Kind of unfocused this week with all that’s going on, so I’m going to resort once again to brief rants on various topics. Bear with me, friends – I promise to keep the lid of my head on.
The Commission. I understand Congress’s reluctance to deal with difficult issues like 
raising taxes, cutting popular programs, etc. That is, however, the main reason why they have been sent to Washington D.C. – to decide where the money for the federal government comes from and where it goes. If they are unable to grapple with these issues, they might consider applying for jobs at the corporations that paid for their campaigns. What irks me about the deficit reduction commission, aside from the participation of paleocons like Alan Simpson, is that they are not directly accountable to the electorate. Even more than that, commissions are usually mustered to do particularly dirty work, like cutting or privatizing Social Security to save a few bucks.
Let’s look at this for what it is. The last administration recklessly cut taxes on rich people, not once but twice, and invaded no less than two countries. We can argue about whether or not Afghanistan should have happened (I think not), but Iraq was and remains a total, utter waste of lives and resources. The hole in our national finances is largely due to these elements, and if someone recommends we pay for criminal negligence such as this by cutting benefits to elderly people of limited means, that’s a non-starter.
Death and Texas. Jesus christmas. No one likes paying taxes, or going to the dentist, or taking exams, or eating their Maypo (well…. almost nobody), but this software executive in Texas who flew his plane into an IRS building should have taken an anger management seminar or something stronger.
Number Two. Our partners in war, the Pakistani intelligence services and military, have captured the Taliban’s second in command. I imagine someone will take his place, right? Whatever intelligence value he may offer, he certainly can’t tell us what we most urgently need to know – namely, what the hell are we trying to accomplish in Afghanistan and when the hell, with 8 years of war and counting, are we going to get out? Seems as though we’ve made the Afghans pay quite enough for 9/11, an attack planned by non-state actors whose initial funding in the 1980s came from us. And with all the civilian casualties we’re causing on both sides of the border, I imagine they’ll have no trouble filling that number 2 spot.
luv u,
jp
enough. But whatever his motivations or limitations may be, we simply cannot allow ourselves to be confined by them. What America needs is a healthy dose of movement politics – the kind that brought us the five day work week, earned black people the vote, and brought the Vietnam war to an end. It’s the only way fundamental change happens, and we had best start facing that fact.
Whether or not Obama is serious about making positive change, he should understand one thing: the Republican party, particularly those in Congress, will not support him no matter what he does. He could adopt all of their positions (instead of just many of them) and they will still work to destroy him politically. That is their clear objective, whatever noises they make for the cameras and microphones. From a political standpoint, I don’t blame Obama for addressing the G.O.P. retreat this week and taking their questions. I think he should call them out, and we did see a little bit of that today. But if he seriously thinks that they are going to work with him on anything substantive, he is smoking crack. He would be well-advised to start appealing to his base, a.k.a. the people who got him elected, and use his considerable rhetorical gifts to articulate a more progressive vision of governance.