcritics, so leave room for swelled heads and inflated egos. (more…)

The world is warning George W. Bush to ‘BACK OFF IRAN!!!’ before he gets hurt waging his increasingly expensive “International War On Terror” while neglecting the signs that he’s sowing the seeds of a much different kind of war with his domestic policies.This week, the Senate voted 94-3 to approve the increase in the minimum wage after Democrats and Republicans agreed to extend tax breaks for small businesses that would bear the cost of the higher wages. The cost to the U.S. Treasury of that and other tax benefits in the Senate measure would be $8.3 billion over 10 years, according to estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation.

And yet, these tax breaks aren’t necessary! Three out of four small business owners polled by Gallup in March 2006 believe a higher minimum wage would have no effect on them. In fact, 46% would favor an increase in the minimum wage, believing that a higher minimum wage would attract and retain better workers, improve the employment situation in their area, and is “the right thing to do” for their employees.

The partisan hype against the minimum-wage increase goes against a whole raft of US government data. For example, the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows the majority of workers who would see their wages rise under the Democratic proposal are not part-time workers earning the current minimum wage of $5.15 per hour.

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The Times of London published a rather astonishing story the other day. It seems that Israel appointed a Muslim, veteran Labour Party member Ghaleb Majadleh, as a minister without portfolio in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s shaky coalition. There was, of course, the customary tired objections and denunciations from the usual Israeli suspects, but the precedent has been established. As the Arab community constitutes 20 per cent of the population in Israel, the appointment of Mr Majadleh is historic, and might eventually lead to an easing of the tensions between Israeli Jews and non-Jews as they enter the government.

One has to wonder if the flap over Muslims entering American government hasn’t reached the point where, because the precedent has now been established, the dinosaurs of American politics will have find something else to rant about besides the real or imaginary religious affiliations of the duly-elected representatives of We, the People.

As one of my faithful regular readers VS-) put it:

What’s there to brag about in the “Obama Madrassa” non-story? Well, not the story itself–with CNN and Nightline pretty thoroughly debunking the Insight Rag story, there is not much to add on that particular subject.

Sure, the Muslim “parents” (father and step-father) and the school in Indonesia were an easy target that I spotted early, as Obama-for-President stories began to boil over a few weeks ago. (I also spotted the “not-Black-enough” angle that I still believe will be picked up by the Right wing media.)

But there is not much noteworthy in the story itself–some conservative rag and Fox News create a tempest in a teapot, making things up, then get slammed for the slime job. Who cares! That’s not news!

And just what is news? Read on:

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A reader didn’t like my taking Jerry Ford to task for pardoning Richard Nixon before Watergate could be properly investigated:

The sad truth is that both political parties have been bought and paid for many times over. Get a quick start on what you obviously never learned in school about the government of your native land and how it came to be. Read: “The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America” by Prof. Gary B. Nash of UCLA. Consider the exercise due pennance [sic] for being gullible enough to believe the morons who taught you history, civics, etc., and not do some of your own reading and fact finding.

Wake up and smell the coffee…

Red Barron, Vienna, VA

There is only one correct response to offer. To quote a well-known social philosopher of the late 1970’s:

“EX-CUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE ME!”

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I certainly hope that the title of this piece isn’t applicable to you and yours. But if one considers oneself a good person, much less a good Christian, are we not supposed to remember the less fortunate? And yet, there are so many signs that we have forgotten what Christmas represents:

How We Say Christmas
New York Times Editorial
December 25, 2006

What would you say if you had to explain Christmas to someone who knew nothing about it? A stranger might well wonder, don’t you always hope for peace on earth? Does good will really have a season? And if you genuinely love one another - truly hold one another in your hearts - wouldn’t simply saying it be far more eloquent than any other gift that you could give?

You would probably have something to say about the importance of family and the force of a holiday whose strongest emotions center upon children, and upon our memories of being children. And yet to really explain Christmas you would also have to try to answer the question that seems more pressing every year: how do those emotions and memories connect to the frenzied commercial machinery of the weeks that lead up to Christmas? What does all that retailing and wrapping paper have to do with peace on earth?

What matters is not just the disjunction between the majesty of those old hymns and the immodesty of this shopping season. It is that all those presents did not really catch the feeling we were looking for, did not say what we hoped to say.

Unfortunately, some say too much, demonstrating that they know nothing about Christmas:

Tis the Season for Republican So-Called Christians to Go Nuts
by A. Alexander, www.progressivedailybeacon.com
December 12th, 2006

Republican so-called Christians certainly do become extra angry this time of year, but who can blame them?

Christmas is the most wonderful time of year and oh-so full of wishes for joy, happiness, peace on earth, and goodwill toward all. Most of all, however, Christmas is the Holiday that, just beneath the surface, celebrates an incredibly beautiful Christ-like Liberalism of giving, sharing, loving, caring, and joy.

In short, the Holiday season is
the antithesis of the Conservative movement.

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