Political Rants

The other side.

Last week I wrote about the P.O.W. Bergdahl and how he and his family were being used as a political football. The other half of the story is about the prisoner trade the Taliban negotiated with our government. The same voices that were denigrating the Bergdahl clan described the traded Guantanamo detainees as a  Taliban “dream team” or a set of “MVPs” for the other side in the Afghan war. Setting aside the ridiculousness of the sports analogy, this characterization is as stupid as it is irrelevant.

Let's ask this guy.First of all, they were not high-value detainees. They were leadership within the Taliban regime of the 1990s – 2001, yes, but they were not implicated in the deaths of any Americans. Nor were they captured at great cost, as has been suggested by some. Two or more of them turned themselves in; others were turned in by Pakistani intelligence, probably in exchange for some payment. Will they return to “the fight”? Well, that may be, but keeping Guantanamo open all these years has inspired more (younger) people to join the fight than we could ever release from that legal limbo on Cuban soil. A lot of people want us dead; are we that worried, really?

Then there’s the simple fact that the Afghan war is going to end. Face it, McCain, Graham, Ayotte, etc. … stick a fork in it. Your awesome war is coming to a close, whether you like it or not. Only you are in favor of keeping it going, just as only you were in favor of expanding the Global War on Terror to Syria. The American people are sick of the Afghan war, and they will not miss it.

Now the same political hacks have their hair on fire about Iraq because it is melting down as a result of our having trashed the place with their blessing. This, they suggest, is the argument for staying in Afghanistan for … well, forever. Does anyone, anyone in America agree? Does anyone want their kid to go over there and take a bullet for this sorry project? My guess is no.

Next week, I’ll rant a bit about Iraq. Stay tuned.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Tune down.

That doesn’t sound much like a Sousaphone. What if you cup your hands over your mouth … like this? Wa-wuh-wa-wuh. How about that? Too much like a muted trombone? Very well.

Um, maybe.Okay, I admit it … sometimes it’s hard to arrange a song when you’ve only got two musicians in the room, and one of them is me … and the other is my brother. (That’s brother of the same mother, Matt Perry.) The palette is limited, let us say, and of course Matt can’t play guitar and bass at the same time. (I’ve had more than one talk with him about his shortcomings.) And my keyboarding is, well, mostly confined to piano like objects, organs, etc. We’re recording new, mostly very silly songs, and they call for stuff we can’t do ourselves. At least, not without some modifications.

These are songs for the podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, and more specifically, for our next Ned Trek episode. Matt wanted a sousaphone like sound, so he attempted to make it himself. On one song, I wanted a harp-like sound, so I fashioned one out of a hair comb and an electric razor. That, too, didn’t work out so well. In any case, we end up just resorting to the usual axes, with a few weird noises dropped in from Neptune. Then we go on an interstellar tour. That’s the Big Green way.

Matt and I have thought about adding members, but I have to tell you, this Hammer Mill is overcrowded even with just the two of us here. I think part of the reason is that this old barn of a place is so stuffed full of creepyness, there’s no air leftover for the rest of us. So the rest of us go celebrate Festivus. And there is much rejoicing. Like when I got those bottlecaps nailed on the bottom of my shoes so I could walk across ice in the winter. That worked … not so great.

Okay, I’ve wandered a bit. Thing is, you might just see us out with a horn player at some point. And maybe someone on kazoo. Stranger things have happened.

Podcast

Left behind.

The right-wing nut-job media machine has really been cranking overtime this past few weeks. One wonders how long the hair-on-fire outrage routine can possibly continue to work for them. When you sound the emergency broadcast system every day, 24 hours a day, doesn’t it reduce the effect … or, at least, the specialness? Maybe not in the context of today’s insatiable media culture. Perhaps there is no saturation point for this level of madness.

Right-wing target #1 this weekI confess, this Bergdahl-as-a-traitor obsession is simply astounding. Didn’t think they would go there, but apparently they have. The man spent five years as a captive of the Taliban, is finally released, and the reactionary pundits (and some of the centrists, as well) have been roasting him and his family alive ever since. This is trial by media, and they keep stoking the flame higher and higher, trotting out retired colonels and former Army comrades of Bergdahl who paint this craven picture of the young man, none of it based on demonstrable fact. My reliably conservative neighbor came out of his house the other day spouting this line about Bergdahl being a “deserter”; pretty much parroting what’s being said on Fox News.

Amazing. Really, people … can you give the guy a chance to recover, at least, and speak for himself? Of course, in actuality he is the projectile, not the target. The target is Obama and congressional Democrats. That will be the focus of everything the GOP does, every position they take, every word they say, from now until November. It should be lost on no one that at this point in the Clinton presidency, the impeachment process was well underway with an eye to the approaching mid-terms. This time around, I think they may be smart enough to avoid actual impeachment, opting instead for relentless, daily assaults on every breath Obama takes from a policy standpoint. That capability was in its infancy in 1998. Not anymore.

I will say this. If any of what they say about Bergdahl is true, it’s likely that he is actually a sensitive kid who was disillusioned by war.  Hard to blame him for that. The rest is pure conjecture.

luv u,

jp

NEXT WEEK: The “other side” of the deal.

Weird ass music since 1986