Feature of the Week
Each weekend we�ll be spotlighting one of the site�s special features. This time let�s do the Deficit Hawk, in honor of the expansion of the National Debt Limit beyond EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS!
11.20.04 @ 09:04 PM EDT [link]

Crazy Dad
Imagine that you were a teenager in a really dysfunctional family. Since all teenagers think their families are dysfunctional, we need to identify some specific behaviors that anyone would agree are positively, certifiably dysfunctional from any point of view. I don�t mean pathology � dysfunction is more like eccentric behavior that doesn�t cross the line into crime. I�m thus not talking about drunkenness, beatings, or dark behaviors of that ilk � more like the stuff teenagers would giggle about to their friends. So what sorts of things would Dad need to do to put his family unit (let�s call them the Yanks) into a bland dysfunction? Here are some ideas. First imagine that Dad (let�s call him George) is obsessed with their quality of life. He believes it is his family�s birthright to live better than any of the neighbors. For example, he just has to have the biggest gun collection. He just has to be the first on the block with broadband internet and GPS. He just has to have a big gas-guzzler SUV that fits his cowboy image. The problem is that Dad�s agency just doesn�t produce the income to support this standard of living, and he�s told the family too many times that it would be immoral for him to subject them to the sacrifices necessary to squeeze more cash from the family business. Instead, Dad has been borrowing money from the neighbors for the last twenty years. As a result, the Yanks owe the neighbors more than four times Dad�s annual income! (Are we dysfunctional yet?) Dad has no plans to stop borrowing, though. In fact, he�s been borrowing a lot more over the last four years, and has been talking about making permanent his non-demanding work schedule and the low revenues it brings, in the interest of family togetherness. He also has no plans to cut back on the family�s buying, and even signed up for a new prescription drug benefit. As you might imagine, the neighbors are a bit uneasy about Dad�s fiscal practices, but they have always liked the Yank family. Unfortunately, there was a drive-by shooting at the Yanks� house a couple of years ago by a wacko named Ben Laden. Laden put a bullet right through the Yanks� big picture window, showering the whole family in glass! Everyone felt sorry for the Yanks, and were even OK when Dad chased off the manager of the apartment where Laden used to live. Laden himself was nowhere to be found. Dad obsessed that there might be other low-lifes in the neighborhood that would be encouraged to do their own drive-by. Dad started telling people that Sam, the gas station owner who lived around the corner, had been looking at Dad sideways ever since Sam and George�s Dad (also named George) had gotten into an argument. It came to a head when Dad went to the neighbors to accuse Sam of planning his own drive-by shooting and to demand that they all band together and take over Sam�s house. The neighbors were aghast, and tried to talk Dad out of it. Dad had already made up his mind, though, and before you know it Sam is tied up in the basement and Dad is telling Sam�s kids how lucky they are to be subject to Yank family rules, which allow more privileges than they had been used to. To Dad�s surprise, Sam�s kids freaked out when the Yanks tried to adopt them. Even a year and a half later they are still behaving more and more badly every month. The neighbors are also becoming increasingly restless about all the money that Dad owes them, and have been thinking of charging more interest. But the Yank family loves their Dad, despite the setbacks the family has recently experienced and their unsettled prospects for the future. Indeed, at the last family meeting Dad got a big vote of confidence. Now how�s that for dysfunctional?!
11.19.04 @ 09:43 PM EDT [link]

Un-Conventions-al Warfare
Let�s talk about the Geneva Conventions as relating to the execution of an injured Iraqi in the Fallujah mosque. Here�s what Rush had to say: �Violation of Geneva Conventions? These people aren't subject to the Geneva Convention. This is war, for crying out loud. What do they think this is, romper room in the sandbox? This is not recess over there. You know, at the end of the day they're not going to go out and have ice cream cones.� Let�s take these issues one at a time. First, Rush�s allegation that Marines are free to execute Iraqis not in uniform is laughable on the face of it. What did the Marine who pulled the trigger know? That there were injured Iraqis who had been lying on the floor for some time. Is being an injured Iraqi lying on the floor a capital offense? Is every single Iraqi male in Fallujah guaranteed to be a fighter? One thing you can say � the dead Iraqi had a father and mother and likely many other relatives. With many dead in Fallujah, how many relatives will wonder whether it was their beloved family member that was executed? How many of the Iraqis who have lost relatives in the war will wonder whether their relative was similarly executed, with the sole difference being there was no video camera running at the time? Why shouldn�t Iraqi�s think this is a standard practice? And it doesn�t matter that whatever organizations these fighters hold allegiance to have not signed the Conventions. What matters is that the US has signed them. The US signed the Geneva Conventions not to protect foreigners but to protect US soldiers. Every time the US acts in wanton disregard to the letter or spirit of these Conventions, the lives of future US soldiers are endangered, because it drags warfare back to where it was before these Conventions were signed. Back then it was the routine practice to do to injured prisoners exactly what the Falluah marine seemed to do. As a result of his action, Iraqi combatants are more likely to kill US soldiers in a fight to the death. As a result of his action, there will be a future engagement during which some enemy soldier somewhere who will execute an American POW in the belief that the US routinely executes prisoners. We don�t want to go there. What about the notion that this kind of thing occurs in every war so we just have to let it go when, by a fluke, it�s caught on camera? My answer is that the degree to which this has happened in past warfare is irrelevant. What matters is that it violates the Uniform Code of Military Justice and US Treaty. Iraq is a very special case because the mission is stability operations. You want stability, people have to come to believe you are on their side. Consider the words of the Iraqi Interior Minister, who of course was installed by the US and thus would have a motive to be an apologist: �It is something forbidden in Islam, an American killed an unarmed Iraqi prisoner inside a mosque.� Hardy an apology. Other quotes from the Iraqi on the street were uniformly negative. An additional relevant factor here is those embedded reporters. The Defense Department agreed to the embedding in the hope that their reports would show the good will and benign intent of our forces. They thus saw it as a way of advancing the overall mission of nation-building. A single Marine�s thoughtless act has put the entire mission at risk. This is a mission for which over a thousand US soldiers have died. With the stakes so high, it is Rush�s defense of wanton acts that is �giving aid and comfort to the enemy,� rather than any muted comments by Democrats that Limbaugh so derides.
11.18.04 @ 08:10 PM EDT [link]

Rodney King Not!
Two things have struck me about the recent incident in Fallujah in which an unarmed Iraqi, lying injured in a mosque without treatment for over a day after capture of this mosque by Marines, was caught on tape being executed by a second group of Marines. First, reaction in opposition to this act has been remarkably muted. Checking on various mainstream news sites last night, I had difficulty even finding mention of it. Compare that to the revelation of the Rodney King video, which sparked a veritable firestorm of outrage. The second thing I�ve noticed is that the normal apologists for the Bush Administration have been acting like this tape is Rodney King 2. Just look at some of the comments from Rush (in addition to the comment I included on our �A Rush Insight to Ponder� daily feature): �I am happy to report the American left is digging in even further. The American left and its spin machine -- that's my new name for the old media -- they are still trying to defeat this president in the war in Iraq, ladies and gentlemen.� �They are continuing to appear to not have their own country and its citizens' best interests at heart. I'm specifically referring to this incident involving a Marine and the shooting in Fallujah. This is simply outrageous what is being done here, what is taking place� �The lack of proportion and the absolute choosing of sides always against America, it seems, by our friends on the left and their spin machine, the big media, has gotten to the point here where, you know, each day you think they can't top themselves -- and they do.� Excuse me, but I believe that it�s Rush that�s over the top here. The mission of the US military is to defend the United States. In Iraq, that mission is translated as �winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.� Failing that mission could turn Iraq into a nest of terrorists, just as Afghanistan became after the Soviet military failed its mission. The Soviets failed because Afghanis never saw them as anything more than foreign infidel conquerors. So what are we showing when we execute unarmed injured Iraqis in mosques? That we�re foreign infidel conquerors that will only leave once defeated in holy war, as the Soviets were. And I haven�t even talked about the Geneva Conventions. Rush has some choice bits on this. Let�s talk about them tomorrow.
11.17.04 @ 08:09 PM EDT [link]

Sic �em, Eliot!
Maybe the GOP�s branding operation needs the Spitzer treatment. All this activity by NYC�s Crusading District Attorney Eliot Spitzer has got me thinking. (I�m beginning to think that if you look up �crusading� in the dictionary you�ll see Spitzer�s picture there, considering that he�s got entire industries quivering in terror!) I�ve been wondering whether there is a Spitzersque �truth in labeling� issue with the term �Republican.� What does Republican mean, actually? That they believe the US is a republic as opposed to a democracy, as Dittoheads I have crossed swords with in the net insist is a big deal? Sounds like something worth Googling. In the meantime, maybe we could divert ourselves with fun names to replace �Republican.� As we�ve all hopefully seen from SPW�s Great Work (myself included), if something is funny it�s because there is a core of truth there. So what does the Republican Party stand for that would produce a funny name with a core of truth? Let�s start with the core of truth part, even if we have to do unfunny for a little bit. I�ve already done some blogs on what the party really stands for (remember half-fascist? If you don�t, you should look for the term on the blog�s search facility, repeating it to yourself until you get it!). One of the funnier names for the Republican Party is �conservative,� since the crowd running Abe�s old party is anything but! Not funny enough, though. If it is funny, it�s funny boo-hoo rather than funny ha-ha! How about this: the policies of today�s GOP all boil down to things that increase short-term fun at the expense of long-term burdens on society. There are so many examples. Huge blocks of the Government (for example, the world�s biggest military spending) are paid for with borrowing. Denial of environmental and ecological warning signs in favor of making a quick buck. Military adventures that bring to mind the contests of gladiators in the old Roman Colloseum and that citizens seem to find equally as engaging. Head in the sand proposals to �deal with� the looming locomotive of baby boomer retirement, proposals that serve only to pander votes at the expense of fiscal reality. I know, you�re thinking �are we funny yet!?� Almost. Everything we�ve talked about falls into the bucket called �non-sustainability.� And what is a great real-life example of non-sustainability? A wild party! You have lots of fun, wear a lampshade, maybe get lucky, and then�the morning. So here is my suggestion for the �truth in advertising� name the Republicans should adopt: the Party Party!
11.16.04 @ 08:16 PM EDT [link]

True to His Nature
The question of the hour, heard on the lips of everyone talking politics within my earshot, is whether W Administration II will continue the hard-right course of WA I, or will he move more to the center in the hope of �building a legacy for history.� I see this as a no brainer question. Bush will move, all right, but exactly there: all right. He�s not a man at all moved by arguments that appeasing voters in the center will gain the GOP more seats in 2006. If he really cared about such things, he would have governed much more from the center than he did. I don�t say this with any degree of admiration for what the spin doctors call �his principled stands.� I like my politicians to represent the popular will, not to fly off on ego-fueled tangents. The very basis of democracy is that there are consequences to those in power for losing the confidence of voters. Sadly, short term results can be mixed enough to be inconclusive, so that first-term voter decisions can be driven by style rather than substance. Decisiveness is always compelling. That�s why it is a universal characteristic of fictional heroes. The problem with fiction is that it was made up for the sole purpose of being compelling, of resonating with our desire to have leaders who operate on a higher plane. The track record for decisive people in the real world is not nearly so good. Indeed, I�ve been working within very large organizations long enough to have figured out that at the center of every huge disaster, without exception, is a decisive individual who convinced too many people of the soundness of his or her flawed vision. And there is no doubt in my mind that George W. Bush is thoroughly convinced that even his most extreme, out of the mainstream ideas (i.e., most of them) are exactly what America needs. Moderates have no place in his vision. He doubtless believes that lurching the country to the right will deliver obvious benefits that will serve as a �proof of concept� for ambivalent voters. I�m sure he sees the results of the recent election as validating that belief. To the extent that he considers the judgment of history, he clearly believes that the best way to achieve favorable consideration from historians is to act like his namesake George Reeves, TV�s Superman, who could �change the course of mighty rivers.� (Can�t you just picture the young W running around the house with a red blanket as a cape? Could this explain much about Bush 43 Administration policy?) As a former Combat Engineer company commander, I can tell you that big changes like changing the course of mighty rivers are accomplished not with touchy-feely consensus but with tons and tons of explosives. I happen to believe that the fuse is already lit.
11.15.04 @ 08:49 PM EDT [link]