It is interesting to watch American media reaction to events for which no cheering is allowed. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez won an impressive victory in the legislative elections, capturing 98 of 167 seats. American media outlets are looking for bad, and of course finding it. Here the Miami Herald, which must have known the news would not be good, warned us in advance that Chavez was “stacking the deck.”

Here’s why they say that the news is bad for Chavez: He did not achieve his two-thirds majority. Further, the vote was closer than the outcome – that is, many of the seats that his party one were by scant margins. Also, some outlying regions are disproportionately represented in the legislature, individuals there having in effect more bang for their vote that those from more populated regions.

Which is eerily similar to American elections with our first-past-the-post winners and senators from small population states who have disproportionate power.

Unlike the U.S. president, Hugo Chavez remains a popular fixture in his country’s politics.

This is all very difficult for our state planners, as the desire within the bowels of DC is to attack Venezuela. The usual propaganda is at work – Chavez is a dictator holding office by force, and a clown on the world stage. All false – Chavez is widely respected, and holds office by large mandate.

Nonetheless, there is a buildup of troops now in Colombia, where the U.S. is backing a thuggish government and where those who oppose those thugs are called “terrorists.” The threatened conflict will ostensibly be between Colombia and Venezuela, but much like the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980’s, will be suspiciously convenient for the U.S.

All that is needed is some Tonkin-like event to serve as a pretext to trigger the war.

What will follow? Hard to know. Augusto Pinochet is dead and buried, as is the Shah and Suharto. There’s never a shortage of murderous thugs, and all I am missing is the name of the next president of Venezuela. And remember please to speak American English: Venezuela, a free country, will not really be free until we destroy its freedom to elect its own government and install a thug to run it for us.

There’s a debate going on here, and here, and other places no doubt, about the worth of the Obama Administration. He hasn’t accomplished much of anything – mild credit card reform, bad health care and financial reform, and of course, the continuation of

foreign policy, running the wars, state secrets, Guantanamo, DADT, civil liberty abuses, spying, killing, renditions, etc., things that really piss off progressives, no matter who’s in power.

That’s from a comment at LITW.

What instantly comes to mind is a footnote in Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States in which he said that Harry Truman’s personal notes seemed to indicate that he thought Hiroshima was a military base. That would indicate that Truman did not decide to drop the bombs. Others did, and he was the conduit for the decision. Somebody buffaloed him.

Why is that that ordinary men of limited ability and vision, like the Bush’s and Ronald Reagan, seem to be able to “accomplish” so much, while erudite men of letters, like Clinton and Obama just don’t seem to measure up, in fact, seem to be working for the other camp? The men of lesser ability make massive changes, and the men of great ability just can’t seem to get a grip on things.

I have long thought that the presidency is merely a conduit for power, and that the occupant of the office merely imparts a flavor to the culture of DC. Different people are brought into office and the power structure does shift from one wealthy sector to another, but there is very little change in policy. And the wealthy sector still rules.

The problem I have is that I cannot describe the mechanism. It is too big. It is “the oligarchy”, the thousands of wealthy people who share common interests and frame of mind. But that sounds like a conspiracy, and it is not, anymore than the fact that Britain is run by an aristocracy that only reluctantly shares some power via parliamentary government is a “conspiracy.” It is just how power plays itself out.

Obama happens to be a weak man, but if he were a strong man of principle who intended to use the power of the office to act on those principles, he would not be president. The oligarchy would not allow it. Candidates for office are vetted over a long period, and those who might not be manageable and predictable are, by various means (usually by media indifference), rejected for high office.

And again, I am left to describe how “the oligarchs” stop candidates from getting votes. They do. Most people don’t think their own thoughts, and follow the leaders. The idea of voting for a Dennis Kucinich, say, is considered laughable. Why? He’s certainly smarter than John McCain, and certainly braver than Obama. But a pall is cast on undesirable candidates, and they rarely rise to the stature of “viable” in the eyes of the electorate.

What is the mechanism? I have seen it at work. John Edwards, even though running even in the polls, was never mentioned as a “front runner.” Later, his sexual peccadilloes were exposed. Howard Dean pulled off an upset in Iowa, and the “I have a scream” hit the airwaves, eliminating Howard Dean from consideration.

I see that it works, I see how it plays out. But I do not know anything about how the upper crust, the corporate CEO’s and wealthy families exert their influence to make these things play out as they do.

Eisenhower warned us about the “military-industrial complex”, a nice turn of phrase, and another word for “oligarchy.” But it was too big, even in 1960, for him to describe in a way that would allow us to grasp its depth and breadth and power.

I only know this: If your vision of the office of president is of a man in charge, then your vision is wrong. If you think that George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq, cut taxes, set up a prison in Cuba and torture people, you’re wrong. If you think that LBJ decided to invade Vietnam and kill three million of them, you’re wrong. If you think that public opinion caused the government to pull out of Vietnam, think again. If you think that Obama decided to push in Afghanistan, you’re wrong. If you think that Clinton decided to bomb Serbia, you’re wrong.

The office has power, to be sure, but the power is not exerted by the man in office. The power is exerted through the man in office. Real power lies elsewhere.

I am not big on predictions, but I am going to make a couple anyway, because they illustrate larger points.

1) There will not be another event like 9/11. We were safe before that event, and are just as safe after. The event itself was so off-the-wall that it succeeded.

It is not new security measures that prevents re-occurrence of such an event. The reason I feel comfortable saying this is that mass killing of innocent people is very easy to do. People in other countries are very angry at us, so that it should have happened by now. But no matter how mad people may get at our government and our bombs and bombers and sociopaths, it is very rare for them to vent their anger by killing innocent people. There’s no satisfaction in that. That’s our shtick.

Here’s how easy it would be to do some real mayhem: All our elaborate airport security cannot prevent someone from carrying a bomb into an airport and detonating in the security screening area. Bombers don’t need people gathered on an airplane – they only need for people to be gathered at a single place. All of our elaborate security has merely shifted the gathering point.

As I have long known, and George Carlin reminded us, the whole point of airport security is to keep us in a state of fear. If someone wants to set off a bomb and kill innocent people, it is impossible to prevent.

So no more 9/11’s. Please relax, folks. You’re safe.

2): The Bush tax cuts will be preserved. The only reason that they are set to expire is that they were passed via reconciliation, something that Democrats told us was so too obtuse and complicated to be useful. Bills that increase the deficit that are passed via reconciliation are automatically sunsetted after ten years. Otherwise, the tax cuts would have been permanent and hard-wired. It is now up to Obama to perform that task.

Obama is employing the same strategy with tax cuts as he did with the public option in health care. He is candidate Obama again, our progressive friend. It’s triangulation. At an appropriate time after the election we are going to learn that Obama will ‘accede’ to ‘pressure’ from the Republicans to preserve the cuts.

For right now, due to public opinion, the Democratic leadership had to forestall any action on the tax cuts until after the election. That part is done.

The worst part will be that Obama will apply a little Vaseline, offering up a little morsel here and there, as he did with health care, to convince Democrats that they got something meaningful in return for capitulation.

And they will eat it up. The politics I understand, but this constant capitulation I do not. Where is the validation in losing, losing, losing? How can Democrats live like that?

All of my adult life I have been a company man, only dimly aware of the extent to which institutional loyalties induce myopia. Asserting independence required first recognizing the extent to which I had been socialized to accept certain things as unimpeachable. Here then were the preliminary steps essential to making education accessible. Over a period of years, a considerable store of debris had piled up. Now, it all had to go. Belatedly, I learned that more often than not what passes for conventional wisdom is simply wrong. Adopting fashionable attitudes to demonstrate one’s trustworthiness – the world of politics is flush with such people hoping thereby to qualify for inclusion in some inner circle – is akin to engaging in prostitution in exchange for promissory notes. It is not only demeaning but downright foolhardy. (Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War)

As I read the above words with a sad realization: Bacevich, widely cited, has appeared in many respectable venues, in addition to less desirable places like The Nation and Democracy Now. Soon only the latter will be available to him. His words are a cry of angst that will move him to the margins of acceptable thought.

The book had a familiar feel and color to it, and so I dug out an old Noam Chomsky book that had the same texture, and sure enough, the same publisher: Metropolitan Books. How far you have fallen, Mr. Bacevich. How many turned you down?

You are toast, Mr. Bacevich. You might as well move to France.

Bacevich is writing above about his Eureka! decade – not a sudden realization, but a painful slow epiphany during which he realized that the Cold War was fought without a viable enemy. The Russians were never a threat to us. This led him to other realizations … that our permanent state of war has as much to do with military Keynesianism as any capitalist ideology; that our current aggressive wars are criminal endeavors, and that there was never a call or need for us to “lead” the rest of the world. But here is the worst: Military Keynesianism doesn’t work anymore, doesn’t give us the needed high. And cold turkey might kill us.

After World War II, and passage of the National Security Act of 1948, the Department of War became the Department of Defense. We’ve been at war ever since. The science/art of propaganda had been abandoned, but was resurrected to scare the population into supporting a permanent war machine. The Soviet Union (with China sideboard), was set up as an evil empire and used to justify every military endeavor we undertook. When they collapsed, we used the Microsoft Word “find/replace” command to insert the word “terrorism” everywhere that “Communism” appeared, and carried on as if nothing had changed.

Americans are scared now, so much so that there isn’t much left of our intellectual culture, which is why Bacevich will never be invited to another party in Georgetown. He doesn’t fit. His realization is counter-cultural. His books will not be reviewed in the Times and NY Review of Books. He will cease to exist.

Republicans recently came up with a new version of their 1994 “Contract with America,” called the “Pledge to America.” In it, they promise to cut spending and taxes and balance the budget … but not to touch military spending. They are sure the formula will work, as the idea that unnecessary military spending is necessary is sacrosanct. There is only one possible outcome: Cutbacks in social spending.

And that is the objective. The guns have won the propaganda battle, and butter is losing. All of our social programs, including Medicare and Social Security, are threatened now (as always), but with right wing Democrats in office, more so than ever before.

Here’s some wisdom from the margins: We are not at war with anyone, except by choice. We are safe. We are threatened by runaway population and environmental degradation. We can make our lives better by investing in health care, alternative energy, infrastructure, science and education.

Our war machine, our Pentagon, our military-industrial complex, threatens all of that.

The following observation by Christopher Hitchens gives us a good lens through which to observe our culture:

Nothing optional–from homosexuality to adultery–is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishments) have a repressed desire to participate” — “God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” p. 40

Anti-masturbation candidate Christine O’Donnell won her primary, which is of no concern to me. Then I saw the clip from Bill Maher’s old show talking about the subject. The woman was in misery, so anxious to knock one off that it would be a quick one-two from bar (or church basement) to bed with her. It is an odd Victorian era notion that we must fight our primal urges. Christianity denies what is natural for the sake of the supernatural. Not a good bet.

Repressed urges come out in some form – repressed sexuality often comes out in urges to ban sexuality in others, as Hitchens notes. Homosexuality is present in mild to heavy doses in many of us, and those who repress it are often dangerous, self-loathing prisoners of their own consciences.

More fun is in store. This country’s right wing never ceases to amuse. The best times are when they take control of the political system. Since there is very little real power in that system, we really can’t be hurt by it. So sit back, grab some popcorn, relax, and enjoy the show. Oh, yeah, and if you are alone and feeling randy, while you’re watching, have a diddle. This O’Donnell gal has a Palin-kind of hotness about her. Her sexuality is seeping through her pores, bypassing her inhibitions. All that’s missing is the pole.
___________________
From the Borowitz Report:

WILMINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – Galvanized by Republican senatorial nominee Christine O’Donnell’s anti-masturbation stance, masturbators from across the state converged on Wilmington today in what some are calling the largest pro-wanking protest in American history.

Carrying signs reading, “O’Donnell: Hands Off Our Masturbation,” the angry masturbators clogged downtown Wilmington, stopping traffic for blocks.

Harley Farger, a leading Delaware masturbator and planner of the Million Masturbators March, said it was difficult to organize masturbators “because they’re used to acting alone.”

Mr. Farger, the executive director of the pro-monkey-spanking group MasturNation, said that the “wank and file” of his organization believe that masturbation is an inalienable right guaranteed by the Constitution.

“Our country was founded by rugged individualists,” he said. “And you know what individualists like to do.”

He said that Ms. O’Donnell’s anti-whacking position was “ill-timed,” adding, “In this economy, masturbation is one of the few simple pleasures people still can afford.”

Tracy Klugian, a homemaker and masturbator from Dover, Delaware, said she is “puzzled” by what she sees as the contradictory nature of candidate O’Donnell’s position: “If you’re against masturbation, why would you want to serve in Congress?”

A spokesman for the Wilmington Police Department, Crandall Darlington, said that the Million Masturbators March could cost the city tens of thousands of dollars, “especially when you include the cost of cleaning up afterwards.”

There was quite a bit of talk when Barack Obama took office about Doris Kearn’s book, Team of Rivals. It’s about Abraham Lincoln and the fact that he brought is avowed enemies into his cabinet when he was elected president.

Lincoln was a strong man who did not suffer cognitive dissonance or from group think, two terms that had not been invented at that time. He wanted to hear it all, knowing that the truth can pop up anywhere, and might best be fleshed out by heated exchange among rivals.

John F. Kennedy had a different strategy after the Bay of Pigs. He deliberately left meetings where he thought his mere presence was influencing the discussion.

But with Obama, it’s quite different. That was a nice little touch when he took office, to make it look like he was bringing ideological rivals on board. He wasn’t. He was bringing in people that shared his philosophy, which looks suspiciously like that of his predecessor.

The joke’s on us!

My exposure to talk radio of any variety these days is limited to about fifteen minutes a day – that period of time that it takes to shower. I take the laptop with me, turn on Thom Hartmann. For those who have never experienced non-right wing talk radio, lefty hosts are more willing to entertain opposing points of view. Hartmann especially takes trouble to bring on people with whom he disagrees. I like the concept, but sadly Thom is hyper, unable to make a short statement. His sentences are like a herd of cats climbing a tree, each going a different direction at once. Listening to him can be painful.

Yesterday he had on Bryan Fischer, a Christian theologian and Director of Issue Analysis for the American Family Association. Bryan believes that (A) Islam is a curse upon humanity, but doesn’t say that they must be wiped out (B). He merely intimates. Islam is, after all, a violent religion, while Christianity is a religion of peace.

Such lunacy is ripe ground for exposure of hypocrisy, and Hartmann was quick to remind him of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. Fischer did duck and cover, an odd twist to religious fanaticism wherein the faithful abandon the Old Testament as necessary, and claim only ownership of the new. He dared Hartmann to come up with one passage in the New Testament that encouraged violence, and when he mentioned Jesus saying “I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword,” Fisher said that he was merely speaking in metaphor. Hartmann then asked him if possibly tracts of the Koran are metaphor too, but no, said Fischer, those passages are stone cold.

Fisher then went on to count 109 places in the Koran where violence is wished upon the infidels. Christianity is validated! (Like George Carlin, I wonder why this Christian God is always short of cash, but that’s another issue.)

And then I was done shaving, and off went the radio show. And this morning I remembered something else in the New Testament … Revelations. I don’t hear much about that book these days – that’s the one where 75% of the earth’s population are killed and a triumphant Christ returns on a white horse with a sword. All but 144,000 Jews are murdered. People either convert or suffer the consequences of this peaceful religion.

Peaceful people don’t know what to make of that crazy book. Christian lunatics use it as a means personal validation. Thomas Jefferson omitted it from his bible, calling it “the ravings of a maniac.” I’ve never done any drugs beyond pot, and that only a couple of times, and I’ve never been to a Barry Manilow concert, so I cannot commiserate with the author of that horrible tract. It’s just plain nutty.

But so much for peaceful Christians and the dehumanizing rhetoric about Muslims. Deep inside each of these bible-validating cretins is a wish that 75% of us, and all but a bushel basket of Jews, die a horrible death.

I got one of those stupid right wing emails that go around from an acquaintance in Billings – a hyper-religious right winger who imagines that he is Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders. This one viewed the history of the world through the lens of the history of beer, and of course concluded that “liberals” (the rest of the world, as he sees it), are stupid, lazy, and feed off “conservatives” (the smart minority of humans). I sat on it for a week, and then came up with a nuanced response, thoughtful and self-reflective, and sure to yield a positive response from his critically informed brain:

The last “conservative” was Barry Goldwater, deceased. Here’s a true story, as told by his daughter:

It seems every time some goofball or low IQ jackass says (s)he’s a conservative, Barry does a half-turn in his grave. It was bad enough with the Sarah and Pat Robertson and Dobson, but with the rise of the Teabaggers, his spinning got so bad that he ended up drilling his way over to the neighbors. They went and got him and re-buried him, but as a precaution put him on a spit so that he wouldn’t leave the yard again. Then they had a bright idea – they hooked him up to a generator. Now every time some dimwit right winger says something stupid, it generates electricity for their house.

You just lit up their yard lights.

“…the operation of expelling feelings or wishes the individual finds wholly unacceptable—too shameful, too obscene, too dangerous—by attributing them to another.” (Peter Gay, Definition of projection)

Everything that I see around me in this crazy country is projection. We differ from Islamic cultures culturally, but also in our ability to kill from great distances. Because we can drop bombs from aircraft and fire missiles at people, and now even use unmanned drones to accomplish these purposes, our killing, while indiscriminate, is also safe. For us.

The indignity that people express at the events of 9/11 is projection. We do the equivalent of 9/11 twice before breakfast, again after lunch, and then go home to our kids and have sex with our wives, girlfriends and mistresses, and then go out and do it again the following day because, you know, they are evil.

There is no difference between us and them. We are intolerant of their religion, they of ours. They kill us indiscriminately, we them. We’re just better at that game. We have among our ordinary Joe’s a few scholars, humanitarians, scientists, theologians, and sociopaths. So do they.

Our leaders (most of whose names we would not recognize) became leaders because they understand human nature better than the rest of us. They know that we all suffer from greed, lust, avarice, pride and anger, and so play to those vices as they play their global games for control of land and resources. We are taught to dress it up as patriotism, just vengeance, courage and honor. It is none of those things. It is indiscriminate killing. We are indiscriminate killers.

But those Muslims, why, they are even worse than us! So we are justified killing a million of them as the price for 2,819 of us. That 355:1 ratio speaks of another vice: Vanity.

The picture to the left is not a stock “forest fire” picture from somewhere, but one that was actually taken this week of a fire up in the hills near here.

We’ve had family and friends call from both coasts and Montana wondering if we are affected by the blaze. We are not – we are safely tucked away in town. We came down here to buy a house, and just did, but that house is down in Morrison, 45 minutes away. But the new house is … in the woods, the urban interface of course. Someday soon we might be running for our lives.

The fire started when a guy in a camper backed into a propane tank. [So goes the rumor.] It spread quickly, and because of shifting winds and other logistics, last night at 10 P.M. it was “zero percent contained.” Last I heard it was 7,0006422 acres and growing, and that 3,500 people had been evacuated. A hundred [167 as of 9/10] structures have burned, 167 as of 9/10 with 80% surveyed and eight people are missing. [All are accounted for.] (People often refuse to evacuate.)

Anyway, the People’s Republic is not directly threatened. [Though we are safe in SW Boulder, other parts of town are indeed threatened.] It is, I am told, the most destructive fire in Boulder Colorado history.