The Conservative Philosophy in Two Sentences

Every once in a while, one of the conservative gasbags will accidentally slip up and tell the honest truth about the conservative philosophy. Observe Powerline:

"Personally, if I had a choice between giving a dollar to an oil company and giving it to the government, I'd rather give it to the oil company. There's at least some chance they'll use it to drill for oil."

Sure, there's some chance they'll use it to drill for oil. On the other hand, there's at least some chance the government will spend that dollar on health insurance for the poor, student financial aid for rapidly increasing education costs, or levees to protect a vulnerable city, you myopic asshole.

A Tactical Victory for Harry Reid, Thanks to GWB

The current administration has never been quick to see the irony of their actions. The first example that comes to mind is Cheney pushing for torture legislation and aides outing a CIA agent for political reasons, all the while the right wingers complaining that criticism of the administration gives aid to the enemy.

However, Bush himself shed light on the latest irony in his comments about the withdrawal of Mier's nomination:

"It is clear that Senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House -- disclosures that would undermine a President's ability to receive candid counsel."

Ironically, this is precisely the same situation Democratic Senators were complaining about during the Roberts confirmation process. Seems like the GOP is totally comfortable pushing a candidate through without much scrutiny if they are confident of his "conservative" position - to hell with the Democrats. But when questions arise about a nominee's "conservative" chops, why then the Senate just can't provide its advice and consent in good conscience without those papers.

Why is this potentially a tactical victory for Harry Reid? Because in all the hubbub about Mier's, he kept the Democratic Senators together, showing an even-keeled approach to the process. The Democrats stood by their principles, all the while letting the GOP eat itself from the inside. Now, the Pres has no choice but to nominate a radical right-wing psycho to the bench, and Reid can use that nominee as an opportunity to highlight the differences between the mainstream ideals of the Democrats and the freaking insane radicalism of the "Christian" right.

At This Rate, Bush Will Resign

Okay, maybe it's just wishful thinking, but shit's going pear-shaped up at the Whizzy Hizzy. Personally? I think Junior was caught off guard by the whole Plame thing. I think the plan was hatched out of the Veep's office, closely connected to the gang that muscled the CIA into forging documents about Iraq. I think all along, Junior's been in over his head, and the Veep thug and his gang have been running the show. I think the Plame thing has broken up the Pres and the Veep and now, since Junior nominated his personal lawyer to the Supreme Fucking Court, Cheney just said, "Fuck it, kid, you're on your own."

Now, what has Junior traditionally done when he found himself temple-deep in his own poo-poo? Well, turned to daddy's friends for help, of course. He has a glorious history running companies into the ground and then being bailed out by daddy's connections. But if all the actual competent (if evil) people around him leave him to his own devices, what will happen? I don't think he can withstand another three years like this one has been.

Not to Generalize, but Conservatives are Fucking Idiots

How hard is it to understand the mission of the ACLU? It stands for this:

The American Civil Liberties Union

"Civil Liberties" is defined thusly:

Main Entry: civil liberty
Function: noun
: freedom from arbitrary governmental interference (as with the right of free speech) specifically by denial of governmental power and in the U.S. especially as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights -- usually used in plural
- civil libertarian noun or adjective

What that means is that each individual is explicitly permitted to have and/or express his or her opinion without government interference, as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. Government, on the other hand, is not allowed such a freedom.

You may already know this, but the word "liberty" comes from the Latin root "liber" which means "freedom". [Note: I don't necessarily think it's a coincidence that the Latin word also means "book".] The American Civil Liberties Union is primarily concerned with protecting the rights of the individual, something every single goddamned American should wholeheartedly support, and then some.

So when a freaky-looking psycho "conservative" attacks the ACLU and obviously can't comprehend the reasons for its actions, perhaps he just doesn't understand precisely what it is America stands for, namely LIBERTY.

</rant>

The End Game (?)

Politics is often compared to a chess game, and Karl Rove has been credited with being able to see many moves ahead. We've seen evidence of this in his campaigning dirty tricks; in his calculated risks with the radical "Christian" right; in his somewhat behind-the-scenes media manipulation. That's why the preparatory victory laps currently happening throughout the lefty blogs make me a little nervous.

Let's look at the chess analogy a little more closely and how the Bushies have used chess-judo against the opposition in the past.

• The advancing pawn. During the 2004 Presidential race, Kerry was in full campaign stride when the Swift Boat attacks hit. Many say his delayed reaction to the attacks was what deep-sixed his shot at the presidency. In chess, this was a pawn making a run for home. See, usually when you start advancing your pawn toward the eighth rank, it's not because you actually believe you will get that extra queen, it's because you know it will throw your opponent off his strategy. No matter what's going on in the game, if you can advance a pawn near the eighth rank, your opponent must stop what he's doing and halt the advance. It's a distraction technique. The Swift Boaters knew their claims were bullshit, but by the time Kerry reacted, they were already at the 6th or 7th rank.
• The pin. Okay, I'll admit there are two or three degrees of conspiracy theory in this, but it's hard to believe that seemingly every blogger on the planet was able to demonstrate the Rathergate forgeries after the producers at CBS had gone to such lengths to generate attention for them. Common sense would say that said producers would have gone to great lengths to authenticate the documents before the segment aired. But lo-and-behold, the segment had barely ended before everyone in the blogosphere knew the documents had been created with Microsoft Word. Seriously, it was all over in a day or two. And guess what? Even though forging military documents is a felony, no one in goverment seems to give enough of a damn to investigate who created the documents and strategically forwarded them for publication far and wide. In chess, you are "pinned" when your opponent places an attacking piece on the far side of one of your lesser pieces. Now you can't move that pinned bishop without putting your queen in the line of attack of your opponent's rook. So your opponent has just dismantled the strong, multi-piece attack you just built up by taking one of your minor pieces out of action. After everyone in the world was convinced the Rather documents were forgeries, it didn't matter any other evidence out there that Bush was AWOL. You mention AWOL? They mention Rather. Conversation over. The documentation was a pinned bishop and the whole line of attack was rendered useless.
• The discovered attack. Most of the blogosphere seemed to know that the uranium line in the State of the Union speech was probably bullshit the moment Gee-Dub uttered it on January 28th, 2003. But you know what? Most of America believed him and two months later we were at war with Iraq. See, much of America was curious but skeptical about the WMD claim, but when Bush pulled out that uranium claim, why there was the nail in the coffin. Now, not only was the Pres right, but this shit was urgent. In chess, you're playing your game and you're aware of that bishop sitting across the board, but he's really no threat to you. But then all of a sudden that bishop moves into an attacking position, and then you notice the queen sitting behind it. Now you are under attack from two directions. What seemed like no threat just a minute ago is now a deadly threat. The bishop was Bush's WMD claims and when he moved in for the kill, he revealed the attacking queen - the absolute proof that Iraq had recently purchased the final pieces to build the bomb. By the time all the true information started to fall into place that summer, the discovered attack had already been successful. Pres got the war he wanted. [It should be noted that most of us on the left watched for the discovered attack in the days leading up to the November 2004 election. We all heard the murmurings that Junior was gonna pull a Bin Laden out of the hat on the eve of the vote.]

So what have we seen happen lately? Well, to all appearances, the Dems have been playing their game beautifully. Many are just wild about Harry Reid and the game he's been playing. For example, they've limited GW's movement (Social Security); they've successfully removed some pretty important pieces from the board (Tom DeLay and potentially Bill Frist); and now they have the queen under attack (Rove).

But remember, these guys are dirty players, but they are good. And they've had a long time to think this through. We may be sitting at the cusp of a checkmate, but it may not be too smart to start talking trash until the game is actually done.

The Ox-Bow Incident

The Ox-Bow Incident is about a bunch of cattle men in the wild west who track down and lynch three men for murder and cattle-rustlin', only to find out that the cattle weren't rustled and the murdered man ain't dead (warning: there was a spoiler in that last sentence). The book takes its own sweet time, letting the members of the lynch mob stew over their deed before the actual hanging takes place, then contemplates the effect of the ordeal on the consciences of the men involved - some of whom end up offing themselves because of it.

Walter Van Tilburg Clark wrote The Ox-Bow Incident in 1937/38, and when asked about it, said he was trying to expain that he "was most afraid ... not of the German Nazis, or even the Bund, but that ever-present element in any society which can always be led to act the same way, to use authoritarian methods to oppose authoritarian methods."

About four years ago, you can bet there was a young Afghan man going about his business when the American tanks rolled through. In the wrong place at the wrong time, he got caught up in a huge net and shipped off across the sea to wait for his fate to be determined. Unlike the Ox-Bow Incident, this young man was not given the time or even the paper to jot down a quick note to his young wife and children, but handcuffed and blindfolded and herded into a plane and whisked away. Over the last few years, you can bet this young man has been treated pretty harshly in the hands of a country that defined an entirely new category of prisoner for the express purpose of lawyerly circumventing laws governing the humane treatment of prisoners; a country that routinely ships prisoners to torture-friendly countries, in effect outsourcing our torture services; a country whose leader makes blanket statements about good and evil and whose sense of justice allows him to say things like this about someone who has never been tried:

"There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt," Bush said. "We know he's guilty."

You can also bet that there's a young American man who was going about his business four years ago, doing his time in the National Guard to pay for his education. In the wrong place at the wrong time, he was rounded up with his buddies and shipped overseas to dispense justice, American-style. Over the last few years, this young man has seen and done things that, hitherto, he had not even experienced in his worst nightmares. But if it was done as part of his assigned role in a rigid chain of command, who was he to ask why? He may have been holding the leash of the dog as it growled and barked at the naked shell of the formerly proud Afghan man, but he wasn't the one running the show, he was just doing his job.

In the Ox-Bow Incident, the lynch mob's commander ended up falling on his sword out of shame. So did the young man, his son, who served as an unwitting and unwilling accomplice to the lynching (Oops, spoilers). The cruel irony in all this is that at the top of the chain of command, George Bush couldn't give two shits about the innocent Afghani "collateral damage." As a matter of fact, he's going to veto the entire military appropriations bill just because it says he can't treat American prisoners in the "cruel, inhuman or degrading" fashion he's become so comfortable with. Then he'll throw back a glass of whiskey and fall straight to sleep on his gilded pillows.

Meanwhile, a young American will scream himself to sleep into his pillow, unable to speak with his young wife about the horrors he has seen and/or committed. A young Afghan man will be unable to return to his home village today, tomorrow, or ever. Neither will ever be able to explain to their children how everything went so horribly so quickly.

Walter Van Tilburg Clark explained:

"What I wanted to say was, 'It can happen here. It has happened here, in minor but sufficiently indicative ways, a great many times.'"

I Can See the Emperor's Thingy

It may just be a rush of schadenfreude to the liblogosphere's collective head, but things look pretty shitty for the Pres right about now. Seems he just can't get a goddamn thing right.

• He sets up a photo op with Habitat for Humanity and Matt Lauer makes him dodge and weave.
• Later on, David Letterman shows footage from that same photo op and says he hammers like a little girl.
• He sets up a photo op with Iraqi soldiers and the media immediately reveals that the whole shebang was staged.
• The latest polls show Bush's numbers in the tank. Especially noteworthy, only two percent of African Americans approve of his performance. There were only 807 people participating in that poll, total. I guess that means there was, like, one black dude who thought the President was doing a fine job.
  

He's pissed off the religious right with his Miers nomination, pissed off the conservatives with his Katrina spending.

The poor guy needs a drink. I swear to God I would buy the first round.

God 'n Money

So it's been about 500 years since the Europeans stumbled onto the American continent. Quite a discovery, that, but back then it wasn't so easy to scrape together an existence on this wild continent. The terrain, the winters, the Injuns, made it a risky enterprise in the beginning to pack up shop and cross the pond. You had to have a really good reason (negative or positive) to do it. Primarily, the new world was settled at first by two groups: religious refugees and some of the first modern corporations.

God and Money don't have a lot in common, in principle. Jesus told Ceasar he could keep his shit, for all he cared. Religions mostly teach compassion for fellow man, adherence to some sort of moral code, charity and the like. Corporations are an every-man-for-himself getup. Churches want their leaders to be humble shepherds. Corporations want their leaders to be fierce competitors.

What do God and Money have in common? In a word: Power. It's the one thing religious leaders and corporate leaders all want. Don't believe me? Name one church or corporation that doesn't want to grow. More people, more money, more power.

Five hundred years is not really a very long time in the grand scheme of things. Much of the current American electorate was recently descended from people who came to the U.S. of A. for God or Money. However, as a voting bloc, neither the God crowd (who, at the extreme, seem to think the Constitution was written by Jesus), or the Money crowd (who think Government is nothing but an annoyance) can claim a majority of the electorate. Therein lies the genius of what's been happening over the last few decades. The Money crowd has convinced the God crowd that "Hey, we're with you, brethren." Historically, the God crowd's more mainstream interests have been more aligned with the Democratic Party's principles - that Government's role is to protect us and help out the most vulnerable among us. But now the God crowd is voting against the environment, against the policies that protect the weakest of us, against their own interests, in most cases.

Anyhow, I don't think this sham alliance can really last very long. And we're already starting to see the rift between the two factions of the GOP widen over the Harriet Miers nomination. The God people are already trying to assert their authority over the Money people.

My God Can Beat Up Your God

The U.S. Constitution does not mention the word "God" or the word "Creator" or the word "Jesus" or the word "Christ". Unlike the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution is a fairly technical document, really. It's like the Declaration of Independence is a letter written to break up with your former lover, and the Constitution is the marriage certificate for your current spouse. The only mention of religion in the Constitution is in Article 6, which states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States".

The first States were a little uncomfortable with the Constitution as it was ratified, and two years later, the first ten amendments to the Constitution (a.k.a. the Bill of Rights) became law. Why? Because the states were nervous that the Constitution didn't provide enough protection for basic rights of the individual. And what was priority number one in the Bill of Rights? This: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

See, many of the "Founding Fathers" were a little more enlightened than the bunch who run the show nowadays. They remembered the fact that some of the first settlers came to America not-too-long-ago to escape places where the rulers were a little too pushy about religion. They wanted to set up a government that represented all the people, regardless of religion. Kinda smart, right?

How many religions are there? Well how long is a piece of string? It's not just the Christians, the Muslims, and the Jews. The Christians then have the Catholics and the Protestants. The Protestants have the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians. When you get right down to it, no two people think alike - even in the most evangelical church, some people will believe in a woman's right to choose for herself medically. And this is not even to mention the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Pastafarians, etc. So the founding fathers said, "Let's leave all that mess in the church and leave the government to do the governin'." So far, this approach has mostly worked, but it's only been a couple of centuries.

When President Bush nominates a Supreme Court Justice based on her religion, that is a cause for concern. We know that his understanding of the concept of "job qualifications" is not exactly spot on, but I think the American people believe that the primary reason a person should be nominated to the Supreme Court is said nominee's understanding of, and experience with, oh, I don't know, Constitutional Law?

And if you think it was just an off-hand, or background, comment, then think about this: The Christian right is loudly proclaiming Harriett Miers' evangelical background. But the same Christian right said that John Roberts' (Catholic) religious background should have been off limits to the discussion. (Hannity: "I don't think it's any of these senators' business what his faith is.")

By the way, do you think this is a slippery slope logical fallacy? Let me just say that the people who want to put Ten Commandments monuments in all our courthouses better make a lot of room for them.

Update (10/13/2005 12:29): Interestingly, one of Harriett Miers' few experiences with Constitutional Law was to argue a case to try to get around the 12th Amendment. She won the case, convincing the judge that Dick Cheney was not a Texan, despite living in Texas, being registered to vote in Texas, having a Texas driver's license, and running a company based in Texas. In other words, Harriett Miers successfully won a lawsuit to bypass the Constitution which resulted in the bastardly Bush/Cheney ticket being allowed to move in to the White House.

"Must I repeat myself?" asked History.

There's this great book called A History of Knowledge written by Charles Van Doren (that dude who cheated on that Quiz Show). Despite its bashful title, the book is actually filled with fascinating analysis by Van Doren into historical knowledge trends, from the origins of the major religions, to the birth of scientific concepts, etc. In it, Van Doren posits that there have been two major knowledge explosions in the history of mankind:

1. The first came from the Greeks and gave us Pythagoras' and Aristotle's attempts to explain natural phenomena through science; Plato's brainstorming on new types of government; Euclid's geometry (much of which is still taught today); Cicero's ruminations on the balance between freedom and security; and a bunch of other assorted crap like that.
   
2. The second knowledge explosion is what we call the Renaissance, which started in Europe sometime around the 15th century and continues today. This one has given us Newtonian and Einsteinian physics; the emergence of the bourgeoisie; the modern Democratic experiment; the Age of Enlightenment; the calculus; the threat of global nuclear annihilation; and pop music.

The question is, why were there two knowledge explosions instead of one continous knowledge explosion? What brought an end to the first one? Or should I say, what interrupted mankind's advancement in knowledge?

During the first of the two knowledge explosions, the Greeks passed the baton to the Romans, who carried it until roughly the time when the Western Empire collapsed. After seeing their proud empire destroyed by external invaders, internal revolt, and other factors beyond their control, the Romans, in their hopelessness, turned to God. Emperor Constantine had already turned the Western Roman Empire into a Christian outfit, so the people looked to the Christian church for advice, which Saint Augustine provided in the form of a book called The City of God. Augustine's book provided a kind-of "sour grapes" excuse for the Romans. "What good is all that fancy book-learnin'," it asked, "when you're all gonna meet your maker soon anyhow?" (I'm paraphrasing). The book encouraged the best and brightest of the population to give up their earthly pursuits (such as math, science, art, etc.), and focus all their energy on humiliating themselves before their god. This approach to life and learning was so smashingly successful that we lovingly refer to the ensuing period as the Dark Ages.

So basically, a bunch of religious men (well-meaning or not), effectively killed mankind's cultural advancement for about a thousand years by subjugating man's aspirations to their religious will.

Will our second "knowledge explosion" be also interrupted? Sometimes it seems like there are people trying to move in that direction.

On Busting My Hump

When I got my first job flipping pizzas for the man, my old man co-signed a loan for my first automobile, a 1973 Volkswagen Beetle. The loan was for $500, an amount my 15-year-old mind could barely wrap itself around. As I slaved away at my $3.10 per hour job, that loan stood over my shoulder and breathed down my neck. "That's right, boy," it said, "You're working for me, now." I fortunately made it through the debtors' prison nightmares and eventually paid that loan off, and as a good American consumer, moved on to more expensive cars and larger and larger loans.

Now that I make millions and millions of dollars, that $500 loan seems quite amusing. Nowadays, I'll easily blow $500 in a weekend on bar tips and cigars down at the Copacabana. Because see, when you make three thousand dollars a year before taxes, a five hundred dollar loan is about twenty percent of your net income. If I make, say, a million dollars a year, I'd have to take out a $160,000 loan to be under the same debt strain.

The point is, it ain't the amount of debt you have, it's how much your debt is in relation to your income.

Take, for example, our national debt. The numbers are always staggering, but we have to look at them in comparison to the gross domestic product (GDP), which is like our national salary. Our debt amount could be increasing, but if we are keeping it in check with the growth of our GDP, then the debt strain is not increasing.

So take a wild guess who manages to consistently run up our national debt strain when in office. Surely it has to be those mad, free-spending liberals, right?

(P.S. The Bill Gates Wealth Index is a great illustration of the relative cost of things when income is factored in.)

BOO! Just kiddin'... BOO!

Imagine I came up to you and said this:

"I have received uncorroborated reports that lightning is expected in your neighborhood tonight and there is some probability that you will be struck by lightning sometime over the next few hours. I encourage you to be diligent, but not to worry. Go about your business as usual. I'm not going to let the threat of lightning deter me from my everyday affairs."

Wouldn't you wonder what the hell I was talking about? You can tell by looking out the window that there may be lightning. You don't need my nosy ass coming around telling you what to do about it. You deal with thunderstorms all the time.

If you really thought about it, what purpose could I have in telling you something like this? It's not to warn you about the threat. You can tell yourself that there may be lightning. It's not to affect your affairs - I explicitly told you not to alter your plans. Maybe the reason I made this announcement to you is to highten your anticipatory anxiety a bit, and to demonstrate to you that I'm looking out for you. Maybe while I'm cranking up your fear a notch, I'm setting in sharp relief my steely resolve, my courage in the face of the threat.

But then why would I do that? It's not like I'm running for office or anything.

As it turns out, the NYC subway threat was a hoax. As it turns out, the threat was suspect from the beginning, being uncorroborated and far from worrisome to any federal officials. As it turns out, New Yorkers are keenly aware of the threats to their environment every day because of our country's foreign policy decisions, even if you don't go to the trouble of holding a press conference to tell them. As it turns out, none of this will stop a campaigning Mayor Bloomberg from broadcasting the threat from the rooftops.

See how you should be afraid? See how Mike's looking out for you? See how courageous he is?

Science Shmience

What the hell is science? Well here's what it is:

The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.

Now, for all I know, God threw this whole Cosmos thing together in a few days and then got to restin'. That's all fine and dandy, but if you want to teach that in a science class, then doesn't it have to be somehow related to the subject at hand? Sure, you can say that creationism (or Designer Intelligence, or whatever the kids are calling it these days) explains the beginning of life, but if you can't submit that to experimental investigation, then what the hell does it have to do with science?

And do you really want to submit your religious beliefs to experimental investigation? Okay, then, here's the experiment: Put together 100 hardcore Christians to pray that I win the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes. I'll enter the contest every day for the next month. If I don't win, then there's some pretty clear evidence that prayin' ain't scientifically proven to work. If that doesn't satisfy you, pick another dude to test the experiment again next month. After a while, you will have a scientifically quantifiable answer to whether or not God is listening to and/or answering prayers. See what I mean? You may not get what you want by subjecting your faith to the scientific method.

Another way to test your beliefs, and one that is more preferable to me, is what I will refer to as the real-life experiment of Schrodinger's Christian. But we won't get into that now.

(P.S. If I do win the sweepstakes that first month, that doesn't necessarily mean I'll be singin' hymns with you the next week. I still plan on blowing the money on booze and whores.)

Add Hominy

The Ad Hominem logical fallacy must be in bold print on page one of the GOP talking points generation manual.

• Terry Schiavo case? Attack Husband Michael Schiavo. Attack the judges who decided the case.
  
• Bush was AWOL? Attack News Anchor Dan Rather.
• DeLay indicted? Attack District Attorney Ronnie Earle.
• The latest (and probably most absurd): Karl Rove leaked Valerie Plame's name? Attack U.S. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

Their antics would be funny if they weren't so disturbing. With the current state of "journalism" in America requiring the airing of opposing viewpoints, no matter how absurd, these attacks many times successfully distract attention from the issue at hand.

Let me just say that I believe the system should be trusted - whether it's the justice system or the court of public opinion - whenever someone is accused of unethical behavior. The truth will out. No one seriously defends Bill Clinton's actions in the Lewinsky scandal. No one should defend Karl Rove's mishandling of classified information. Instead of attacking the messenger, can't we just concentrate on the facts of the case? I'm sure it's in everyone's interest that no one is above the law, left or right.

Why We Went to War: A Theory

We all know by now that the WMD claim has turned out to be bullshit. Not that certain people at certain times didn't wholeheartedly believe the argument, but given the lack of true, substantiated, on-the-ground evidence since the invasion, the bulk of the argument was invented out of whole cloth (probably at the insistence the Veep's office in the halls of Langley). So why did we go?

There are a number of arguments that make sense, but individually don't seem to carry enough weight to be convincing enough to bring us to war:

• We were threatened by WMDs. Even just months prior to the war, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice were debunking this one.
• "Saddam threatened my daddy." Yes, Saddam allegedly tried to assassinate Bush Sr. And yes, GWB has that manly swagger that probably betrays inadequacies elsewhere. But I really doubt GWB, using only his authority and charm, was able to convince the people who run the USA to wage war based on an old grudge.
• We are trying to spread Democracy in the Middle East. Come on, people. This post-invasion canard doesn't jive with logic or history. You ever hear any Republicans criticize the humanitarian devastation caused by the ten years of sanctions? When did we suddenly get this altruistic change of heart?
• [Insert fringe conspiracy theory here.] I don't think we invaded to try and steal their oil. Or because of some Russian or Iranian or French weapons-trading conspiracy.
• Some combination of the above. None of the reasons above stand on their own merits. Even in combination, I don't believe they are reason enough to go to war.

So here's why I think we did it. The U.S. has had a long standing interest in keeping the Middle East stable, primarily due to the vast amount of oil under the sand. Prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, however, the U.S. couldn't get its feet on the ground in the Middle East other than in Israel. Since the 1967 war, especially, the situation in Israel had become increasingly tense, and consequently, our alliance with Israel more and more of a cause for concern. Well prior to 1990, we realized that we had all our Middle East eggs in one basket, so to speak. So when Iraq's tensions with Kuwait began to grow, the U.S. gave a wink and a nod to Hussein to go ahead with his invasion. That invasion gave us the pretense of going in and defending the small nation of Kuwait under an ostensibly altruistic cause. Because of this, the Saudis gave us unprecedented permission to set up bases on holy Muslim soil. Thus our footprint in the Middle East grew. And thus, the Bin Laden grudge was born.

Prior to September 11th, Osama Bin Laden's big gripe with the U.S. was those Saudi bases. According to Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia is holy soil and having infidels on the land violates Islamic principles. September 11th (a disgusting and reprehensible act, no doubt) convinced the world that he was serious. It also convinced the administration that our Saudi Arabian military footprint was quite a liability. We couldn't just withdraw from Saudi Arabia, however. For one thing, we'd be starting back at square one with all those eggs and that one basket. Secondly, the last thing Bush wanted to do was to follow his father's "wuss" legacy and bow to the demands of this shady character. The answer? Hey, we've been bombing Iraq for ten years now. We could convince the world that the threat from Iraq has escalated, bomb the shit out of them, and then quietly move our bases to a country the size of California that just happens to be dead in the heart of the Middle East. Problem solved. We increase our footprint, take away the Bin Laden grievance, and as a side benefit, we get rid of Saddam Hussein and set up a U.S.-friendly government in Iraq.

Of course, things didn't go as planned. The rest, as they say, is history.

The GOP Mafia

I'm only an amateur conspiracy theorist, but the more I read about the Plame case and the DeLay/Abramoff scandal(s), the more it appears that everything in the GOP world is connected, from the media to the lobbyists to the "Christian" "conservative" base to the elected officials. So far, no group within the conservative sphere has been left unimplicated. The officials include the very leadership of two branches of our government. Abramoff runs what appears to be a complicated web of money-cleaning mechanisms. The religious right is represented by Ralph Reed, the former director of the "Christian" Coalition [Update (10/10/2005 15:43): the Oregon branch of the Christian Coalition is in the news today], now part of Abramoff's network.

The question is, if the GOP machine is like an organized crime family (which it appears to be), then who is the Don?

Another Loony Left Blog

Welcome to Race Gannon's blog. Your source for more useless leftie analysis. Enjoy.