Tag Archives: GOP

Political Rants

Soldiers and their uses.

There are a lot of things to write about this week, to be sure, but I just wanted to get something down about Bowe Bergdahl and the political shit storm that erupted around his disappearance and release from his imprisonment by the Haqqani Taliban network. This is prompted in part by the current season of the Serial podcast, which is focusing on Bergdahl’s case, but also by the fact that Republicans – and particularly Donald Trump – regularly hold this guy up as emblematic of everything that’s wrong with America. (On this they appear to be in agreement with the Haqqanis.)

Unworthy victimI won’t run through the particulars of the story. For that, I suggest you listen to the podcast. Suffice to say that Bergdahl suffered grievously over his five years as a guest of the Taliban. He attempted to escape several times, once for as long as nine days, escaping barefoot into the Hindu Kush, injuring himself severely, eating grass, etc. He was beaten badly, cut with razors, kept in a cage not fit for a chimp, threatened with beheading – you name it. He was the first P.O.W. held for anything like this long since the Vietnam War, and under conditions that rival any horror stories from that conflict. Frankly, it’s a testament to his physical and mental strength that he survived.

When he got home, though, he received something less than a cordial reception from his fellow Americans, aside from the folks in his home town and the Obama administration. Now, of course, he’s facing court martial. This is more a political response by the military than anything else, given the heated rhetoric that has accompanied his return. John McCain has insisted that Bergdahl is “clearly a deserter” and threatened to haul top military brass in front of his Senate committee if they didn’t prosecute him as such. Something to bear in mind the next time you consider using the words “McCain” and “integrity” in the same sentence. Mean as a snake.

This is the flip side of the “hero” treatment we give our military personnel – specifically,  referring to them as heroes without actually doing anything substantive to help them, keep them from being deployed pointlessly, etc.  Bergdahl made a mistake under a great deal of pressure; he did so with the best intentions, and he has more than paid for it. The vast majority of those who criticize him now wouldn’t last five minutes under the conditions he suffered for five years. Time to let him continue with his life and move on.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

News dump.

Lots going on this week, so I’ll comment on a few random things. Stop me if it gets confusing.

Cuba vs. Cuba. The spectacle of Cruz and Rubio spouting anti-immigration rhetoric in a kind of xenophobic pissing match is hypocritical beyond belief. Here are two examples of the offspring of Cuban exiles, their parents having arrived in the United States under the extremely preferential terms that have been in effect for Cuban immigrants since the early 1960s, an experience nothing like what immigrants from other Central American nations have to deal with. When you leave revolutionary Cuba and go to the U.S., you have a golden ticket. You’re practically guaranteed a green card and a place in the exile community. Compare that with what you face when you run here escaping the drug gangs in El Salvador – a cell in an outsourced cinder-block detention facility and an eventual boot out the door.

Pick the hypocrite. (Hint: black suit)The Cuban exile policy is the perfect illustration of what these GOP pols complain about with regard to incentivizing the influx of undocumented immigrants, and yet they have no problem with folks flocking here from Cuba because they can’t earn a lot of money back home. But when it comes to families running for their lives from the hell holes we helped destroy during the 1980s, that’s different. If the likes of Cruz and Rubio had had their way, Cuba would be a free market basket case like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and every other disaster area we “helped” over the years. Of course, then the legions of exiles fleeing drug gangs would find no red carpet on these shores.

Get the lead out. The water crisis in Flint Michigan reminds me of the slow motion disaster that was New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, when every level of government seemed paralyzed by a kind of neoliberal lethargy. We are not seeing government rushing to the aid of the people their austerity programs have poisoned. Who says austerity doesn’t ruin lives? For chrissake, it doesn’t even save money. The financial cost (to say nothing of the staggering human cost) of a generation of young children stricken by lead poisoning far outstrips the amount of funds it would have taken to keep Flint on marginally potable water. Someone needs to go to jail over this, but since the crisis mostly affects people of color, that seems doubtful.

Iran lets the neocons down. They were hoping for another hostage crisis, but were sorely disappointed, I expect, when the Iranian government released captured U.S. naval personnel after 16 hours. This is the sort of touch point that would have started the neocons’ much sought-after war with Persia back a few years ago. No such luck, boys and girls. Though my principal question is, what the fuck were our sailors doing there? Who sent them on this fool’s errand and why? No answers yet.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

New year, old bottle.

Here we go headlong into 2016. It feels as if we’ve already had the year, since pop culture obsesses over the horse-race aspect of elections even if it rarely delves into the substance of what’s at issue. Truth be told, the talk shows have been talking about 2016 since 2012, the day after election day. Evidently, it’s an eyeball magnet for them, so they’ll never stop talking about it, particularly now that we’ve entered the age of Trump. Good television will always trump (no pun intended) good politics, hands down.

So, what are the substantive issues that we should be grappling with in this election year? Same ones as in practically every other year, and you can name them as credibly as I can. Here’s my list:

Cheap eyeball magnetCapitalism’s Failure. This is an issue that touches on everyone, young and old, working and unemployed or retired, poor and not-so-poor. The internal contradictions of American and, by extension, global capitalism came to a head in the crash of 2008, and we are still living in the aftermath of that disaster. Yes, the government can point to select data points that indicated a modest level of recovery, but the fact remains that an economic system that has consistently failed the vast majority of the population over the past 30 years has entered into an entirely new phase of failure. Most working Americans are toiling at the only job they can find, earning an inadequate rate of compensation. Our major cities are choked with legions of homeless people. This system is broken; it only serves the top one percent. We need to take a hard look at this, sooner rather than later.

Phony Wars. Our military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq are entering a new year with no end in sight, and we’re building up presences in Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. These conflicts spawn other conflicts, inspire retail terrorists, and generally create havoc. I’m not hearing a lot of meaningful discussion about this from the current herd of presidential candidates. Let’s hold their feet to the fire this year.

Climate Change. While it is snowing like hell today, this has been the warmest and most snowless late fall – early winter in upstate New York in my experience. And while we have the Paris accord, very little is being done to reduce emissions and prevent this ongoing climate disaster from becoming an unmitigated catastrophe and a threat to human survival in the decades ahead. We have the means to move the needle on this; now we just need the will. That’s totally up to us.

Black Lives Matter. With the failure to indict the Cleveland PD officers who shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice last year, it is clear that we need to set new standards for law enforcement methods and accountability. That said, the problem evident in these deadly interactions runs much deeper than what can be corrected through police reform. Law enforcement methodology reflects the values of the society it serves; namely, white society in America. There are deep historical, economic, and cultural reasons for this, and we need to address these at their root, not simply prune the unsightly branches.

The list goes on, but we would do well to inject these issues into the election year discussion, preferably in a manner that draws connections between all three.

luv u,

jp