Duty to Warn

Americans may find Syria a bit confusing. David Petraeus, sainted hero, has proposed arming al Qaeda, organized devil. Vladimir Putin, reincarnated Hitler, is bombing either ISIS or al Qaeda or their friendly democratic allies, but he shouldn't be because he's against overthrowing the Syrian government, also run by Hitler living under the name Assad. Hillary Clinton, liberal socialist, wants to create a no-fly zone, but wouldn't that make it hard to bomb all the scary Muslims? Wait, are we against Assad or the scary Muslims or both? Aaaaaarrrrgghh! How does this make any sense?

Let's start over, shall we?

Some basic facts?

We'll start with the most uncomfortable fact, but one that helps begin to make sense of everything, OK?

It's beginning to look like political season has finally arrived, and it isn't just that we have two debates under our belt and primaries about to begin. The telling statistic is that fully 85 percent of op-ed writers, most of whom ought to know better, have finally succumbed to the temptation of reacting to some piece of insane gibberish emanating from our dear friend Donald Trump. It's the journalistic equivalent of a weekend off, a “phone it in and come to bed honey” moment. More fool them – the man is plainly a Democratic plant, as is his friend Tom Brady.

  But this is a music column, and we don't ask the easy questions here. If you want to know John Kasich’s stance on net neutrality, the Dispatch would be more than happy to oblige you. Here, however, we roll up our sleeves and get down to the ugly core of what makes someone deserving of the presidential office – if a candidate was a Kinks songs, which Kinks song would they be? Cue “The Contenders,” in alphabetical order:

That little smoke-filled room where our despair and paranoia incline us to imagine a small number of evil people run the world clearly forgot to keep an eye on the Republican Party.

A popular movement has struggled to stop such looming disasters as the NAFTA-on-steroids Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but the ouster of John Boehner as Speaker of the House puts stopping anything into play. While scholarly studies deem the U.S. government to be an oligarchy, based on whom it actually serves, petty partisan squabbling just might come riding to the rescue of democracy -- accidentally of course.

Boehner wasn't insufficiently right-wing for the other Republicans in the House of Representatives, he was just insufficiently obstinate and insufficiently anti-Obama. The new Speaker's mandate will be to oppose to the death anything Obama supports. Obama could publicly throw himself behind keeping Guantanamo open, and the place would be shut by Thursday.

As documented in Douglas Blackmon's book, Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, the institution of slavery in the U.S. South largely ended for as long as 20 years in some places upon completion of the U.S. civil war. And then it was back again, in a slightly different form, widespread, controlling, publicly known and accepted -- right up to World War II. In fact, in other forms, it remains today. But it does not remain today in the overpowering form that prevented a civil rights movement for nearly a century. It exists today in ways that we are free to oppose and resist, and we fail to do so only to our own shame.

Yeah, snort. How funny can you get? It’s the New Rules segment of “Real Time with Bill Maher” and the host has just tossed his gag tomahawk at the First People. A picture fills the screen: Indians in full regalia, dancing. The caption below it says “Tribal Thumpers.” He pauses, straight-faced, eyeballs rolling in sarcasm. There’s a trickle of laughter amid the awkward silence, then Maher turns away from the camera, presumably toward the crew back stage, and calls out in his fake shame-on-me voice, “Are you making fun of Indians, Bill?”

The moment lasts about 20 seconds, then he’s on to the next putdown joke.

The myth of American Exceptionalism is widely, but perhaps insincerely, believed by most American thought-leaders and political and economic elites, whether they are radical Republican Party members/voters or are members/voters of the moderate “Republican” wing of the Democratic Party.

Members of the democratic wing of the Democratic Party and anybody that espouses Green Party values (whether they are registered members or not) are skeptical of the mass media’s constant reportage on American Exceptionalism.

Oh, America is certainly an exceptional nation, all right, but the reality is that most of the evidence of exceptionalism should be sources of sorrow, shame and embarrassment. All American patriots, including the pseudo-patriots who espouse the classical fascist/nationalist notion of “My nation, right or wrong”, should be on their knees repenting of what America has done on behalf of that misbegotten belief, starting with the “patriotic” genocidal massacres of the aboriginal Native Americans, the quasi-genocide of America’s African slaves, the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny.

 Get ready: the Republicans may not know it, but they’ve all but certified their ticket for 2016, and they will probably win.
  The saturation bloviation that followed this week’s Republican presidential debates missed some monumental moments, including:
There was one (and ONLY one) candidate on the stage that had anything meaningful to say. It was Rand Paul. What he said about war and marijuana was of serious significance.
The GOP hard core on the stage and in the audience certified their obeisance to a free pass for the horrific presidency of George W. Bush, thereby opening the door for his brother, who can almost certainly win if he runs with the guy from Ohio.
 
   Let’s deal first with Rand Paul. Like his father (and unlike virtually anyone else in the GOP) the Senator from Kentucky seems to have some actual principles. Both Pauls have been firmly committed to the legalization of marijuana for many years, and have not wavered.

Senator Bernie Sanders taped a PBS show at the University of Virginia on Monday. I had corresponded with the host Doug Blackmon beforehand, and offered him ideas for questions on military spending and war, questions like these:

1. People want to tax the rich and cut military spending, which is 54% of federal discretionary spending according to National Priorities Project, but you only ever mention taxing the rich. Why not do both? What -- give or take $100 billion -- is an appropriate level of military spending?

2. Do you agree with Eisenhower that military spending creates wars?