Where Are Country Joe and the Fish?

Oct11

(This does not scan perfectly, but then, neither does the original. And I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to keep the lines from breaking; like others, WordPress uses vocabulary that is incomprehensible to the non-computer geek.)

Well, come on all of you, big strong men, Uncle Sam needs your help again. We’ve got ourselves in another jam In a place far worse than Vietnam. So give up your job and pick up a gun, You’re gonna have a whole lotta fun.

And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Congressmen, they don’t give a damn,
Next stop’s Afghanistan;
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! you’re all gonna die.

Come on Wall Street, don’t be slow,
Why Haliburton, you gotta know
There’s plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade, And you make the dough when you blow up the man, Whether or not he’s the Taliban.

Well, come on generals, let’s move slow;
Endless war is what you know. Now you can go out and bomb ragheads ‘Cause the only good Arab is the one that’s dead,
And you know that peace can only be bad
When so many jerks are on jihad.

Come on White House, don’t stay your hand, Freedom now for Afghanistan. Come on Congress, and don’t hesitate And vote more money before it’s too late. And you can be the first to hold your seat For turning Afghanis into dead meat.

Politspeak

Jul27

Politicians are of course accustomed to spin every fact and carefully craft every public statement, attempting to insure that absolutely nothing negative, embarrassing or revealing is said (a habit that unfortunately has spread to NFL head coaches). The result is that a minimum of information is conveyed, and what there is is wrapped in platitudes and fine sounding nothing. But there is a sort of code that can be recognized and deciphered, although it is not as precise as that used by the military, which after all must generally deal with verifiable concrete facts (collateral damage – dead innocents; degraded military unit – bodies blown all over the countryside). Here is a sampling, many of them fairly familiar.

1. I want to spend more time with my family/explore new opportunities. (Polls show I will not be reelected/They just fired my ass.)

2. Mistakes were made. (I or someone under my supervision screwed up.)

3. The American people want… (My party wants…)

4. We need to energize the base. (We need to pander to the extremists in our party.)

5. The security of Israel is of paramount interest. (I want to get reelected.)

6. The level of military funding is dangerously low. (There is an armaments plant in my district.)

7. We must not infringe upon states’ rights. (My state does not like Blacks/gays/ abortions.)

8. The other party is playing politics. (The other party does not agree with me.)

9. We must protect the job creators. (We must protect the filthy rich who fund my campaigns.)

10. I am for protecting life. (I oppose abortion and support the death penalty.)

11. I am for choice. (I support abortion.)

12. I am a man/woman of the people. (My net worth is less than one million.)

13. I am proud to have served my country. (I’m glad I didn’t have to work for a living/serve in the military.)

14. To the best of my recollection… (I’m certainly not going to tell you anything incriminating.)

15. I am taking care of the people’s business. (I am running for reelection/on a junket/lining my pockets.)

16. We must defend religious freedom. (We must make the country safe for Christianity.)

17. I respect my colleague’s opinion. (My colleague is full of shit.)

18. At that point in time… (Then.)

19. We cannot afford to look weak. (There is an armaments plant in my district.)

20. The government requires these powers to maintain our national security. (We are the party in power.)

21. The government possesses too much power. (We are not the party in power.)

22. This is the worst sort of negative campaigning. (The ad is true.)

23. He is a Washington insider. (He has been in office longer than I have.)

24. We need to bring the country together. (Everyone should agree with us.)

25. He engages in class warfare. (He talks about income disparity.)

26. He is no friend to the poor. (Please believe that I am.)

27. This is a personnel matter. (We are engaging in illegal activity.)

28. This is still under investigation. (We don’t want to embarrass our colleagues.)

29. There are few rotten apples. (Most of us are guilty.)

30. This bill is filled with pork. (None of the pork in this bill is going to my state.)

31. I support free speech, but… (I support free speech unless I or my constituents find it offensive.)

32. I support the establishment of democracy. (I support the establishment of democracy until they elect someone we don’t like.)

33. We have a zero tolerance policy. (We can’t be bothered thinking/We don’t want to get sued.)

34. We are all in this together. (I won’t be losing my job.)

35. I love America. (Where else could I hold a state office?)

36. He is an elitist. (He uses words I can’t understand.)

37. We recognize the legitimate security needs of Israel. (We will ignore the international law we are sworn to uphold.)

38. He leaked classified material. (He revealed something embarrassing to my party.)

39. I have not yet studied the document. (My staff has not yet told me what I should say.)

40. We have reached across the aisle in a bipartisan spirit. (We are voting on our own benefits.)

H.R. 4133: the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation and Screw the Taxpayer Act

May24

On May 9 the House of Representatives passed a bill that could have a dramatic impact on America’s foreign policy and will certainly cost us a lot of money, but since any news of this legislation was virtually absent from the mainstream media, very few Americans are aware of it existence. H.R. 4133, the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012, was slipped through the House under a rules suspension that allowed a quick vote with virtually no debate. The bill had bipartisan backing, being introduced by Democrats Howard Berman and Steny Hoyer and two particularly loathsome Republicans, who seem to owe their primary allegiance to Israel, Eric Cantor and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. (Actually, the bill had “tripartisan” backing, since the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Tel Aviv’s powerful instrument in America, helped write it.) The vote was 411-2, only Ron Paul (R) and John Dingell (D) voting against. How odd that our increasingly dysfunctional and divided government could achieve virtually unanimity on a bill, one that most Americans will never hear of.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence and honesty already knows what actions counter to our interests Israel’s stranglehold on Washington has forced upon us, but this bill represents a mind-numbing escalation of commitment to a state whose foreign and domestic policies are at odds with what this country presumes to stand for. In essence the bill is a blank check from the American taxpayer, who will now be obliged to support Israel’s “qualitative military edge” over all its neighbors combined, of course leaving it to Israel and its Congressional supporters (which is to say, almost all of Congress) to decide exactly what that vague phrase means. Certainly, one thing it means is that we will be sending more of our money out of the country in order to support activities of extremely questionable legality and morality.

The legislation also affirms our commitment to the “security of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.” This is an interesting development in our “passionate attachment” (G. Washington) to Israel. We have of course spent decades squandering our money and international credibility on an “ally” whose value to American security and interests (apart from domestic politics) is not at all clear and which continually violates the international law we are pledged to uphold and the basic values that we trumpet to the world. But now we have pledged (for the first time in our history, I believe) to guarantee the religious/cultural nature of a foreign country.

One might legitimately ask why we should care, unless it was to criticize an oppressive government, which we cannot do anyway in the case of Israel, but more than that, what exactly does this mean? When the Muslim minority in Israel’s citizen body becomes the majority, as it inevitably will, will the US have to intervene? When Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) are formally incorporated into Eretz Yisrael will we have to help enforce apartheid or deport all those Palestinians? If a majority of Israeli citizens voted to declare Israel a secular state, would we have to prop up a minority government? And exactly what is a “Jewish state,” especially when the majority of inhabitants of the state in question do not practice Judaism?

The legislation requires the US to supply all sorts of equipment for the “defense” of Israel. Of course, Israel has always been able to utterly smash its enemies, requiring only resupply from a compliant Uncle Sam, and the only potentially threatening neighbor whose military might be improving is Egypt, whose major supplier, America, is hardly likely to provide her an edge. Included in the list are refueling tankers and bunker-busting bombs, which are obviously offensive weapons, unless of course your definition of defense includes preemptive strikes against other countries, which it does in the eyes of Israel – and increasingly the United States. What are now called “preemptive strikes” were traditionally labeled “wars of aggression.” I wonder if the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor can be called a preemptive strike? After all, American naval power was a threat to the continued existence of the Japanese Empire.

One particularly frightening part of the bill is the expressed desire for Israel to play an increased role in NATO, included a presence at NATO headquarters and involvement in NATO exercises. The clear intention is that Israel ultimately become a member of NATO, thus dragging the entire European alliance into her wars and making it complicit in her continued violation of international law. With that Israel could attack Iran or any other country with impunity, because if the victim dare fight back, the United States and the rest of NATO would be required to come to her aid. This would be placing an assault rifle in the hands of an ill disciplined child. But it is hard to imagine Turkey signing on to this plan, and one hopes the majority of European members would also object. Of course, then Congress would begin looking at an actual treaty with Israel, though given the utter subservience of our politicians to Israeli interests, it would hardly be necessary.

One final slap in our face. Washington has agreed to put up an additional $680 million (beyond the $3.1 billion we pay every year) to help Israel pay for her Iron Dome anti-missile system and the new F-35 fighter. Israel has also requested another $168 million for security measures, while the Obama administration has asked for $99.9 million on top of that. And to make sure poor Israel does not run out of American money the Iron Dome Support Act, introduced by Berman and the ever vigilant Ross-Lehtinen, would require our Treasury to keep shelling out the money. And here is the joke on us: Israel has this year cut its defense budget by 5% and intends to do the same next year! Oh, there is a second joke: the United States has absolutely no rights to the technology being developed for the Iron Dome system, which will be marketed to the world by Israel. Perhaps we can get a special deal.

We have become a silly nation.

A 2012 Wish List

Dec30

This Wish List involves changes that might conceivably be made, though I suspect it will be a frosty day in the nether regions, since most of them would have to be implemented by politicians, and they and the interests that own them would face losing the most. But they nevertheless may be distinguished from the truly impossible, such as altering our political system to break the grip of the Democratic and Republican parties or requiring an intelligence test for holding national political office (good-bye GOP).

GET US OUT OF AFGHANISTAN (AND IRAQ) NOW

Why wait another two years? Iraq is actually a country with an infrastructure, albeit damaged, and a serious potential revenue source in the form of oil, yet it is already collapsing, only weeks after the departure of our military. Afghanistan is less a country than a space defined by the nations surrounding it, and virtually every one of the four major ethnic groups would like to lord it over the others or create its own country. The last national election was a farce, corruption is an embedded Afghan tradition and any sort of real loyalty can be found only at the tribal level. The only time Afghanistan has come even close to a national entity is under autocratic strong men, and while the locals might appreciate the odd school or clinic, they clearly do not like foreign military on their soil, especially when that military tends to be a bit casual about collateral damage. Yes, we have pulled most of our military out of Iraq, but do we need a “diplomatic” presence of some ten thousand, guarded by five thousand of the mercenaries the locals have come to love? What will all these people be doing as Iraq slides into civil war and/or Iranian control? With Kuwait (and to a lesser extent Bahrain) being little more than a giant American military base, why do we need Baghdad?

REGULATE THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY

This should be simple. A relative handful of people almost brought down the global economy, yet very little has been done to correct this liability. There remains a dangerous lack of transparency, especially regarding arcane financial instruments, and major banks are still finding ways to dodge what little regulation exists, especially given the increasing globalization of banking. The EU is considering a tax on financial transactions, which would help against the growing number of parasites whose manipulation of markets produces nothing except wealth for themselves and helps distort the relationship between supply, demand and price. But unless all the industrialized countries participate, this activity will simply move to New York. Meanwhile, the income gap in America is reaching unprecedented levels.

IMPOSE TERM LIMITS

An incumbent in Congress, unless he is a complete fool, may essentially keep his seat until he dies, which means he can spend his whole life running for reelection. In the eighties the turnover in the Soviet Politbureau was greater than that of the American Congress, and even in the unhappy year 2010 the Congressional reelection rate was 97%. Polls indicate that the public feels that all these political lifers should be thrown out, but the feeling apparently rarely extends to their own Senator or Representative. This reform is actually talked about, but it is hard to imagine someone in Congress voting to limit their own access to the federal gravy train.

PUBLISH CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS

It is clearly impossible to limit campaign contributions and thus the power of big money to influence elections: even those laws that do not run afoul of the First Amendment are always easily sidestepped. Instead, allow anyone or any entity, even foreign governments, to contribute money, but all contributions will be published on a dedicated website, on a periodic nationally broadcast television program and in major newspapers across the country. Any violation would result in the immediate termination of the individual’s candidacy. Monies spent by advocacy groups rather than by an individual will be treated similarly, and violations will be rewarded with huge fines. If Americans cannot be bothered to avail themselves of all this information concerning who is buying whom, which is likely, then we get what we deserve.

DETERMINE OUR POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST ACCORDING TO AMERICAN INTERESTS

For reasons that have everything to do with domestic politics we have with Israel the sort of “passionate attachment” to a foreign power that George Washington warned against. The interests of Israel are not always the same as America’s; they are in fact increasingly divergent. Israel is permitted behavior that would immediately stir official outrage were it any other country, and our unqualified support for a state that routinely violates accepted international law, especially regarding Arab populations, contributes mightily to our reputation as self-serving hypocrites.

CONFIGURE OUR MILITARY RESOURCES ACCORDING TO REALITY

The size, nature and equipment of our military should be determined by realistic evaluation of the actual threats out there rather than based on outmoded thinking inherited from the twentieth century, the insatiable desires of the Pentagon and the needs of politics and the defense industry. With economic globalization the chance of a real war with a major industrial and military power like China is becoming vanishingly small and with it the need for $100 million fighter aircraft and more attack submarines. And any (for the moment inconceivable) war with a power strong enough to require all the systems the Pentagon wants must inevitably go nuclear.

HANG PIRATES

For several thousand years the approach to pirates has been summary execution. Why are these people now being given trials, especially at a time when we are executing from above even American citizens if they are designated terrorists by the government/military? Any man who attempts to hijack a ship clearly designates himself a pirate and should thus be liable to execution, preferably by the traditional hanging. Make it clear to the denizens of Somalia and other places that any unidentifiable vessel found in certain delineated international waters will be immediately destroyed.

STREAMLINE NUCLEAR POWER

Nuclear fission is a proven non-fossil fuel source of power, requiring nothing more than easily produced fissionable material and water for cooling. It produces no pollutants, and examined sensibly, the issue of what to do with the radioactive waste disappears. We already have the technology to bury and secure this stuff for the next several centuries, by which time we will have better technology or more likely, no longer exist. The imagined need to secure this waste for ten thousand years is simply silly. Further, the industry must produce standardized designs and streamline the licensing process, as has France, which has for decades successfully generated some 75% of its power through fission. Other green technologies are not yet developed enough, and nuclear power could easily carry us through until technologies like solar and even fusion are perfected.

SERVE THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST

A mature society should indeed look after its disadvantaged, but not at the expense of those who can contribute the most. A major problem, among others, in our public education system is the waste of resources and time on those who simply will not learn, a waste exacerbated by the tendency of these same people to degrade the education of those who would learn. There is of course the problem of what to do with the negative element, but keeping them in school is not the answer, inasmuch as they harm the educational environment of others and end up joining the underclass of the uneducated anyway. And while we should look to the education of those with “special needs,” mainstreaming them clearly comes at the expense of those who have functioning intellects and bodies. I cannot confirm this, but I have read that for every $1 spent on those who are in some way dysfunctional, about 3¢ is spent on the gifted. This is no way to secure the future of our country. Incidentally, it is of course impossible to remove big money sports and its corrupting influence from American higher education, but at the very least the NBA and NFL should be paying for all those athletic scholarships.

TELL THE “GREAT SUCCESSOR” TO PISS OFF

OK, this is emotion-based, but make it clear to the ruthless jerks in Pyongyang that any assault on South Korea or anyone else will result in their capital being turned to glass, China notwithstanding.

Hypocritically We Stand: UNESCO, Palestine and America

Nov1

Once again Israel’s
iron grip on American foreign policy in the Middle East
has been vividly demonstrated, and once again the United
States has humiliated itself in the eyes of
the world.

On October 31 UNESCO, the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, voted overwhelmingly
to grant Palestine full membership
in the organization. Of the 173 nations
voting 107 voted in favor, 14 voted against and 52 abstained. Among those voting against the resolution
were the United States,
Canada, Germany
and Holland, while Italy
and Britain
abstained. David Killion the US
ambassador to UNESCO, called the initiative “counterproductive” and
certain to “harm negotiations,” though he did not explain how. The apparently aptly named Israeli ambassador,
Nimrod Barkan, called the vote a tragedy, also neglecting to explain why that
is so.

Israel’s
loudest voice in the US Congress, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, demanded
immediately that the government honor two petty and now obsolete laws passed in
the nineties and cut off the US
contribution to UNESCO. As a result
UNESCO has now lost 22% of its $653 million budget. Ros-Lehtinen, incidentally, has over her
career received $203,240 from pro-Israeli PACS.
It is apparently not just Wall Street that has been buying American
politicians.

While there are many legitimate
reasons to criticize the UN, since the major reforms of UNESCO in the last
decade the agency has received only praise for its work around the world. Even former Rep. Tom Lantos, another staunch defender
of Israel and a
Holocaust survivor, spoke highly of the organization. The recent reforms seem to have eliminated
the waste and corruption and transformed the agency from a sometime anti-American
platform to an arm of the UN that is actually focused on its mandated duties. These include decades of cooperation with the
Palestinians building the cultural and educational infrastructure in the Occupied
Territories and attempting to
protect historically and culturally important sites around the planet. Ironically, UNESCO has been working with the US
in developing Afghanistan,
particularly in the area of education.

In 1984 President Reagan took the US
out of UNESCO because of concerns that the organization was a mouthpiece for
the communists, but President Bush rejoined it in 2003, a demonstration of the
impact of the reforms. Israel, on the
other hand, was booted out of the agency in 1974 for the damage being done in
its excavations on the
Temple Mount, but was reinstated in 1977 when the US threatened to withhold $40
billion in contributions. In 2010 UNESCO
complaints about the Israeli destruction of Palestinian historical sites caused
Israel to
suspend cooperation with the organization, the Israeli foreign minister suggesting that the complaints were
part of a Palestinian scheme to discredit Israel.

Solely because of domestic political
concerns – criticize Israel
and you do not get reelected – the US
relationship with Israel
has become the “passionate attachment” that George Washington warned
against in his Farewell Address. Continuing
and unqualified support for the Jewish state despite their increasingly
outrageous behavior and the violation of every international covenant we have signed
has seriously tarnished America’s image not just in the Arab world but around
the globe and marked us as the hypocrites that we have become. As an example, we maintain that for some
unexplained reasons Palestine being a member of UNESCO would hinder the peace negotiations
(that have achieved nothing in the last twenty years), yet we say little and do
absolutely nothing about Israel’s continued construction of settlements in conquered
territory, a clear violation of international law and a recognized and real hindrance
to negotiations. Even Germany,
whose relations with Israel
are for obvious reasons very delicate, is considering holding up the sale of
submarines to Israel
because of their plan to build more settlements in Arab Jerusalem.

Ironically, our credibility has
suffered even more under President Obama, whose election brought the
expectation of an at least somewhat more balanced policy in the region. He is probably sympathetic to the plight of
the Palestinians and certainly despises Prime Minister Netanyahu, but he of
course desires to be reelected and for all his beautiful speeches he has done absolutely
nothing and has silently suffered constant insults from our “ally.” Well, in this instance he can claim his hands
were tied by laws passed by the Congress, but not too loudly.

I am mightily ashamed of my country,
as are many caring Israelis about theirs.

Marketing Our Democracy

Oct8

In the
Constitution the Founding Fathers created an amazingly flexible charter, able
to accommodate the social, economic and technological changes of the next
couple centuries, yet one difficult enough to change that it has been largely
protected from the fleeting whims of society.
But something the convention delegates could not imagine, even standing
at the door to the Industrial Revolution, something that two hundred and fifty
years later has dramatically undermined our democracy is marketing. Economic power is political power, and
history has amply demonstrated that any economically powerful group must gain
access to the political apparatus or revolution will result. Traditionally that has meant that the
economic elite are in fact identical to the political elite, but modern
corporations and nations, particularly the democracies, have opened the door to
indirect access to and control of the political system. Rather than actually occupying the seats of
power, wealth can simply manage those who do.

Bribing or
buying politicians, functionaries and princes has of course been around since
the birth of civilization, but it is marketing, itself little more than a
century old, that has institutionalized such corruption and carried it to
undreamed of levels in the industrial democracies. Having money has always helped in attaining
political office, but when campaigning essentially comprised personal
appearances, speeches, debates and pamphlets, getting elected could be achieved
on a very tiny budget. The geographic
growth of our country made electioneering more difficult and expensive,
especially for national office, but men of modest and even humble backgrounds
could still be viable candidates for state houses, Congress and even the White
House. And party supporters could help
cover those train rides, rented halls and newspaper ads.

This began
to change dramatically with the development of radio and television and the
concomitant burgeoning of mass marketing.
Access to air time rapidly became the key to a successful campaign,
dwarfing even the character and competence of the candidate himself. It became clear that you could market a
candidate as easily as you could market a detergent and that the approach was
essentially the same: hammer the voter over and over with a simple
message. This has resulted in two very
pernicious developments, a continuing and staggering increase in the cost of
election and a continuing and often staggering decline in the quality of
candidates.

Foolish or
stupid candidates are certainly nothing new in American politics, but marketing
now makes it far easier for these people to get elected, which can only
encourage more intellectually unfit candidates.
A candidate can mostly avoid the personal exchange and debate that would
reveal ignorance and instead bombard the voter with slogans and images. This situation is not helped by the
precipitous decline in American education, which exacerbates the inherent flaw
in democracy: that high school dropout with his pants around his knees has a
vote equal to yours. Democracy rises and
falls with the educational level of the electorate, and we seem now to be
considering for office some very ignorant and consequently dangerous
individuals.

Having
stupid politicians is bad enough, but having politicians, stupid or otherwise,
who are essentially controlled by the economic powers in the society must be
ultimately fatal to the democracy. And
this is the price of marketing. The
incredible cost of a serious campaign, especially on the national level,
absolutely demands that the candidate be funded by others, by the corporations,
banks, unions, organized lobbies and wealthy individuals that constitute the
economic muscle in and increasingly, out of the country. And their protests notwithstanding, these
donors all expect something in return, and the potential office-holder is
already compromised. His protests also
notwithstanding, he has been bought. This is all nothing less than legalized
corruption.

The two
major candidates in the 2008 Presidential election together spent a billion
dollars, most of it on air time. The
average voter simply can not compete for political leverage in such a fiscal
environment. All he can hope to buy with
his contribution is the election of his candidate, while the big donors are
buying influence over the candidate once he is elected, which influence
typically pulls the official away from what the voters were led to expect. The so-called “soft” money
contributed to the party rather than an individual candidate follows the same
rules, the two major parties being concerned less with ideology than electing
their candidates. Reelection, the
apparent goal of virtually every politician, means the collection of money does
not stop on election night, and the big money sources can thus continue to
pressure the office holder, who in turn gains an advantage as the incumbent,
since unlike the challenger he can offer action instead of promises. With no term limits the office thus tends to
become a life-time job and the incumbent part of a very slowly changing
political oligarchy. The American Senate
has become almost a mirror of the Roman Senate, whose members served for
life. Indeed, during the 1980s there was
greater turnover in the Soviet Politbureau than in the American Senate.

These huge
amounts of money are also one of the reasons that two parties, the Republicans
and the Democrats, have managed to monopolize the political process and become
virtually extensions of our political structure. Party organization has always provided an
edge in political activity, and now it provides an edge in what has become
perhaps the most important aspect of that political activity, raising
money. Further, the constant need to
raise ever larger amounts of money has rapidly lengthened campaigning almost to
the eve of the previous election, which in turn fuels the need for money.

Campaign
finance laws have been a complete failure.
Politicians are hardly likely to be enthusiastic about limiting their
own access to funds, especially if their party is better at raising money, and
in any case limiting what an individual or even a corporation can donate
immediately runs afoul of the First Amendment. Exclusive public funding of elections will
also have constitutional problems, and in any case would never be passed by
Congress. Perhaps the solution may be
found in the joke that politicians should dress like NASCAR drivers, covered
with patches identifying their supporters: a candidate can receive any amount
of money from any source, even foreign governments, but it must all be
publicized on websites and in major newspapers.
Failure to do this would result in the immediate ejection of the
offender from the race. If voters
nevertheless still elect candidates bearing suspicious financial strings, then
we deserve what we get.

qqduckus

A professional historian and wise ass considers the contemporary world and the past

Category Archives: Congress