The Mound of Sound

Even the most powerful political leader on earth can’t get very far without a tankful of political capital. That tank inevitably begins to run low during the final months of a lame duck president’s term. In the case of George w. Bush, it’s not low, it’s empty.

Shrub’s Middle East farewell tour proves the point. He got up and delivered inflammatory speeches that failed to spark any reaction save for apathy. He went begging for more oil and got snubbed and shown the door.

George’s failure, from day one, has been his inability to understand the essential need to understand. This is a guy who’s boasted that he follows his “gut instinct” on major issues.

Gut instinct isn’t necessarily bad when it’s preceded by an accurate understanding and thoughtful deliberation. It works as the best alternative when you’ve done your homework and still haven’t come up with one clear solution. It’s not, however, a substitute for understanding or deliberation. Without the groundwork, gut instinct is no more than a wild-ass guess (WAG) and often something worse, a silly, wild-ass guess (SWAG).

Invading Iraq with 160,000 troops was a WAG. Deciding to occupy the country without tripling the number of boots on the ground was a SWAG. No understanding, no deliberation.

It didn’t take long for important people around the world to figure out how Bush worked which is a key reason why everything he’s touched – be it America’s economy, its environment, Iraq, New Orleans, its influence abroad, even its military adventures – has wound up on the heap in the biffy.

Bush went to the Middle East and claimed that he can solve the Israeli/Palestinian dilemma before he leaves office in January. With what, another SWAG? This guy is either trying to scam everyone or else he’s just plain delusional.

Remember when Bush confided to certain world leaders, including Canada’s own Paul Martin, that he was guided by God, in effect God’s instrument in the White House? That meant his decisions were divinely inspired, making him, in effect, a demi-god. And, as we all know, demi-gods don’t have to understand, don’t have to contemplate. All they need do is go with their divine, gut instinct.

It’s a sort of hucksterism rarely seen since the days of the old medicine shows but it’s one that no one’s buying any longer. Bush is empty, done, finished. No one believes him any more, no one seems to feel the need to humour him either.

In critical moments past, sitting presidents have sometimes called in their predecessors for advice. Think any future president will be running up long-distance phone bills to the trained chimp in Crawford?

David Suzuki’s endorsement of Stephane Dion’s carbon tax initiative is a mixed blessing.

Suzuki’s outspokeness has made him a bit of a lightning rod for criticism that he’s an extremist, a granola munching tree-hugger.

I think Suzuki sees the global warming issue as a politico-scientific challenge. Both sides have to work together like a team of horses or nobody gets anywhere – ever.

If Dion truly has the fortitude to stand behind the carbon tax policy and if David Suzuki genuinely believes there is no other way, the two must work together and very publicly.

For his part, Dion has to show a degree of genuine leadership that’s rarely seen in the timid. He must refine his initiative, stand behind it, explain it, defend it and then persuade Canadians that it’s not just a nice idea but an imperative.

For his part, Suzuki must use his considerable professional influence to enlist a large body of the best scientific minds in our country to join him in supporting the carbon tax proposal. They need to lend their voices, their credentials to present a solid scientific consensus on the issue. They need to assist Mr. Dion by doing everything in their power to explain the merits of carbon taxation to a sceptical and sometimes ill-informed public.

I think the concept is workable. A lot of the already stated fears are misplaced. For example, there’s no reason that home heating fuel cannot be exempted from these taxes. I believe there are similar workarounds for other problems.

That’s not to say that carbon taxes won’t be felt. Of course they will as they must if they’re to work. That’s the whole point. The idea is to get people to change their energy consumption habits. If you must commute an hour each way to work, you might want to help us all out by ditching that SUV. Maybe you’ll suddenly see the merits of car pooling or mass transit. Maybe jobs will have to relocate closer to the available workforce as has happened elsewhere, relieving already chronic congestion in our metropolitan cores.

Here’s another thought. We don’t consume energy equitably so why should those who consume substantially more not expect to contribute more in tax? If you want to live in a 4,000 sq. ft. house in exburbia because that’s where you can afford that elevated lifestyle, don’t complain that it’s expensive to clog up the highways commuting downtown to work. That’s your choice, live with it. If you want to spend your weekends racing about the lake in your ski boat rather than kayaking, that’s your choice, live with it. If the taxes are unacceptable, change your lifestyle. Just don’t bitch to me about how you choose to live your life.

A few observations from Bill Moyers taken from his new book, “Moyers on Democracy”:

“Democracy in America is a series of narrow escapes, and we may be running out of luck. Now all bets are off. We have fallen under the spell of money, faction, and fear, and the great American experience in creating a different future together has been subjugated to individual cunning in the pursuit of wealth and power -and to the claims of empire, with its ravenous demands and stuporous distractions. A sense of political impotence pervades the country – a mass resignation defined by Goodwyn as “believing the dogma of ‘democracy’ on a superficial public level but not believing it privately.” We hold elections, knowing they are unlikely to bring the corporate state under popular control.

The earth we share as our common gift, to be passed on in good condition to our children’s children, is being despoiled. Private wealth is growing as public needs increase apace. Our Constitution is perilously close to being consigned to the valley of the shadow of death, betrayed by a powerful cabal of secrecy-obsessed authoritarians. Terms like “liberty” and “individual freedom” invoked by generations of Americans who battled to widen the 1787 promise to “promote the general welfare” have been perverted to create a government primarily dedicated to the welfare of the state and the political class that runs it. Yes, Virginia, there is a class war and ordinary people are losing it.

The conclusion that we are in trouble is unavoidable. I report the assault on nature evidenced in coal mining that tears the tops off mountains and dumps them into rivers, sacrificing the health and lives of those in the river valleys to short-term profit, and I see a link between that process and the stock-market frenzy which scorns long-term investments – genuine savings – in favor of quick turnovers and speculative bubbles whose inevitable bursting leaves insiders with stuffed pockets and millions of small stockholders, pensioners, and employees out of work, out of luck, and out of hope.

When the state becomes the guardian of power and privilege to the neglect of justice for the people as a whole, it mocks the very concept of government as proclaimed in the preamble to our Constitution; mocks Lincoln’s sacred belief in “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”; mocks the democratic notion of government as “a voluntary union for the common good” embodied in the great wave of reform that produced the Progressive Era and the two Roosevelts. In contrast, the philosophy popularized in the last quarter century that “freedom” simply means freedom to choose among competing brands of consumer goods, that taxes are an unfair theft from the pockets of the successful to reward the incompetent, and that the market will meet all human needs while government itself becomes the enabler of privilege – the philosophy of an earlier social Darwinism and laissez-faire capitalism dressed in new togs – is as subversive as Benedict Arnold’s betrayal of the Revolution he had once served.“

You have to be pretty close to 60 now to remember when that phrase literally rolled off the lips of college students from one end of America to the other. It was the late 60’s/early 70’s and American youth, or a good number of them, were in revolt. They were tired of a war without end, tired of the killing, tired of the draft, tired of blatant, institutional racism.

I was in the states doing my undergrad at the time and what a time it was. Protests everywhere, seemingly a daily event. On campus the SDS or the Weathermen, no one knew for sure, got into the Army ROTC building one night and what the blast didn’t destroy the flames certainly did.

For all its absurdity and contradiction, it was a cleansing moment for America. It couldn’t last and it didn’t. The long-haired radicals shaved, put on Brooks Brothers suits and button-down Oxford cloth shirts and became investment bankers. But it was important while it lasted for it exposed the deep wound in American society and forced everyone to see it and, when that happened, Washington had to respond.

America could use another of those radical, cleansing moments right now but it’s not going to happen. Why not? Because there’s no generational divide, no draft and no powerful mass media.

The Bush wars are being fought by America’s “all volunteer” army which is technically correct even if those hapless volunteers didn’t understand they might wind up being held hostage by their own government and forced to fight year after year after year. It’s a hidden draft, a perverse blend of voluntary enlistment and indentured servitude. It’s wicked cruel, the handiwork of cowards, rapscallions and utter reprobates.

The trick, of couse, is “all volunteer.” If you don’t sign on for it, you’re safe. You can forget all about it. And that’s exactly what most American youth are doing, forgetting about it. The effects are plain. After 9/11, nine out of ten recruits were high school graduates. That’s now down to seven of ten. In addition, the use of moral waivers to allow the military to accept volunteers with criminal records or other issues has skyrocketed. And even that isn’t working which is why many of those early volunteers are now serving their fourth tours in combat, tours that have been extended to 15-months a pop.

Because there’s no draft, at least not yet, America’s youth, especially the privileged kids (and their parents) have nothing to fear. So long as you can hold that all volunteer army captive, they’re safe.

No draft, no generational divide. When old people begin sending draft notices to young people, the chasm opens instantaneously. Anger and resentment and distrust build rapidly and settle in.

No powerful mass media either to make the American people see what’s being done to their country. No courageous mass media to raise proper hell over the abuse of the all-volunteer soldiers. There’s the obligatory occasional story, sure, but they’re far and few between and not enough to make those who prefer not to see look at it, certainly not enough to trigger public outrage. There’s nobody to expose the deep wound in American society.

And that, kids, is how America came to have so many motherfuckers and so few walls to put them up against.

John McCain’s grasp of history and current events is pretty wobbly but his vision for the near future must be giving nightmares to America’s hostage soldiers.

The Bush regime still maintains the tyrannical “stop loss” cudgel to force its soldiers, regulars and reservists, to keep on serving – and fighting and dying – for years beyond their intended commitment.

There are now American service personnel on their third, sometimes even fourth tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, many essentially held against their will. The reservists, in particular, have found themselves trapped with desperate families and ruined businesses or careers awaiting their eventual return home.

Here’s the brutal truth. John McCain intends to keep these people fighting for the foreseeable future or until America wins the already lost Afghan and Iraq wars. He intends to keep these people hostage because the only other way he can continue “to victory” is to draft replacements.

The giveaway is found in McCain’s recent speech where he outlined his vision for bringing American troops home after winning Iraq and Afghanistan by 2013. This is what he said,

“By January, 2013 America is welcome [sic] home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom.”

By 2013 some of these indentured troops will have served in combat longer than any Western soldiers for centuries.

Years ago I read some post-WWII American studies of just how long the average soldier can function in combat. The results were quite interesting. Long before the body goes, the mind fails. Often the soldier either becomes unusable or deeply disturbed. There are already plenty of reports of psychological damage being sustained by American troops due to extended tours. What will four more years of fighting bring to these who have already “sacrificed terribly?”

There’s not even a slight chance that McCain would ever get congressional approval for a draft. That means, as Rumsfeld said, “you go to war with the army you have.” McCain’s war is going to have to be fought, on and on, by the very same army that Rumsfeld had back in 2003 when he launched the adventure in the Iraqi sandbox.

I wonder if John McCain’s memory is good enough to recall what happened the last time the American army became hopelessly demoralized?