Is this Real?

There are many reasons to avoid writing about the current state of affairs: the shame of being associated with such a corrupt regime; the bewilderment at the spiral into chaos in Iraq; the wonderment at the ineptitude of people like Condi Rice; or the relentless bias of the press in the way it demonizes anyone not part of the industrial/military complex. But alas sooner or later I feel compelled to blow the dust off here and say something, anything, to relieve the discordant pressure that builds up within my mind as I watch America unravel before me.

And I think it is unravelling.

Just last week we had the stunning performance of Condi Rice before a Senate committee. Stunning that is in its utter contempt for that institution, the constitution, and the American people. Here we had someone who is reputedly immensely well schooled stating, without even a smile, that she could not recall seeing the memo that Iran had sent as an attempt to reconcile its policies with America. She didn’t see it. And if she did she didn’t recall what it said. This is a note from one of our vilest opponents, a country who we are actively preparing to go to war with, and she, our top diplomat doesn’t either receive a vital document, or she can’t say what it said. So she is either unutterably incompetent, or she is unutterably inept, or maybe she’s just breathtakingly corrupt. America deserves so much more than her continually ineffective mind and its associated defective memory.

Then there’s the fuss over the puported Iranian supply of weapons into Iraq. Does the Administration ‘cry wolf’ again? This is the same crowd who led us into Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist [outside of the imagination of some neo-con policy wonks lust list]. Should we take this seriously? In part my skepticism is based upon the evidence we’ve been presented with: some of the weapons have the usual dates of manufacture on them, except the date is written in the American format, not the International format that Iran uses. Strange huh?

Then there’s the President’s budget. He says he’ll balance the budget in a few years. Conveniently all the heavy lifting necesssary to get his program in place is laft for the years after he leaves office. And the lies just roll off the page: the Alternative Minimum Tax [‘AMT’] is left unchanged, even though the debate is under way on how to change it; defense spending balloons to over $700 billion and includes goodies for every general with a pet project [submarines to hunt enemies we don’t have; jet planes to shoot down enemy planes that don’t exist; ships, missiles, anti-missile missiles, a veritable who’s who of offensive fire power we don’t need, but not much in the way of body armor that we do need]; social spending is slashed; and the assumed growth rate for the economy is pumped up beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. This was a budget so redolent with lies that even George Bush should surely be ashamed of it. But alas no: he is on the road touting his attempt to ‘balance the budget’. Am I being too picky if I point out that we wouldn’t need a drastic balancing act if he hadn’t fouled up the already balanced budget he inherited. Shameless lying seems to be the operative style in the Bush regime. Farce is too kind of as word. It cost us taxpayers good money to print the thing, and it’s worthless before the ink dried. Why does America put up with this joke of a process? Does anyone care about the immense waste and indifference embodied in the Budgetary process? I can’t hear you …

And I must comment on poor old Nancy Pelosi. I am not a fan of hers so this is tough to say, but she deserves a break. The right wingnuts are having a field day berating her for the extravagance of her official plane: it is so much bigger and more expensive than her predecessor’s. Well duh! The rules the Pentagon has for providing planes to the Speaker say that the plane must be able to fly non-stop to wherever it’s taking her. That would be California, where she lives. Not Illinois where her predecessor lived. It’s a lot further, of cousre the damn plane is bigger and more expensive. This is a non-issue. Especially as it is the Pentagon that sets the rules, not the Speaker herself. Did anyone at CNN, Fox, or ABC check their facts before they launched their tirade against Pelosi’s nasty spendthrift ways? Didn’t think so. Either the press is so right wing/corporate biased, or it is ridiculously lazy and inept. Either way America is being poorly served by the so-called media.

I think Putin is right: America is fast becoming a dangerous scourge in the world. It is rapidly building up an arsenal that has only one purpose: to threaten other nations: it is in no way defensive. We know this because the military build up is associated with a foreign policy that is designed to project American power and hegemony throughout the world. America ferments more war than any other country. It supplies more weapons to unstable regimes than anyone else. It invades. It conquers. It gobbles up resources, and like a spoilt brat it then defies the world to tell it to stop. It tortures. It runs gulags. It seizes foreign citizens on the streets of their own countries and ships them into oblivion. It leaves any world community organization that might limit its actions and then bemoans that other people have the temerity to dislike it.

It has become a sick, corrupt, decadent, and complacent nation. It can, and needs to do better.