And while you’re tapping your toes to the Sam Cooke classic, remember, there’s still a State out there that needs smashing.
Category: Deep political thought
The bomb’s in your court, Congress
Well played by the wily Kenyan Mooslim socialist usurper. He dumped the whole Syria mess smack dab into the lap of Congress. If the situation weren’t so serious, I’d be laughing my ass off.
But asking Congress for permission to do something stupid is like shooting puppies at the pound — to wit, not exactly sporting. A guy can hardly miss. It’s harder to squeeze shit out of a colostomy bag.
This is going to be a living lesson in civics, a real physical (and mental) exam for the American body politic. The early smart money seems to think that the prez eventually gets the green light for this dumb idea, but I’m not so sure. The Rethugs hate his ass so much that they might just deny themselves the pleasure of sending a few other folks’ kids to the boneyard this time around. But hey, I’ve been wrong before.
Late updates
• Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog says Congress is like a dog that chases and catches a car, then has no idea what to do with it, calling Obama’s move “one of those terrific examples of good politics and good policy.”
• John Nichols at The Nation says: “This is as the founders intended when they wrote a Constitution that gives the power to declare war not to an all-powerful commander-in-chief but to an unwieldy Congress.”
• Kevin Drum at Mother Jones says: “Not only is this the right thing to do, but it also forces Congress to exercise its constitutional responsibilities, something they should spend more time doing and less time constantly squawking about.”
‘Limited’ warfare, my ass
Call me a knee-jerk pacifist, but where the hell is the upside in this?
The probability of a lot of the wrong people getting croaked seems high to me, as does the price tag for a nation that can’t seem to budget for much that doesn’t involve blowing shit up. The odds that a few cruise missiles will deter Syria’s further use of chemical weapons, meanwhile, strike me as poor.
As for such an attack shoring up our “credibility,” I’m not certain we still have any of that in this particular neck of the woods. And I’m getting a little tired of presidents dragging us into these things while the Congress plays with its pud.
The Nation‘s editors make their case against military intervention. The New York Times editorial board says Obama hasn’t made his case for such an attack. So far I’m with the naysayers on this one.
Thoughts?
Changing Dicks in midscrew
Lest we forget, 39 years ago yesterday Tricky Dick beat it for San Clemency, fleeing DeeCee like a rat out of an aqueduct.
I was working for my first daily paper, the Colorado Springs Sun, and at the ripe old age of 20 it seemed to me that Nixon would be our nadir, president-wise. But then I had no idea that Ronnie “Hollywood” Raygun and George Armstrong Bush (Lone Star Air Force, ret.) were waiting in the wings.
Sometimes I think we’d be better served by instituting a draft for public office. Selective service. Instead of pissing away a ton of time and money on elections, a cumbersome democratic process for which we are clearly ill-equipped, we dump everyone’s Social Security number into a big hopper, and on prime time come Election Day, some Vanna White type starts pulling ’em out.
Start low, with the U.S. House (because, really, does it get any lower than the U.S. House?), and then work your way up. The last number pulled gets to be president for four years. One take, no do-overs.
Since this would be a no-choice deal, we wouldn’t have to provide any perks to attract the “talent.” So away with the fat paychecks and pensions — employees in our three branches of government will be paid whatever the median wage happens to be at the time ($827 per week in the first quarter of 2013). Away with the primo health care that none of the rest of us gets. And no more unproductive downtime spent flatbacking for campaign cash. Beggary is unseemly, especially when one sees so little return on the investment.
Ditto the lucrative post-public-service lobbying gigs. This will be defined as treason and treated as such. Please to return at once to your regular job chucking spuds at strangers through drive-up windows, Senator, if you’re fortunate enough to still have it. (This would have the salutary effect of redirecting our lawmakers’ attention from the theatrical to the practical.)
Sure, even with a random lottery picking the leadership we’re still likely to get the occasional Anthony Penis in office, texting wiener pictures hither and yon. But with campaigning for election a thing of the past, at least we won’t have to endure endless reportage about his oh-so-tricky dick.
Little Boy at 68
Hell came to Hiroshima 68 years ago today.
My dad, who was flying C-47s out of in New Guinea at the time, said years afterward that he was convinced the U.S. nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to save his life and the lives of his comrades, arguing that carrying conventional warfare to the bitter end with an invasion of Japan’s home islands would have been a long, drawn-out and very bloody business.
Maybe so. Greg Mitchell at The Nation has his doubts, and suggests that the notion that prevailed in 1945 and for decades afterward — that nuclear weapons were simply another tool of modern warfare, one that could be used surgically if need be with few serious consequences — is a myth that persists today (see Israel v. Iran, et al.).
Kids today don’t enjoy the duck-and-cover drills that I took for granted as a child, or if they do, I haven’t heard about it. As a rabid consumer of apocalyptic fiction one of the first things I thought about our 1967 transfer from Randolph AFB outside San Antone to Ent AFB in Bibleburg was: “Holy shit. Cheyenne Mountain. Major Soviet target, right up there with the Pentagon and SAC at Offutt.” Ironically, one of the first houses we looked at was in Cheyenne Mountain School District 12. It had a bomb shelter, which would have been about as effective against a spread of SS-9s as the miniature parasol Wile E. Coyote deployed to deflect incoming boulders.
Today’s remote-control, push-button warfare mostly involves drones, but it’s still real people out there ducking, covering and dying. Whatever you think about what took place 68 years ago today, be sure to spare a thought for what might happen 68 minutes from now.
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