Myth Busting: “In Search Of…” 1970’s “Global Cooling” hype.
While Washington D.C. and the surrounding area attempts to dig itself out from under “The Snow-pocolypse”, Global Warming deniers are back at it again, pointing to it and the unusually blizzardly (pardon the new word) Winter we’ve been having… mixed in with last Falls “leaked Climate-Gate emails” as PROOF that “Global Warming” is actually a giant fraud (or, according to Utah State-Representative Mike Noel, a secret plot by Liberals aimed at “population control”… because Republicans are SO concerned about Liberal attempts to suppress the number of brown people in the world… unless they think “Global Warming” exists everywhere EXCEPT the United States. Nah. That can’t be it.)
The DailyKOS released a poll last week echoing what we’ve all known for quite sometime now: these people are NUTS! But the KOS poll left out one CRUCIAL question IMHO: Level of Education. Because I’m certain if you asked, the less educated you are, the more likely you are to be a Right-wing loon with ridiculous views. (One corollary to this rule… the richer you are, the easier it is for a dumb person to graduate from a prestigious school… eg: Dubya attending both Harvard and Yale.)
Anyway, back on topic:
Climate Change deniers love to cite “1970’s hysteria” over “Global Cooling” and articles written at the time predicting “the coming ice age”. Conservative columnist George Will loves pointing to “Global Cooling” reports in the ’70s frequently as a way to ridicule “Climate Change” science today. That’s a bit like ridiculing The Internet today because Bill Gates once called it “a passing fad” in his 1995 book “The Road Ahead” (or was it during a Presser for “MSN: The Microsoft Network” that same year?).
I personally am old enough to remember claims of “the coming ice age” in the 70’s. I remember reading an except in Readers Digest about The Great Blizzard of 1888, where over 4′ of snow (40″-50″ inches) fell in the space of one week over New York, New Jersey, and parts of Connecticut. That was but one example given as “proof” the Earth was cooling and we were headed for another ice age (“every 10,000 years” they claimed, thus we were due.)
So I did a little research regarding these “Global Cooling” claims in the 1970’s and found some fascinating stuff.
One of my favorite TV shows in the 70’s was “In Search Of…”, a weekly 1/2 hour pseudo-science series hosted by Leonard Nimoy (of Star Trek fame… which pre-dated me). Among topics like the search for Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, Season Two included an episode entitled “The Coming Ice Age”, of which I found a copy online on the Usenet (binary newsgroups. Don’t ask me to explain). The entire basis for the “Global Cooling” argument consisted almost entirely of anecdotal evidence:
First broadcast in May of 1978, I watched the entire episode (twice) listening for their “proof” upon which they were basing their claims. “Canada, the Northern United States, and much of Europe were buried under a two mile thick sheet of ice some 18 thousand years ago”, Leonard remarks. “The world’s population has flourished to over 5 billion people during this interval of abnormal warmth“, we are told. Presumably, a warm Earth just isn’t natural. So another “ice age” is therefore inevitable.
“Proof”? Forgedaboudit. “Evidence”? There was none to be found. No facts. The “coming ice age” was simply a foregone conclusion.
The only evidence the program presented to support the claim were “Ice cores” drilled in the Antarctic supposedly showing that “89,000 years ago” there was “a sudden and abrupt change in the climate…” resulting in “widespread freezing occurring with dramatic suddenness.” How did this happen? One scientist theorizes that “volcanic activity” put enough ash into the atmosphere to block enough sunlight to cause an ice age.
As to why we should expect this to happen again…? “We’re due.” We are told repeatedly in the program that there have been “eight ice ages” in our history, and “we know how long between each ice age”, therefore, “we’re due”.
And THAT, dear reader, was the extent of the “Global Cooling” science in 1978. Not years of temperature data from around the globe showing a gradual drop in yearly average temperatures, or even photographic evidence of increased ice accumulation or growing glaciers (though the scientist in vid#2 did claim to have evidence the Greenlandic glacier he studies is/was still growing “100 years ago”). No, the entire argument was simply: “we’re due”.
The “volcanic ash blocking the sun” argument supporting “global cooling” gained the most traction in the late 70’s when “volcanic ash” was replaced with “pollution from cars, trucks and factories”. The argument at that time was that “all that pollution would block the sun, reflect the heat and cause the next ice age.” They were observing the same phenomena we see today and drawing the exact opposite conclusion. But the fact air pollution had the power to affect global temperatures was evident even then.
One prescient climatologist towards the end does warn that attempts to “fix” Global Cooling could backfire and cause more trouble than it solves:
The remaining half of the program was dedicated to describing the consequences an ice-age would have on the United States. Not providing evidence demonstrating that the climate curve was bending downwards.
Today it’s the “Snowpocolypse” or “Snomageddon” as some places are calling it, tongue planted firmly in cheek. A record breaking snowstorm has struck the North East! A snowstorm! In the middle of Winter no less! Finally, the proof “Global Cooling” advocates have been longing for since the 1970’s!
…unless, of course, you factor in El Niño… the notorious warm-water formation off the Pacific coast of South America, which is being blamed for the increase in moisture that is dumping all this snow on the North East.
Oops! Sorry Climate-Change deniers. Once again, reality tracks mud all over your nice shiny picture of reality.
(UPDATE: A more scientific look into the “Global Cooling Myth” can be found here at “RealClimate.org”. Thanks to DU’s “Dead Parrot” for the link.)
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GOP: The Party of Lawlessness. Four Decades of Criminal Behavior.
I‘m probably not telling you anything that hasn’t crossed your mind already, but sometimes we just need to say things out loud for them to sink in: For all their talk about “patriots” and “love of America”, the GOP really HAS become a party with a total lack of respect for the law (apologies to Sheriff Buford T. Justice).
Two recent events helped put a punctuation mark on this: the arrest of Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe, and the recent decision by the Conservative-controlled Supreme Court overturning over 100 years of precedent regarding “corporate campaign contributions”, giving Corporations… even foreign owned ones… the same First Amendment rights as American citizens.
Now, you’d be perfectly justified in thinking me brain-dead if only now, after eight years of Bush & Cheney’s law breaking, I was just beginning to realize Republicans have no respect for the law. But The Bush Years were mere straws on the camels back. This has been going on for decades.
The O’Keefe break-in, where he and three friends (two of whom dressed as telephone repairmen) accessed Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in an apparent attempt to bug her telephone, has been dubbed “Little Watergate”, referring to Nixon’s botched break-in/bugging of the National Democratic headquarters in 1972. So now we’re looking at a 38 year history of Republican disregard for the Rule of Law. (You’re excused if you don’t know too much about this story, as there has been a near media-blackout regarding it. O’Keefe’s first “story”, a questionable and highly edited condemnation of a select few ACORN workers suggesting things they shouldn’t have, made ALL the major networks. And Fox turned O’Keefe into a minor celebrity. Flash forward a few months to his arrest last week, and it’s “O’Keefe who?”)
Republicans LOVE to preach to others about law & order… citing it frequently in the late 90’s as the justification for impeaching Bill Clinton over something as trivial as lying about having an affair with a young intern. The argument was that “the affair itself is irrelevant. He lied about the affair UNDER OATH, and therefore is guilty of a Federal crime” (the reason “the affair itself was irrelevant” is because several of President Clinton’s chief critics, including House Speaker Newt Gingrich and prominent Senator Henry Hyde were BOTH having extra-marital affairs and publicly lying about it at the time. But neither had to testify to that fact “under oath”. Lucky for them.)
Vice President Dick Cheney outed an undercover CIA Agent (obliterating an entire undercover operation dedicated to monitoring Iran’s nuclear weapons program, jeopardizing the lives of all involved) because her husband called him out for lying about Iraq’s WMD capabilities in the New York Times. His Chief of Staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted of “obstruction of justice” while investigating the outing of said CIA Agent.
President Bush’s chief adviser and campaign guru Karl Rove decided for himself that he (and Bush’s personal lawyer Harriet Myers) could ignore subpoenas ordering them to testify before a Senate inquiry regarding their role in the outing of CIA Agent Plame. Since nether bothered to show, and the Democratic Congress seems unwilling to press the issue, we may never know what role they played (I would add “if any”, but there is no question… by his own admission… that Rove played a role.)
In 1987, Ronald Reagan… the heart & soul of today’s Republican Party… testified “I can’t remember” 57 times (or was it over 100?) during the Iran/Contra hearings, where it was finally concluded that St. Ronnie really had traded “arms for hostages”:
REAGAN (videotape, 3/4/87): A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true. But the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.
And just when, during the Reagan presidency, were Americans being “held hostage” you might ask? They weren’t. They are referring to the “Iranian hostage crisis” of 1979-81 leading up to the 1980 election. The details are still unclear, but apparently Reagan and his team made a deal with Iran to free the American hostages in exchange for weapons, should Reagan become President, to fight against U.S.-backed Saddam Hussein in their war with Iraq (playing both sides, how unlike them). Upon Reagan’s swearing-in on Jan. 20, 1981, the deal was assured and Iran freed the hostages. Then, as President, Reagan diverted weapons earmarked for the “Contra” rebels in Nicaragua (whom he branded “freedom fighters” with the full backing of the United States) to Iran as promised by their deal. By the time the Reagan Administration was over in 1989, 132 Reagan administration officials had either been indicted or subjects of either “misconduct” or outright “criminal” investigations.
Speaking of “criminal investigations”, who can forget Kyle Sampson, the Chief of Staff for Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales pleading “I don’t remember” 122 times before a Congressional investigation into the illegal firing of eight (Wiki says “seven”) federal prosecutors in December of 2006 because they wouldn’t do the Bush Administrations bidding to pursue frivolous prosecutions of Democrats engaged in close mid-term election races.
The Bush Administration was certainly a high-water mark for skirting the Rule of Law, from warrantless wiretaps of American citizens, the use of torture to extract information from “enemy combatants” held in legal limbo at Gitmo, “free-speech zones”, suspending Habeas Corpus for American citizens accused of “terrorism”, crafting the “Patriot Act” that gave them sweeping unconstitutional powers hurried through in the wake of the attacks on 9/11, not to mention the illegality of the invasion of Iraq itself (hearkening back to Kissinger’s illegal invasion of Cambodia in 1969).
But I’m not looking here to rehash all the crimes of the Bush Administration specifically.
This week also saw the conviction of Scott Roeder, the Right-wing Anti-abortion extremist that murdered Dr. George Tiller… or, if you live in Mankato, MN, it was Doctor Tiller who was convicted in his own murder according to their headline: “Tiller Convicted in Abortion Doctor’s Murder“. Dumb mistake or Freudian slip? I’ll let you decide.
Roeder proudly regaled his crime for the jury, making his conviction all but certain (this was Kansas after-all). “Justifiable homicide” seems to be a recurring theme on the Rabid-Right, or hadn’t you noticed? But so is “blinding fear of the outside world”.
After weeks of Republican outcries over the “insanity” of putting accused terrorists “on trial like common criminals”, the Obama Administration finally relented on trying alleged 9/11 mastermind “KSM” in New York City at the request of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. To his credit, Bloomberg did not back down in response to Right-wing pressure against trying “terrorists” inside the United States, instead citing “rising costs” and “logistics” making such a trial there impractical. If I had my guess, I’d say the rising complication of holding the trial in NYC is more due to RW crazies protesting the trial and possibly threatening the courthouse with “bomb threats” than any alleged fear of “terrorist reprisals”. (THINK: these people have been in Gitmo for eight years. How many attempted terrorist attacks have there been on that facility?)
I received a RW email chain letter last week suggesting that the reason President Obama was so eager to try/convict terrorists in civilian court was to avoid having to personally sign their death warrant (presumably because he’s “a fellow Muslim”) vs conviction via military tribunal. I responded with a lengthy reply pointing out how, after World War II, we put the Nazi’s on trial, publicly, before cameras and on radio. We gave them lawyers and even allowed them to take the stand where they could “spout their Nazi propaganda”. Suddenly, 60+ years later, we’re all frightened children that cower in fear over the idea of letting an accused terrorist hang themselves with their own words on the stand? Sorry, I don’t get that. No, instead, these “Rule of Law” Republicans prefer “military tribunals” conducted in secrecy where hearsay and “confessions” obtained through torture are admitted as evidence.
Rush Limbaugh once called drug abuse “abhorrent behavior” on his radio show, and that those who wish to “legalize drugs” should go “to London and Zurich”, before it was discovered that Limbaugh himself was a degenerate drug abuser, using his maid to buy his illegal drugs for him.
You must understand. To Republicans, law breakers are degenerate scum with no respect for “America, for which it stands”… until it’s THEM at odds with the law, and then suddenly it’s “liberal activism” obstructing them, and therefore the law can be ignored, giving them a clean conscious. It’s how two Supreme Court justices can swear to uphold “precedent” and “not legislate from the bench” one day, and overturn 103 years of precedent the next. It’s how a “documentary filmmaker” can don disguises and engage in likely criminal (certainly dishonest) behavior in the name of “exposing criminal behavior” without a hint of irony. It’s how a man can proudly defend murdering a doctor he accuses of “murdering babies”. It is how Republican critics of “illegal immigration” can employ undocumented workers with a clear conscious. It’s how indicted felon and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay can appear on “Dancing with the Stars” without an ounce of shame. And it is how the Fox Opinion Channel can call itself a “News” organization with a straight face.
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The True Lesson of the Brown Win: the voters want a KISS
E=MC2: Energy equals Mass times the Speed of Light squared; the mathematical equation at the heart of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. One of the most complex mathematical theorems ever devised, reduced to an equation so simple that even Sarah Palin’s probably heard of it. And it is BECAUSE it is so simple that it’s lauded to this day. It’s the formula that explains both how the atomic bomb works, and how all matter is based on nothing but particles of energy.
“Keep It Simple, Stupid.” Wiser words were probably never spoken. People don’t like complexity. Republicans REALLY don’t like complexity. That’s why they voted for George W. Bush, Sarah Palin… and lest we forget the father of Republican Stupidity, former VP Dan Quayle (1989-1993). If you’re smart, they call you “an elitist”. And Democrats know oh so well that the more complicated things get, the less popular they become (see: Obama’s poll numbers).
There’s a word for government over-complication. We call it “bureaucracy”. When we think of “bureaucracy”, we think of filing our taxes, waiting in line at the DMV, or filling out hours of tedious government paperwork. We DON’T want “health care” to join that mental list. No one likes bureaucracy. And when government programs get complicated, they become “bureaucracies”.
The OPPOSITE of “bureaucracy” is “simplicity”.
The health care debate is one of those ideas that started out simple… cheap health insurance from the government… and was allowed to be edited, “tweaked”, patched and mangled into a bureaucratic nightmare that even many Democrats don’t support… and they said so with 19% of them voting for Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election last week. As the Sunday shows pointed out yesterday, 75% of MA voters polled “want Scott Brown to work WITH Democrats on health care” to craft a new bill, not kill it entirely. And Brown himself, while opposing the Senate health care bill, NEVER criticized “Romney-care” (Massachusetts’ miserable, costly, fully-privatized public health care system), which Brown voted for. Nor did he come out in opposition to government-mandated health care.
I’ve mentioned before on here that I attended one of those Republican “Town Halls” last August… held in a funeral home… where the crowd was rabidly anti-government involvement in health care (yet equally protective of Medicare). Yet to my surprise, the guy calling me a “Commie” and accusing the president of “wanting to turn the country into Cuba” advocated (on his own, with no prompting from me) “simply opening up the existing Medicare system to everyone, rather than create a new government bureaucracy.” Simple. Easy to understand. People are already familiar with it, and Republicans have actually run ads and mailed (me) fliers vowing to protect it.
Keep It Simple, Stupid. Push through a bill “allowing ANYONE to buy into Medicare” using Budget Reconciliation (51 votes) and move on to concentrating on Jobs and The Economy. An entire year WASTED, with voters angrier than ever, with BOTH sides unhappy with the Frankenstein health care bill(s) coming out of Congress that promise to cover fewer and fewer people, full of sweet-heart deals that have turned the entire process into a laughing stock.
We keep hearing supporters say “pass anything” and “we’ll fix the problems later”. But the problems DON’T get fixed. This country turns “inefficiency” into major industries. We don’t fix the tax code, we build an entire industry around companies to file your taxes for you. We don’t reform health insurance billing practices, we create companies whose sole job it is is to handle Medical Billing. Even the internal combustion engine… a marvel of inefficiency with al its moving parts and dependency on dirty and increasingly rare fossil fuels… is functionally unchanged since its inception over 100 years ago. As long as someone profits from a particular inefficiency or loophole, there’ll be someone fighting to keep it. And with the recent horrendous Supreme Court ruling giving corporations… many of them foreign owned… near unlimited power to influence our elections, rest assured wasteful, costly, bureaucratic health care reform, once installed, will remain unchanged for decades to come.
If you’re comfortable with “fixing the problems later”, you shouldn’t have a problem with the “Medicare buy-in” proposal. Sure it doesn’t cover “everyone” right away, only “those who can afford it”, but currently, neither do the bills in either the House or Senate (including recent talk of stripping “pre-existing coverage requirements” from “all” down to just “children“). But the bill with the greatest chance of bringing those costs down sooner rather than later is the Medicare buy-in. The bill that is likely to see the LEAST Conservative opposition and the most support among Republican voters is the “buy-in”. The infrastructure is already in place. The bill can be passed in time for President Obama’s State of the Union on Wednesday, and he can then move on to focusing on jobs and the economy like most voters feel he needs to.
An entire year wasted. Another 3 million jobs lost since the inauguration one year ago, and the number of angry voters on the rise rather than the decline.
Another example of bureaucracy getting in the way of simple solutions: using the Stimulus to create Green jobs. The money isn’t being spent and much of which is being spent is being wasted. Instead, people hear about “bailing out Wall Street” while “Goldman/Sachs hands out $16.2 Billion in bonuses“. And they’re getting angry. Angry voters don’t re-elect incumbents.
Here’s a KISS idea: spend part of the Stimulus to “green-ify” millions of Federal office buildings across the United States. Solicit a contract for 5 million hybrid postal delivery vehicles that only (the struggling) U.S. automakers can bid on. Create tens of thousands of new “Green jobs” literally overnight… jobs that develop skills that workers can take to their next job. Building infrastructure that will return value to the country for decades to come while saving the government money on energy costs, all while helping the environment. Simultaneously forcing Republican opponents to campaign against the government creating jobs… that’ll go over with voters like peanutbutter-tunafish-pudding come November… or… seeing the obvious disadvantage to such opposition, might actually result in Republicans voting FOR spending Stimulus funds to create jobs. Imagine that! The bi-partisanship President Obama so deeply craves finally satisfied! But, even if they don’t, this too can be pushed through with just 51 votes using “budget reconciliation”. (And if you’re one of those people concerned with the abuse of “budget reconciliation” by its over use, I direct you to THIS GRAPH.)
It’s all just a matter of “keeping it simple”. Because no one likes “complexity”. When people are frustrated, the majority always loses because they have more seats to lose. It’s not a “rejection” of Democratic policies as much as a demonstration of “frustration” with the lack of progress.
If there’s one lesson President Obama should take away from the Scott Brown victory in MA, it’s Keep It Simple, Stupid! It worked for Albert Einstein!
| UPDATE: New petition added (see link on left): Create tens of thousands of green jobs that build new job skills for less than the cost of one bank bailout. Isn’t this how we all thought the Stimulus was going to be spent in the first place? |
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Might Coakley’s Loss Become a Democratic Victory?
January 20th. A Democratic win with the inauguration of President Obama, and one year later, the loss of a key Democratic seat in the Senate. Arguably, two victories for frustrated Democrats.
Liberals like myself have been frustrated by President Obama’s inexplicable need to court Conservatives to pass health care reform with 60 votes in the Senate. The result has been compromise after compromise, a watering down of any true health insurance reform while making unconscionable backroom deals with the likes of Bill Nelson and Joe Lieberman, while the most simple and effective solution: “Medicare for all” was all but ignored in a desperate attempt to reach 60 votes.
On ABC’s “This Week” last Sunday, guest panelist Tucker Carlson (sans bowtie) repeated the Conservative meme that “Democrats in the Senate have 60 votes. Everything that comes out of Washington… they own it.” Of course, this is absolute nonsense (as I’ve repeatedly pointed out), with Lieberman and the Blue Dogs (not a pop music group) obstructing every vote, Democrats have had no more than 52-53 reliable Progressive votes to pass anything. Meanwhile, Conservatives have turned being an “obstructionist” into an art form.
And now with no chance of achieving 60 votes for anything, maybe President Obama will FINALLY give up on trying to get 60 votes for everything, and pass health care reform with a STRONG public option using “budget reconciliation” (requiring only 51 votes).
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, filling in for Keith Olbermann on “Countdown”, suggested that a win for Brown could seriously screw up the GOP’s mid-term election agenda. Why? Because they hope to run on “repealing” everything passed by the Democratically controlled congress… healthcare, tax increases, etc. And how do you run on “repeal” if the programs never pass to begin with?
Losing Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, a seat that he held for over 40 years, to a Republican so soon after his death is seriously disappointing, but the fact candidate Chris Brown ran from the label “Republican” like a GOP leper colony, not even using the word on his website, demonstrates that the label “Republican” is still toxic in parts of the country. Voters may be frustrated with Democrats, but Brown’s “win” isn’t exactly a victory for Republicans (though, of course, they’ll try their best to spin it that way… aided by the MSM… for weeks to come.)
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When did “Republican” become this nations fall-back position?
It’s 2010, an “election year”, and as the Sunday News Shows were “eager” to point out, “two prominent Democratic Senators are retiring, Chris Dodd (CT) and Byron Dorgan (ND)”. Suddenly, the Democrats “Super-Majority” is in question. Really? As DNC Chairman Tim Kaine pointed out on several shows Sunday morning, while two Democratic Senators are retiring, SIX Republican senators are retiring. Did the pundits ask if Republicans were worried about becoming even more marginalized than they already are? No. They simply noted how “historically”, the party that retakes the White House “typically” loses seats in the following mid-term election.
So, naturally, after huge Democratic wins in 2006 and 2008 because Republicans were driving this country into a ditch, the country must be ready to “give up” on Democrats because they haven’t undone the monumental damage of the past 8 years in just three. Why? “Because history shows us”. Ignore the fact that a Republican president with Republican Congress doubled the national debt in just six years (after being handed a balanced budget), mired the country in two Trillion-dollar wars with no exit strategy, created an economy that was shedding over 700,000 jobs and 1000 stock-points a month by the time Bush left office less than one year ago, and then dumped the entire mess in the lap of Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress… ignore all that because “history shows us” that the country typically turns back to the people they voted out en masse to bail them out just two years into a new presidency.
Republicans are the Party that dug this hole we’re in. And now that we’re finally starting to see the top and almost out, are we really going to reach out to the guys with the shovels to pull us out? And yet somehow, the “Media” keeps telling us “this is a center-Right nation” (despite all evidence to the contrary) and when Democrats “fail” to fix everything overnight, the country will naturally gravitate back to the Republican Party.
How did “Republican” become this country’s “fall back” position in elections? It has seemed to me for quite a while that voters are very quick (too quick imho) to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt and have very little patients with Democrats. Yet, as CNN’s Chris Mathews so delicately pointed out last week, “What has the Republican Party done for the country in the last 20 years?” (cue: crickets).
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Ronald Reagan quadrupled the national debt in his eight years from $1T when he came in to $4T when he left. Bush-41 added another $1T in his four years. Clinton, for all his *personal* faults, shrank the debt, balanced the budget and left a surplus. “Dubya” then turned that surplus into the biggest deficit in history and more than *doubled* the National Debt by adding another $5T to it in under seven years. And now, all the Republican “teabaggers” screaming about “spending” never said “boo” in the eight years Bush-43 and the (six year) Republican controlled Congress ran up all this debt and destroyed the economy. Add to that his violations of the Constitution, warrantless wiretaps, “free-speech zones” and suspension of Habeas Corpus for American citizens, only to have these same Republicans apoplectic, claiming President Obama wants to turn this country into “the Soviet Union” because he wants to reform health insurance. One bright spot in this economy? Gun sales. All the gun nuts are stockpiling as many weapons as they can get their hands on “before President Obama tries to take their guns away” despite not introducing one single piece of gun control legislation since taking office. In fact, “gun control” was not even discussed on the campaign trail if memory serves. But you know who WAS a threat to gun ownership? George W. Bush and his “Patriot Act” that gave the government the right to invade your home without a warrant and seize your property… including/especially guns… without telling you they’ve done so or even providing you with a way to get them back. That seems very much like the kind of thing they accuse Democrats of wanting to do. But a Democrat didn’t do it, a Republican did. And did you see huge angry mobs of NRA members picketing the White House protesting the Bush Administration? No, of course not. Because (to them), President Bush “was one of them”.
And now, some people are actually considering putting Republicans back in power to undo the damage they themselves caused? How stupid are we?
It wasn’t always this way. When the economy collapsed in 1929 in the wake of rampant real-estate speculation with no regulation (sound familiar?), it elected Franklin Roosevelt, a Progressive Democrat, in 1932 to undo the damage. Four years later, in 1936, the economy was still a mess. Double-digit unemployment, people standing in soup-lines, but did the nation rush back to the Republican Party to rescue them? No, they re-elected FDR because they saw signs of progress. By the end of FDR’s second term (1940), The Great Depression was over (I hope to post video proof of this in coming weeks) and the country was strong enough to fight two wars (Germany & Japan) following the attack on Pearl Harbor nearly two years later.
But today, now that President Obama hasn’t undone 28 years of Conservative mayhem in just 12 months, we’re taking polls on whether people are ready to rush back to the people that created this mess in the first place??? The pundits argue that with huge majorities in both the House & Senate, everything that comes out of Washington is entirely the Democrats doing and Republicans are blameless.
As I’ve pointed out on here before, Democrats really haven’t had a “super-majority”. Between the 6 Conservative “blue-dogs” that vote like Republicans on taxes, healthcare, and stimulus spending, plus GOP mole Joe Lieberman who sits in on DNC meetings so he can then report back to his RNC masters everything that was said, at best Democrats have had only 52-53 semi-reliable Progressive votes in the Senate. And the lack of the classic “stand-up filibuster” means every vote of consequence now requires an unconstitutional 60 vote super majority (interesting link. It’s to a 2003 WSJ op/ed accusing Democrats of abusing the filibuster to block Supreme Court nominee Miguel Estrada. My how times change. – UPDATE: Mother Jones just released an article on the unconstitutionality of the sit-down filibuster.) RNC Chairman Michael Steele is currently promoting his new book subtitled: “12 Steps to Defeating the Obama Agenda”. Yes, Steele really did use an “Alcoholics Anonymous” metaphor to describe the Republican Party. And yes, the book is all about how “The Party of ‘No’” needs to say “No” more often rather than offer an alternative positive agenda of their own.
I ask again… how did “Republican” become this nations fall-back position?
Postscript: Because it is such an amazing example of Republican hypocrisy as well as an incredibly insightful piece of journalism, and has some bearing on what I’ve been saying above, this recent expose from The Rachael Maddow Show should serve as a clear reminder why we don’t want these people back in control of the government again:
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Stating the Obvious: Terrorist Activity Has Risen in Sync with Troop Increases in Afghanistan
Sometimes, someone just needs to point out the obvious: As the number of troops in Afghanistan has gone up, so has terrorism.
The past two weeks, we’ve seen a marked increase in the amount of terrorist activity focused on the U.S.. There was of course the Underwear bomber on Christmas Day on a plane from Amsterdam bound for Detroit.
A week later on December 31st, the Taliban killed seven CIA agents using a suicide bomber posing as a possible informant.
Last Friday (January 1st) someone drove a car filled with explosives onto the football (soccer) field in Pakistan during a match, killing 88 and wounding 50 more.
Casualties in Afghanistan have skyrocketed since U.S. troop levels have increased. President Obama sent an additional 20,000 troops to Afghanistan last March and 30,000 more in November. The result: a dramatic rise in the number of targeted suicide attacks against the United States and its allies.
Meanwhile, as American troops depart Iraq, the number of U.S. troops killed there has plummeted to its lowest level since the war began, with “only” 150 American troops killed in all of 2009. December was the first month since the Iraq War began to have ZERO U.S. casualties. Meanwhile, the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan saw its highest number ever last year: 319, more than double the year before (155)… which hasn’t happened since 2005 (when the number of those K.I.A. jumped from 52 in 2004 to 99 in 2005 – see previous link for data.)
Hmm. Maybe Iraq WASN’T “the central front in the War on Terror”?
When the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan were below 10K and the Taliban were slowly reclaiming the country, Republicans were preparing a victory party. Last September, it was determined the Taliban now has a PERMANENT presence in more than 80 percent of the country (pdf map).
A tiny group of insurgents don’t control 80% of a country the size of California without attracting new recruits. And THAT is where the Obama military policy in Afghanistan has failed. Last September, I wrote here on how a “non-military counter insurgency strategy” was the ONLY way to achieve victory in Afghanistan. Violence only serves as a recruiting tool for the other side, and they can recruit soldiers far faster than we can kill them. You don’t defeat an insurgency by creating martyrs. You win by depriving them of willing recruits. Give them reason to prefer you over your enemy. Where they offer only war & death, you build roads, and school houses, and hospitals. How many Afghan farmers could you subsidize for the cost of one Predator Drone ($3.2 million dollars)?
Again, just stating the obvious: the recent rise in terrorist activity is a direct result of the increased American troop presence in Afghanistan. Is there ANYONE that would dispute that? And yet, it seems like it needs to be said. The only question is: Will the Obama Administration recognize this simple fact and respond with a dramatic change in strategy for 2010, or will they follow “the Bush Game Plan” of sending in more and more troops until they can just hand the whole mess off to the next Administration?
POSTSCRIPT: Just a random thought that crossed my mind last week: If the Underwear Bomber was promised his “72 virgins” in the afterlife, just what did he plan on doing with them after blowing his junk to kingdom-come? <chuckle>
Also, while Mugsy’s Rap Sheet is a labor of love, it does not receive enough visitors each day to qualify for any of the prominent Progressive Advertising Webrings (ads that link sites). While I could sign up to include “generic” advertising via “Google Ad-Sense”, etc, I’ve resisted so far because I would have almost no control over the types of ads that would appear on this site (including Conservative advertising for agendas I oppose). So instead, I’ve willingly covered the small expense of hosting this blog and all the work that goes into it out of my own pocket & free time. But, times being what they are, the allure of recouping part or all of my expenses by allowing a few ads on this site is attractive. But since it is you, dear reader, that must look at them, I’ll leave it up to you:
Thanks. I’ll rerun the poll till the end of the month. You’ll know what the results were if you start seeing ads on this site come February. 
UPDATE: (Regarding last week’s review of my predictions for 2009: I am reminded by “Crook’s & Liars” that Attorney General Eric Holder DID investigate accusations of torturing detainees held in U.S. custody, so I’m upgrading this prediction to “partial” and giving myself credit.)
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The Amazing Mugsy’s Predictions for 2010.
Okay, maybe calling myself “The Amazing Mugsy” is a bit of a stretch. So sue me.
It’s the final Monday of the first decade of the new millennium (though technically, 2000 was the last year of the 20th Century). Every year at this time, I like to pause to make my predictions for the coming year. I learned my lesson after 2007 not to over reach, and went 7 for 12 the following year (58%). Emboldened by Bush’s departure and Obama’s election victory, I made a whopping FIFTEEN predictions for 2009. Here’s a recap of how I did:
Review: My Predictions for 2009:
- (Correct) GOP is seen more & more as The Party of Racists: Teabaggers, birthers, Marxist/Commie/Hitler comparisons. Beck called Obama a racist. But (incorrect) support for Jindal didn’t grow, it evaporated.
- (Correct) President Obama was indeed criticized for being too much like Bush (see SNL sketch), but has yet to commit to the Kyoto Protocol (no commitment while at Copenhagen) or any significant regulation of Wall Street (making him “even more” like Bush than I predicted.)
- (Correct) Osama was not caught, nor did he release another video.
- (partial) As predicted, Iraq did not fall apart as troops started to leave (the U.S. is now the only country left of Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing” still in Iraq), and though Iraq is staying firm on the mid-2010 deadline, they haven’t pushed for a faster exit of American troops.
- (partial) Though reaching parity, by the end of 2009, the number of troops in Iraq (112,000) is still greater than the number of troops in Afghanistan (100,000), though I was correct it was due more to an increase in Afghanistan than any decrease in Iraq.
- (wrong) Number of troops in Iraq by years end is WELL over the 30K figure I predicted.
- (Correct) Republicans continued to obstruct health care reform as support for health care reform grew.
- (Correct) Obama continued to try and appease Republicans as they became “The Party of No” to even reasonable legislation (eg: Wall Street regulation).
- (
wrongpartial) A single “low-key” investigation into the Bush Administration’s intelligence failures/misuse/violations producing “significant findings”never came to pass… in the United States at least.(Update: I am reminded by “Crook’s & Liars” that Attorney General Eric Holder DID investigate accusations of torturing detainees held in U.S. custody, so I’m upgrading this prediction to “partial” and giving myself credit.) In Spain and Great Britain it was a different matter. - (Correct) Bush did not pardon Libby (or anyone else in his Administration). Nor did the Obama Administration pursue Scooter/Cheney/Gonzo/etc.
- (wrong) Violence in Israel… mounting in Bush’s final days… was tempered after Obama took office, rather than escalate into a growing concern.
- (wrong) Hillary and Obama did not find themselves frequently at odds over policy (although I was right that I’d probably get this one wrong).
- (wrong) The Big 3 Automakers did not ask for a second bailout. Nor was a “health care solution” proposed as a possible fix.
- (Correct) Pakistan lost interest in India/Kashmir as the war in Afghanistan grew. U.S. concern over Pakistan/Waziristan grew and drone attacks supplanted sending troops into Pakistan.
- (Correct) The economy continued to struggle, but government spending (the Stimulus) stopped the slide. The Debt did indeed surpass the $12Trillion mark.
10 11 of 15 (with partial credit). 73%. Not bad! Vegas, here I come! mmmm-onsecondthought, maybe not. And now, my favorite part: Comparing my stats to some far better-known prognosticators:
- The Amazing Kreskin seems far less amazing when you consider that probably not a single one of his predictions for 2009 came true (though, to be fair, several are multi-year predictions extending out as far as 2012.) So far, he appears to be batting a solid .000. The most amazing thing about Kreskin is that, with 16 predictions, by sheer dumb luck he should of gotten at least one right (okay, arguably, support for a longer school year did grow. But by no means did it spawn “a movement”.)
- Mark Anderson, a technology “forecaster” for Strategic News Services may claim a “96% accuracy for 2008″, but by my count, he went 1 for 10 for 2009… and even THAT is being generous (giving him partial credit for the growing popularity of tiny “Netbooks”, even though they haven’t come close to supplanting full notebooks in terms of popularity.) Sorry Mark.
- I’m not sure what the stars were telling astrologer John Hogue at the end of 2008, but if 2009 does turn out to be the beginning of the end for the U.S. as a financial superpower, I’ll be sure to give him credit for at least one of his six predictions coming true. But for now, I gotta give him a big goose-egg.
- Conservative blogger Rachel Alexander, the Intellectual Conservative predicted among her (generously graded) 3 for 15 that “MSNBC will either go out of business or drastically change its format so it is no longer left-leaning news and opinion.” Yeah, hang on to that pipe-dream there, Rach.
- The prominent Conservative “Powerline” Blog (arguably) went 5 for 10 (with partial credit… the MSM isn’t “agonizing” over the “democratic implications of the filibuster”, but my fellow liberal blogs certainly are.) Interestingly, Powerline ranked its predictions in order of “decreasing” certainty, yet the four of the five they got right were the last four in their list. Their #1 (and therefore “most confident”) “prediction”… “Obama to go on a whistle-stop tour on his way to the inauguration”… had already been reported (and linked to from their list) sixteen days before they made their “prediction”. Genius! (Prediction of note, Bush did indeed avoid commenting on the Obama Presidency for the most part… preferring instead to let Cheney do the mud-slinging… but Bush’s one comment wasn’t oh-so-noble “praise” for Obama, but instead to compare him to Nazi appeasers. Likewise, Obama never mentioned Lincoln nor FDR in his inaugural address. As I said, we learn more about “the predictor” from these predictions.
Predictions invariably tell us more about the predictor than what lies ahead. And oh, how I love Conservative predictions! One can learn SO much about Republicans and their bitter view of the world based upon the horrible Liberal disasters that await us!
Yikes! These people suck at predicting. Don’t quit your day job, folks.
And so, without further ado… My 10 Predictions for 2010:
- The gulf in the differences between the House & Senate health care bills will be SO great going in, that it is a foregone conclusion that the only way a compromise bill will pass the Senate is if the House gives in on “the Public Option”, settling for price controls on private insurance instead. Republicans WON’T campaign on repealing health care reform like they are threatening to do now, realizing that threatening to repeal the new-found healthcare of 30 million Americans isn’t exactly a winning strategy. Will healthcare reform be alluded to? Absolutely! Will “repeal” be talking-point #1? Not a chance.
- Citing “logistics”, the U.S. will miss its “August 2010 deadline” for all troops out of Iraq (I learned my lesson from last year), and while almost all combat troops will be out by years end, a significant number of “advisers” will remain behind “to help train Iraqi troops”. Perhaps as many as 5 to 12 thousand.
- The number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will peak at 120-125 thousand. If the numbers were to approach “height of the Iraq War” levels, a public outcry would push Congress to cap the number of troops in Afghanistan. Talk of “winding down” the war in Afghanistan won’t truly begin in earnest until after September 11, 2010, the “start of our tenth year of war in Afghanistan” (which technically started in October of 2001) and the last troops start coming home from Iraq.
- A war-weary electorate will make ending the war in Afghanistan a key campaign issue in the 2010 mid-term elections.
- Democrats will lose seats in the House, but not enough to cost them the majority. At most, Democrats will lose one (probably none) seat in the Senate. But Conservative Blue-dogs will continue to make life miserable for the remaining Democratic majority.
- With healthcare out of the way in time for President Obama’s first State of the Union speech, expect a moderate decline in the “Marxist/Socialist/Nazi” rhetoric towards president Obama as he focuses on jobs in this election year. The analogies will certainly continue, stoked by the likes of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, but for the most part, not significantly based upon any new spending.
- By election day (Nov. 2nd), the unemployment rate will still be up over 8%, but below the current 10%. If unemployment breaks the 11% barrier (which I doubt), it will be early in 2010 (before April) and quickly pulled back well before the November election. Democrats will campaign on the lower (8%+) unemployment rate as evidence that their economic policies are working. Republicans will campaign on the idea it shows “things are not getting better fast enough“.
- The national average for Gasoline will briefly peak at just over $3/gallon by next Summer, but brought back down quickly to the mid-$2.50’s soon after. Gasoline will not fall below $2/gallon again in 2010.
- Same as I predicted for 2009, Osama bin Laden will neither be caught nor release another video in 2010.
- As the Taliban begins to feel the squeeze in Afghanistan, the military brass will advise President Obama to authorize negotiating with “moderate Taliban” for a peaceful solution to ending the war there, much the same way the Bush Administration put Sunni extremists on the American payroll to reduce the violence in Iraq.
Wow, that’s a depressing list! I punked out after just ten. I had a lot more to base my 2009 predictions on, with eight years of Bush to look back upon, and the promise of an incoming Democratic Administration promising “change”. We didn’t see as much “change” as many of us had hoped, and I dare predict we are unlikely to see much in the way of a Progressive agenda to come out of the Obama Administration in the near future. You may have noticed that I didn’t make any predictions regarding “renewable energy”, “Gitmo”, or “the growing deficit” for 2010 because, based upon this past year, you’d be better off tossing a coin for the right answer than any guess I could possibly muster.
I wouldn’t mind a bit if several of my more depressing predictions fail to come true. Fingers crossed! Here’s to a great 2010!
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A Dickens of a Mistake: Plot hole in “A Christmas Carol”?
Ebenezer Scrooge never knew the son of his sole employee, Bob Cratchit, was seriously ill. It wasn’t until Scrooge learned that Tiny Tim might actually die unless he did something to help, that he was actually willing to forego some of his personal wealth to help save the life of a sick child.
When Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol” in 1843, he was already a famous author. Queen Victoria was a fan of his, for whom he performed live in 1851. Knowing this, Dickens described the crushing poverty of Camden Town (lower London) in vivid detail, knowing that it would be read by Queen Victoria and the literate upper-class, in hopes that it might make them aware of what life was like for the majority of Londoners, people whom they never met or had any interaction with. And now, every rich man & woman, including the Queen herself, would willingly read a tale about poor people and perhaps even sympathize with them. And the fact he did so in a Christmas themed story ensured it would be read again & again every Christmas “when abundance rejoices” (pg. 13).
Perhaps my only Christmas tradition: every year, I watch the musical version of “Scrooge” (starring British actor Albert Finney). Not nearly as faithful to Dickens’ manuscript as other versions, it is perhaps the best acted version of them all, and Finney convinces you of Scrooge’s redemption better than any other version I’ve seen yet.
Last week, I saw the new Disney 3D retelling of “A Christmas Carol“. While the movie was heavy on the 3D, inserting special scenes simply to show-off the three-dimensional effect, it is otherwise surprisingly faithful to the original book. It’s a shame that it is so badly (voice) acted. Hollywood actors do Olde English about as well as Ghandi did stand-up comedy. You don’t buy Scrooge’s miraculous conversion by the end of the movie, and Cratchit is almost superfluous.
While otherwise faithful to the original book, one scene caught my attention: the scene where Ebenezer’s sister “Fan” (yes, “Fan”, not “Fran”) came to the boarding school to bring her brother home for Christmas. In the Disney version, Fan is considerably younger than her brother. I noticed this, because I’ve always believed Fan MUST be older than her brother Ebenezer. Let me explain:
The backstory of “Fan” creates an enormous plot-hole in the Dickens classic.
Most experts seem to agree that “Fan”, Ebenezer’s beloved sister, died in childbirth to her son, Fred, helping to explain why Ebenezer so despised his nephew.
In the schoolhouse scene when Scrooge is with the Ghost of Christmas Past viewing himself as a young boy, Fan tells her brother that she has come to bring her brother home for Christmas rather than him spending yet another holiday alone at school. The reason she gives: “Father is so much kinder than he used to be” (pg. 46). “Mother” however, is never mentioned. If Ebenezer’s mother were alive, how could she ever allow her only son to spend every Christmas alone at school year after year?
One can infer from all this that Scrooge’s own mother, like Fan, died in childbirth, for which his father blamed Ebenezer and couldn’t bear the sight of him, thus banishing him to boarding school and never allowing him to come home for the holidays. This would explain much. It explains why Scrooge hates Christmas, why his sister was so important to him (as a substitute mother), why he spent every Christmas away at boarding school and was only allowed to return once “Father is much kinder now”. It explains why Scrooge so despised his nephew, and Scrooge eventually coming to the realization he was blaming Fred for Fan’s death the same way Ebenezer’s father blamed him for his own mother’s death. It all makes perfect sense… except…
The problem is that Dickens describes Fan as “much younger than the boy [Ebenezer]” (pg. 45). If Scrooge’s mother died in childbirth, Fan could not possibly be younger than Ebenezer. And the story suggests she is not a step-sister because they have a long history together.
I DO think the idea of Scrooge’s own mother dying in childbirth to him was indeed what Dickens meant to suggest, but made a careless mistake saying Fan was “much younger” when writing that particular scene. Women dying in childbirth was quite common in Dickens’ time, so it is not “too coincidental” to think both women might have died the same way. If anything, Fan would of been at greater risk if that is how her mother died.
Maybe it is presumptive of me to suggest the famed author Charles Dickens “F—ed up”, but I’m curious what you think. Why is Scrooge’s father so cruel to his son and not his daughter? If Scrooge’s mother did not die while giving birth to him, why is she never mentioned? If Scrooge’s mother was cruel, distant or too cowardly to stand up to her husband, certainly this would of influenced him too (and his relationship with his one-time fiancee’ [unnamed in the book]) and of deserved mention in Dickens’ book. We are told all about his sister, his nephew and his father, but no mention is ever made of his mother anywhere in the book.
Next week, the last Monday of the year, will be my annual “Predictions for the coming year”. I did quite well (seven for 12) in 2008, and a quick review of my predictions for 2009 shows I did pretty well this year too, so be sure to return next week for a recap of how I did along with my Predictions for 2010.
Postscript: After so many mentions of it, I finally sat down and watched the Alistair Sim version of “Scrooge” from 1951. To my surprise, the Sim version includes a scene where the Ghost of Christmas Past says almost exactly what I had hypothesized… that Fan died in childbirth to Fred the same way Scrooge’s mother died in childbirth to him, AND that this was the reason his father hated him so. I’m a bit shocked that the exact same conclusion I came to appears in the Sim classic. This exchange does not take place in the original text and is an original scene inserted into the 1951 screenplay. And, as I note above, this scenario isn’t possible if… as Dickens wrote… “Fan” is much younger than Ebenezer.
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The Senate Healthcare Compromise: First Impressions (not good)
Last week, the Senate “proudly” announced a late-night healthcare “breakthrough” that abandoned the “Public Option” in exchange for “privately run non-profit” healthcare “exchanges” (read: “co-ops”) and expansion of Medicare and Medicaid. Now, all the details are still coming in, so this will have to be brief.
The highlight of this compromise is that it “expands Medicare” (a goal they should of focused on from the beginning) by dialing back the enrollment age to “55 & up” (currently, you must be at least 65 or disabled to enroll in Medicare). Allowing more people to join Medicare, younger people that place less of a burden on the system paying in premiums every month, theoretically would help improve solvency and extend the life of the program.
However, there are restrictions on enrollment. Only people that can’t get private insurance (either due to their condition or poverty), or small businesses with less than 50 employees and can’t afford private insurance, will be eligible to join… ergo, the private insurance industry is not losing one single customer to the government program. That means ZERO competition and ZERO incentive to bring prices down. If the entire point of a government run system is to “compete” with private insurance to help force prices down, this compromise does nothing to encourage that.
Most “supporters” of this compromise defend it on the (mistaken) belief that it is “a foot in the door” towards later expanding Medicare even further… perhaps the “40+” crowd ten years from now, and “30+” ten years after that. If you support this compromise based on that hope alone, here’s why you are making a Fool’s Bargain:
The ONLY reason the Democrats were able to strike this bargain with Republicans at all is because (listen closely) women aged 55+ are post-menopause, meaning there’s no “abortion issue” to contend with. Republicans will NEVER allow a government healthcare program to insure women of child-bearing age that might need an abortion for whatever reason (even to save their own life). It was (relatively) easy to get Republicans (and Blue-dog Democrats) to agree to expanding Medicare to seniors aged 55 and up, but Democrats that are looking ten/twenty years down the road thinking they’ll be able to expand Medicare to even younger people, are deluding themselves.
One person told me, “Later on, they’ll only need 50 votes” to expand Medicare. I replied, “They only need 50 votes NOW to pass a strong Public Option” using budget reconciliation. And let’s not forget that this compromise does NOTHING to increase competition.
Another feature of the Senate compromise is a new Federal law that “requires private insurers to spend at least 90% of their revenue towards providing healthcare.” This is an open invitation to “creative accounting”, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the days of Enron and their accounting firm “Arthur Andersen”. In the final days of Enron, it was revealed that the multi-billion dollar energy company was paying their accounting firm $350 million dollars a year… nearly $1million dollars a day… to avoid paying ANY income taxes. You don’t spend that kind of money to avoid paying taxes unless you stand to lose FAR more if you don’t.
A few years ago, there was some controversy in the movie industry where the producers of a major blockbuster (I forget which) was refusing to pay its star (or director, or somesuch, I forget which) on the grounds that their contract specified they would be paid “a percentage of the net profit”. Despite earning nearly a billion dollars worldwide, the film’s producers argued there was no “NET” profit (after subtracting liabilities from the gross) and that the film actually lost money, and therefore did not own them anything. The film’s producers were taken to court and won.
Expect to hear many many more instances like this if insurance companies are forced to spend “90% of their revenue” providing services. They will argue that they “didn’t make as much money as the government claims” through creative accounting. They will find ways to get out of paying the full 90%, mark my words.
If the goal of insurance reform is “to provide AFFORDABLE healthcare to EVERY American”, this latest compromise fails miserably. But as I said, there are still many more details to work out before one can pass final judgment. But clearly, at this point, any compromise that appeases Republicans by forbidding the government from competing with the private insurance industry will do NOTHING to bring prices down… which was the entire point of healthcare reform in the first place!
Postscript Link of interest: MediaMatters posted an excellent in-depth debunking of “Climate-gate” and those hacked/stolen emails.
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Buyers remorse. “Seller’s” Remorse.
In 1959, the late great comedic actor Peter Sellers starred in “The Mouse that Roared”, a quirky comedy about a tiny bankrupt nation that decided to declare war on America for the billions of dollars in reconstruction funds they hoped to receive following their crushing defeat (ala The Marshal Plan). Comedy ensues when Sellers and his Python-esque “army” (dressed in medieval chainmail and armed with bows & arrows) unwittingly wins by attacking New York City on the day of a major American military exercise, allowing them to take possession of a “super bomb” capable of destroying the entire country. Unaware of what happened in New York, his countrymen laughingly ask him, “How did your attack on America go?” Seller proudly responds, “We won!” Of course, this is actually the worst news imaginable for them because now, not only will they not receive any reconstruction funds, but they’ve angered the U.S. into possibly destroying them. The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
For months now, Conservatives have been bemoaning the size of the deficit (that they racked up) and “rampant government spending” (such as “the stimulus” to create jobs, or “healthcare reform” needed to halt spiraling healthcare costs that are bankrupting this country and costing jobs), but when it comes to WAR, clearly money is no object. They want “more troops” to fight a war that should of ended 8 years ago. And ANY talk of bringing our troops home only “gives aid and comfort to the enemy“.
Senator John McCain, in his 873rd appearance this year on the Sunday talkshow circuit, after (once again) bemoaning “timetables”, actually said that the only way to win a war is to stay “until we’ve crushed the enemies’ spirit“. Well, if eight years in Afghanistan isn’t long enough to “crush the enemies’ spirit”, just how long DO we stay? 15 years? 30? 100? Actually, as all reports clearly show, the Taliban thinks that having held out THIS long against The Mighty American Military is an indication they are “winning“. The longer we are there, the more public support they receive as well. And it costs our already struggling economy $1million/year/soldier, adding billions to the deficit these “Conservatives” complain is “out of control”.
Hundreds of billions of our tax dollars are being poured into the two money pits known as Iraq and Afghanistan. The cost of the unnecessary war in Iraq alone could have covered the cost of heathcare reform for the next 20 years, and now the war in Afghanistan is growing to Bush-sized proportions (with nearly 100,000 troops once this latest SurgeTM is complete. Instead, Conservatives are quick to complain about the “cost of Obamacare”, but whine like spoiled children if anyone dare put limits on the size, cost, or duration of the war in Afghanistan.
I wasn’t very enthusiastic about Candidate Obama once he clinched the nomination. He had my vote as a Democrat, but my enthusiasm for him was always low as he never stood up for any Liberal ideals that we so desperately need. Since his election, I’ve watched as he REPEATEDLY tries to appease Conservatives that will NEVER support him, while alienating Progressives that may not do so again. He sends more troops into Afghanistan like the Republicans want, but it’s “not enough” or he’s “taking too long”. Meanwhile, he gets Democrats together to discuss passing a healthcare reform bill by Christmas, and not once mentions “the Public Option”. Very soon, President Obama is going to have to learn to dance with the ones that brought him as his “Job Approval” falls below 50% for the first time and his handling of Afghanistan approaches Bush-levels. If healthcare reform passes with a weak Public Option (or none at all) and the war in Afghanistan shows no sign of improving by the middle of next year, a whole lot of people that voted for President Obama are going to experience buyers remorse and stay home on election day.
Last week, President Obama in his primetime address explaining why he is sending more troops to Afghanistan, told viewers that he was aiming at mid-2011 for ALL U.S. forces to be out of Afghanistan. Yesterday/Sunday, Secretaries of State & Defense, Clinton and Gates were all over the airwaves walking back that target date, with Secretary Gates and General Petraeus both now saying that the “goal” is to have troops “starting” to leave “by mid-2011″.
As I’ve said many, many times before on here, “Conservatives are all a bunch of frightened little children” that think the world is out to get them. They’d rather spend $5000 on a machine gun than $5 on a deadbolt for the front door. Because being seen with a huge gun “sends a message to your enemies” while a $5 deadbolt makes you “a coward that’s afraid to leave your house at night”. Problem is (as Clint Eastwood has told us in any number of Spaghetti Westerns), that everyone eventually comes gunning for the fastest gun in the West.
A thought crossed my mind while listening to everyone discuss “war without end” Sunday. What if Native Americans started committing acts of terrorism across the U.S.? Would we send the military after them armed with bombs and predator drones, or would we send the cops in after them? Army’s are used to fight army’s. You don’t use tanks to fight bandits with AK47’s. And you don’t send in 96,000 troops with enough military might to conquer a small nation in after 100 rogue bandits.
100 sheep-herders declare war on America. “How’d you do?”, they’re asked back home. “We won!”, they answer not entirely sure after 8 years of bombing and thousands of lives lost what it is they’ve won.
Postscript: President Obama stops off in Oslo to collect his Nobel Peace Prize this week. One wonders if they might be feeling a tinge of “Seller’s Remorse” (pun intended).
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1.2.3. What are We Fightin’ For? Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan.
Special Edition
Country Joe & The Fish said it best in their famed anti-Vietnam War song: “1.2.3. What are We Fightin’ For?” A question I’ve been asking myself since President Obama took office.
Last night, President Obama addressed the nation from the West Point Military Academy to tell us he was sending another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan (in addition to the 21,000 he already sent last March). To achieve this, troops will be shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan. And while NBC News claimed yesterday that this would result in “more troops in Afghanistan than in Iraq for the first time”, that won’t be the case until sometime next Summer, after another 30,000 U.S. troops in Iraq have returned home in addition to the 30,000 redeployed to Afghanistan.
CORRECTION: A slight error on my part in Monday’s column. The links I provided claimed there were only “13,000 American troops in Afghanistan” when President Obama took office. That number now appears to be in error, actually closer to 30,000 according to President Obama last night. I’m not sure where the “13,000″ figure comes from, as even the NYT-based tool I linked to now shows 30,700 troops at the end of 2008, not “13,000″. While the troop escalation is still substantial at more than double, the “500%” figure now appears to be incorrect. I apologize for the error.
In any case, I wholly expected to entitle today’s column: “The Day President Obama Became a One-Term President”. Again, it appears President Obama is more concerned about pleasing Republicans… a group that will NEVER vote for him… while alienating his base, which is becoming more and more apathetic with each concession to Conservatives, making them less likely to vote for him again as well. So is it any wonder he’s looking more and more like a one-term president? After hearing rumors that the war in Afghanistan was being extended “an additional three years” (to the end of Obama’s first term), I was encouraged when President Obama set a goal of “mid-2011″ (18 months from now) for a FULL withdrawal from that country. Much too slow in my opinion, but far better than late 2012.
I was pleased to hear the president express continuation of the war in “economic” terms as well as militarily. He cited the fact the war in Iraq “has already cost this country over a Trillion dollars” and that “extending the war in Afghanistan for another year will cost an additional $30billion dollars” (or roughly $450,000 per soldier per year). When I hear numbers like that, all I can think about is how much healthcare that could buy. I think about Republicans that think spending money we don’t have to stabilize a country with a corrupt government and allowed the Taliban to seize power in the first place, is a better use of our tax dollars than providing every American with affordable health insurance.
After the president’s address, NBC had on (who else) John McCain to ask his opinion of what he’d just heard. While he supported President Obama’s decision to send more troops, he “strongly disagreed” with his call for “an arbitrary timetable”… an argument he made repeatedly during the 2008 Presidential Campaign about Iraq. Then came the election, Obama took office and ordered “all troops out of Iraq by August 2010.” And wonder of wonders, Iraq didn’t fall apart. The U.S. has lost 146 troops in Iraq so far this year, the least number of casualties since the start of the war (less than half the 2008 number and WELL below the peak of 2007 with 904 U.S. troops lost.) So pardon me Sen. McCain when I listen to your fear-mongering over “arbitrary timetables” and wonder if you’ve even been paying attention for the past year.
So, as the song asks, what exactly ARE We fighting for? If the goal is to ensure al Qaeda can never use Afghanistan as a base to attack us from again… that’s a fools’ errand. What does it matter WHERE al Qaeda attacks us from? Currently, it appears they have settled into Western Pakistan quite comfortably. And unless we occupy Afghanistan forever, there is NO way to prevent any terrorist group from EVER using Afghanistan as a base ever again.
If the goal is to get al Qaeda, well, they’re not in Afghanistan anymore. Current estimates put the number of al Qaeda in Afghanistan at under 100. Where are they now? They’re in Pakistan, and they’re in Yemen, out of reach of U.S. troops. Do we really need 68,000 troops in Afghanistan to defeat less than 100 members of al Qaeda?
One last quick observation: Remember what happened when President Obama ordered an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan? Violence spiked. The year is not even over yet, and already the number of coalition deaths is up 67% over all of last year (485 fatalities this year vs. 295 for all of 2008), making this the deadliest year of the war in Afghanistan so far. Did sending more troops make things better or worse? Expect a similar spike in violence once “the surge” begins in earnest early next year.
1.2.3. What are We Fightin’ For?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn.
Next stop Afghanistan.
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Thoughts on the Afghan War Prior to Obama’s Speech
This will be a short commentary preceding President Obama’s address to the nation Tuesday night regarding sending additional troops to Afghanistan.
It is expected that President Obama will announce plans to send between 32 and 35 thousand additional troops to Afghanistan, slightly less than the 40,000 General Stanley McChrystal reportedly asked for last September. What conditions he places on this “Surge” we’ll soon find out, but there is almost no doubt that benchmarks will be set. (Personally, I’d like to hear him say “This is it. No more troops after this, so start planning your exit strategy around this level of troops. Our commitment is not open ended and our resources not infinite.”)
Continuation of the 8+ year conflict will not please many Democrats who hoped President Obama would bring BOTH mid-east wars to a quick close. But what is also certain is that, ANY troop increase less than that of the “40,000″ Gen. McChrystal initially requested is going to draw criticism from the rabid-Right. So let’s put this in context:
When President Bush finally stopped ignoring his generals on the ground, fired Rummy, and agreed to send more troops to Iraq (following the historic 2006 midterm elections that flipped control of both houses of Congress), there were already over 140,000 American troops on the ground there. The military was stretched so thin, the big question was “where would he find the troops?” After much research, it was calculated that we could scrounge up an additional 22,500 troops for his “Surge”… an increase of 16%.
If President Obama sends just 32,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to support in 68,000 already there, that’s an increase of 47 percent.
Add to that the 21,000 troops he added last March and President Obama will have sent an additional 53,000 troops to Afghanistan since entering office last January. Upon his inauguration, there were just 13,000 American troops in the entire country*… meaning this latest “surge” translates to a 500 percent increase in the number of troops in Afghanistan since President Bush left office.
(* Correction. This figure now appears to be in error, with the supporting link now claiming just over 30,000.)
So when Republicans start whining about “President Obama wants us to fail in Afghanistan” or “doesn’t want to win the war” (and they will), let’s keep in mind that the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will now be more than FIVE TIMES what it was when Bush left office.
And let’s all remember the Republican hysteria over what would happen “if we set a deadline” for withdrawal from Iraq. John McCain said “setting a timeline” would only aid the enemy, let them know we were unwilling to “stay until the job is done” and allow the enemy “to wait us out”. But one month in, President Obama declared a “timeline” for withdrawal with the goal of “ALL U.S. troops out of Iraq by August of 2010″. And what happened? Did Iraq collapse into such total chaos that we had to send in more troops? No. Beyond a few significant instances of continued ethnic violence, the war in Iraq barely makes the evening news anymore. Al Qaeda didn’t flood back into Iraq (not that they ever had much of a presence there to begin with) and by all indications, we should be able to keep our goal of redeploying out of Iraq by next August.
Yesterday on Fox “news” Sunday, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said:
[T]alk of an exit strategy [from Afghanistan during Obama's speech Tuesday] is exactly the wrong way to go. And I hear that on the — in the media. I certainly hope the president doesn’t do that, because all that does is signal to the enemies and also to our allies, to the folks in Pakistan as well as the Afghanis, that we’re not there to stay until the mission is accomplished.
Sound familiar?
Oh, and another choice snippet from former Bush spokesmodel Dana “no terrorist attacks on Bush’s watch” Perino during that same show:
Heaven forbid we make war “unpopular“! You may need to play it twice just to be sure she REALLY said that, but I assure you she did.
You know, I can’t help but feel the tiniest bit sorry for her. But you know, it’s the Republican love affair with attractive Conservative morons (Perino, Palin, Prejean… I’m sensing and alphabetic trend here) that keeps putting these women in front of the cameras to say whatever imbecilic thought comes to their tiny minds.
ADDENDUM: A Senate report released yesterday (11/29/09) finally confirms that Osama bin Laden was indeed at Tora Bora in late 2001 and was able to escape due to the failure to send in ground troops to capture him.
Here is my blog entry on the issue from 2007: Did Saudi Kid Confirm Bush Let bin Laden Escape at Tora Bora?
For further reading, the CNN archives remind us: Bush rejects Taliban offer to try bin Laden – October 7, 2001
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