Victory in Iraq

It's clear from the terms of the "Status of Forces Agreement" that may (or may not) be accepted by Iraq's parliament that the US caved in so utterly that the SOFA has as much veracity as did Nixon's "peace with honor" speeches in the months before the helicopters lifted the last Americans off the roof of the US embassy in Saigon.

Not for the faint of heart

is this photo and essay about post-surge Iraq.

Just in case you weren't certain...

the US and UK invasion and occupation of Iraq were illegal under international law.

Advice for Obama

First, Don't pick Hillary for State. If you're leaning toward establishment types, choose Richardson for State, Hillary for AG (assuming she'd take it). Hillary would be great in the latter role--she can be a bulldog, a law-enforcer, bigtime--and from there she can go on the Supreme Court (Barack, you can make that part of the deal).

Second, make some announcements next week, then dribble them out in the succeeding weeks to keep the pot boiling. You're risking being thought of as "political" by maintaining this hands-off position during the transition. That is, some of us are beginning to feel that you're allowing Bush to stew in his juice as the economy implodes and the wars drag on, rather than doing something--anything--about these things. I mean, what about some specific proposals for the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress?

The words "hope" and "change" are more than campaign slogans: They're cries for help. Respond, Barack. Help us.

For a few laughs...

check out Cavett on Palin.

An uplifting film

Check out "Tony."

Now I know why I voted for this guy...

Check out this 2004 interview with Obama about his faith.

From the heart, and the heartland

America's prince of radio has spoken: Obama is one cool dude.

Reflections

Well, it's over. The election was long enough ago for some thoughts, as opposed to reactions, to come to my conscious. (It helped that in the interim I had two long drives over the Sonora/Mojave deserts, with Dylan on the stereo.)

First, the letdown. I had so much energy invested in the campaign and outcome that no amount of celebratory sensation could dissipate it, and so, like a balloon at the completion of its deflation, my body/mind sagged and shriveled. I spent the morning after the election watching postmortems on television and found myself barely able to pack my car to get out of the Las Vegas motel before checkout time. Then, while driving toward Tucson with no radio reception in my car, I listened to folk music CDs and got a dose of sobriety, realizing that we'd done this before: Forty-five years earlier, in August 1963, when Martin intoned about the dream, and we felt, for a few moments, that it was possible to reach the mountaintop. Well, we didn't then, and I felt unsure--sad, wise, conditioned--knowing how easily dreams can lead to rude awakenings.

Second, the resolve. I visited my daughter and her little daughter in Tucson and realized, fully, how deep a debt I've incurred by being lax in my contributions to the world they'll inhabit when I'm gone. I decided I'd better get busy cleaning up the place--its environment, its populace, its psyche.

Third, the calm. Really, I thought as I drove back to SB from Tucson, there's nothing magic in my revelations. What needed to be done has always been there, right in front of me: It's the next right thing, just as I'd always known.

Who'dathunkit?

She tries to hide it, but it's obvious: Condi's in love.

From Vegas with love

I'm in Las Vegas tonight. I spent a couple of days here during the Kerry campaign, and a couple of days here a month ago for Obama. Now, with the 2008 presidential election looming, I came over yesterday and today did eight hours of canvassing, with tomorrow, election day, being a critical GOTV ("get out the vote") day. We're assembling early on the north side of town (I mistakenly have taken a motel down near the strip, and so have a twenty-minute drive out to the site) where we'll get our marching orders from the incredibly competent, organized young folks who are Obama's ground staff. Today's canvassing consisted of going to various gated communities, spurring Democrats to make sure to vote, hanging door-hangers with election-site information on the homes where there was no one home, and leaving generalized information in the case of the homes of the less-committed. All according to perfected computerized charts and maps given to us by the aforementioned staff. Bottom line: Out of the fifty-plus homes we were told to visit, we perhaps caused two or three people to vote for Obama who might otherwise have slacked off.

My canvass-mate was a sweet, 18-year-old black girl who'd taken the day off from school to do this for Obama, after, she said, having "blown it off so many times before." The irony is that on this day when she'd decided finally to do it, Michelle Obama was attending her high school for a campaign appearance, so this task caused her to miss both that and a day's worth of classes.

Damn...

I wish I'd said this.

A dangerous game

This lengthy WaPo essay details the various steps Bush has taken, and may take, as he slides out the back door of the White House. Most dangerous: his latest expansion of US military power, to include military actions within foreign nations, allied with us and not, to "protect our interests." This is tantamount to a worldwide arms intrusion, casting aside all restraint on American aggression.

It's worse than an "October surprise," it's an eternal, international nightmare.

Can you imagine...

the level of news coverage this event would have raised in the US?

The unreported agony that is Iraq grinds on and on.

Another letter to the editor of the SB NewsPress

It's a shortie, in text and thought, but I couldn't resist. I'll update if it gets published.

To the editor:

Okay, I get it that it's sexist to mention, in the context of Sarah Palin's candidacy for Vice President, anything about "lipstick on a pig." But what I don't get is why, then, the Republican National Committee has deemed it proper to spend $150,000 on her wardrobe? Am I missing something?

Update: It was published in the News-Press, Sunday, October 26, 2008.

Don't ever say I didn't tell you

about this means of escaping the collapse of the American empire: Move to Sweden.

Surprise, surprise

With all the publications tripping over themselves to endorse Barack Obama lately, I've decided to join in: I favor Obama for president in 2008!

For a handy explication of the differences--sometimes more subtle than I'd like--between Obama's and McCain's views on American foreign policy, check out this essay. As to domestic policy, no contest.

I'm no economist

but I did take the course in college, using Samuelson's text; and I majored in Political Science and have followed politics and law all my life. And so, when the Nobel committee selects Paul Krugman for its annual award for economics, I know what it means: The United States government has been out of step with the economics of the civilized world since--when?--since Reagan.

Oh, wouldn't it be loverly...

If the US couldn't find a way to extort a Status of Forces Agreement out of Iraq's government before the expiration of its UN mandate on December 31. The US would then be, without any cover of international law or UN approval, an illegal occupier of a foreign nation. Any killings by US troops thereafter, I believe the law would say, would be murder; and those who ordered the occupation would, one would think, be culpable, just as culpable as Hitler was for the deaths that occured during Gemany's illegal occupations during WWII.

I'd paddle to the Hague to be inside the courtroom to watch the trial of Bush/Cheney on those charges. Hell, I'd even resuscicate my dusty old shingle if there was a one-in-a-hundred chance I could participate in the trial, if only to fill the prosecutor's water cup during final argument.

A new epithet for Bush

Comrade.