Travesty

Recently Bush and Rumsfeld were busily hawking their selective recollections as to how and why it was just, virtuous and necessary for American troops to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. While their books are still on the best sellers list, our forces find themselves trapped in Afghanistan, with objectives unclear and no end in sight.

Bush and Rumsfeld induced a Congress and a people into participating in two unnecessary wars, which were ill conceived, badly planned , poorly managed and ultimately bungled, as being necessary for the security of the United States. The allure of history overcame any modicum of good sense. To have started two wars on the thinnest of reasons, cherry picking among data and calling it intelligence, advancing stories of whole cloth in order to deceive an entire nation should not go into the history books without a thorough vetting and a delivery of shame rightly bought by these self promoting heroes.

Rather than making literary “victory laps” and preening , peacock like, in halls of Congress, these men should apologize firstly to the dead youngsters whose lives were lost in pursuit of these follies, next to the thousands of young men maimed and crippled by these wars, and lastly to the survivors whose lives will never be repaired.

Bush, once pantomimed before a “roast” making sport of his inability to find WMD’s in Iraq. He should try that routine in the wards of Walter Reed.

But the last, and worst great crime these men continue to participate in is to tell the men who served that they were doing something important for their country, to take pride in their service. It is , in effect, their BIG LIE, the one behind which they hide. That this lie serves as solace is probably undeniable. Yet it is the grossest of crimes, this deception of the young men who were victims of their egos and recklessness. Ultimately , a history will emerge which will tear down this deceptive facade, this “Potamkin Village” of falsehoods.

Perhaps, before the book is closed , an apology to those who served would be appropriate if not sufficient.

I’m 80 and 1/2

According to my grandson Ray’s early birthday computations, I’m now 80 and 1/2 and will remain so until the day before my next birthday. While I have no plans to leave, to go anywhere it is still never too early to start a bucket list.

So far my early favorites :

1) Drown Norqist in the bath tub he planned to drown the Federal Government in.

2) Unionize Wal Mart.

3) Institute remedial education courses for tea party members. History, government and economics for starters.

The rest is still in the planning stage but I will consider any and all suggestions.

The TV Insurance Wars

Watching a bit too much TV of late, I thought it appropriate to comment on the insurance wars, currently being played out in dueling commercials.

The gecko, having spread himself a bit thin is resorting to threesome tangos, woodchucks and the like as a holding action; State Farm now has magic, say the magic words and an agent appears; Flo, doing her utmost for Progressive is still holding guiding tours and selling policies by the box; Nationwide is fronted by a pollyanna with a telephone in a shoulder holster ; while Allstate features a psychotic called “chaos” who wears a pink sweat band and causes wrecks. And let’s not forget the guy with the sledgehammer administering door dings in pursuit of business, an equal opportunity vandal. All in all one hell of a way to sell product.

So far no one has seriously focused on coverage and premiums but, hell, it’s still early.

Conservation

Like an ass-kicking contest among one-legged men, our politicians are busy proclaiming concern about the debt future generations will inherit, without demonstrating any concern for shrinking supply of natural irreplaceable resources.

Despite warnings as far back as Teddy Roosevelt’s concern for conservation, Buckmeister

Fuller’s “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth”, we continue to pursue amazingly wasteful methods in pursuing our necessary and unnecessary objectives.

Who will apologize to that generation with the line “Sorry we used it up ?” Easter Islanders used all their trees to make rollers for moving stone heads until their culture collapsed. We are fast following in their footsteps.

Never accepting a concept of thrift, enough, we built larger than we need, SUV’s when a small sedan would suffice, distribution grids which waste most of our power; rebuilding for efficiency deemed “too costly” not profitable. And there you have it. Always the magic - Oil short ? Drill in Alaska - as if this would supply more than a drop in the bucket, if that, 10 years down the road.

Well good luck - and I am really sorry we used it all up.

Sweet Dreams

Recent charges that a bus driver involved in a fatal accident might have fallen asleep at the wheel provoked a recollection of a near miss of my own many years ago.

After graduating from law school, I was in the process of relocating my family and household in Sarasota after nearly five years in Gainesville. I recall borrowing or renting a pickup truck to complete the collection of some items of our stuff from Gainesville, a shuttle trip over the 200 mile run back to Gainesville. I recall the difficulty in loading our monstrously heavy washing machine, unable to lift it the two foot or more to the back of the pickup until inspired by a recollection of a lecture about Archimedes, I lubricated a plank with soap and creating a slippery, inclined plane, the monster slid handily up into the truck bed. (A pre-MacGyver insight. At least it seemed so at the time.)

With little or no rest loaded our washing machine together with other furniture and unwisely decided I could complete the return trip without stopping for sleep, anxious to settle in and consolidate in our new, if dreadfully humble digs on Siesta Key.

Bored and tired I drove south on U.S. 41 or 441, I forgot which, on a bright sun shiny day, when in a moment of inattention I found myself overtaking a log-hauling truck, too fast and with barely enough time to avoid a probably fatal rear end collision with the protruding log. Slamming on the brakes with all I had I was thrown against the wheel only to snap wide awake on a totally empty roadway, in front of me. My subconscious had manufactured a dream scenario sufficient to scare me awake and remind me I had drifted off and driving on a busy highway was no place for a nap. Whether I took my own advice and sought a motel for a place to sleep or loaded on coffee at the next diner I can’t recall but the memory of that most appropriate dream has remained clear and vivid over the years.

Deficits and Deceit

Just as it was once said that all roads lead to Rome, it is now the conventional wisdom that all of our economic woes are attributable to the middle class, the working people of America. At state and local governmental levels, a wedge issue to divide the electorate has been advanced; the cost of salary, pensions, and other benefits owed to public employees and their unions, is the cause of deficits. Never mind the fact that these benefits were not future funded by the folks in charge; now it is the responsibility of the public employees, and government must repudiate these debts.

Social security is not part of the federal budget since it is funded by a separate payroll tax.

But conservatives in congress now point to social security as an unsustainable obligation, ignoring the fact that for years the social security trust fund was “borrowed” to fund other projects and that the debt created to pay back these funds backed by the “full faith and credit” of the United States is to be ignored.

Increasing taxes on the most wealthy is apparently anathema. Still advancing the trickle down argument to protect the wealthy, the supposed job creators. But they have done nothing to create jobs of late but invest overseas. Ignoring the fact that the author of supply side economics has repudiated his own theory.

Clearly, all the solutions for our economic troubles are to be solved by imposing upon the working classes; entitlement programs to be gutted, tax breaks for the most wealthy are sacrosanct.Union busting is the answer.

Somehow, the penultimate line in William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech seems apt,

“...you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns.”