No Exit

Another week of disorientation and madness is coming to an end, however I would like to comment on perhaps the only part of the story this week that has real relevance and import and direct effect on the loss of lives....the "new" Afghanistan policy.

In spite of the tumbler effect of everything emanating from the mouth of President Jabberwocky (thank you Bret Stephens!), there was the speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday which laid out the forward-looking strategy for America's longest war.  After a weekend of what may have been actual analysis by the administration of where we go from here, they presented what the critics have called the only real solution for moving forward....no solution at all.  Basically, we continue onward with the vacuuming of our money and our young American's lives into the bottomless void of an un-endable war. 

My question is why?

Well, the answers might seem logically apparent when you study the history of the thing and analyze the forces at work--a resurgent Taliban that we simply cannot eradicate because of continued support from the Pakistanis and now the Russians; the seemingly endless corruption of the government in Kabul that sucks down our treasure; our effort to create a reliable defense force from the ranks of the citizens which is rife with continuing desertions, while turning on us and killing our soldiers from time to time; surging Opium production; failed diplomacy with the Taliban; surges in troop strength which are ineffective; etc.

So, our "President" has decided to change his mind (such that it is) and embrace what we have been doing for the past 16 years as his 'new' policy.  Good Luck with that!  In the meantime, we continue to suffer losses that devastate families, ruin young lives, and drain our treasury in the hopes of .....what?  That maybe we can forestall further encroachment by the forces of evil and terrorism?  Really the only benefit of all this is that Afghanistan will not re-become a base for launching terrorist attacks against us again.  But the problem with this is that it is open ended and will not end anytime soon.

However I want to add one additional reason that this will not end soon.....too many people are making too much money on this war.  Eisenhower was right all those years ago when he warned us about the rise of the Military-Industrial Complex.  Think of it...our 43rd President (GWB) pushed hard for the Congress to pass legislation called the Authorization for the Use of Military Force of 2017 (AUMF) that gave him virtually unlimited power to use military power against those forces responsible for the attacks of 9/11 or any 'associated forces'.  That associated forces clause was the opening for development of all kinds of additional actions and weapons.  The AUMF was used to justify the Iraq War, all our actions in Libya and Syria, etc.  It is still in force today, and the corporate war machine loves the opportunity to continue to squeeze tax money from the government---our tax money---while supporting the misery of all the results of never ending warfare. 

In 2001 when the AUMF was passed by the House, there was one lone vote against the resolution from a newly elected representative, one who is still in Congress today, Barbara Lee (D-California).  She wasn't against the action, but was against the wording of the resolution which has resulted in a 16 year war.  She instinctively knew that we were headed for this scenario.  

 Well, the good news is that Barbara Lee has not given up.  She proposed an amendment to the upcoming Appropriations Bill in the House that would revoke the AUMF.  Her committee approved the amendment and actually applauded when they took the vote, overwhelmingly approving it.  Whether it passes the full House is uncertain, but there are those who understand where the pressure to continue this madness is still coming from and are doing their best to stop it.  If it were to pass, there still is no solution for the morass that we are experiencing in Afghanistan, but it will at least temper the instinct of our leaders and the corporate military machine to drag us into more wars.....well, maybe...!

Back to Reality, Such That It Is.......

Ah,where to begin?  I have been 'offline' for about two or three weeks now for some R and R.  I spent a week with some buddies on a 38-foot sailboat flitting around Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay and having some modest adventures as only a 69 year-old man can do.  It was fun even though there was hardly any wind.  Thank God for 'motoring'.  I successfully put my back out while twisting in many unusual ways to help docking, mooring and placing bumpers so we wouldn't scratch the 'rental'.  I am still trying to recover from THAT!

Now I am in the NC mountains at a family cabin for the next two weeks.  Sweet tranquility and time for my jangled sciatica nerve to quiet down.  Today is the 'bucket list' experience of a lifetime, watching a total solar eclipse from my deck which is in the path of totality....looking forward to that today!

I suppose the best news is that for the past two weeks or so, I have not felt compelled to comment on the disintegration of our government.  What a horror show!  It was very easy during the sailing trip to disengage from the daily spiral of bad news.  I confess I did squeeze in an hour of MSNBC a day to feed my need for some awareness of what was happening, but overall it was truly liberating to only be thinking about wind, and how to keep from falling off a pitching deck.

But now I am back in range of the television and grimly watch the unearthing of the most fetid of human ideologies' reappearance in a place where it was never supposed to be.  The image of Nazis parading in our streets while our President suggests there are some really fine people in this group is almost too much to bear....marching and intimidating the congregants at a local synagogue no less!  Would all the veterans of WWII who gave their lives to extinguish this cancerous plague on humanity be a bit upset by this?  Apparently 'our leader', who has not one whit of brain cells to retain any history-- except of course the ridiculous bubba meisah that General Pershing stopped terrorism by killing Turks with pig blood coated bullets, thinks these are some fine people.  True colors emerge, don't they?

I must admit that it has been refreshing to see hints of actual concern on the part of our Congressional Republicans, although I wonder if it is too little too late.  This whole Charlotteville incident does seem rather like a 'tipping point' of sorts.  Whatever fantasy people might have had that Trump is a salvageable human being has been perhaps irretrievably lost.  Let's hope that some adults will now take the helm and figure out how to right this ship before it hits the iceberg and sustains an unfixable tear in its hull.  At the very least maybe they will figure out how to minimize the damage until next year when we have an opportunity to send some adults to Washington and regain control of our country.

However,  let's not forget for a minute that every moment Trump and his minions retain the governmental controls over our society, they are changing things for the worse, polluting our environment, denying our most vulnerable citizens constitutional guarantees, removing safeguards instituted to protect us from greedy and despicable humans.

The mass fleeing of major segments of our society from further support for the 'disease called Trump' is a hopeful indicator that sanity, the Constitution and separation of powers may actually be the salvation of our teetering democracy.

If We Last That Long......

Well, some good news for a change….America is waking up.  There are some patriots after all.  Murkowski, Collins, and McCain apparently have not lost their grip on reality.  I thought Lindsay Graham would have been the fourth of that quartet, but alas, after spitting fire over the prospective firing of Jeff Sessions and Bob Meuller, he caved and voted yes to a ‘Skinny’ measure that would hurt millions.  I ....almost loved him.

I am dumbfounded by the inability of what should be rational men and women to sit together and forge some repairs to the Affordable Care Act!  What is wrong with these people?  Are they hell bent on cutting off their noses to spite their faces??  Why can’t they stop being children and sit down with the opposition and craft something that will help people.  ACA is the law of the land.  It is treasonous to not administer the law, which is what the Executive Branch is threatening. 

Congressional Republicans, alas, seem to be single minded about destroying something that is actually working….flawed, but working!  In fact, the actual architecture of the ACA was created once upon a time by Conservative Republicans of the Heritage Foundation.  Mitt Romney actually passed a version of it in Massachusetts once upon a time and it worked pretty well..Somehow because ACA has the name Obama attached to it, it is suddenly poison.

Ah well, there is no explaining irrationality.  It simply is, and it is our responsibility to weed it out in 2018….if we last that long. 

On a positive note, here is a chart courtesy of MSNBC that shows an interesting and hopeful statistic:

This chart tracks the historical number of potential candidates who have filed as challengers to House seats and raised $5000 for the next years election.  This is encouraging.  Note that in 2009 the Republicans hit a high point in the number of challengers.  The 2010 election resulted in the Republicans gaining control of the House after Obama’s election in 2008.  What do you think this means for 2018?

So maybe there will be a return to reality next year…..if we last that long.

My clarion call has always been to engage our next generation in a call to public service.  It is the only way we can have a progressive vision for the future.  The ancient concretized Republican gerrymanderers must be rooted out to see any appreciable change.

And finally, it should give all of us some comfort that the separation of powers and inherent checks and balances that our genius founders implanted in the Constitution actually seem to work.  A bit creaky with age, but nonetheless effective.  As McCain aptly pointed out in the Senate a few days ago, the Congress is not ‘less than’ the Executive branch, it is ‘equal to’.  And slowly, some Republican Senators are actually realizing they have no fealty to an incompetent maniac.  We should all nourish their emerging awareness….if we last that long.

Tick, Tick, Tock!

I really want to write something a little more positive, but as each day unfolds we witness another egregious assault on the truth by Trump and his minions.  It is emotionally exhausting and all of us just twist our heads in bewilderment as we watch all of the carefully constructed elements of truth, justice and the American way circle the drain and disappear.

However, since the appearance at the Boy Scout Jamboree over the weekend by Trump, there seems to be a tangible, subtle change in the overall zeitgeist of the country regarding our angst over the continuing nightmare we are all living through.  It’s almost like this event has taken us one step too far, and it is dawning on more and more 'fence-sitters' that we have an immoral maniac in the White House. 

Many of us have expressed that sentiment before this moment, but now we are seeing cracks in the support of his supplicants.  It’s probable that his most ardent supporters will always blindly accept his actions and policy decisions, because to disagree with him or abandon him would mean that they had made a bad decision in voting for him.  That would mean they would have to admit that they were totally ‘conned’ by his campaign.  Never happen.

But now there are so many indications of madness (Transgender ban; irrational and constant blaming of Democrats and Clinton; incessant lying and distractive tweeting; clear non-understanding of even the most basic of issues; the vindictive accusations and threats to members of his own party) along with the inaction of the complete Republican machine with it’s inability to move any issue of consequence forward, that our government is paralyzed.  Paralyzed by constant conversation about how the Rule of Law is being fractured, we are all exhausted.

Turn on the news and see if there is anything being discussed that resembles debate about critical issues that our government is supposed to be dealing with. Crickets!  It seems that the Russians have succeeded in their objective, which has always been to create chaos in our democracy. 

For the past 7 months the Trump administration has dissembled so many of our societal safeguards, that it will take a long time to re-establish rationality and justice to our society once we rid ourselves of this abscess in our government.

The looming threat is something we are unprepared to deal with—a real crisis that will require coherent administrative leadership to solve a problem like North Korea or a financial breakdown or something dramatic.

God help us if we face a crisis moment with Trump in the White House.  Let’s hope that this subtle change in our awareness of the menace of the “President” leads to renewed resolve before we fall victim to our own inaction.