I'm curious about your reaction

to this New Yorker article. It's about procrastination, specifically a review of a book--a collection of essays--about procrastination. My reaction: I have no inclination to read the book because, to me, the critique of it was so singularly uninsightful and uninformative that the book could not help but be even more so. The lesson I took away: Even the New Yorker can publish pap.

Do you ever get the impression that

some folks just can't catch a break?

A ditty about responsibility

Why has America fallen so low?
What’s the cause—We need to know!
Surely there’s someone handy to blame,
Someone called Bush, or an African name.

It can’t be our own insatiable greed
Consuming more goodies than ever we need,
It can’t be our wars, can’t be our cars,
Can’t be our refusal to tax what’s “ours.”

It must be those others—the government pols,
Who’ve run us amok, who’ve twisted our goals,
Who’ve made us a nation with no more to spend,
Borrowing madly, as if there’s no end.

And yet, on occasion, it does give one pause
To see, at its root, what—and who—is the cause.
It’s we, the people, who’ve given them rein,
And who now, if ever, must reign once again.

As usual, Justin Raimondo, Libertarian though he may be, nails it. The teabaggers--if they be true to their principles of diminished federal government--could well be a signal to the Republican Party to question this nation's imperial push, and could well attract those on the Left for whom that issue is critical. A realignment of interests along the lines of military downsizing, with the "progressives" on this issue combining with the Far Right? Not just interesting, but tantalizing.

Letter to editor

Below is a letter I've written to the SB NewsPress editor. I'll update this blog if/when it's published.

Update: It was published on October 12, 2010, and a second time (don't know why) the next day.

I’ve lately been hearing from Obama, Biden and, before that, from Press Secretary Gibbs, that we progressives should “stop whining” about shortcomings in this administration’s achievements and get out and work for the “change you can believe in” by supporting Democratic candidates in the upcoming elections.

My answer to these pleas: I would work now—as hard as I did for Obama’s election—if over the last two years I’d witnessed a strong, principled effort toward fundamental change. Instead, here’s what I’ve seen. (1) A backroom deal with Big Pharma and capitulation by the White House on the “public option” for healthcare, an option Obama repeatedly asserted, while campaigning, was essential to meaningful reform. (2) Abandonment of his pledge to close Gitmo; of his pledge to restore habeas corpus and to reverse the Bush administration’s intrusions on our privacy; of his pledge of transparency in government; of his pledge to “stand firm” against “entrenched monied interests” in Washington. And (3) a heartbreaking reversal of his commitment to seek a path toward peace through making peace, supplanted by expanded wars—hopeless, pointless wars—in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

If Obama had stood up to demand the promised changes from his presidential pulpit, his present calls to work would ring true. But Obama didn’t even try to “change the way Washington does business”; instead, through backroom deal-making and compliant Congressional politicking, he has delivered to us only half-measures or no measures at all. And I, for one, intend to return the favor.

The Generals are taking over the executive branch

Bob Woodward's latest book--Obama's Wars, on the shelves today--tells of the president's wrestling with his generals and military advisers to get some sense of a withdrawal schedule from the mess in Afghanistan. The generals, apparently, don't think much of Obama or his schedules. On top of that, here is, to me, an equal outrage: Petraeus laying out what has got to be a nonstarter for the Afghanis' negotiations with the Taleban, namely the latter's acceptance of the US-authored Afghan constitution and their disarmament. There's no way either of these is acceptable to the Taleban, no way toward a negotiated settlement of that ugly war.

Which is, of course, is precisely what Petraeus and the generals want: endless war.

A message to Chris Hedges...

Gee, Chris, why don't you say what you really mean?

I don't know about you, but

this news report about a US military campaign starting in Kandahar sounds exactly like the reports coming out of VietNam in the final years of our failed warmaking there.

Here is a set of interesting poll numbers, comparing European attitudes to American. Check out the disparity between them on the war in Afghanistan as well as on Obama's favorability. Odd incongruity, eh? Strong disapproval of "Obama's war" in Afghanistan across the pond, but strong approval of the president over there; whereas in the US the reverse is true. Whaddup?

I'm no computer geek, but

this mashup's too good not to pass on.

A thought about the first amendment

Some liberals are outraged at suggestions that the "ground zero mosque" shouldn't be built at the location that is proposed by its imam. "Freedom of religion" and "tolerance of first amendment exercise" are the cries. To argue that it should be built elsewhere sends to Muslims and others a signal that we are intolerant, say these liberals, whereas to allow it to be build near "ground zero" shows how tolerant we are and demonstrates our willingness to live up to our constitutional ideals regardless of the impact of the protected action on those who find it offensive.

At the same time, however, some of these same liberals are outraged at the exercise of free speech that inheres in that pastor's proposed burning of the Koran. "It will inflame Muslims; it will endanger the troops," are the cries.

So which is it? Is the pastor's action, undeniably protected by the first amendment, nevertheless to be condemned because of the effect it may have on some who witness it, whereas the mosque should not be moved notwithstanding the effect of the act on those who oppose its location? Is the propriety of exercise of first amendment freedoms--freedom of speech, exercise of religion, to assemble and to petition the government for redress--dependent on the reaction of those who oppose the exercise? Not in my America, it's not.

Take to the streets!

What does it take to stir up Americans? These aren't the issues the Teabaggers are talking about. They're real issues, affecting real people, now and well into the future. So...where's the outrage?

Why am I not surprised

that the medical insurance that's provided by employers--a staple of the fake "insurance reform" passed by Congress last spring--is costing employees more and is providing less coverage. It's all a fraud, this Obama-Care package; it plays directly into the hands of those who have no interest in cost-containment. The insurance companies simply increase their premiums to employers, and the employers simply pass those increases on to employees, as well as increasing the percentage of premiums they require employees to pay. This isn't universal health care: It's government funding of insurance companies, pure and simple.

A new beginning?

I'm looking into the possibility of starting a new political party named, inoffensively, The Progressive Party. I realize it wouldn't be the first party so named, but Teddy Roosevelt's central theme--populist reaction to corporate dominance of American politics and economics--ain't a bad idea, given the current state of affairs in the US.

And the idea of rolling back the multi-national corporate (and political) war on the working classes by means of international trade unions to challenge the power of international corporations ain't bad either.

I even have a slogan--a catchy one: "Workers of the world, unite!"

Telling it like it is

This piece by Christopher Cooper (his "bio" appears at the bottom) is brutally frank about Obama's position in history, and cleverly composed. I wish I'd written it.

Obama analyzed

I'm no Obama-lover, not any more. He, and his party, have disappointed me too often, and too seriously, for me ever to relent (or is it repent?) from my disgust at their governance. I will, however, refer readers of this blog to this month-old Frank Rich review of Jonathan Alter's book about Obama (Promise) because Rich (and, if I cared to read the book, Alter) do capture what's wrong with Obama's presidency and why, in my view, it's doomed to consist of but a single term of office.

The flaws they see in Obama--read the review--are, it seems to me, too ingrained in the man to be fundamentally changed. Obama's a creature of his culture--as varied as "his culture" at first blush appears--which holds to a view of America as historically blessed, fated to succeed by history and chance. He is too young, too immature in perspective, to see that America is no such thing. It's just another national gathering of folks who, like all such gatherings in history, are stupid, selfish and mean--doomed to be replaced by a later such gathering. He's too grounded in process--in political minutia and manipulation--to reach for the only chance he (or we) have to survive the present slide into the "dustbin of history." He is, after all, just another smart fellow, another fine politician. And that, my friends, just ain't gonna cut it anymore.

Finally---

Some good news.

Humane imprisonment, American style

Sensitive to the fasting rules of Ramadan, and with butterscotch flavoring no less.

Coming soon...

A grain bubble.

Letter to editor

Here's a letter to the editor of the News-Press that I emailed today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: The letter was published on August 18, 2010.

To the editor:

I read recently that Republicans are planning to make a campaign issue out of President Obama’s statements about the “ground zero mosque,” that is, that under the First Amendment to the Constitution Muslims have the same right to free exercise of religion as do persons of other religions, and that this includes the right to establish a place of worship wherever it is legally permissible to do so, as is the “ground zero” site. In effect, these Republicans wish to amend the first amendment, to make it applicable only to non-Muslim religions.

Many of these same Republicans have suggested repeal of the fourteenth amendment’s guarantee of U.S. citizenship to natural-born Americans, out of fear of a wave of illegal immigrants bearing “anchor babies.”

So, are we to understand that these Republicans—so-called “conservatives”—have now become radicals, demanding substantive change to two of the fundamental tenets of our founding documents? If so, I trust they’ll be honest enough to acknowledge their new-found status as revolutionaries—indeed, to shout it from the rooftops—as they attack their opponents in upcoming elections.

To which I say—quoting one of their recent leaders—“Bring it on.”