When's The Shootout?

Why does Frist think 84% of Texas voters are reliably representative of the entire country given the cesspool that politics happens to be in that state?

Americans do not believe in a government where all power is abdicated to the executive. If a monarchy, that would be crowning -- if otherwise a totalitarian nation, a dictator-- we need neither.

Mr. Frist do not persist in attempting to destroy the rights of a minority party that is nearly equivalent in population distribution as far as voting participation is concerned. You are attempting to impose the tyranny of the majority. If you and your leaders would propose nominees that were 49% liberal/centrist and 51
% moderate/conservative, relative to the two major parties then you could really claim acting in honest bipartisanship.

The problem is in the practice of any means to an end in obtaining the national offices in the executive and legislative branches. The tipping faction is acknowledged to be the extreme religious right, both Cheney and Rove have admitted as much, now the zealots want their pound of flesh. And you Mr. Frist are pandering to this effort, a la your taped message to the recent meeting where you apparently did not want the added burden of personally attending.

Transferring any power to these extremist elements is threatening the very structures that enable government to work in our system. You should be resisting them, but since you appear to have more political ambition than backbone - the current spectacle of breaking long standing senate rules and changing the functional protocols of tools available to the minority, you are undermining the very institution you are appointed to provide leadership, not authoritarian impositions.

Perhaps you should give a lot of thought to the events in the other House, the American public pushed back hard and now the hijacking of the Rules committee over there is being ended rightfully by a rollback to original intent. Hopefully this will result in proper investigation of allegations of Mr. DeLay's misconduct and/or possible criminal indictment in a case in Texas where many of his political associates have been involved.

You should backtrack now while you can, and eliminate theis effort to deprive the minority of the minimal opportunity they have to resist overwheming misuse of power by the majority. Ask your executive boss to use a mix of nominees that is reflective of the population of voters and not simply party payoff selections.

lenal

Bolton Brouhaha continued

The continued hearings in the Senate committee for the United Nations/ U.S. Ambassador position, meaning John Bolton's proposed nomination, are my nomination for the best drama on C-Span or any other media outlet this week.

I took the liberty, still available, of sending off a message to the White House e-mail cemetery, suggesting W reconsider this and offer another nominee. I save all the messages I compose and send there, in a separate folder, it may make good historical information in some far future, for my heirs.

I have also kept up a solid stream of messages to the senators most likely to have the deciding vote on whether this nominee makes it out of committee to the Senate floor, like Voinovich and Chafee in particular.

The R's are using their overly familiar patten of trying to turn the tables on the messenger. Like: 'Those mean and nasty Dems are just being their creative liberal selves and these new allegations do not deserve attention and consideration.'

Doesn't that just make you wonder what all there is that they are trying to protect with this tactic?

And isn't it nice that we are going to find out between now and May ninth - that's what I like about these government soap opera type scripts, can usually only last a shorter time than the fictional sort, although two terms of W may seem an eternity and the fallout will be quite different than tuning in every day to General Hospital, or As The World Turns, and I don't even know if those are still running, but I know W is, and I hope the Dems keep his feet to the fire on all these efforts to install his kingship rule over the judiciary, department of state and other targets, i.e. social security.

Tune in when the next episode is scheduled.

BookView:Pentagon's New Map

BOOKVIEW

Title: The Pentagon's New Map
Author: Thomas P.M.Barnett

Recently, I completed this book subtitled "War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century".

It is the product of an analyst cocooned in the depths of the suffocating bureaucracy known as the Pentagon. He seems to have been baptized in the "military/industrial/complex mentality that Eisenhower warned about, but has a more inclusive view to where that term might now be better circulated as the "military/corporate/complex".During the development of his theories he was loaned out of the CNA to a Wall Street firm that moved into full frontal public view because of it being officed in one of the twin towers that became a target on 9/11. This liaison had its birthing due to the fact that a former high ranking officer, upon retirement, had stepped out of the cocoon into the top brass (sans insignia,)position at Cantor Fitzgerald, and he and TPMB had a previously established tight relationship so this became a "jointness" venture.

The bifurcated goals appear to be subsidizing globalization and keeping the Department of Defense "Leviathan" force profile on the shelf just in case one of the peer CORE group decides to jump ship and be really nasty.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon will continue to demand a glutton's slice of the national budget by choosing which non-core country (the GAP folks) is causing the biggest current itchiness (not likely to be one without coveted natural resources) and promoting it as the target de guerre for introducing a-W-O-W*.However, there appears to be more than the usual aversion to learning from past mistakes that keep accumulating, chiefly because, though we have the superior power and technology (smart boots), we do not have the necessities of penetration that can be characterized as languages, eyes, ears, cultural savvy, that would provide the needed "on scene" intelligence. Nor do we have the humility to acknowledge that if an opponent chooses to play primitively against our superior mod teams, it results in painful military castration.

Nevertheless, in this book, TPMB serves as the matchmaker in this proposed marriage of Wall Street and the Pentagon. Justification for the romance again, is that the country because of its position of superiority, militarily- is empowered to cure the GAP entities of their disconnectedness. Disconnectedness equates to danger --equates to basis for preemptive actions.

In this use of system theory spiced with marketing, administrations' get to peddle this as spreading democracy, freedom, etc., (sound familiar?) all in the name of globalization (read--profit) and the world will magically experience peace on earth as prescribed unilaterally by the USA. The Iraq experience should teach us not to hold our breath while waiting for this utopia.This is presented as exporting security, and is designed to take up the slack in keeping the services employed, albeit not without some proposed painful reconfiguring.

Further rationalizations are offered - deceptively packaged as "a future worth creating" and that is going to prompt the author to pen a sequel for which he could not obtain internal approval so he is by choice leaving the Naval War College nest. The author has made increasing number of personal PowerPoint presentations of his proposals in briefs that are now being given the "flavor of the day" welcome. He has inpressive PowerPoint skills and with his hyped tonal delivery it comes across with all the passion of a televangelist. This scuds about as effectively as a deflated balloon when he engages in discourse without all the staged bombastic delivery. So if you have the opportunity, catch the rebroadcasts on C-Span or look for them in the archives there.

TPMB in this curent gig doesn't really solve the Pentagon's dilemma because there is a foregone conclusion of preserving the status quo under the guise of what has been passing as "Transformation". This is supposedly what has had Rummy's attention instead of him keeping his eye on the ball in Iraq.The work is littered with the military and system theory jargon, new "rule sets" emerge and if you like variations in the game of who is going to control the world - they better not be far from the apple tree. The concepts of peaceful conflict resolution get very short shrift in this treatise, the state department gets marginalized into oblivion.

If you have read this far you may be surprised that there is a conclusion in the book that I can unreservedly support, and that is, that China is not going to be a future target of our techno-war capabilities. When I visited China in 2002, the populace was accelerating the practice of capitalism faster than the government can transmogrify its political image. Hopefully, this can continue without the dislocutions of the past.

I now think of the book as The Pentagon's New Madness and am curious about Barnett's middle initials being P.M.- strange - ; also he has a personal blog that you might be interested in following as he cranks out the next volume:
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/

TPMB may have a future writing for Hollywood, fantasy is a big market there.The book reads rather unevenly and I used a method I call "sipping". When interest lagged, I picked up George Soros's The Bubble of American Supremacy for a change of air, and also Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe.

Those offered a welcome contrast and later I'll offer my views of those books also.

*a-WOW, (that's American Way of War in acronymish).

Bolton Bias

The day was consumed by watching the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearings on the question of confirmation for John Bolton, Nominee for Ambassador to the United Nations for the United States.

Never in my life, have I ever seen anyone less suited for a position. Senator Biden nailed it when he used the term "ideological predisposition" as his way of waying much the same thing. Nothing that Bolton has accomplished, prepares him for this position, only the fact that he is totally in sync with the administration and won't step out of line, thus meeting GWB's single criteria for determining whether an individual is qualified for higher promotions during his reign. Loyalty to the master and the master's dogma.

There are multiple examples of Bolton's lack of fitness for this job. He has an anger management problem. He cannot tolerate dissent ( but that is a plus to the administration - right in line with their doctrines). He is demanding, autocratic and inflexible, not qualities that one needs in a diplomatic professional position. He also has no accomplishments in the realm of what he proposes to do if he get the promotion. That is to say, in the area of reform in an operational reconfiguration in the U.N. This is a huge, diverse organization. And Bolton seemed unable to even exhibit a grasp of the state department and intelligence agencies relationships.

His writings and speeches are amply revealing of why he is the wrong individual to send to the U.N., unless that is - if you don't want to be supportive of it, which is probably why "W" made this nomination.

Senator Sarbanes, Senator Kerry, Senator Boxer, Senator Dodd, Senator Nelson, Senator Feingold, and Senator Biden all presented history that show factually that Bolton is unsuited to handle this position.

However, he is likely to be confirmed, but not by a bi-partisan vote- unless Senator Chafee has a change of heart.

More to-morrow on this, there will be hearings again and instead of Bolton, there will be personnel before the committee to tell the facts about Bolton's attempt to have an employee reassigned that would not tailor intelligence regarding Cuba to fit what Bolton wanted to use to keep the fear button fully engaged with the public so the adminstration can continue their governmental misadventures.

Sunday Sass

The morning line-up beginning with Washington Journal on C-span, then MTP, followed by TW, then FTN, with Blitzer bringing up the rear, serves as my scoping out what the media is spoon feeding the masses.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if they drew by lottery which Congressional representatives and which executive branch rep would be appearing, Instead we get these repetitive pairings. And then the usual guest that just happens to have a new book on the market, and who otherwise is about as interesting as cornflakes.This week unfortunately that happened to be one of the media's favorite oracles, Tom Friedman.

The pseudo pundits cater to Friedman's superempowered ego like camels to water, there was nothing revealed about his newest publication that makes me have any desire to read it. From the multiple interviews already broadcast it seems TF thinks truth is spelled T-H-E-O-R-Y and that he has the market cornered on it as far the the ME is concerned. It is mindful of that other amalgamated production by Thomas P.M. Barnett, The Pentagon's New Map. These brews stir up huge doses of events occurring within the so-called phenomenon of globalization - toss in a lot of garbled socio-political-economic-military goals, ( many of which consist of birdbrain sized servings of whichever target they are trying to please so their next effort also gets promoted in the same manner). All has the appearance of being Rube Goldberg contrived.

I slogged my way through Barnett's delusions and probably will read TF's effort when it hits the local library shelves. I don't plan to shell out my own bucks as I did for TPNM. These pets of the present power structure will in the future become viewed as stale flash-in-the-pan opportunists when the masses are hungry for some new thinking and fresh ideas on how mankind is going to avoid self-destruction.

TF's message to the workers displaced by outsourcing which is resulting from unfair trade passed off as free trade: Not To Worry. This is just a part of the process. No matter that you may face foreclosure, your ability to pay health insurance coverage for the exorbitant cost of COBRA's--is non-existent on unemployment insurance; then what after that with 500 to 700 applicants for every available job. Totally useless opinion and no compassion for the affected, children and adult. That's America today, let's just worry about whether the rich are going to finally be required to get taxed the same way as all earners below 90,000 dollar incomes have always been and work with the administration to see that isn't going to be the case. But Friedman declares that the progress has resulted in terrific benefits, under the rubricon he adopts when stating as the title does: The World Is Flat.

Instead let's say the technology of today has resulted in time compression, economic power distortions, ideological euthanasia, and a case for the individual that can afford a computer to reach out and touch everybody everywhere in their choice of activity. My view of the future developing from this connectedness is nothing in the same realm as those visions from TF or TPMB. I trust my fellow human cohorts to harness this power for the eradication if ignorance, poverty and unnecessary illnesses.

I think that must be called faith.

Just another ho-hum on the weekly Sunday broadcasts, about as exciting as planned leftovers on the table.

Sound the Alarm

Clang! Clang! Clang!

One if by land.
Two if by sea.
Three if under the guise of the ALMIGHTEE.

Do you know any of these people?

Rick Scarborough

Cathy Cleaver Ruse
Austin Ruse

Allan Parker
Michael Schwartz
Darrell White

On C-Span's Washington Journal 04/07/05 yesterday, Scarborough was one of the live guests. Later the group that he is interim chair of also had a separate meeting of theirs aired on that station.

The name of the group is Judeo-Christian Council on Constitutional Reform. A number of them have other significant affiliations. Look them up and learn.

JCCCR - you will want to be aware of the background and goals of this extremist group. They intend to impose their interpretations of the Constitution upon the country.

If you are involved in any way with trying to thwart the efforts of the right wing extremists with their venomous anger and distorted view of America then please do everything in your power to resist this religious terrorist group.

Who needs Al Queda when we have this type of assault on democracy!

Go to the C-Span site and view the video portion of Scarborough's diatribe, it is about a 45 minute portion what with the call-ins.

AWAKE AMERICA!!

Senior Sizzle

Seniors don't fall for the private/personal accounts modifications to the Social Security program because many of us through many decades have invested in the market through personal savings, Keogh plans, IRA's both traditional and Roth etc. and know full well from such experience that the intricacies of the stock market do not produce the fantastic profits predicted by those wishing to make this ill-advised change. Timing is a technique to be avoided and that is what it will come down to when an individual comes up to the age of required retirement, the market may be up, down or muddling along.

The Pugs aren't up-front either with their Madison Avenue style marketing propaganda on this subject. They keep repeating that this is what Congress has in its choices, and that isn't the whole truth. Congress has this in addition to Social Security and that is never mentioned. The government program does not allocate a percentage of Social Security contributions to this at all.

Now this promoting of a program that is going to result in billions of bucks benefiting Wall Street scions because of the business diverted to them by this proposed change couldn't have a thing to do with it - or could it?????

Nor the fact that the baby boomers will be needing to sell a lot of their 401K holdings at that same historic moment in those actuarial figures. THINK!

'W' needs to learn that the public is smarter than he thinks-- among other things.

Changing of the guard

Much patience is required - after the media deluge regarding the Schiavo fiasco now we are being inundated by coverage of the Pope's death. For someone passively opposed to organized religion this is both disgusting and edifying. I wonder how many more centuries it will take before individual responsibility for ones' spiritual health will be adopted globally. That's the kind of globalization I would hope for. My idea of a spiritual leader is one that isn't promoting a heirarchical power structure.

Wouldn't it feed a lot of starving Darfur children if everyone clogging Rome would have found a message from His Holiness suggesting that to honor his passing they use the dollars spent, to view a body, for a donation instead? Let me digress further, all those fancy robes and regalia could be auctioned off, say on E-Bay and use the proceeds for sex responsibility education or AIDS treatment programs, even better to fund rehabilitation for any addicted fellow citizens of the globe. And the real property in Rome, that must total up to a healthy balance. Why not give it all to a trust to fund African relief programs?
Aren't I a dreamer -- why can't we re-invent rituals - these have outlived their relevance, in my opinion.