the defeatists!

Thanks for comming out, ehh?

First there was this--

Then there was this --

But this is, without a doubt, the greatest motivational speech of all time.

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.

Beckapolyspse? WTF, over?

Crusader AXE was fairly pissed off by the Beckapoloosa or whatever it was to begin with. That said, it doesn't appear that he shilled gold, cried or was annointed by angels. It happened, and I guess a lot of people went home feeling...What exactly? They left the illiterate racist signs home, some we now know who is really in charge...Glenn Beck. No obvious gun violations, which since the Memorial is in the District and on Federal Land, is probably reasonable. No Biker Chicks to suck start your Harley...no Hells Angels providing security. Oh, yeah, that was Altamont. You know what would have helped -- a crowd of drunken frat boys chanting, "SHOW US YOUR TITS, SARAH!"

But, I guess it was what it was; from my point of view, a disappointment. Seriously, it strikes me like a very crowded Hemp Fest -- lots of true believers, some jam-band/wing-nut riffs from the stage, and I'm sure a bunch of people wandering around selling love beads and hash pipes/NoBama and ProPalin stuff. It was about stuff. Not good stuff, not the best stuff, just stuff. And, a lot of people wandering around trying to either figure out what it's all about or trying to score or trying to get laid. Probably as unsuccessfully as at Hemp Fest...

Yes, yes indeed we are, Ducky!

Well, our Republicans aside, republican government doesn't look quite so inept...

The biggest problem with American government is...consensus and crappy media coverage. The biggest problem with parliamentary government seems to be lack of consensus and irrelevant media coverage. Either way, we get a pretty good albeit frustrating show to watch.

Plato's Republic aside, how do you govern in the 21st century? Damned if I know...the old council of wise men approach which is the Platonic Philosopher-King idea without the kings or the philosophers obviously doesn't work -- just look at the College of Cardinals and the Pope. Grinning hobbits like Tony Blair and Bill Kristol confront growling Orcs like Dick Cheney and Gordon Brown. Government by strong men doesn't work -- I'm not sure why Putin is constantly auditioning for Chippendales, but Russia has the same issues to work through. Our government varies between vaguely heroic to utterly useless.

Somebody told the Tea Parties the origin of the pop verb "to teabag" which is basically to suck someone's balls and they're offended that they labeled themselves teabaggers...to the point that some loon decides to do a video explanation of the term and why it's horrible. That is a matter of opinion, of course; and who are the Defeatists to come between consenting adults? Sarah Palin is upset about BP being a foreign oil company -- really? The Democrats have gotten one major thing done in two years -- hell, Bush had subverted the entire Constitution and 200 years of case law within two years of his first election? And, some Pakistani-American tries to blow up Times Square using miracle grow and bottle rockets. Which makes everyone panic...except the people in New York didn't panic.

The people who are in the papers are not the ones who do things. The people in democracies who do things that matter are guys like the T-shirt vendors who said, "Hey, that car looks to be on fire..." or "Hey Bozo, what the fuck do you think you're doing trying to set fire to your shoes on this airplane." Or what looks like the Brit equivalent, Mad Cap'n Tom, the Londoner who ran for Parliament on a ticket promoting teaching the value of swordplay in the British school system and fixing Britannia with duct tape...I just can't figure out the duck. Cap'n Tom stresses that he's not a student, but despite the inevitable pirate androgyny (he bears a slight resemblance to Keira Knightley) he appears to have a plan.

Are men the more what...???

Belligerent sex?  Yes...although women are more vicious . Glad that's settled. Now see what this old fat guy has to say... about something else.

You know, this will all work out in the end the way it is supposed to...badly.

My brother AGI is at home doing the California-Dad-Bonding thing with Julia, and he volunteered to take her for her first shots. We have, as Defeatists, been nothing but supportive. I advised him to drink copiously; he misunderstood, and said he expected to this evening. I explained that I meant immediately, continuously up to and including while the child was getting stuck. I then pointed out that after he comforted her briefly, she'd be fine...although she'd remember subconsciously and when in 2024 or so, when she came in and announced that she had decided to run off to a Lesbian-Biker-Capitalist commune to study the art of vaginal tatooing, it would be ALL HIS FAULT! Like I said, nothing but supportive.



Anyway, I then happened on this, and I guess I may actually be prescient, except that the commune will probably be in Russia. Fred Phelps and his gangbang of GAGA gawkers need to wander over to Moscow and link up, with the mayor who has proclaimed "A gay parade... cannot be called anything but a Satanic act... We haven't permitted such a parade and we won't permit it in the future... It's high time that we stop propagating nonsense discussions about human rights, and bring to bear on them the full force and justice of the law." Frankly, I think both AGI and Phelps would look good in one of those hats, but Phelps would look more like he was an understudy for the Lenin corpse, while AGI would bring a bit of the troubled poet to the look, kind of slacker-Zhivago.

Then, it appears that Northern Ireland is about to spin off...into another realm. I just don't get the British relationship to the place. They've been wanting to get rid of it since before WWI, but the Orangemen keep threatening to fight to remain British...I don't mean at the polls or in the press, but with guns and stuff. The latest snakefuck involves who runs the justice system -- local authorities or the British. The Brits and the Irish government are in favor of the locals doing it, Sinn Fein demands that the locals do it, but the Unionists, ahh, they have an utterly different agenda indeed. Hilarity, as Molly Ivins would put it, ensues.

The major Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, is warning it will withdraw from the 2 1/2-year-old coalition – triggering its collapse – unless the Protestant side accepts the need to transfer control of Northern Ireland's justice system from Britain to local hands. Britain and Ireland both back the transfer. Sinn Fein formally accepted the authority of the Northern Ireland police as part of the deal, ending decades of support for Irish Republican Army attacks on the security forces. But the Protestants of the Democratic Unionist Party are blocking the move until Sinn Fein meets other demands, including permission for Protestant fraternal groups to parade near Catholic districts, an annual sectarian tradition that caused widespread rioting until restricted in the late 1990s.

Of course, this is what started the Civil Rights Movement. I guess it's not easy being Orange; Kings Billy and James are kind of not factors anymore. I personally think the Orange Men need to hire Mr. Happiness to provide some consulting experience.

I'm leaning toward impeaching Obama and having Michelle and the kids take over...

Old Dad AXE told me in the mid-70s that, "Kid, nothing ever happens until somebody gets off their damn ass, stops talking and does some goddamn thing about whatever it is that needs to be done. All the rest of it is just friggin' around." Events this week have made me think the old man was prescient. When the old bastard was wrong, he was very wrong. But, 75% of the time, he was right on.

As I look back, the past year has been a real downer. While I don't think the Massachusetts thing was as universal as some people seem to believe, I've been getting steadily more tired of where we are compared to where we should be, and how unlikely it is that we're ever going to get any goddamn place except further down the wormhole...which is ultimately full of worms. Frank Rich provides a great analogy and perspective this morning in the Times.

The president is no longer seen as a savior but as a captive of the interests who ginned up the mess and still profit, hugely, from it.( AXE Commentary. There. Somebody finally said it whom other people will listen to. Makes you sort of understand how frustrated the Birchers were that the whole "Ike is a commie!" thing never caught on. Ike never did anything to make anyone not in the throes of a psychotic break think he was a commie. The administration has done nothing to make the American people think that this is not Tweedily-dumb replacing Tweedily-dee, just that T-dumb is a lot bright than T-dee.) That’s no place for any politician of any party or ideology to be. (AXE Comment: Well, no successful politician...)There’s a reason why the otherwise antithetical Leno and Conan camps are united in their derision of NBC’s titans. (AXE Comment: Seriously, the only reason anyone gives a damn is because the drama is such an allegory for what everybody else is going through. The difference is that Conan O'Brien is rich and could tell NBC to fuck off with impunity. Bob the welder or Karen the personal banker don't have that freedom) The TV network has become a handy proxy for every mismanaged, greedy, disloyal and unaccountable corporation in our dysfunctional economy. It’s a business culture where the rich and well-connected get richer while the employees, shareholders and customers get the shaft. And the conviction that the game is fixed is nonpartisan. (AXE Snark: Why not bi-partisan? It would be nice the guy could achieve it someplace...on the leading edges of insanity, we are one people.) If the tea party right and populist left agree on anything, it’s that big bailed-out banks have and will get away with murder while we pay the bill on credit cards — with ever-rising fees.  Politically, no other issue counts.

And yet they still don't get it. Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Joe Biden and others  have a clue, while everybody else is wandering around trying to take the temperature of the marble statues and issuing prognostications. Roll out the "malefactors of great wealth speech 24/7, and make something positive happen. Now, real and that will affect the majority of Americans who are hurting. By the way, most Americans are hurting.

Rich goes on to discuss the healthcare debacle. Citing the ever-increasingly interesting Howard Fineman of Newsweek, he quoted Fineman's line during the post-election coverage of Brown's march to victory when he said on MSNBC, “Obama took all his winnings and turned them over to Max Baucus.” Fineman had one of the great lines on MSNBC about the Supreme Court Decision to open up to what is in effect the deregulation and privatization of American government by allow companies to spend as much as they want to on political contributions, when he told Obermann something to the effect that sometimes he thought Keith gets "turbo-charged" on issues but in that case, he wasn't really displaying the necessary passion and concern.

Rich points out that health care has turned from a simple issue -- affordable coverage for all -- into a giant hairball. If you remember those silly "if roadies ran the airports, if firemen ran the government" commercials, unless your internal Hobbit has taken over to the point that you can no longer wear shoes or use the higher urinals, you have to admit that they made sense. Fuck the insurance companies -- throw a few CEOs, CFOs and COOs in jail for price fixing and exploitation, and dismantle the whole fucking system. Rich points out the absurdity of what's going on.

Ask yourself this: All these months later, do you yet know what the health care plan means for your family’s bottom line, your taxes, your insurance? It’s this nebulousness, magnified by endless Senate versus House squabbling, that has allowed reform to be caricatured by its foes as an impenetrable Rube Goldberg monstrosity, a parody of deficit-ridden big government. Since most voters are understandably confused about what the bills contain, the opponents have been able to attribute any evil they want to Obamacare, from death panels to the death of Medicare, without fear of contradiction.

Rich issues a somewhat nuanced but passionate call to arms -- "It’s too late to rewrite that history, but it may not be too late for White House decisiveness. Whatever happens now — good, bad or ugly — must happen fast. Each day Washington spends dickering over health care is another day lost while the election-year economy, stupid, remains intractable for Americans who are suffering." Frankly, he's so right that it isn't funny.

Nuance really has limited place for leaders of mass organizations when they are engaged in leading. If nothing else, we should be able to agree that if only by default Obama is the leader with the bully pulpit and these United States are in fact a mass organization, although one that may be moving toward being fatally conflicted. The British parliamentary system really shows an advantage here -- the cabinet secretaries and various Lords this and Chancellor that's are serving members of the legislative and they are required to run their departments so that they work. The civil servants are respected technocrats who know their shit and try to make the policies work. If you dick up, on you're watch, you're gone.  There are problems in the UK, it's not ideal -- but, while you have people like Michelle Bachmann and Jim Demint in parliament, they just have no impact. There really is a need for constitutional reform in this country, but that's another rant entirely. 

While I think that the Rich may be underestimating the pent up demand in this country for results -- jobs, interest rates, reductions in fees paid to banks and long distance carriers and everything else -- as well as intangibles like, oh, that whole hope thing, he is right when he says that Obama has to reconnect. Where does it say that the economists and the bankers get to run things? Ultimately, they are technocrats, and that's fine. Don't let technicians with high salaries run your business, in this case, run your country, your party and your future. Provide goals to go with the vision, set a timetable with non-negotiable deadlines, preach the vision and the goals and kick ass/take names/and take the fuckers to the wall who get in the way. Make it personal for them like they do for you, and for us.

One of the folks I used to have the privilege of managing for GINORMOUS could not get her arms around Obama. Part of it was the whole Democrats are bad for defense mythology, I suspect part of it might be racist although I never saw any other signs of it, and part of it was fear. However, she would say, "I don't trust Obama...I just can't trust Obama." Linda's instincts are generally good. You know, if he wants to get the Linda's of the world to trust him even a little, he needs to do some goddamn thing besides shoot hoops for photo ops and occasionally pass out soup to the poor. He needs to produce something...any goddamn thing. In a finite space, and 18 months is not a finite space in politics with the 24/7 news cycle. Take some chances, make some mistakes but get things done. One reason the Bush administration was able to get so much done was that they cut through the bullshit. If this is a contest between who does management better, lawyers or MBAs, we're screwed. The left today should appeal to the people on the basis of its ideas. We have some, they have t-bags and lapel pins. Put the damn things to work. Use the Reagan approach -- are you better off now than you were in 1999? What do we need to do to get everyone back to 1999? Everyone, not just the bankers and the lawyers and the lobbyists.

Rich cites Obama's examination and review of policy decision making leading up to the Vietnam war as a positive. I tend to think we learn more from disasters than from successes, but deciding not to repeat the failures of the past can lead to sheer entropy. He suggests that Obama pay attention to the things that Kennedy did that weren't disasters. Vietnam was a long, unfolding disaster, and the whole Bay of Pigs thing was a short-fused disaster that was running out of control prior to January 20, 1961. He just didn't stop it. However, in other issues, the Kennedy team had ideas, balls and did what needed to be done within a finite space in time and with damn little doubt as to what the possible results were going to be. While the Cuban missile crisis comes to mind, and the Civil Rights Movement has to be a factor, I'm thinking of economic populism, the Steel crisis.

If it seems hard to imagine a time when manufacturing could threaten the stability of the country's economic and political system, well, we just saw what happens when banking breaks the rules. Basically, there was an agreement in place that kept the market for steel relatively stable and productive, but the Chairman of US Steel decided he wanted to have a better "ROI" and unilaterally decided to change the rules. JFK and his team went berserk. He raised so much hell and started so many things in motion that Big Steel caved in two days. 

While Kennedy slammed his fist on the bully pulpit, his team was backstage negotiating but from positions of strength. "You just did something unacceptable, there will be consequences if you don't undo it, so where do you want to go from here?" JFK didn't have the kind of majorities in the House and Senate that Obama has, but he didn't hesitate to take action. Government was much more bi-partisan then, and he could assume some common sense from the Republicans. Well, there is no common sense available to appeal to today, so Obama really ought to leave the door open but govern like he has a pair. Bush kept the door closed unless he wanted a photo-op. Rich points out something intriguing to me although I'm not sure what it means. As an Irish American and Catholic by culture if not belief, I wonder if subconsciously Obama is as confident as he seems. The issue of class and readiness to lead strikes me as a concern that may limit him. Obama is not, of course, the typical African-American. Nor were the Kennedy's typical Irish Americans. But, their roots and background were definite...laughing Micks with a touch of the crazed Celt warrior. Who's Barrack Obama besides someone who can dance well and talk better? Still, that's for another time.

Here's Rich:

The incident unfolded in April 1962 — some 15 months into the new president’s term — when J.F.K. was infuriated by the U.S. Steel chairman’s decision to break a White House-brokered labor-management contract agreement and raise the price of steel (but not wages). Kennedy was no radical. He hailed from the American elite — like Obama, a product of Harvard, but, unlike Obama, the patrician scion of a wealthy family. And yet he, like that other Harvard patrician, F.D.R., had no hang-ups about battling his own class.(AXE commentary: In fact, both JFK and FDR reveled in discomforting the comfortable. On race, religion, class, economics, justice, they had a ball doing just that. If you have to be stern all the time, where's the fun in fighting the might for the right? )

Kennedy didn’t settle for the generic populist rhetoric of Obama’s latest threats to “fight” unspecified bankers some indeterminate day. (AXE commnetary: Finite time, finite space. Not mistakes were made, but "he's trying to undermine the economy!" I can see the fat cat, I can get a picture, I can envision his life. When you're in a fight, you need to know whom you're fighting. Composites don't work...)He instead took the strong action of dressing down U.S. Steel by name. As Richard Reeves writes in his book “President Kennedy,” reporters were left “literally gasping.” The young president called out big steel for threatening “economic recovery and stability” while Americans risked their lives in Southeast Asia. J.F.K. threatened to sic his brother’s Justice Department on corporate records and then held firm as his opponents likened his flex of muscle to the power grabs of Hitler and Mussolini. (Sound familiar?) (AXE commentary: Why, yes.The hysteria thing would be hilarious now...part of the charm for this approach, for me,  is the thought of Michelle Bachmann, Glen Beck and Anne Coulter having on the air aneurysms over the loss of "freedom." Without economic justice, there is no liberty. ) U.S. Steel capitulated in two days. The Times soon reported on its front page that Kennedy was at “a high point in popular support.”

So, what's it going to be? Jimmy Carter or the unfulfilled promise of the once and future King? Given my belief that Mizer was right and life is 60/40 against, I need to point out that those are not bad odds. Not bad at all. I'd take that bet, especially in context. In the current situation, given the liklihood of success without change in direction, substance, tone and texture, I'd put it on black and roll the damn dice. But, obviously, I'm not a serious person, dealing with serious problems here. We need studies, Czars, maybe a commission...well, fuck that. Audacious hope without action is seriously a form of negative masturbation. Not interested...do some goddamn thing.

Smite them, Tiffany. At least Fred...Thank God and the gays for this one

God Hates Lady Gaga I have not paid any attention to Lady Gaga. Can't imagine why I should. However, in much the way I intend to buy a sweater at the Gap because of the whole Solstice devil worshipping commercial, I now agree to pay a few moments attention to her. Him? It? I really don't care...Fred Phelps, the lunatic pastor who consistently tells us that God hates Fags and therefore it's right to protest the funerals of fallen soldiers because God hates FAGS!...Fred the Brain Dead anti-Christian Christian who brings a whole new level of dweebness and fun to fundamentalism has decided to take on the Lady herself...Just him and his bunch of thyroid-eyes, mouthbreathing, demi-army of Twits who are giving dipshits everywhere a bad name because of their antics. He is beside himself, as the guys in his parade probably pud-pull to images of her ladyship...

Gaga's thoughts on gayness, not on Phelps according to The Congressional Record ...

Her devotion to gay culture is unparalleled by any other artist operating at her level of visibility or success. “When I started in the mainstream it was the gays that lifted me up,” she says. “I committed myself to them and they committed themselves to me, and because of the gay community I’m where I am today.” Earlier this year, in her acceptance speech for her MuchMusic award for best international video, Lady Gaga thanked “God and the gays.” Before agreeing to tour with Kanye West this fall, Gaga told the rapper, “I just want to be clear before we decide to do this together: I’m gay. My music is gay. My show is gay. And I love that it’s gay. And I love my gay fans and they’re all going to be coming to our show. And it’s going to remain gay.” That’s another clause in the Gagaland constitution: Gay culture shall gush undiluted into the rapids of society. It shall not be co-opted, fancified, dolled up, or Uncle Tommed. “I very much want to inject gay culture into the mainstream,” she says, “It’s not an underground tool for me. It’s my whole life. So I always sort of joke the real motivation is to just turn the world gay.”

Well, Wet-Fred-the-Brain-Dead has another take on the whole thing...You gotta love the whole forehead of a whore thing. It's like the bald hipster saying Howie Long has cop hair. Seriously, this guy is to religion what Disco Demolition was to baseball promotions and Tom Delay was to the whole Saturday Night Fever Revival. 

So, while I'll probably hate it, here is Lady Gaga doing something or other. I intend to get the sweater at GAP on Monday...and chuckle.

Lady Gaga - New Music - More Music Videos

Tell me how this is going to work out for you...

Well, if you take a bunch of young, physically fit and stressed out young people and toss them in a holding pen...err, Forward Operating Base...and only let them out so they can get shot it, shit happens. The Russians countered this one by having whorehouses, and I'm sure KBR or XE would be glad to stock a couple. Actually, I'm waiting for the firestorm of protest. About 20 years ago, General Julius Becton as a Corps Commander in Europe got relieved and his career trajectory went way south when he said that if a first term soldier became pregnant in Europe she should be discharged. Or, get an abortion. Europe 20 years ago was as close to a war zone as we had...and, pregnant soldiers were a problem for readiness. Still are, but what the hell. Women and men have sex, and sometimes things happen differently than planned.

So, I happen to think this is silly. If we can't follow the policy of getting pregnant soldiers out of their as soon as the chain knows about it, then we shouldn't assign women in zones where that seems imperative. This is as silly a response to biology as I have heard lately...

I'm sure that the abortion thing was probably thought about, various congressional issues examined and the solution guaranteed to make the chain of command look most stupid was selected in lieu of even offering in-country abortions. The fact that the perceived problem results from lack of soldiers to fight and kill as a result of enforcing the policy is mildly ironic. We can't consider abortion as a solution to the lack of enough people to kill other people...yet, our solutions seem to always revolve around "killing more people." I'm not necessarily opposed to that, but we ought to address this issue philosophically and pragmatically.

AXE's first corollary to the principles of AXEism is "If you have to be a jerk, don't be a jerkoff..." violated here in soooo many ways...and here, guaranteed to earworm everybody to death is this classic of jerkoff soft pop/rock/nostalgia...