Just call them Fido, because they rolled over again. Yes, friends… our Democratic controlled Congress handed Dubya Bush (mister 28% himself) a bill that in essence rewrites the foreign intelligence surveillance laws that have been in place since just after the Church committee back in the mid-1970s, enabling the Administration’s intelligence services to listen 
in on phone conversation, read e-mails, etc., without a warrant, subject only to the approval of two guys appointed by the president – the attorney general (!) and the Director of National Intelligence. It was triangulation, of course, in the House – conservative and “centrist” Dems voting with Republicans to gain a majority; similar story in the Senate. Liberals voted against it, but the leadership could have scuttled it… and didn’t. So there you go. As with the Iraq war supplementals, Congress has signed on to a very destructive and unpopular policy because they’re afraid of being terror-baited by a president whose power base has shrunken to historic lows. Useless.
I wish I could say that it’s no worse than that, but the fact is… it is worse than that. Just one example – the Democrats are pusillanimous enough to grant Bush another $8 million for “missile defense” in the defense authorization bill, claiming victory because it was less than he asked for. That was part of a $450 billion piece of legislation that is chock full of waste spending and bones thrown to various congressional districts, but I mean honestly – how can they justify spending another $8 billion on such a pointless program? This at a time when we’re telling people we can’t afford to provide them with health care or decent housing or a minimal college education. But it is a political truism for both parties that when it comes to military spending, they can always put their hands on the money. That’s because of the dynamics of the military industrial economy affect congressmembers’ from both parties in about the same way. Republican or Democrat, you want that D.O.D. money flowing to your district – that’s what brings in the votes.
So… where from here? Good question. Anyone who supposed the 2006 election was something akin to a revolution was kidding him/herself. Change comes from us, not from pre-packaged, poll-driven, lobbyist-funded politicians. We have to speak with a united voice, one that is loud enough to overwhelm the influence of corporate money. (In other words, pretty goddamned loud.) Until we can get that faculty together, it will be the same deal over and over again – Democrats promising the moon and stabbing us in the back the moment they’re elected. And scoundrels like Bush starting wars and spying on us because there is no one to stop them. Dag nab it, we’ve got to stand up fer ourselves! If’n we do, maybe that scrawny old Harry Reid will, too! (Great… now I’ve got frontier accent syndrome again. Bloody Democrats! See what your spinelessness has done to me!)
Anyway… Congress (Fido) a good dog. It comes to whoever calls it. We just have to get a little better at doing the calling.
luv u,
jp
If this is prehistory, what the hell was yesterday? And if the universe is infinite, where the hell does it end? And if God is both infallible and omnipotent, how come s/he can’t make mistakes?
Okay, okay… I didn’t face all this alone. Naturally, I was joined in my misadventures by fellow Big Green-ers, Matt Perry and John White, plus Marvin (my personal robot assistant), the man-sized tuber of our acquaintance, Big Zamboola, and the two Lincolns (posi- and anti-), who split up with us on the mysterious island of Manna-hat-a-hun. Last week, we were being pursued by a large, loch-dwelling denizen of the deep – in essence, the Creature of the Barge Canal – which had barged (so to speak) into the riverboat’s on-deck buffet and helped itself to a generous serving of shrimp salad with a side of officer of the day. Believing we were next on the menu, we opted for below-decks, from whence we had emerged, in hopes that our giant pursuer would be unable to follow.
… and so on and so forth. Well… the giant sea creature – Diplodocus, I believe – started swaying back and forth in time with the music. It was a trance like state, brought on by the singing of this ludicrous little number Matt and I pulled out of our asses in about five minutes some years back. Damnedest thing.
to get a lot of traction, what with spineless Democrats in charge of Congress, one eye focused (as always) on the next election. The Democratic leadership doesn’t like the sound of accountability for war crimes (so many having been complicit in those committed in Iraq and Afghanistan). Their solution is to elect one of their number president, so that they can take over the reins of the “unitary executive” Dubya has brought into being over the last seven years. The last thing they want to do is hobble the empire with accountability. So impeachment is “off the table,” as far as they’re concerned. Fine. As they say, impeachment is a political process, not a legal proceeding. If what we’re dealing with here is a duopoly with a strong commitment to maintaining imperial power, it would appear to be in the best interests of both parties to put a check on this growing public desire. 
This goes beyond any notion of justice. This is about deterrence. There is no way in hell we can rely upon the current American political culture to indict itself – it simply isn’t going to happen without massive pressure from below. By placing this case in the hands of a competent international body, there is a slim chance that some kind of prosecution might actually take place. Even if the effort ends up being merely symbolic, it would have the value of acknowledging the actions of our political leaders as crimes against humanity. If a guilty verdict were to be achieved, Bush and others would probably remain free, but I can’t think even so craven a leader as Dubya would relish the notion of being branded a war criminal before the entire world. Lord knows, in retirement he may end up with a kind of Pinochet/Kissinger problem – avoid certain foreign capitals for fear of being served (and I don’t mean by a dance troupe). That’s not a lot of satisfaction, but it might be the beginning of a means of discouraging presidents and congressional leaders from waltzing us off to war whenever the spirit moves them.
Settle down, now. That’s right. Keep calm. (Zamboola – grab the net!) That’s right, nobody’s gonna’ harm you. (Not that net, you idiot… the fishing net!) Nice monster….
elected to cast off our bonds (we were informal galley slaves, or “temps” as they’re sometimes called) and storm our way to the command deck to confront our captors. It was then that we were faced with… well, I can only describe it as a large, snake-like object. Oh, foul it was, with a… ahem… I mean, this fucker was easily fifty feet high, and it was all neck. And, unlike the rest of us, it probably never had to settle for the low-hanging fruit. In spite of that fact, it seemed jolly well interested in our little vessel… or something therein. So the monster loomed above us. And it looked very, very hungry.
money at the baccarat table)? Lord no! So what the hell, some bastard rings a bell and the folks start lining up. Then that sea creature, mannerless lout that he (or she) is, cuts ahead in line and starts scooping up all of the crab salad. This drew the attention of the ship’s executive officer, who inserted himself between the comestibles and the sea monster, demanding that the beast find another source of sustenance. To give credit where credit is due, that critter did alter its dining plan, helping itself to the hapless lieutenant. (You need to be careful what you ask for.)
country. That leaves only one option – turn off the revenue tap. The Democratic congressional leadership and “front runner” presidential candidates make this out to be a complex affair, but it’s really much more as Rep. Dennis Kucinich describes it. To cut off the funding, congress doesn’t need to pass any legislation at all – quite the opposite. Simply block any further supplemental spending bills for the Iraq war. This will force the administration to implement an orderly withdrawal. If they don’t agree to approve specific funding for a withdrawal and reparations plan along the lines of what George McGovern and others have proposed, then withdrawal can be funded from other sources within the Pentagon system.
Bush isn’t the whole problem, of course. Very few Democrats are strongly opposed not merely to the conduct of the war but to the objectives it was founded on. Their refusal to bring it to an end is not due to cowardice so much as lack of wisdom and, somewhat less charitably, bad intentions. Many voted to authorize this war, even when they knew – as did you and I – that the rationale behind it was bogus. But even the more “liberal” or “progressive” voices are speaking from pragmatism. Obama criticizes Clinton for agreeing to the war without having an exit strategy. This implies that, had someone articulated a way out, it would have been okay to blow a big bloody hole in a country we’d already strangled, bombed, and starved for many years. Like John Kerry in 2004, most are presenting themselves as better managers of the war. The only ones who openly attack the Iraq project on a fundamental level are Gravel and Kucinich. But in the world of major party politics, being right is not an electoral asset.
Above us it loomed, its great bulk blocking the early afternoon sun. Oh, foul it was, with a stench that recalled many a dormitory morning back at S.U.N.Y. New Paltz (Gaige Hall). Queasy…. so queasy…
Okay, so anyway… row, row, row, goes the galley; boom, boom, boom goes the drum. After a couple of days of this, we’re getting a little, well, tired. So I encourage Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to sneak upstairs during his bathroom break (not entirely necessary in his case, anyway… Marvin’s leaks all involve machine oil) and have a look around. Well, he came back with a couple of interesting discoveries. First, the ship appears to have an engine and a great paddle wheel… which suggests to my mind that they’re making us row purely out of meanness and nastiness, and not for any locomotive purposes. Second, there’s gambling going on up there at practically all hours of the day and night. So this barge turned out to be one of those riverboat casinos (either that, or the captain has a bit of an issue with certain compulsive behaviors). On top of that, Marvin was, quite frankly, sent away with a bee in his ear by the captain’s imperious wife. There was only one thing for it – mutiny!
noticeable), we all dropped our oars and marched up the stairs, deaf to the belligerent calls of our overseer, with the intent of confronting our captain. I felt the spray from the canal as we broke through the bulkhead doors and climbed up on deck for the first time in four days. It was then that we saw it. Oh, foul it was, with a stench that recalled…. oh, right, you’ve heard that bit. We saw what looked like an enormous garden hose stretching straight up into the sky. Closer to the water, you could see the outlines of some kind of Diplodocus-like body. No doubt about it – this was the real thing. The lock 17 monster. I’d heard legends, but never… never did I suppose they were true.
That’s because it’s not being televised, just as the daily suffering of U.S. soldiers and ordinary Iraqis (now suffering at our hands non-stop since 1990) seldom makes it to our national news programs. As during the later years of the Vietnam War, the use of massive firepower is becoming a kind of consolational therapy for our political leaders and senior military commanders, as well as a sign of their increasing frustration over so persistent a policy failure as Operation Iraqi Freedom. Planners know that the clock is ticking on the Iraq project, and that they need to show “progress”, “results”, etc., and fast. So… bombs away.
Why, then, does Colonel Cathcart keep raising the number of missions? Well, obviously the administration did not invade Iraq just to quit it 5 short years later. (Fact is, they didn’t invade Iraq at all; only their unfortunate charges.) It is an enormous geopolitical prize, if it can be tamed, and a long-term U.S. presence (invited by a compliant Iraqi regime, of course) is what U.S. decision makers want here, even if it costs another 700, 1,500, or 3,000 American lives. Now, they will always present it as a matter of completing the job that the fallen have started, but if that “job” (created by politicians, not soldiers) is illegitimate, immoral, and extremely ill-advised, then the sooner we quit, the better. By their logic, we will never leave Iraq… which is, of course, their intention. So the dying will continue, until we decide it’s time for them to stop. Perhaps that time will only come when they start digging a little deeper to find live bodies to fill all those empty boots. Sooner or later, they will have to.
Low bridge, everybody down. Low bridge, ’cause our driver is a clown! Man, don’t you just love those old work songs! Just the thing to take the ache out of my sorry ass.
the not so distant future). Hell, if we were to let fear stop us from doing what we need to do, we would have stopped doing anything meaningful years and years ago. So….wait a minute… maybe we are a-feared after all!
conveyance? (Perhaps with a séance?) We puzzled over this for quite a while before fortune smiled down upon us (as it always does) and placed the means of transport within our grasp. The Barge Canal! (formerly known as the Erie Canal, eighth wonder of the world… back when there were probably only about seven wonders). We made our way to the nearest marina and negotiated passage on a somewhat tired looking riverboat. (That’s right, that’s right… we didn’t have any money, so the negotiation mainly involved sneaking on board while the crew was below deck drinking their wages. Don’t look at me like that…. I’m freaking sensitive, okay?) It’s not the kind of barge you would expect to see on this superannuated waterway, but…. it’ll do, and it’s headed in the right direction.
stories were the intelligence reports about a resurgent Al Qaeda and the interim report on “progress” in Iraq. While those two stories are, by virtue of previous intelligence reports, intimately related, Sawyer and Stephanopoulos were careful to keep them in their separate silos. No chance that either of these seasoned journalists would, say, ask Michael Chertoff whether or not Al Qaeda’s new strength was further evidence that the Iraq war is spawning a new generation of terrorism, drawing more people to extremism, and alienating those people in the middle east who might otherwise harbor some affection for us. I mean, we know that this stupid war is making terrorism worse – why do we pretend otherwise? 
Even in the face of no significant progress on the “benchmarks”, Bush demands patience. That’s basically the only card he has left. He’s got nothing to lose by taking that position because… well… he’s got nothing to lose. He can’t run for president again and he knows it’s unlikely that he’ll be impeached, so he’s got the office for the next 18 months. And as long as he never admits failure, Bush can always tag the collapse of Iraq on someone else. It won’t be down to him. It will be Congress’s fault if they cut off funds and Iraq falls apart. It will be the Iraqis’ fault if the money keeps flowing but the place implodes anyway. It will be the skeptics’ fault in either case for draining the American people’s will to “stay the course.” And when he leaves office with the war still rolling lethally along, he leaves the mess to someone else who will take the blame for the ensuing disaster. For now, Bush and company are content to prolong the fiction that there can be a good outcome to this war for anyone besides Halliburton and Blackwater. If doing so kills another World Trade Center’s worth of Americans between now and the end of his term, it’s no skin off his nose.
Saints preserve us. Not that we’re saints, but then… if we were, wouldn’t we be preserving ourselves rather than asking others to do it for us? What’s with the look? Hey… you’ve got to think about these things when you’re an explorer, you know.
All right, there was a better reason to head northward. The two Lincolns – posi and anti – who have plagued our existence since their arrival in this time period, jumped into a taxi and told the cab driver to take them to the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. The cabbie seemed to know what they were talking about, and he went north, so we’re following him. Not much to go on, I will admit, but that’s what we’ve got, okay, so get off my back… JUST CLIMB OFF, DAMMIT! Ahem… forgive me. It’s the pressure, that’s all. You can’t know what it’s like unless you’ve taken on an unknown continent with no one you can rely on for support or guidance – a sojourner cut off from civilization and condemned to find his way through the wilderness in the company of some very questionable associates, one of whom is, quite frankly, a vegetable. It sickens me to think of what Magellan must have gone through… or that guy who explored the Hudson Valley…. what the hell was his name?
discovery of the Thruway actually made our journey home a simple matter of following the expensive ribbon of asphalt through the remote valleys of upstate New York until the right exit sign appeared. I tell you, the gods of the State Department of Transportation were smiling down upon us (quite literally, from their enormous yellow vehicles) as we made our way along this magnificent causeway (’cause way up yonder, they’re ain’t a whole lot of other good roads). I can only wonder at what might have been the source of their amusement. (Perhaps the fact that we, unlike our fellow Thruway travelers, did not have a vehicle, and we’re trailing along behind Big Zamboola like mutant ducklings.)