the defeatists!

Savin' everybody takes a man on a mission with a swagger that will set the world at ease...

Horsey And Boney make here the point really well...Baby every bone in my body's gone to jumpin like they're gonna come through my skin/If they could get along without the rest of me it wouldn't matter if they did...Skeletons don't have any place to put their money/Nobody makes britches that size...

This is the way it goes down...

You lose your job. Your wife loses her job, you lose the house, the cat gets rabies and bites you, you have to have rabies shots, you have to sell the Ford and get an old pickup truck to move to West Virginia to be a FUCKING MIGRANT FARM WORKER! With rabies. Your wife runs a house of ill repute out of the house trailer you have both moved into in WEST FUCKING VIRGINIA servicing coal miners who are going to vote for Sarah Palin. The rabies eats away at your mind and you end up as the SARAH PALIN REGIONAL COORDINATOR for WEST FUCKING VIRGINIA. And, then you die...

Negative fantasies are just that. Negative and fantasies. There can be a reverse Pygmalion effect, though -- keep acting out the negative fantasy and beware of the wish fulfillment.

Is there a petting zoo somewhere nearby? Go find something wholesome and kick the motherfucker. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwOE-1yAlck&feature=related

"If I was going to Afghanistan, this would be the last song I'd fucking want to hear but he asked for it, so..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbY-mHqqM0o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awcv95jwWqY&feature=related
You asked me to play some Dylan and I said Dylan who and you said to kiss your ass...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGHi8CVv4qM&feature=related

And then Sarah Palin feeds you smoked Tofu...

Faster rats who can use computers...so says Christine and Friends...

(Note: I initially wrote this a couple of weeks ago then set it aside to marinate. Unfortunately, things continue to get worse for the home team – the American Working Class and the remnant of the Middle Class that need to get very concerned about how things are going to play out.  So, while it’s probably hopeless, I need to take ironic inspiration from Mother Teresa, who when asked once why she did what she did in Calcutta since she could never win, smiled and said, “It’s not about winning.” )

I haven’t been writing enough lately. As I was sitting here this evening, it occurred to me that I could probably have some fun with a discussion of how I feel left out because Mossad hasn’t tapped my phone the way they have one of my colleagues at the site where I write under an assumed name and it’s just not fair – and then I realized that would be a unwise thing to do. Not that Mossad would tap my phone or that they’re tapping HIS phone. They have better things to do. Rather, that people would take it not as a piece of heavy-handed satire but as true. Joe Lieberman would probably issue a Fatwah against us.

PT Barnum is credited with saying that no one ever went broke underestimating (“misunderestimating?”) the stupidity of the American people. Well, I have been unable to write much of late, and nothing for this site because I’ve been so discouraged and disheartened by the gullibility of the American people – the Tea Party types and their enablers. While the left can piss me off at times, and they do and have since I was an aspiring student radical as an undergraduate but couldn’t bring myself to believe that Dean Rusk was having the Army and the Air Force target water buffalo, most lefties in the US are reasonably well educated. The Gingiches and the Armeys aside, most of the right is determined not to be fooled by someone with facts. The Grinch of Gingrich and the Dick of Armey know better at some level, but the fact is, they are in denial too. And, batshit crazy on Newt’s part. So, the rank and file are scared of Arithmetic and the leaders are insane. But, here’s the problem…these people are not imagining this stuff…they actually believe it.  At some level, Newt connects with a Dinesh de Souza and figures that the President of the United States is a Kenyan anti-revolutionary at heart…an African-American Thomas Paine, perhaps? No, they can’t go there…because Glenn Beck has claimed both gold and Thomas Paine. Paine would be...surprised, I suspect. Horrified. Utterly pissed off to be associated with Glenn Beck...he'd sue the bastard for slander. Unfortunately, Tom Paine is dead...

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistant that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, t renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as ameans of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter. [Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason]

However, I have my own problem. You see, in the Tea Party and the Republican resurgence I see the hand of Religion gone insane. Now, I am no longer a practicing Catholic, and have come to terms with the fact that I don’t have the belief gene. Sorry, long before Hawking I figured that God didn’t really add a lot to the universe. I am reasonably well educated and did major in Philosophy and Theology at a very good Catholic college.  This coin should probably have dropped in the slot by the votive candles months ago, but it happened when I was listening to the new dim-bulbed Delaware Bimbo.

Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Jim DeMint and some Tea Party types don’t merely yearn for the country they idealize from the 1950s. They want to go back to the 1750s.

Joe Miller, the Palin-blessed Republican nominee for Senate in Alaska, suggests that Social Security is unconstitutional because it wasn’t in the Constitution. The Constitution is a dazzling document, but do these originalists really think things haven’t changed since then? If James Madison beamed down now, he would no doubt be stunned at the idea that America had evolved so far but was hemming itself in by the strictest interpretation of his handiwork. He might even tweet about it.

Evolution is no myth, but we may be evolving backward. Christine O’Donnell had better hope they don’t bring back witch burning.

Whether we're talking about evolution or sex, Maureen Dowd channeling a Scot deist awakened me from my doctrinal slumber. I realized that I heard that drivel about masturbation being like adultery somewhere before; when I listened to her blabbing about how if the guy doesn’t abstain from masturbation, why did the guy need her for sex, I really had flashbacks. To my freshman year in high school and to James Joyce.

Although I was largely educated by Jesuits and by lay people, for the retreats in high school they always brought out the Big Guns – the Dominicans.  These were the guys who did a number on Jews, heretics, and the insane during the Inquisition, and they have made a trade over the centuries out of doing days of reflection or retreats. They are great preachers, God’s Catholic fire and brimstone corps…and, they are seriously deranged on the subjects of hell, damnation, and sex. MS O-Spot from Delaware may have finally gotten her degree from Farleigh Dickinson, but her mind is pure Frosh Year at Our Lady of the Perpetual Frown.

Seriously, pick up a copy of The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce. Read the sermons during the retreats. They’ve been updated, but the basic themes are still there, only more scary and graphic than Joyce could write.

When I was an undergraduate, the Catholic campuses were awash in posters drawn by Sister Corita Kent…primitive scrawls with platitudes and catch-phrases. CELEBRATE! GOD IS LOVE! Bad puns both visual and verbal polluted lots of landscapes. Primary, bright colors and crap – unsophisticated. Good enough for Big Bird, of course, but not a lot of depth or thought there. The artist ‘s work was a lot deeper than most thoughts it inspired. I suspect that’s true of all great art, though.

So, let’s run down the Catholic bona fides of these people. Newt is a Catholic convert, which I find interesting – they will obviously let anyone in. Sarah Palin was a Catholic and is now something else. Christine O’Donnell couldn’t be more Catholic – her thoughts are like badly interpreted Corita Kent designs selling spiritual cheeseburgers. The first family of Conservatism, the Buckleys, couldn’t have been more Catholic. While the Kennedy family makes the Tea Party type squirm and hiss, old Joe would probably have felt right at home with these guys. The Clowny-Kake Sopranos wannabe running for governor of New York is probably a Catholic. Glen Beck was a Catholic, only he decided to become a space alien. O’Reilly, Hannity? Come on – it doesn’t escape me that there’s a strong Irish twinge to these guys and gals Catholicism. I think O’Donnell looks a bit like Maureen O’Hara.

If they aren’t Catholic, they appear to way out on the Born Again Fringe. I suppose Bill Kristol would be the exception that proves the rule, but between Sharon Angle’s lunacy and Palin’s concern about witchcraft with O’Donnell’s multiple concerns and everybody’s love affair with guns, I gotta wonder.

The bad part about it is that the Catholic Church was for decades a source of enlightened thinking on most social and political issues, and stayed that way in part through the present moment. I suspect that Catholic guilt makes Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg think about things like the Senate or social action or Hillary Clinton. From whom much is given, much is indeed expected.

Unfortunately, no particular faith or direction or hair color will define politics or ethics. I find the ability of people like Palin and Gingrich and now O’Donnell to ignore their own falls from Grace and actually find virtue in them troubling. You see, I believe these people believe what they are saying. It’s not a mass movement led by sophisticates – it’s a mass movement led by boobs, in the best HL Mencken sense of the term. Mencken didn’t particularly like the Irish and Catholics either.

Now, not unlike Jefferson, I regard the ethics, the answer that Jesus is shown providing us in scripture to the question later formulated by St Augustine, --How then shall we live together?—to be exceptional. One of my problems with Christianity, and Christians is the inability of so many of these guys to focus. The heart of the message is charity. Not faith, not hope but charity. Certainly not some form of self-reliance…poor houses…lower taxes for the rich.

In times of economic madness, it helps to retreat to first principles. And, at the moment, we are definitely in economic madness. I’ll pass over the debacle that is California, for now and discuss instead the continuing war on reality conducted by the Republican Party and their center, the Tea Party. Paul Krugman, as usual, does a great job of explaining where we’re at from the idea of first principles. The first rule of economic analysis is fairly simple –THE LAWS OF ARITHMETIC APPLY!

Once upon a time, a Latin American political party promised to help motorists save money on gasoline. How? By building highways that ran only downhill.

I’ve always liked that story, but the truth is that the party received hardly any votes. And that means that the joke is really on us. For these days one of America’s two great political parties routinely makes equally nonsensical promises. Never mind the war on terror, the party’s main concern seems to be the war on arithmetic. And this party has a better than even chance of retaking at least one house of Congress this November.

Banana republic, here we come.

Now I've been reading for a while that there is a serious imbalance in the Labor Market -- the workers with the skills are not where the jobs for those skills are. Really? One site today suggested that workers look in places like DC, South Carolina, North Dakota and Louisiana for jobs. The author was obviously drunk. DC is possible, but they can draw from the entire country for some things -- and, there is no real shortage of people in Northern Virginia, Chesapeake Bay or other palces. South Carolina has lots of jobs going begging? First time in decades -- and, one wonders what sort of jobs? Boeing is supposedly ready to start cranking out Dreamliners there; probably at $15 an hour, which is pretty good for South Carolina. But, since most of their suppliers are in China, Japan and similar locales, not a lot of work from the suppliers happening. Lousisiana is looking for what? People to wash pelicans? Granted, they do have a serious shortage of trained workers, but...not really. The unemployment rate there is normally 15% in good times. North Dakota? Seriously...lots of call center work moved in, but both Dakotas have had a downturn in population over the last couple of decades. Jobs in energy may be possible.

However, once again, I turn to Paul Krugman. Who calls bullshit, not only on the right on this one but also the left...the reason for unemployment is lack of demand. Businesses are not going to expand until there is a demand for goods and services, and unless they think it is substantial and sustained, there will not be a lot of hiring regardless of using the shell game to move us all around...Krugman is not a historical economist like the Chairman of the Federal Reserve is a histroical economist, but he can tell a kite from a king just fine...and I suspect that, like me and most thinking individuals, is enough of a Marxist to remember the saw about history repeating itself, first as tragedy and then as farce...I'm calling the "Great Recession!" the tragedy...

I’ve been looking at what self-proclaimed experts were saying about unemployment during the Great Depression; it was almost identical to what Very Serious People are saying now. Unemployment cannot be brought down rapidly, declared one 1935 analysis, because the work force is “unadaptable and untrained. It cannot respond to the opportunities which industry may offer.” A few years later, a large defense buildup finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs — and suddenly industry was eager to employ those “unadaptable and untrained” workers.

But now, as then, powerful forces are ideologically opposed to the whole idea of government action on a sufficient scale to jump-start the economy. And that, fundamentally, is why claims that we face huge structural problems have been proliferating: they offer a reason to do nothing about the mass unemployment that is crippling our economy and our society.

The thing I keep thinking about is Public Works spending. Construction is in the tank and that's a big problem -- if we put the building trades folks to work building things besides houses like, oh, schools, roads, electrical grids, natural gas lines, sewers, water lines, hospitals and so on, those are real jobs that need to be done. Only government has the wherewithal to do those things...so, a stimulus package that focuses on long term public works will drive growth. No brainer...we used to do big things in this country...we should be able to do them again. If we can't, well, hell, we're screwed.

Seriously, while I'm all for faster broadband, things like high speed rail and improved infrastructure will do more for the future and the present, generate inital and sustained demand for goods and services that will drive demand for labor across all sectors. This will, oh by the way, generate more tax income. Since government will be spending more, taxes will probably need to increase over time until the taxes equal the outlay, but what the hell? If you increase the taxable base, then you increase the revenue and any increases can be less.

Willie Sutton and the Democrats are right though; if the government wants to get money to fund the things needed to keep us from depending on all the roads running down hill, they have to go where the money is...

Now, in the distant past, I found myself running a St Vincent de Paul organization in a large city. I thought I was going to run HR for them, but a couple of weeks after I joined, they fired the executive director for malfeasance, misfeasance and general "feasance..." and told me I was in charge until I figured it out. I played the role of the good Catholic for that year and actually became influenced in a lot of my thinking about social justice by the writings of St Vincent de Paul and Frederic Ozinam, the founder of the Society of St Vincent de Paul. St Vincent played politics, flattered Cardinals and Queens, and did whatever he had to do for his "hard masters," the poor. St Vincents all over the world do good things for lots of people. I do not regret my time with them. I was the wrong guy on the spiritual side, but on the side of keeping the lights on, the doors open and the poor assisted I was the right guy for the time.

Reason I raise this is simple -- Religion in this country used to be focused on increasing tolerance, helping the afflicted, feeding the hungry, helping people out of poverty. Now it is concerned with periperal things; it doesn't have the moral focus on the things that their savior wanted them to focus on; it is focused on periperals. As long as Catholicism remains mired in sexuality, and Evangelicals remain mired in the end times, and the Black Churches mired in the gospels of Prosperity, then the Sharon Angles and Christine O'Donnells and Newt Gingriches will claim the mantle of religion and call the faithful to arms on a bible of exploitation of the poor, increasing the gap between the rich and the rest, intolerance, hatred and a weird kind of reverse Marxist-Keynesian economic and political philosophy that would make Hobbes regret Leviathan...

 

 

New hobby sweeping the nation...

Or something like that...I promise to vote Republican if every T-Party rall contains a replay of the 1812 Overture with a volley of these tossed off as the climax...

Good old Batshit McCain...

At some point, Lindsay Graham is going to get tired of trying to help John McCain appear sane, credible and vaguely informed, and just stop showing up at joint things. The verdict is still out, of course, but his performance with reporters on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell debacle is really amazing. John McCain is either borderline senile, an imbecile or a lying goddamn careerist hack. I know what my bet is... Now, McCain was Navy royalty and an aviator which is a different breed of cat entirely, so he probably has no clue as to what really goes on in actual units. Talk to officers and chiefs from Naval Aviation and you get a picture that looks more like Issac Perry's Navy or Stephen Decatuer's than Mike Mullins'. If you hang out on Aircraft Carriers in Officer's Country, you're pretty much hanging out in a seperate world of semi-private staterooms and linen covered dining tables, or were doing the McCain era. He retired a long time ago, as soon as it became clear that Admiral wasn't in the cards for him. He has no clue what the Chief Petty Officers, Petty Officers, Limited Duty Officers, and junior officers are doing with their crews.He has no clue as to what the crews are doing to the crew.

For the most part, the military is a pretty tolerant bunch, especially when you compare them to a lot of their defenders; there is an acceptable range of deviance, and if you don't go outside that range of deviance, you're fine. Don't get anybody else hurt, don't fuck up, don't let us look bad, and keep your hands off my stuff unless you ask. Pretty simple.

Did I have gay soldiers serving under me? Are the Geico commercials with the Robert Stack imitator incredibly annoying? Yeah. Did I care? Not really -- in my experience, the soldiers I thought might be gay were good soldiers, on time, in shape, willing to do their jobs and try to advance. I had one DADT case that could have been a problem-- a young lieutenant, a female West Point graduate and science nerd, hated her boss and hated her assignment, and hated life. I have no idea why she didn't hate me since I was, at the time and for the sort of unit I was running as First Sergeant, so hard corps that it made most people's teeth hurt. I liked her, by the way -- given the right leadership, she'd have been great. Since she had been flirting with me off and on since she signed in, I was pretty sure she was straight and attracted to adults. I have and had a policy against doing children, and as far as I was concerned, she was a child, so I could laugh at the flirting. She asked to speak to me someplace where she wasn't going to have to worry about who heard her, and so we walked to the middle of a cement formation area. At night. We were at a training center and in local barracks. It was a pretty weird situation...and that added to her stress, I think. Pre-liberation of Bosnia debacle at Grafenwoer, for anyone who recalls that time 15 years ago.

Anyway, she told me how much she hated her Major, the shops, Sergeant Major and the Group Commander. I was blunt -- maybe why she liked and trusted me -- and in my patented blister the paint style of those days, told her to "Enjoy being a member of the fucking club, kid! They're idiots, and I intend to make certain they don't kill any of my soldiers, including themselves." Well, she explained that if I gave her a pistol, a straight razor, some MRES and a parachute and dropped her into Republik Serbska territory, she's gladly bring back Radovan Karadzic's balls. Or die trying. However, she didn't think she could take anymore of their bullshit. She asked me what I'd do if she told me she was gay? I did what good leaders have done for centuries confronted with that sort of issue, the unhappy soldier. I said something like this, "If you really are gay, and sincerely want me to know that and to do my job, I will do what I'm supposed to do and have sworn to do, in a way that protects your privacy and trust. But, if you are not a lesbian, don't tell me that you are for the sake of an easy escape from the Army. You will hate yourself and despise what you've done. There are always other ways..." She admitted to not being gay. Think about that one...she admitted to not being gay.

On the other hand, there were lots of instances in my career where I was pressured by the top end to do something about some soldier whom they decided was a pansy. Seriously, I had a Command Sergeant Major whom I generally liked a lot and got along with, get in my face and tell me to do something about that pansy motherfucker (Irony abounded); so, I did. I put him up for Soldier of the Year, which he won. I don't know, didn't care and didn't want to know if he was gay. I'm not, so it was of no interest to me. Should have been of no interest to him.

So many of our problems arise from our inability to say what we mean or to call things by their proper name. McCain's argument about DADT is in fact justifying predjudice. I have come to believe that Bill Maher and others who say if you problems with gays in the military, thank you for your service so far and go home. Homophobia is not an excuse for being a jerk. Do gays get beaten up occasionally? Yeah. So do straights. Is it OK to "Stompa Fag?" No...it's called assault and battery or assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder.

Frankly, the military is reasonably open even in these political correctness-charged days about the issues around sex. Most of the people are young, in good shape and under stress. Sexual release and some level of banter is a fairly common thing among such groups of people. There are gay cops, firefighters, smoke jumpers and oil rig workers. There are also sexually active heterosexuals. Of the two, sexually active heterosexuals are far more likely to get in your face and make others uncomfortable than gays or lesbians, simply because there are a lot more of them.  I'm pretty sure McCain would have had issues under the honor code about women; under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, adultery is a court martial offense. I'm pretty sure a lot of people would -- the issue is good order and discipline, not individual morality.

So, I hope that Harry Reid grows a pair and that the Dems adopt a strategy of bringing stuff up now, and making the Republicans filibuster. Make them vote their conscience. Make them tell folks like Mike Olmey that what happened to them was ok -- it's ok to read people's private emails. (By the way, anyone who trusts any boss' assurance that he's not going to read their private emails is incredibly stupid or naive.) I lead my life like as open a book as I can, yet here I am Crusader AXE. I say things I don't want a potential or current employer to read; or my wife; or the fucking Dream Police. However, I am not stupid and I know I take a risk.

McCain has a problem though; at some point, Meegan and Cindy are going to stare at him and call him out. There have been rumours of Cindy doing that for years. He's a bully, and a loudmouthed liar, and a lot of us mistook the loudmouth for truth. As did I.

When Theodore Roosevelt talked about the "bully pulpit" of the Presidency he meant bully in an anchronistic sense, the "best" or the "stongest." McCain has tried to get that pulpit over the years and has demanded it, thinking that a bully pulpit is just what a bully needs. He doesn't deserve it, he disgraces his heritage, and he's a lousy example of why things have gone to hell. He had the position to make things better by showing grace and honor, and instead shamed us all. And, what's worse, continues to do so...

As for my Lieutenant friend? She finished her comittment to the Army, got a great job in biotech, and married a classmate from West Point and has a bunch of kids. Bully for her...

Selfless valour...

The events -- selfless valor, heroism, and comradeship in the face of death --and the life of that platoon in Afghanistan is discussed in detail in Sebastian Junger's War, as well as being discussed in the documentary that Junger did with Tim Heterington, RESTOPO. Frankly, the Huffington Post article doesn't come close to describing what happened. Frankly, neither does Junger -- however, Staff Sergeant Sal Giunta, the first Medal of Honor winner since Vietnam to receive the award alive described the ambush to Junger this way in WAR--

"I did what I did because that's what I was trained to do," Giunta told me. "There was a task that had to be done, and the part that I was going to do was to link alpha and bravo teams. I didn't run through fire to save a buddy -- I ran through fire to see what was going on with him and maybe we could hide behind the same rock and shoot together. I didn't run thourgh fire to do anything heroic or brave. I did what I believe anyone would have done."

SSG Giunta probably actually thinks that. He'll think that for the remainder of his career, the remainder of his life. But, in this case, what he did transcends what some "anyone" would have done. He did it.  Those who seek glory in battle usually get other people killed; those who seek to save their brothers and sisters often do. He's a helluva soldier, and will deserve the salute he's entitled to from every member of the Armed Forces for the remainder of his life.

 

So, a prayer room was ok then but not now...

Crusader AXE of the Lost Causes is not sure which is more likely on this one although given the choice between ignorance, bigotry and hypocrisy, I'd probably go with ignorance and bigotry for the fruitcakes in Florida and elsewhere who are so vehemently opposed to the Park 51 Project. Some of the leadership trying to push this for publicity purposes are of course driven by hypocrisy.

But the presence of a prayer room in the South Tower for Muslims is really troubling...are we, as a people, so ignorant as to not recognize that the World Trade Center was not just part of New York but also a somewhat seperate community, a vibrant and incredibly diverse community? Barring any faith from the area based on the fatuous sacred ground argument is evidence of an evil spirit flowing through our national psyche -- Bar one faith, bar them all and make it a secular monument to profit? Really -- certainly, a lot of people really worship Mammon but still not all.

There were probably Muslims at prayer when the aircraft struck the towers. There were Muslims killed by the terrorists. The ash and debris included Muslim Prayer Rugs, ritual materials and, yes, Korans. And now, a bunch of pinheaded crackers led by Mustache Pete there outside Gainesville are reaping publicity from this debacle cum disaster cum disgrace.

While I know my friend IOZ and a bunch of other people are finding this amusing and probably wondering what the hell is wrong with AXE, and my brothers are probably metaphysically seeking the cold towels to wrap me in, here's the deal. The Muslim Community behind Park 51 are proposing a Community Center. It will contain an Islamic Prayer Room; it will also contain a Christian Room and a Jewish Room. Muslims are no more basically oriented toward inclusiveness than Christians or Jews -- I remember being told that I was a devil worshipper because I was a Catholic by my Protestant friend while I was in 2nd grade. I remember being told all sorts of weirdness about Protestants. Bigotry binds religions together in ways that amaze the anti-theist. (By the way, as Keith Obermann pointed out on Letterman, the Park 51 Iman has not provided a secular liberal prayer room or an atheist reflection room in his plan, and probably should do so...) The Park 51 Community has responded to their better spirit and the hope of Islam as a religion of peace. And, those so incensed and those so ignorant as to demand it be moved away from the stip clubs and delis and the rest of the New York neighborhood to show respect for our White Christian Dead are so wrong as to be funny.

It's been said that God takes care of fools, drunks and the United States. I wonder if he protects the United States from our homegrown fools and drunks. By the way, the Park 51 site will begin to accept donations next week through it's blog. I recommend going back to it and I will do my best to not go totally insane and repost the address then.

These people? People? Whackjob facist religious nuts...

Just to be clear, despite this asshole''s assurance that he and his lickspittle congregation are prepared to die for their right to burn Korans, they are not the one's who are going to be killed, wounded, psychologically traumatized and bereaved. I hate to disrupt their martyrdom fantasy, but burning a bunch of Korans in Gainsesville ain't going to mobilize the Old Man in the Mountain and his Assassins to descend on Gatorcountry on a mission of revenge. If they want to be martyrs, I recommend they scrap their plan to do this outside their church but to gather all their friends, family and relations and go to...oh, Isreal. Note the irony. Mossad will have their cracker asses in jail in no time; or, go do it at the international airport in Yemen. Just fly in, sit around until everybody is there, grab some trash cans and go do your thing. Burn those Korans...and enjoy hell.

Phil Ochs wrote a song called I ain't marchin anymore that is a classic antiwar song. The chorus is"It's always the old who lead us to war/Always the young to fall/Now look at what we've done with a saber and a gun/Tell me was it worth it all?" I think it needs to be modified to say some something about inbred, ingrate, liars, thieves and nutjobs getting us into situations that kill soldiers.

Seriously, any soldier who is injured or killed, and any bereaved family, and any US civilian who is a victim of reprisal from the whackjobs who will be enraged by the act of these inbred, ingrate, liars, thieves and racist bastards should sue them. Burning the Koran is not an act of worship -- legally, I think it falls under the heading of a Tort. Worth thinking about. And, if anyone is thinking about it in Islam, I think that suing these bastards is probably legally defensible. What reputable figures would testify on their behalf?

The sky is falling, and our leaders are seeking garbage scows upon which to rearrange the broken deck chairs

I've actually been thinking about this , but in my vocation as a dilletante and not as an economist. Of course, I'm not an economist. Still, the author has two cogent points -- First, the capitalist system is based on markets for goods and services and the LABOR MARKET IS UTTERLY FUCKED UP!; and, b. both parties are totally missing the point of the exercise which is to get people creating value by putting them to work in a meaningful way. Bitch, moan, complain whatever, the facts are pretty straightforward, and it's not just that we're in a recession which is a big deal by definition. Rather...

My argument is no, this isn’t just another bad experience. Its a failure of our most basic institutions and is leading to pure loss.

It would be as if the door to your apartment was ripped off and heat was spilling out into the atmosphere and people said “Well you know sometimes you have deal with the cold, lets talk about the ideal size of an apartment. Big ones are draftier you know. No small ones cool down too quickly”

What! No! Lets fix the fucking door. Do you understand: the door is missing. This is not the time to argue about ideal apartment size, this is the time to keep our heat from spilling out purposelessly.

Amen, brother.

If you don't wanna get pissed on, get pissed off...

Well, my colleague Gordon Duff who writes and edits sort of for Veterans Today, a site where I write occasionally under an assumed name, has nailed a few things in this piece. If you spend money on soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines you get a certain level of quality. If you spend the money on contractors, you'll get a different level of quality. If you don't care, than KBR and Xe are probably whom you want; if you care, then you want soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. If you want the best led, best trained, best equipped, most professional fighting force to project your power and protect your shores and children, you probably want soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. If you really don't give a shit, then the Blackwaters, KBRs, Dyncorps, etc. all make perfect fucking sense. But, if fool yourself that you have bought some excess quality, forget it. Doesn't happen. There is no such thing as excess quality. The rifle either works in the firefight or it doesn't. The water is either safe to drink, or it isn't. The showers are either safe or they aren't.

I've been angry at the administration for months. I happen to think that the only one of the big players among the government leadership -- both Houses of Congress, the Executive Branch -- who seems to have any stones are Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Hilary Clinton. However, the people who brought you Iraq, TARP, the bailout are the same assholes who brought you KBR, Xe, and on and on and on and on. Fucked as things are right now, they would be worse had Batshit and Batshittier and their party triumphed in the last election.

Obama joked today to a Labor Union Crowd that the Republicans talk about him like a Dog. Well, DAWG, bell those goddamn cats. There are eight weeks left, and between the truth -- the Republicans have blocked, eviscerated and misled all real reform and aid and recovery and the Dems have been trying to play nice because that's the way they are, nice, reasonable people --and the Tea Party, this should be a no-brainer. But, if you aren't willing to say, we tried to do this, and we got that; what they're saying is insane; business needs to produce for the entire community, not just the wealthy and here is how they can, and how they'll be rewarded, I feel your pain, I felt your pain growing up and as a young man, it's my pain too -- then go the fuck away. I know that Obama, like Lincoln, wanted to be the President of All the People, but I suspect Lincoln didn't see Lee, Forrest, and Davis as his constituents on 1864.

It's one thing to be magnaminous and reach out an understanding hand. However, when they try to smash that hand with a hammer, it's probably time to stop being magnaminous and just slap 'em silly. If not, then you don't need or deserve the bully pulpit. You need to crawl into the stagecoach, like John Adams, and head back for your nonexistent version of America's Athens.