Like many, the evening of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, after work I poured myself a drink and turned on the television. I watched the horrific pictures on the television, and I listened to the accounts of the madness that occurred that day.
Like many Americans I stared at the television in blurry amazement. I ingested a large quantity of alcohol. And I wondered why.
Often my thoughts drifted to a comment Dr. King had made forty years ago.
One year to the day before he was assassinated, Dr. King gave what I think is one of the greatest speeches in the history of our country. In the speech he articulated his reasons for taking a firm stand against the war in Vietnam. He did this before a group called the Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam. After listing many of the reasons why he opposed the war in Vietnam, King said, “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing clergy-and-laymen-concerned committees for the next generation.”
The slaughter that occurred at Virginia Tech shouts to us that the “far deeper malady” that King commented on continues to grow like a bouquet of cancers in the heart, mind, and soul of America.
The Murderer
The man who committed the Virginia Tech murders had a history of mental instability. He bought the guns he used legally. He bought the ammunition he used legally. He probably bought the magazines he needed to fire off so many rounds so quickly legally. He killed thirty-two people before he killed himself.
To me the atrocities that were committed at Virginia Tech provide a convincing argument for improved gun safety. At the very least we should close the loopholes in the current laws that allow people with a history of mental instability to purchase firearms. We should not allow people with a history of mental instability purchase ammunition. We should not sell hollow tipped bullets as easily as we sell cold medicine.
The guns that were used in the Columbine killings were purchased illegally. To me this suggests we should crack down on the illegal avenues used to sell and distribute weapons.
After the murder of President Kennedy there was an outcry for greater gun safety. Similar pleas were heard the weeks after Dr. King and Robert Kennedy were killed by the National Rifle Association. And for their undaunting work to fight off efforts to increase gun safety and reduce the number of deaths due to firearms in this country this week we award the idiot of the week honor to the National Rifle Association.
America remains a violent nation. Legislation that was promoted to increase gun safety falls short of its goals.
Politicians are fond of using phrases like “law and order” and “tough on crime.” Improved gun safety is popular with the police and most of the population. But it was clear from the statements politicians made this week that there will not be a huge push to improve gun safety laws. The US also refuses to crack down on the traffic in illegal guns.
The Facts Mam
This week one of the saner comments from America’s punditocracy was spoken by Mark Shields. On the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer Shields noted a statistic that we all should ponder. In World Wars I and II, in Vietnam, Korea, and the first Persian Gulf War, 659,763 Americans died. Between 1980 and 2004—that’s just 24 years—firearms in America killed more than twice that number—more than 1,427,000.
Shields provided one more statistic. Take the nations with the 26 best economies. Then count up the number of deaths due to firearms in all 26 countries. 83% of those who died because of firearms, died in America.
Iran: Past is Prologue
Americans are not just violent at home, our actions trigger violence abroad.
In 1953, the US backed a coup of Iran’s Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh. The coup was largely a response to Mossadegh nationalizing Iran’s lucrative petroleum industry.
Mossadegh’s actions were very popular in Iran. The US backed coup was successful. Mossadegh was ousted. Iran developed a west leaning and very autocratic and oppressive government. It was headed by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The US supported the Shah’s regime and western based oil firms operated in Iran. Dissent within Iran grew. The Shah’s government grew very unpopular. In 1979, the Shah left Iran. Soon his government collapsed.
It is to parody understatement to suggest that US efforts in Iran were not successful in the long term.
Some of the lessons from the US’s experience in Iran are obvious: they hate us there; they didn’t like us taking their oil; they certainly don’t like us having a great deal of influence in their country; much as we may love the short term profits foraging around a country in this region may yield, we weren’t very good at controlling events in Iran.
More US Adventurism
Nor did the US learn what it could have from the US debacle in Vietnam. In Vietnam the US fought a primarily political conflict in a largely military way. And it fought the military component miserably. It fought a mostly guerilla conflict with conventional means. It did not provide nearly enough troops to fight the war it hoped to win. It failed to train the native army. It failed to force the political system in South Vietnam to take strong measures to fight corruption.
While the US was conducting adventures in Iran and Vietnam, the institutions of the US failed. Neither retired senior military nor the active senior military addressed the errors that were being made. The US media basically cheered from the sidelines while these conflicts were initiated.
Then beginning in March 2003, G.W. Bush and the US repeated many of the same mistakes it had made in Iran and Vietnam—this time the US made the mistakes in Iraq. Since then over 3300 US soldiers have died, over 24,000 have been wounded. Over 60,000 Iraqis have died. And the US has spent over 418 billion dollars.
Iraq is in the middle of a civil war. At its best, the Iraqi government is only moderately effective. The Iraqi army is riddled with incompetence. The Iraqi police force is an absurd, corrupt, and very unfunny joke. The entire region is agitated. “Debacle” seems too kind a word to describe the US experience in Iraq.
The High Price of False Honor
The end the US achieved in Vietnam in 1973 was very similar to an end the US could have in achieved in Vietnam four years before. During that period over 34,000 US and over 100,000 Vietnamese soldiers were killed; a million Vietnamese and 100,000 Cambodians were killed; over 100,000 US troops and a million Vietnamese were wounded; about 150,000 children were made orphans and 60, 000 women were made widows.
The people of the US were told that the war was being continued so that the US could achieve “peace with honor.” The agreement that ended the war brought neither peace nor honor. Soon the North controlled the South. And because the peace agreement did not hold, any honor the US achieved was counterfeit.
Clearly honor, even the synthetic variety, is expensive.
Oil Again
Since the thirties oil has been a national security issue. Since the thirties, foresightful leaders should have recognized this and taken reasonable steps to address this vulnerability. Very few did. For decades our leaders should have been saying, Let’s try something else to address the oil shortage (hint, conservation, alternative fuels, alternative energy sources). For decades our leaders didn’t do this.
Commonalities
You don’t need to be an expert to realize that in the last decades the US has done some pretty stupid stuff. You don’t need to be brilliant to realize that unless we begin to repair our ways, most of these problems will get worse. The longer we wait to address them, the costlier the solution to all of these problems will be.
There are some commonalities.
Certainly in all the situations that I have mentioned, when events were unfolding, Americans did not seek out nor were they given much of the truth about what was really happening. In most of these situations, when some of the truth was exposed, plenty went to great lengths to deny it. Remember the hue and cry when the phrase global warming was first used? Some will remember the shrieks of laughter that followed President Carter’s comment in April 1977 that the struggle to gain energy independence created the “moral equivalent of war.”
Special interests have done what special interests often try to do—skew policies to what is best in their narrow perception of a short-term future—and damn the consequences for everyone else.
Greed, apathy, denial, selfishness, and other usual suspects circulated wildly as these problems exploded.
Detours
Whenever someone tries to address a problem, there almost always are many who seek to detour the solution. There are plenty of ways to avoid addressing the maladies before us.
A few of the more obvious diversions:
Many will talk and talk (and talk) about how complicated it is to solve many of these problems.
There no doubt are some kind and well-intentioned people who would like to talk and talk (and talk) about diagnosing the problem. (My guess is that if the malady were reduced to one ailment, and if that ailment bit us on the nose, too many of us would deny the bite and its source.)
Finger pointers have plenty of places to point.
Some will simply suggest our leaders let us down. We certainly elected the leaders who have let us down. As a people we certainly have, for the most part, sat idly by while the Americans one another at home and committed violent absurdities abroad.
And it is very easy to quibble with the list I have created. Every special interest group in the country has its own list of issues to champion. Certainly the long and largely silly debate by those who suggest global warming is a hoax is another example of this far deeper malady. Other examples are easy to identify: our reluctance to clean up the mess that exists in so many of our schools, our reluctance to repair a health care system that has huge and obvious flaws, our reluctance to reduce the deficit, our reluctance to fix a the system we use to nominate presidential candidates from a political party—the current incarnation seems to have been cobbled together by the village idiot and a lobbyist for the television networks.
There’s plenty more.
We’re reluctant to educate our population to eat better and exercise more. We’re reluctant to encourage many Americans take the steps needed to get their personal finances in order. We’re reluctant to reduce the slaughter on our roads by providing incentives for safer cars. We’re reluctant to do the research necessary to determine why so many children now have attention deficit and other disorders. We seem to have little desire to change our prisons from crime colleges many are now and do the hard work needed to make jails and prisons institutions that improve the moral fiber of the inhabitants. The list could go on and on.
Clearly
There’s violence in the heart of America. There’s fear and hate in its soul. America and Americans often refuse to learn from mistakes or seek out the truth in a time of crisis. And there’s blood on its hands. We’re going to become even more ill, or we’re going to have to take serious measures to address these problems.
When he spoke at Riverside in April of 1967, Dr. King said, “Somehow this madness must cease.”
We can continue to do little to address the issues that sicken our world and pollute our souls.
Or, for each of the issues, we can do something, learn from it, and improve our response.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Monday, April 9, 2007
Money Money Money
Candidates running for president passed a milestone on March 31. On that day they had to begin the process of filing forms that will tell the world how much money they have raised.
As is perhaps almost always the case with something like this, some things happened as expected: Senator Clinton raised more money than anyone. She raised 25 million dollars. And she has 10 million dollars left from her senatorial campaign. Even I can do that math—she has 35 million dollars. And, as expected, she won the first money primary. Also as expected, the Democrats raised more money than Republicans. And, as expected, most of the top tier candidates and many of the others, raised enough to stay competitive.
Inside the Numbers
As is perhaps always the case with something like this, there were a few surprises. Senator Obama won the laurel of “beating the expectations.” He gathered 24 million buckaroos. Senator Obama has more good news. He had nearly 100,000 donors. Many have not given all they can. This shows he has an incredibly large base of financial supporters—perhaps the largest in history.
There is some disconcerting news for Senator Clinton. Senator Clinton started the money primary with the names of 250 thousand donors. She got money from 50 thousand of them. Many have given all they can give for the primary season and for the election in November 2008. Quite a bit of the money she has now she can’t be spend unless she gains the nomination. It also means that she doesn’t have as wide a base of economic support as Senator Obama has.
Republican Mitch Romney also did much better than expected। He raised over 23 million. One of the better lines of the week certainly goes to the McCain staffer who said that Romney earned 7 million for every per centage point he has in the polls. You probably can do that math—though he raised a lot of money, Romney is not doing that well in the polls—last week he was lagging at 3 per cent.
Romney had other problems this week. He not only goofed. He flip-flopped in a way that made others think of John Kerry. While attempting to court the votes of hunters, Romney said he was a lifelong hunter. Turns out the facts suggested that he did not own a registered gun and he may have only been hunted twice in his life. The prompted Joan Vinnochi a columnist for the Boston Globe to opine, “Leave it to Mitch Romney to shoot himself in the foot with a gun he doesn’t own.”
Had Senator McCain been running four years ago and raked in what he did this year, he would have smashed records. As it is, his 12.5 million placed him way back in the heap and forced him to reconstitute his financial apparatus—polite talk for taking his advisors to the woodshed.
There were a few other surprises. Governor Richardson of New Mexico, did better than expected. He brought in 6 million dollars.
Why Money is Sooo Important
Money is a necessity to play the games of politics today. It buys that all important television time. It allows candidates to buy advisors and top of the line technicians. These things are incredibly important.
Money also conveys a legitimacy. If a candidate is still very much in the running, then s/he is likely to be successful raising more money. The converse is also accurate. And if a candidate runs into a controversy, the money usually stops coming in. The candidate needs a reserve to keep the campaign going until it the winds of controversy die down.
Money also serves as a status symbol. It is a giant advertisement to show how viable a candidate is. As with everything in politics it is good to match expectations; it is even better to beat them. And when someone like Obama, who has to contend with an experience deficiency, can get money from 100,000 donors, well performances like this go a significant way to erasing the stigma’s that hang around less experiences pols.
The oversimplified bottom line of all this is that all the major contenders passed muster. They all have enough to fight another day. They all have enough to spend the money they have to spend to by the airtime they need to purchase.
Money as a Predictor
Excepting 2003 when GW didn’t play the money game—he didn’t have to—in the last two election cycles, the candidate who raised the most money during the quarter we just completed, went on to win the nomination of his party. In 2000 Bush and Gore won the contest. In 2003 Kerry did.
It is now appropriate to write this: it’s early, and having money is not the same as spending it well.
In 1979 and 1980 former Governor John Connally seemed to have all you needed to be the Republican nominee. He was experienced, he was articulate, he was conservative, and he had raised a lot of money. After months of campaiging and he burned through 11 million dollars—and earned the support of one delegate. He got the message and withdrew from the race. Mrs. Ada Mills has since been immortalized in political trivia lists as the “11 million dollar delegate.”
In 1996 Phil Graham won the money primary but ran such a sloppy campaign that he withdrew before the New Hampshire primary.
Having all this money in politics probably does some good things. It probably goes a significant way to discourage Gore and Kerry from entering the campaign. For the Democratsm, this is a good thing. They have plenty of A-list candidates. They don’t need the complicated playing field made even more complex by the subtraction by addition that comes from either of these veterans joining the fray.
For Americans in general, talking about money is a great deal easier than talking about the issues. So these quarterly reports give the pundits in the country at least a week to talk in highly serious and often nuanced tones about the campaign without having to dance around something tricky like the issues.
The Horserace
If the race for the nomination is a lap around a horse track, we aren’t even at the first turn yet. Still a few comments may be made.
The Republican field is a mess. Conservative Republicans are a constituency in search of a viable candidate. McCain who was thought by many to be the front runner is not. The front runner, Guilanni has a host of personal (all those divorces) and political problems (his leftish stands on abortion, gays, and the environment). Independents leaned heavily toward the Democrats in the 2006 midterms. Unless the Republicans put together a credible candidate who can unite the party, independents will not have many reasons to lean toward he Republicans in 2008.
Senator Clinton’s hope of a smooth walk to the nomination have hit some significant bumps. She leads in many polls and according to many pundits clearly has the inside track. But her desire to be the inevitable candidate has not panned out. Many remain uncomfortable with her personality. Senator Obama certainly has the charm, momentum, and, yes the charisma, to be a very credible candidate. He is an impressive campainger, and recently has made it obvious that he is a very impressive fundraiser. He introduction to the American people is going well. But he will have to maintain his momemtum as he becomes more specific about his positions on many issues. The pundits often try to count Edwards out. His candor about his positions on many issues—especially health care—and his classy appearance with his wife after her cancer returned, vaulted him back onto the A-list. And he still leads in Iowa.
Some of the Bad News
It is interesting how little commentary there was this week about the perils of having so much
money involved in this year’s contest.
Having all this money in politics won’t pass any smell test.
Many suggest it is far better to have private dollars in political campagins. It keeps public dollars out of it.
I couldn’t disagree more. Let’s take a quick tour of how much this private money is costing us.
The Democrats have long collected money from teacher’s organizations. And for years the Democrats have not pushed to have substandard teachers fired. Nor have Democrats pushed to make it easy for people with experience and talent to become teachers in public elementary or high schools. This is ridiculous. You could win the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, and be a celebrated lecturer, but still have to jump through a hundred hoops to teach English in a public high school. This too is ridiculous.
The Republicans (and plenty of Democrats) are so completely in bed with the oil companies that even when the oil companies are doing very well, legislators throw tax breaks and other incentives their way—which allows oil companies to earn even higher profits. Exxon/Mobile made a record $36.13 billion in 2006.
For a variety of reasons, and campaign money is one of them, very few politicians will speak out against high-ticket defense department expenditures. Few politicians are speaking out about the abuses within the Defense Department. This is one of the many factors that prevented the US armed forces from being as prepared as it should have been to fight an insurgency. An insurgency depends not so much on high tech and gold plated weapons systems. An army that hopes to succeed against an insurgency does need simple, relatively inexpensive technology like body armor. And it needs anti-guerilla training.
An independent commission reported last month that ninety percent of all National Guard units don’t have the equipment or the training they need to perform in battle.
In reports to Congress, the Government Accountability Office stated that $1.2 billion in supplies shipped to Iraq couldn’t be accounted for. It also identified $35 billion in excess supplies and equipment. One hundred million dollars in airline tickets were never used. Ninety-four per cent of Army National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers experienced problems with their paychecks in 2004. The Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General declared the department hopelessly “un-auditable.”
The Government Accounting Office discovered that Defense Department contractors underpaid federal taxes by around 100 million dollars. Less than 1% of that—under $700,000 has been collected.
Just five years ago, the Pentagon's top five weapons systems were estimated to cost $291 billion; today the estimate is nearly twice that, $550 billion.
The F-22 Raptor fighter is the poster child du jour for Defense Department’s financial responsibilities. The cost per plane rose 189 percent—$125 million to $361 million. Development time has increased more than two years. Despite all this, the Pentagon has paid $848 million in bonuses to the lead contractor.
The worst part of this sad saga is that the public has been so docile. Public initiatives to bring some sanity to Defense appropriations have not succeeded. Public initiatives to get private money out of the election process also have fallen short.
Years ago there was an advertisement for engine oil. It explained the problems car owners risked if they did not change the oil in their cars regularly. The advertisement ended with a cartoonish character saying, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”
Clearly, when it comes to the horrific effects of spending private money in public elections, Americans clearly have decided to pay the piper later.
Line of the Week
From the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, “Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases.”
Admittedly they would have gotten a lot more attention if they had written it up something like this: Yo, you dumb earthlings. End this idiotic debate about whether or not there is a thing we call global warming. No, don’t soften the image of it all by calling it “climate change.” People are warming a planet that very much liked the temperature the way it was before industry and automobiles and homes starting dumping so much garbage into the air. Thousands, perhaps millions of people are gonna die because of this. Entire ecosystems will vanish. It is likely that hundreds of animal species and thousands of plant species are going to become extinct. Some coastline cities will, over time, be flooded, and a lot of people who live in-land will soon have beachfront property. Things we are doing now won’t do as much as throwing a snowball into Washington to stop it. It’s time to take names and kick ass.
Idiot of the Week
The US news media for not giving enough attention to the report issued last Friday from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
As is perhaps almost always the case with something like this, some things happened as expected: Senator Clinton raised more money than anyone. She raised 25 million dollars. And she has 10 million dollars left from her senatorial campaign. Even I can do that math—she has 35 million dollars. And, as expected, she won the first money primary. Also as expected, the Democrats raised more money than Republicans. And, as expected, most of the top tier candidates and many of the others, raised enough to stay competitive.
Inside the Numbers
As is perhaps always the case with something like this, there were a few surprises. Senator Obama won the laurel of “beating the expectations.” He gathered 24 million buckaroos. Senator Obama has more good news. He had nearly 100,000 donors. Many have not given all they can. This shows he has an incredibly large base of financial supporters—perhaps the largest in history.
There is some disconcerting news for Senator Clinton. Senator Clinton started the money primary with the names of 250 thousand donors. She got money from 50 thousand of them. Many have given all they can give for the primary season and for the election in November 2008. Quite a bit of the money she has now she can’t be spend unless she gains the nomination. It also means that she doesn’t have as wide a base of economic support as Senator Obama has.
Republican Mitch Romney also did much better than expected। He raised over 23 million. One of the better lines of the week certainly goes to the McCain staffer who said that Romney earned 7 million for every per centage point he has in the polls. You probably can do that math—though he raised a lot of money, Romney is not doing that well in the polls—last week he was lagging at 3 per cent.
Romney had other problems this week. He not only goofed. He flip-flopped in a way that made others think of John Kerry. While attempting to court the votes of hunters, Romney said he was a lifelong hunter. Turns out the facts suggested that he did not own a registered gun and he may have only been hunted twice in his life. The prompted Joan Vinnochi a columnist for the Boston Globe to opine, “Leave it to Mitch Romney to shoot himself in the foot with a gun he doesn’t own.”
Had Senator McCain been running four years ago and raked in what he did this year, he would have smashed records. As it is, his 12.5 million placed him way back in the heap and forced him to reconstitute his financial apparatus—polite talk for taking his advisors to the woodshed.
There were a few other surprises. Governor Richardson of New Mexico, did better than expected. He brought in 6 million dollars.
Why Money is Sooo Important
Money is a necessity to play the games of politics today. It buys that all important television time. It allows candidates to buy advisors and top of the line technicians. These things are incredibly important.
Money also conveys a legitimacy. If a candidate is still very much in the running, then s/he is likely to be successful raising more money. The converse is also accurate. And if a candidate runs into a controversy, the money usually stops coming in. The candidate needs a reserve to keep the campaign going until it the winds of controversy die down.
Money also serves as a status symbol. It is a giant advertisement to show how viable a candidate is. As with everything in politics it is good to match expectations; it is even better to beat them. And when someone like Obama, who has to contend with an experience deficiency, can get money from 100,000 donors, well performances like this go a significant way to erasing the stigma’s that hang around less experiences pols.
The oversimplified bottom line of all this is that all the major contenders passed muster. They all have enough to fight another day. They all have enough to spend the money they have to spend to by the airtime they need to purchase.
Money as a Predictor
Excepting 2003 when GW didn’t play the money game—he didn’t have to—in the last two election cycles, the candidate who raised the most money during the quarter we just completed, went on to win the nomination of his party. In 2000 Bush and Gore won the contest. In 2003 Kerry did.
It is now appropriate to write this: it’s early, and having money is not the same as spending it well.
In 1979 and 1980 former Governor John Connally seemed to have all you needed to be the Republican nominee. He was experienced, he was articulate, he was conservative, and he had raised a lot of money. After months of campaiging and he burned through 11 million dollars—and earned the support of one delegate. He got the message and withdrew from the race. Mrs. Ada Mills has since been immortalized in political trivia lists as the “11 million dollar delegate.”
In 1996 Phil Graham won the money primary but ran such a sloppy campaign that he withdrew before the New Hampshire primary.
Having all this money in politics probably does some good things. It probably goes a significant way to discourage Gore and Kerry from entering the campaign. For the Democratsm, this is a good thing. They have plenty of A-list candidates. They don’t need the complicated playing field made even more complex by the subtraction by addition that comes from either of these veterans joining the fray.
For Americans in general, talking about money is a great deal easier than talking about the issues. So these quarterly reports give the pundits in the country at least a week to talk in highly serious and often nuanced tones about the campaign without having to dance around something tricky like the issues.
The Horserace
If the race for the nomination is a lap around a horse track, we aren’t even at the first turn yet. Still a few comments may be made.
The Republican field is a mess. Conservative Republicans are a constituency in search of a viable candidate. McCain who was thought by many to be the front runner is not. The front runner, Guilanni has a host of personal (all those divorces) and political problems (his leftish stands on abortion, gays, and the environment). Independents leaned heavily toward the Democrats in the 2006 midterms. Unless the Republicans put together a credible candidate who can unite the party, independents will not have many reasons to lean toward he Republicans in 2008.
Senator Clinton’s hope of a smooth walk to the nomination have hit some significant bumps. She leads in many polls and according to many pundits clearly has the inside track. But her desire to be the inevitable candidate has not panned out. Many remain uncomfortable with her personality. Senator Obama certainly has the charm, momentum, and, yes the charisma, to be a very credible candidate. He is an impressive campainger, and recently has made it obvious that he is a very impressive fundraiser. He introduction to the American people is going well. But he will have to maintain his momemtum as he becomes more specific about his positions on many issues. The pundits often try to count Edwards out. His candor about his positions on many issues—especially health care—and his classy appearance with his wife after her cancer returned, vaulted him back onto the A-list. And he still leads in Iowa.
Some of the Bad News
It is interesting how little commentary there was this week about the perils of having so much
money involved in this year’s contest.
Having all this money in politics won’t pass any smell test.
Many suggest it is far better to have private dollars in political campagins. It keeps public dollars out of it.
I couldn’t disagree more. Let’s take a quick tour of how much this private money is costing us.
The Democrats have long collected money from teacher’s organizations. And for years the Democrats have not pushed to have substandard teachers fired. Nor have Democrats pushed to make it easy for people with experience and talent to become teachers in public elementary or high schools. This is ridiculous. You could win the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, and be a celebrated lecturer, but still have to jump through a hundred hoops to teach English in a public high school. This too is ridiculous.
The Republicans (and plenty of Democrats) are so completely in bed with the oil companies that even when the oil companies are doing very well, legislators throw tax breaks and other incentives their way—which allows oil companies to earn even higher profits. Exxon/Mobile made a record $36.13 billion in 2006.
For a variety of reasons, and campaign money is one of them, very few politicians will speak out against high-ticket defense department expenditures. Few politicians are speaking out about the abuses within the Defense Department. This is one of the many factors that prevented the US armed forces from being as prepared as it should have been to fight an insurgency. An insurgency depends not so much on high tech and gold plated weapons systems. An army that hopes to succeed against an insurgency does need simple, relatively inexpensive technology like body armor. And it needs anti-guerilla training.
An independent commission reported last month that ninety percent of all National Guard units don’t have the equipment or the training they need to perform in battle.
In reports to Congress, the Government Accountability Office stated that $1.2 billion in supplies shipped to Iraq couldn’t be accounted for. It also identified $35 billion in excess supplies and equipment. One hundred million dollars in airline tickets were never used. Ninety-four per cent of Army National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers experienced problems with their paychecks in 2004. The Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General declared the department hopelessly “un-auditable.”
The Government Accounting Office discovered that Defense Department contractors underpaid federal taxes by around 100 million dollars. Less than 1% of that—under $700,000 has been collected.
Just five years ago, the Pentagon's top five weapons systems were estimated to cost $291 billion; today the estimate is nearly twice that, $550 billion.
The F-22 Raptor fighter is the poster child du jour for Defense Department’s financial responsibilities. The cost per plane rose 189 percent—$125 million to $361 million. Development time has increased more than two years. Despite all this, the Pentagon has paid $848 million in bonuses to the lead contractor.
The worst part of this sad saga is that the public has been so docile. Public initiatives to bring some sanity to Defense appropriations have not succeeded. Public initiatives to get private money out of the election process also have fallen short.
Years ago there was an advertisement for engine oil. It explained the problems car owners risked if they did not change the oil in their cars regularly. The advertisement ended with a cartoonish character saying, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”
Clearly, when it comes to the horrific effects of spending private money in public elections, Americans clearly have decided to pay the piper later.
Line of the Week
From the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, “Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases.”
Admittedly they would have gotten a lot more attention if they had written it up something like this: Yo, you dumb earthlings. End this idiotic debate about whether or not there is a thing we call global warming. No, don’t soften the image of it all by calling it “climate change.” People are warming a planet that very much liked the temperature the way it was before industry and automobiles and homes starting dumping so much garbage into the air. Thousands, perhaps millions of people are gonna die because of this. Entire ecosystems will vanish. It is likely that hundreds of animal species and thousands of plant species are going to become extinct. Some coastline cities will, over time, be flooded, and a lot of people who live in-land will soon have beachfront property. Things we are doing now won’t do as much as throwing a snowball into Washington to stop it. It’s time to take names and kick ass.
Idiot of the Week
The US news media for not giving enough attention to the report issued last Friday from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
At The Doug Moe Academy Of Sartorial Splendor And Architectural Design: Trying to Explain The Surge
The agreement is a simple one. I provide drinks and anonymity; the people I’d ask to come would tell me what they really think—no verbal camouflage. I’d ask them to meet at the Doug Moe Academy of Sartorial Splendor and Architectural Design. It’s a bar for political junkies. We had settled in.
I had intended to make some prefatory remarks.
I had intended to thank them for coming.
I had intended to regale them with a flurry of one-liners that would create the perfect ambiance. I was sure that the mood of the moment would inspire me with the perfect quips. But if that didn’t work I had an oldie courtesy of Jay Leno: “You’ll remember a while back that an aide to the prime minister of Canada called President Bush a moron. Well that's not fair. Here's a guy who never worked a day in his life, got rich off his Dad's money, lost the popular vote, and ended up president. That's not a moron, that's genius!”
I intended to mumble a little about just why I had asked ten noted psychiatrists and psychologists to meet. I wanted to hear what they had to say about why President Bush had decided on the surge policy in Iraq rather than one of gradual withdraw.
And then I was going to seque into the discussion with something like this: The mid-term elections had been a disaster for the Republicans. I know Bush tends to go to bed early, but no doubt someone told him about the election after he woke up.
Surely Republican politicians realized how much the President’s policies in Iraq hurt Republican politicians in the last election. Since the election, Republican politicians had been urging Bush to get out of Iraq. Surely Republican politicians don’t want US forces in Iraq the next time there’s a national election.
The Iraq Study Group had gotten a lot of attention. And a tsunami of commentary had followed it. The Iraq Study Group had recommended a gradual withdrawal.
The election, the lobbying that had followed it, and the Iraq Study Group had given Bush enough political cover to set up a nudist colony.
Bush certainly had enough political cover to start downsizing the US presence in Iraq.
Given the fact that there is so much bad news coming out of Iraq: The government is weak and corrupt. The Iraqi army is a mess. The Iraqi police force is probably is worse shape than the army. Clearly there is a civil war going on. With Republican politicians urging Bush to get the US troops out of Iraq and with all the political cover the Iraq Study Group provided, it seems to many a slam dunk that Bush would take reasonable steps to extricate the US from Iraq. So why did he elect to escalate?
None of the prefatory stuff happened. They started without me.
Round One
“What do you expect from a simpleton?”
“What do you expect from someone who hasn’t studied history?”
A shy, skinny young man said, “I think I’m in the wrong place. I thought this was the meeting some sit-com writers called to work out some problems—.”
The others around the table laughed.
Then one said, “Dysfunctional family, kid that tortures animals, troubled teens?”
The skinny guy replied, “Yea, that’s the show.”
“You’re in the right place.”
Take Two
And so it went. But I wanted a real discussion. I thought it might be entertaining, perhaps even amusing. I hoped it would be funny. So I asked, “This surge thing, was it simply an act of denial? Does Bush just not get it?
“Or maybe it’s an attempt to extend the war so the next President has to clean up the mess. That way Bush can blame the next President for mucking things up so much.”
But the psychiatrists and psychologists wouldn’t talk about what I wanted to talk about.
“Let me tell you a story,” one woman said. “Years ago, one time Laura offered GW some criticism. They had driven home after a public function where GW had given a speech. The speech had not gone well. So one time she offered some criticism. She suggested the speech hadn’t gone well.
“He drove the car through the garage wall.”
A few of the dumb white guys at the table laughed.
The woman who told the story was livid. “A minor criticism leads to a violent response. Do you think a guy who did that would respond in a civil way to criticism about the war?”
I made yet another attempt to get the discussion back on road I wanted it to travel down. “But sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq is like adding two more security guards to a frenzied rock and roll show. It’s not nearly enough.”
“What do you expect from a guy as psychically scarred as Bush?”
“You want to see psychic scars, talk with poor people who were victims of Katrina, talk with rape victims, talk with veterans who accidentally killed one of their fellow soldiers.”
And I had hoped this was going to be a funny column.
“When GW was younger—“
“Seven . . . he was seven.”
“His sister died of leukemia.”
“She was three. Just three-years-old when she died.”
“GW wasn’t even told his sister was ill until after she died. Don’t you think he would feel just a little guilt over that?”
“GW’s parents are alleged to have played golf the day of the funeral for their daughter.”
A Normal Guy?
“When GW was a kid, he tormented frogs by putting firecrackers on their butts.”
“He has temper tantrums.”
“The man doesn’t speak English well. Remember, ‘Is our children learning?’ “
“He blames others for his mistakes.”
“His is the story of a man who changes but barely grows.”
A woman interjected, “Gee those last comments make him sound like most American men.”
None of the dumb white guys at the table laughed.
“GW wasted years of his life drinking—why he was even arrested for driving drunk. He probably used other drugs extensively. I think he is prone to escapist tendencies.”
“Ah I don know doc. I drank like a fish and did so much coke I had to have my nose cauterized. And now I have a wife, two kids, a cat and a dog, and a mortgage.”
“A cat and a dog?”
“They get along fine. It’s the kids that fight.”
“You don’t say.”
I’d given up. But fortunately someone asked, “Shall we attempt to get back on track?”
The skinny guy looking for the sit com writers commented, “This is better than any sit com meeting I’ve ever gone to. Is all this true?”
“Damn straight.”
Another Angle
I’m recording dialogue here. A world of fact checkers couldn’t check all the facts that have been served up here in time to get this column published before the 2012 election.
“GW told a college professor that the poor are lazy and they wish to remain that way.”“During his watch, Texas conducted more executions than any governor in the state’s history.”
“I think he’s a man who tried to emulate his father—and failed . . . at nearly every stage. His father was a young pilot in the Navy; GW had an incredibly low test score for someone accepted to be trained as a pilot. GW followed his father to Yale. His father was a star on the baseball team; GW was a cheerleader. His father was a successful oil man; GW’s firm was nicknamed El Busto.”
“GW has made a mess of every stage of his life . . . for example the National Guard bit. And most of the time his father’s cronies swooped in to save him . . . for example the National Guard bit. But Iraq is too big of a screw up, too big of a blunder for his father’s cronies to save.”
“It appears as if GW doesn’t have remorse for anything he’s done.”
“He probably isn’t a recovered alcoholic . . . but just a drunk who has dried out.”
A Fitting End
One person at the table wasn’t drinking—he said he had a long drive home. He took a sip from his soft drink and added, “Forgive me for being a little too persnickety, but one must have a brain to have it analyzed. I’m not so sure Bush has one.”
Nearly everyone laughed.
Then someone said, “What does all that suggest about Kerry?”
They laughed louder.
One man nearly had tears in his eyes as he said, “And what does that suggest about Gore?”
They laughed even louder.
Like an Idiot, I Trudged On
One person suggested that the comments that had been made were, perhaps, a little over the top.
Most responded to the comment with a look that implied they were lost and stunned. It was the look you might see on the face of a five-year-old who was very excited because his birthday party was going to begin in a few hours. Then someone told him that the party had been cancelled.
A woman mentioned the new Norah Jones song, “My Dear Country.” She said, “It has this one line, ‘Who knows? Maybe he’s not deranged.’”
Everyone at the table laughed.
There are times in my life when I am a fool and a romantic. This was one of them. I really thought this conversation could be saved. So I asked, “Let me see if I’ve got what you’ve been trying to tell me. Are you saying that I framed the question poorly?”
They looked puzzled.
This wasn’t good at all.
I mumbled on. “I suggested the surge in Iraq was motivated either by denial or raw political calculation. Are you suggesting I was oversimplifying a very complex diagnosis?”
Three or four people said, “Whaat?”
I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to take from all this. “Are you saying that GW being stubborn and not learning from his mistakes makes him like most guys?”
Five said, “Of course.”
Five said, “Of course not.”
Like a fool, I continued, “Are you saying that because GW is so psychologically scarred that he’s a more dangerous man than even his critics suggest?”
One person replied, “I’ll drink to that.”
Another replied, “You’ll drink to the sun coming up.”
Yet another added, “It’s not that GW’s so screwed up. There are millions of screwed up people in the world. It’s not that he’s screwed up, it’s that we elected the summbitch—and we elected him twice.”
I replied, “So are you saying that the war in Iraq is a symptom of a deep malady within the American spirit?”
A few of the people looked at each other and whispered. One person said, “Oh that’s very good.”
Another mumbled, “Where did you get that?”
I loved the inference that I got it from somewhere—that I didn’t think of it myself.
A few minutes passed. I wondered if perhaps I simply was taking things too seriously. Perhaps if I just had a few more drinks before the meeting started . . ..
One of the guys at the table who had had too much to drink asked, “Did I hear someone say that Bush started a nudist colony?”
This provoked a loud laugh.
I thought of something else, “So are you saying that Bush’s psychological issues are so weird and complex that they can’t be simplified—that they can’t be boiled down?”
A few mumbled a little.
One person pointed his drink toward me and said, “Hey this guy is good.”
Another asked, “Have you been working as a shrink for a couple decades and not told us?”
“Shrink? Me? No way. I just hang around with politicians.”
They laughed. “Well that explains it then.”
They ordered another round.
--------------
The Idiot of the Week Award goes to the editors of TIME magazine for the content of their cover story The Global Warming Survival Guide: 51 Things You Can Do to Make a Difference. Certainly the topic deserves a cover story, and many of the suggestions in the magazine are sound. But none of the suggestions include: voting for candidates who have good ideas about how to address global warming, contributing money to an environmentalist organization, taking some form of political action as meek as writing a letter, or, perish the thought, reading one of the many good books or seeing one of the many good documentaries on the topic. Clearly Democratic politicians aren’t the only people in America in need of vertebrae replacement surgery.
---------
Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary about the often convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from De Gaulle’s comment, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”
I had intended to make some prefatory remarks.
I had intended to thank them for coming.
I had intended to regale them with a flurry of one-liners that would create the perfect ambiance. I was sure that the mood of the moment would inspire me with the perfect quips. But if that didn’t work I had an oldie courtesy of Jay Leno: “You’ll remember a while back that an aide to the prime minister of Canada called President Bush a moron. Well that's not fair. Here's a guy who never worked a day in his life, got rich off his Dad's money, lost the popular vote, and ended up president. That's not a moron, that's genius!”
I intended to mumble a little about just why I had asked ten noted psychiatrists and psychologists to meet. I wanted to hear what they had to say about why President Bush had decided on the surge policy in Iraq rather than one of gradual withdraw.
And then I was going to seque into the discussion with something like this: The mid-term elections had been a disaster for the Republicans. I know Bush tends to go to bed early, but no doubt someone told him about the election after he woke up.
Surely Republican politicians realized how much the President’s policies in Iraq hurt Republican politicians in the last election. Since the election, Republican politicians had been urging Bush to get out of Iraq. Surely Republican politicians don’t want US forces in Iraq the next time there’s a national election.
The Iraq Study Group had gotten a lot of attention. And a tsunami of commentary had followed it. The Iraq Study Group had recommended a gradual withdrawal.
The election, the lobbying that had followed it, and the Iraq Study Group had given Bush enough political cover to set up a nudist colony.
Bush certainly had enough political cover to start downsizing the US presence in Iraq.
Given the fact that there is so much bad news coming out of Iraq: The government is weak and corrupt. The Iraqi army is a mess. The Iraqi police force is probably is worse shape than the army. Clearly there is a civil war going on. With Republican politicians urging Bush to get the US troops out of Iraq and with all the political cover the Iraq Study Group provided, it seems to many a slam dunk that Bush would take reasonable steps to extricate the US from Iraq. So why did he elect to escalate?
None of the prefatory stuff happened. They started without me.
Round One
“What do you expect from a simpleton?”
“What do you expect from someone who hasn’t studied history?”
A shy, skinny young man said, “I think I’m in the wrong place. I thought this was the meeting some sit-com writers called to work out some problems—.”
The others around the table laughed.
Then one said, “Dysfunctional family, kid that tortures animals, troubled teens?”
The skinny guy replied, “Yea, that’s the show.”
“You’re in the right place.”
Take Two
And so it went. But I wanted a real discussion. I thought it might be entertaining, perhaps even amusing. I hoped it would be funny. So I asked, “This surge thing, was it simply an act of denial? Does Bush just not get it?
“Or maybe it’s an attempt to extend the war so the next President has to clean up the mess. That way Bush can blame the next President for mucking things up so much.”
But the psychiatrists and psychologists wouldn’t talk about what I wanted to talk about.
“Let me tell you a story,” one woman said. “Years ago, one time Laura offered GW some criticism. They had driven home after a public function where GW had given a speech. The speech had not gone well. So one time she offered some criticism. She suggested the speech hadn’t gone well.
“He drove the car through the garage wall.”
A few of the dumb white guys at the table laughed.
The woman who told the story was livid. “A minor criticism leads to a violent response. Do you think a guy who did that would respond in a civil way to criticism about the war?”
I made yet another attempt to get the discussion back on road I wanted it to travel down. “But sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq is like adding two more security guards to a frenzied rock and roll show. It’s not nearly enough.”
“What do you expect from a guy as psychically scarred as Bush?”
“You want to see psychic scars, talk with poor people who were victims of Katrina, talk with rape victims, talk with veterans who accidentally killed one of their fellow soldiers.”
And I had hoped this was going to be a funny column.
“When GW was younger—“
“Seven . . . he was seven.”
“His sister died of leukemia.”
“She was three. Just three-years-old when she died.”
“GW wasn’t even told his sister was ill until after she died. Don’t you think he would feel just a little guilt over that?”
“GW’s parents are alleged to have played golf the day of the funeral for their daughter.”
A Normal Guy?
“When GW was a kid, he tormented frogs by putting firecrackers on their butts.”
“He has temper tantrums.”
“The man doesn’t speak English well. Remember, ‘Is our children learning?’ “
“He blames others for his mistakes.”
“His is the story of a man who changes but barely grows.”
A woman interjected, “Gee those last comments make him sound like most American men.”
None of the dumb white guys at the table laughed.
“GW wasted years of his life drinking—why he was even arrested for driving drunk. He probably used other drugs extensively. I think he is prone to escapist tendencies.”
“Ah I don know doc. I drank like a fish and did so much coke I had to have my nose cauterized. And now I have a wife, two kids, a cat and a dog, and a mortgage.”
“A cat and a dog?”
“They get along fine. It’s the kids that fight.”
“You don’t say.”
I’d given up. But fortunately someone asked, “Shall we attempt to get back on track?”
The skinny guy looking for the sit com writers commented, “This is better than any sit com meeting I’ve ever gone to. Is all this true?”
“Damn straight.”
Another Angle
I’m recording dialogue here. A world of fact checkers couldn’t check all the facts that have been served up here in time to get this column published before the 2012 election.
“GW told a college professor that the poor are lazy and they wish to remain that way.”“During his watch, Texas conducted more executions than any governor in the state’s history.”
“I think he’s a man who tried to emulate his father—and failed . . . at nearly every stage. His father was a young pilot in the Navy; GW had an incredibly low test score for someone accepted to be trained as a pilot. GW followed his father to Yale. His father was a star on the baseball team; GW was a cheerleader. His father was a successful oil man; GW’s firm was nicknamed El Busto.”
“GW has made a mess of every stage of his life . . . for example the National Guard bit. And most of the time his father’s cronies swooped in to save him . . . for example the National Guard bit. But Iraq is too big of a screw up, too big of a blunder for his father’s cronies to save.”
“It appears as if GW doesn’t have remorse for anything he’s done.”
“He probably isn’t a recovered alcoholic . . . but just a drunk who has dried out.”
A Fitting End
One person at the table wasn’t drinking—he said he had a long drive home. He took a sip from his soft drink and added, “Forgive me for being a little too persnickety, but one must have a brain to have it analyzed. I’m not so sure Bush has one.”
Nearly everyone laughed.
Then someone said, “What does all that suggest about Kerry?”
They laughed louder.
One man nearly had tears in his eyes as he said, “And what does that suggest about Gore?”
They laughed even louder.
Like an Idiot, I Trudged On
One person suggested that the comments that had been made were, perhaps, a little over the top.
Most responded to the comment with a look that implied they were lost and stunned. It was the look you might see on the face of a five-year-old who was very excited because his birthday party was going to begin in a few hours. Then someone told him that the party had been cancelled.
A woman mentioned the new Norah Jones song, “My Dear Country.” She said, “It has this one line, ‘Who knows? Maybe he’s not deranged.’”
Everyone at the table laughed.
There are times in my life when I am a fool and a romantic. This was one of them. I really thought this conversation could be saved. So I asked, “Let me see if I’ve got what you’ve been trying to tell me. Are you saying that I framed the question poorly?”
They looked puzzled.
This wasn’t good at all.
I mumbled on. “I suggested the surge in Iraq was motivated either by denial or raw political calculation. Are you suggesting I was oversimplifying a very complex diagnosis?”
Three or four people said, “Whaat?”
I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to take from all this. “Are you saying that GW being stubborn and not learning from his mistakes makes him like most guys?”
Five said, “Of course.”
Five said, “Of course not.”
Like a fool, I continued, “Are you saying that because GW is so psychologically scarred that he’s a more dangerous man than even his critics suggest?”
One person replied, “I’ll drink to that.”
Another replied, “You’ll drink to the sun coming up.”
Yet another added, “It’s not that GW’s so screwed up. There are millions of screwed up people in the world. It’s not that he’s screwed up, it’s that we elected the summbitch—and we elected him twice.”
I replied, “So are you saying that the war in Iraq is a symptom of a deep malady within the American spirit?”
A few of the people looked at each other and whispered. One person said, “Oh that’s very good.”
Another mumbled, “Where did you get that?”
I loved the inference that I got it from somewhere—that I didn’t think of it myself.
A few minutes passed. I wondered if perhaps I simply was taking things too seriously. Perhaps if I just had a few more drinks before the meeting started . . ..
One of the guys at the table who had had too much to drink asked, “Did I hear someone say that Bush started a nudist colony?”
This provoked a loud laugh.
I thought of something else, “So are you saying that Bush’s psychological issues are so weird and complex that they can’t be simplified—that they can’t be boiled down?”
A few mumbled a little.
One person pointed his drink toward me and said, “Hey this guy is good.”
Another asked, “Have you been working as a shrink for a couple decades and not told us?”
“Shrink? Me? No way. I just hang around with politicians.”
They laughed. “Well that explains it then.”
They ordered another round.
--------------
The Idiot of the Week Award goes to the editors of TIME magazine for the content of their cover story The Global Warming Survival Guide: 51 Things You Can Do to Make a Difference. Certainly the topic deserves a cover story, and many of the suggestions in the magazine are sound. But none of the suggestions include: voting for candidates who have good ideas about how to address global warming, contributing money to an environmentalist organization, taking some form of political action as meek as writing a letter, or, perish the thought, reading one of the many good books or seeing one of the many good documentaries on the topic. Clearly Democratic politicians aren’t the only people in America in need of vertebrae replacement surgery.
---------
Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary about the often convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from De Gaulle’s comment, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”
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