The Idea of Israel Versus the Reality of Israel

The death of Rachel Corrie and the map below ought to cure us of any sentimentality over Israel. An essay by Jeffery Goldberg in The Atlantic, "What If Israel Ceases to Be a Democracy?" should finish the job. Unblinking support for Israel isn't ennobling, it's enabling.

I already live in a country that cannot reconcile its stated intentions with the behavior of its governing class. Carrying a genetic rap sheet from the likes of Ireland, France and the Confederate state of Tennessee only adds to my chagrin. Add the tax burden of three billion for Israel, one billion for the Palestinian Authority, pretty soon I'm sponsoring a blood feud between relatives I didn't know I had. Do they really need another Hotchkiss Gun at Wounded Knee?

"We Embody What Americans are About."

Sometimes, they pitch the irony at you slow and underhand and it hovers there waiting to be hit.

Fire Afghanistan

Here's five bucks says that General McChrystal pulls a McClellan, and runs for president against his former boss after Hopey fires him. Getting fired for being an asshole is the best thing to happen to him, career wise. Now someone else gets to take the heat for losing in Afghanistan. McChrystal can now spend the rest of his life posing as the guy who Would Have Won the Afghan War If Only.

Ah, how soon we forget: "The highest current ranking officer blamed in the [Pat Tillman] incident is Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command. Investigators said he was "accountable for the inaccurate and misleading assertions" contained in papers recommending that Tillman get a Silver Star award."

I wanted to say something about the general's thirty years in black-ops as an unquestioning assassin for the emperor, but life's too short and how many ways can you say "murderous" and "self-fellatio"? That's just another motivation to stay limber.

Then there's Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice:
“Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

McChrystal is another Bush left-over with a long history of folly, leaks, and misplaced arrogance, still pouting because he wasn't given 60,000 more troops to pour down the rathole. Don't worry, the honored dead are products of American kindergartens: everybody gets a medal.

The solution is obvious: fire Afghanistan for non-cooperation.

A MODEST AGENDA FOR THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

1. Raise the federal minimum wage, which now has the same spending power it had in 1955. Override the inevitable presidential veto.
3. Implement the security recommendations of the 9/11 commission. Override the inevitable presidential veto.
4. Reinstate the ancient right of habeas corpus as won by the barons at Runnymeade, seized from the tyrannical hands of King John. Override the inevitable presidential veto.
5. Rewrite the so-called "Patrot Act" to restore privacy protection. Override the inevitable presidential veto.
6. Investigate and shine a light on a) why we invaded Iraq, ignoring the best available intelligence; b) gross negligence by person or persons unknown in the conduct of the war in Iraq.
7. Investigate and shine a light on Halliburton's no-bid contracts in Iraq and damage done to national security by privatizing "security" militias in Iraq.
8. Investigate and shine a light on how and why the Taliban was alllowed to make a come back in Afghanistan.
9. Appoint Grand Juries to investigate, indict and persecute those responsible for torture committed in the name of the people of the United States.
10. a) Supoena EVERYBODY. b) Indict everybody that doesn't turn state's evidence. c) IMPEACH THE MOTHERFUCKER ALREADY.

If the Democrats take the Senate too (12 Midnight here, too close to call), there will be no end-zone dances. But Carl Levin is quietly and judiciously going to start looking for the Truth-- last seen bloody, beaten and left lying in the ditch by George W. Bush.

Can Commercialism Bestow A Soul?

(After reference to Albert Camus as an authentic "Cool Guy"):

A memorial hall for the Seriously Cool Guys of History does indeed exist, next door to the subway tunnel discovered by
Billy Batson containing the spirits of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.  
Modern attempts to make actors, politicians and businessmen “cool” are presumptuous, like putting a horn on a
horse and calling it a unicorn.  The puff pieces written about Kenneth Lay and
Donald Rumsfeld before their collapse would gag a maggot.  This effort by journalists and publicity hacks to bestow Coolness is just another attempt by capitalism to make everything and everyone into a “brand name” or commodity.

It would seem that since we have "dethroned God and put up a shekel in his place" (Twain), we have given our economic system, and its griots and bards, the advertising men, the abilty to bestow "soul", coolness, onto an inaminate lump that didn't posses it before. But will all the media attention be enough to make any of them a Real Boy?