The blog of a North Country Swede!

Sunday, July 15, 2007

USA: The faster it goes, the wobblier it gets

The United States is like an unbalanced flywheel ... the faster it goes, the wobblier it gets.

It's not too hard to figure out why. We do not have anything close to a singular cultural narrative of existence. Political compromise does not put us back in balance, it simply allows us to go faster.

That is the plain, simple fact after listening to the former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, commenting on Michael Moore and his new documentary on the healthcare crisis here in the USA, Sicko—and then going to watch Sicko. Huckabee is quoted as saying: “Michael Moore is an example of why the health care system costs more in this country.” —Ref: The Caucus, Political Blogging from the NY Times, July 11, 2007, 6:09 PM.

We have so many conflicting narratives of existence that significant groups of people believe in as the gospel truth ... from to Catholics, to Charismatic & Rapture Christians, to Jews, to Mormons, to Southern Baptists ... to fundamentalists, to neocons, to one-worlders, to racists, to Zionists ... (to list a smattering of examples) ... compromise does NOT foster cohesion, it simply builds the power of another group, the Politicians in service of the Corporatists.

The problem with an unbalanced flywheel going faster and faster, it self-destructs.

We are watching ourselves fall apart. Mostly because the driver, George W., doesn't want to take his foot off the accelerator lest he be labeled a wimp. And the power elite is so intent on preserving their hold on wealth and power that they are willing to drive off the cliff.

This is the ultimate game of chicken.

To mix metaphors.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

In Iraq we are playing evolution's fool

By not recognizing that our involvement in Iraq is an occupation and not a war of good versus evil, we are in an unwinnable struggle ... to echo—once again—Robert Ardrey's prescient comments regarding the Vietnam War. I wrote the following post in December, 2004.

(See December, 2004 archive)

Thursday, December 23, 2004
Letter to the New York Times Editor

Dear Editor:

Decades ago in the midst of the Vietnam War, Robert Ardrey wrote this in his bestseller, THE SOCIAL CONTRACT (my Fontana Library paperback edition was first issued in 1972):

"I was writing early in 1966, when escalation of American power in Vietnam was less than a year old and American optimism was still a native resource. Applying the territorial principle, I published my conclusion that the war was unwinnable. A powerful intruder, uninhibited by world censure, may with a single blow annihilate a territorial defender. But an effort to escape moral obloquy through gradual escalation of force gives the weakest defender opportunity to escalate his own quite incalculable biological resources. Incapable of playing the Hitler, we played instead evolution's fool."

We haven't learned a thing, have we? Once again we are fighting human nature with the fervor kindled by a religious belief. We are attacking our own mirror image!

Think for a moment of how we would rally to the barricades if we were attacked! Is it so strange that the Sunni's are doing the same thing?

Ten, twenty years from now even children will wonder how supposedly smart leaders could have been so dumb.

Regards,

N.C. Swede

Other books of interest on the subject of the biological basis of human society are:

African Genesis

The Territorial Imperative

The Social Contract

Thursday, July 12, 2007

The Battle of Iraq ...

President Bush (the 43rd)referred to the Battle of Iraq in his speech today ...

Made me wonder if he has ever seen the film The Battle of Algiers, "a 1966 black-and-white film by Gillo Pontecorvo based on events during the 1954-1962 Algerian War of Independence against French rule." -wikipedia.

First off, George W. has yet to understand that it is not a "war", it is an occupation. And where you might win a "war", you can not "win" an occupation. You start, continue, and end occupations.

Bush really is incompetent, you know. I mean ... like ... REALLY incompetent.

That's not so bad for a rich kid rancher cutting brush in Texas ... but ... president of the USA?

It's absurd, isn't it? I mean ... think about it.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Executions not excessive, but prison is ...

Juxtaposition George W. as President commuting Scooter Libby's prison term as excessive in relation to George W. as Governor (of Texas) failing to commute egregious execution sentences. Quoting from a letter from a reader to the Editor in today's (Wednesday, July 4, 2007) NY Times regarding the Texas cases:

Some of these inmates had been represented by lawyers who slept during trials. Some were mentally retarded. Some were juveniles at the time they committed the crime for which they were sentenced to death.

In all these cases, Governor Bush refused to commute their sentences, saying that the inmates had had full access to the judicial system.

Or has Arianna Huffington wrote in her blog post for July 3:
You know, someone like George Bush, who, as Governor of Texas, said: "I don't believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own, unless there are new facts or evidence of which a jury was unaware, or evidence that the trial was somehow unfair." And none of those exceptions applied in this case.
It has become obvious that George W. has no core principles operating in support of equal justice under the law.

On this day, the 4th of July, it would be good for us to reacquaint ourselves with the works of John Adams—one of our nation's founders (our 1st Vice-President under George Washington and 2nd President with Thomas Jefferson as Vice-President)—on the responsibilities of leaders in a republic to protect the inalienable rights of its people ... equally.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Ah yes, Cheney and Bush ... Bush and Cheney

Am I having fun or what?

According to StatCounter (my web statistics service), someone accessed my "We should be ashamed of Cheney" post from a General Services Administration computer on June 27, 2007. I immediately emailed my two U.S. Senators --- Lautenberg and Menendez --- asking if I should be concerned.

Here's the www.statcounter.com data:

---------------------------------------------
host.159-142-201-43.gsa.gov (General Services Administration) [Label IP Address]

Maryland, Clinton, United States, 0 returning visits

Date Time WebPage

27th June 2007 16:22:55 www.google.com/search?q=jon stewart daily show transcript june 25 2007&hl=en&start=10&sa=N
www.ncswede.blogspot.com/

27th June 2007 16:23:13 www.ncswede.blogspot.com/
ncswede.blogspot.com/2007/06/we-should-be-ashamed-of-cheney.html

27th June 2007 16:23:45 www.google.com/search?q=jon stewart daily show transcript june 25 2007&hl=en&start=10&sa=N
www.ncswede.blogspot.com/
---------------------------------------------

Continuing with the fun --- this time from foresight --- Maureen Dowd wrote in her column today --- Sunday, July 1 --- "Tears on My Pillow" on the OpEd pages of the NY Times:

“Why doesn’t anybody like me anymore, Daddy?” he [George W.] keens. “Man, I miss Tony. My Iraq poodle left me with a porcupine. And I can’t believe my own Republicans crossed me on the immigration bill. Now my Mexican buddies from Midland are saying, ‘AdiĆ³s, Jorge.’ Vice doesn’t even want to be in the same branch of government as me. Where is Dick, by the way?”

His mother steps briskly up to the door. “Now listen, Georgie,” Barbara says. “We didn’t invite Dick. He’s not our kind. He has utterly ruined your presidency. There’s a Washington Post series I want you to read. I’ve put it in the kitchen by your bowl of Cookie Crisps. It explains all about how Dick played you for a fool on everything from Iraq to capital gains. He set up the West Wing paper flow in a way that undermined your goals and advanced his. He let you act like you were the Decider, dear, when you were really just the Dupe.”

W. howls, “Dick promised me I would never be a wimp and now I’m a wimp!”

Here is what I wrote to Paul Mulshine (my favorite columnist with the NJ Star-Ledger) on October 27, 2005:
I think the Bush #41 Globalists (CIA'ers, Military, etc.) were so upset with the Cheney Neocons and their idiotic (insane!) strategy in the Middle East--and their manipulation of Bush #43 to implement it--that the Globalists have been plotting how to bury the Neocons ever since Colin was fooled into giving that UN speech.

Behind the brouhaha are the contending egos of powerful men ... testosterone in play on Mount Olympus. And to the Globalists, the outing of a secret agent was (is) high treason. Cheney didn't realize what he set in play by directing/encouraging the exposure of Valerie Plame in retaliation for Joe Wilson's arrogant opposition to the Neocons Middle East strategy. Cheney exposed his Achilles Heel to the Globalists. Guess what? The Globalists hit the mark.

I think Mama Bush (Babs) is going to have to convince the kid (Bush #43) to clean house in order to preserve Jeb's chances at the Presidency. And the Globalists will have to pile it on the Neocons to corner the kid into listening to his mother.

Like someone posted somewhere, this is Shakespearean in its melodrama!

I love it!