On the Contrary

On some topics my knowledge is intellectual, but not visceral, not first hand.  In this case, however, I know this one in my gut.   Back in the “day” I was trained to resist torture.  I spent some time in a simulated captivity and an interrogation facility.  I was faced with the real possibility when I flew in Viet Nam, and I debriefed Tom Storey when he came back after five long years in captivity in North Viet Nam.  It was heart wrenching.  I also was one of those guys who had to sign an agreement that I understood that the bombing of Cambodia was illegal and I would never violate the will of Congress following an illegal order.  That one seemed to slip by Oliver North and Crew about 15 years later.  This is probably ancient history for most of you, but this is what informs my feelings like electricity about the disclosures we are being handed about our conduct of torture.

So with the latest revelations and President Obama’s pledge to not prosecute those that thought they were following legally constituted orders, I had mixed emotions.  But with a little introspection, the fog disappeared.  First, is the obviously flawed “legal” memos themselves and the techniques that they revealed.  Actually nothing here is new since Jane Mayer, in her book, The Dark Side, has already described all of this in detail.  What she didn’t have were the actual memos, only accounts of them from interrogators and lawyers who knew their illegitimacy.  Now they are exposed for all of us to see.  If the techniques don’t sound bad to you I suggest you pick up her book and read how these and other techniques were applied and in some cases, killed detainees.  And of course they got them to talk.  Problem is they would tell you anything you wanted to hear.  Some of the “intelligence” that justified the Iraq war was nonsense from one of these interrogations that later turned out to be totally false.

Should President Obama have pledged not to prosecute those who thought they were following legal orders when they were actually performing torture that is illegal in this country?  Should we have let the guards who walked people into the gas chambers at Dachau go free because they were just following orders?  Is just following orders a justifiable defense?  I don’t think so if we don’t want a repeat of this episode.  If we accept this line of thinking, what is to prevent the next President (or in this case Vice President (Dick Cheney and his legal counsel David Addington)) from finding some sycophant like John Yoo to write horribly flawed legal memos justifying anything so those that carry it out have a get out of jail free card?  Nothing.

Now I don’t think most of these people (there were men, women, doctors, nurses, psychiatrists involved) were evil, but torture is torture and they should be duly tried and if deemed culpable, punished.  Most would never serve a day because they were really pulled in and thought they were doing the right thing for the country in tough circumstances.  But some killed people, or decided to keep prisoners when they knew they had the wrong person.  This has to come out and those that did this must face justice for their crimes.  The message is that we all know what torture is, in this country we don’t do it, and if you do, some get out of jail pass is not going to protect.  Under these circumstances there is very little likelihood that people won’t think first before they go down this road again.  The Japanese have an interesting philosophy that if you injure someone else, even though it was innocent and you had no intent, you still owe a debt.  These people would partook in torture owe a debt to those that they tortured and in some cases ruined innocent lives.

Then there is the Mulkasey and Hayden defense of torture and criticizing of the Obama Administration’s release of the memos in the Wall Street Journal, saying in effect that the administration was tying its hands in the war on terrorism, causing agencies like the CIA to be too timid in the future, and of course, torture worked.  Here are two individuals who need very badly to believe this because they let all of what followed happen.  They are two people who should never hold public office ever again.

Their argument that it ties our hands and lets the enemy prepare for “rough” interrogation is disingenuous if you consider that we are not going to do it any more.  Second, all the techniques that were used were already common knowledge.  Remember my training in torture resistance was just a short-term ploy to allow tactical information that I might have to become obsolete before they got it out of me.  What we learned in Viet Nam is that sooner or later they will get you to say whatever they want, true or not.  Finally, our own commanders in Iraq have told us that torture did us more damage by recruiting more al-Qaeda recruits than any information we might have gained (if we did) to prevent a terrorist attack.

By releasing the memos, we can now see how people in our government abused and misused the law to violate the law.  It demonstrates the fallacy of their legal thinking and hopefully drives a stake in any attempt in the future to use such flawed legal thinking to justify violating our laws.  Then there is their final argument that torture worked.  Oh really?  There is documentation from the FBI who were conducting these interviews without the torture, that they were making great progress before the CIA took over and then began getting confessions to things these guys never did.  We can go on forever having these arguments about whether torture works, or we can put an end to it by fully investigating what happened, what real intelligence we got, if any, and whether it was worth it.  I think after listening to many experts on interrogation, (See the Dark Side, Torture Team, etc.) what they got was nothing and spent most of their time on wild goose chases while causing irreparable damage to our nation.  They badly needed to believe what they were doing was justified and that became self-fulfilling.

So if we don’t investigate what happened and really understand where we went and for what, we are going to be left with an open wound.  The President must pursue these investigations at all levels.  But back to my gut.  I always wondered if I could match up to the bravery of our own POWs who endured hell in the prisons of Viet Nam.  But one thing that kept me going was knowing we didn’t do that kind of stuff.  We really were better than they were.  Now I know we aren’t.

Related Blogs:  Torture and Justice, Torture and Fiction

Vine: Okay so it is Saturday morning.  Such is my schedule lately.  Those crazy contractor people think this is a great time to build stuff in Afghanistan so I have been busy with the how.  But back to the vineyard.  I don’t think Northern California gets spring any more.  It has been cool and last week it dropped down to 29° in the vineyard.  I don’t believe there is any damage because things have not really leafed out yet. The only thing at risk was the Viognier which is the closest to real bud break.  Los hombres returned last Wednesday to finish the pruning of Mourvedre so the pruning is complete, but I still have the debris to clean up in that block.  It is suppose to be 85° tomorrow and if that weather continues, well besides breaking out the shorts and sandals, everything will leaf out.  That is when the plants will be at real risk of frost damage, when we have young tender green shoots.

This is what I call the wild season in the vineyard.  The cover crop of grasses and clovers is getting tall and I would love to mow it to make my vineyard look nice and neat, but these are annuals and they need to germinate if I want a cover crop next year.  The cover crop does several things in a vineyard.  First it holds in the soil on my steep slopes that are subject to erosion.  Second, it provides a habitat for good insects like ladybugs and later, praying mantis.  Finally, the clover actually increases the nitrogen in the soil.  If you are interested (and if you are you must lead a very boring life) there is a whole science around cover crops that you can lookup at U.C. Davis.  I actually bought a whole book on cover crops, but you can save yourself a lot of time and just talk to some of the other growers in the region who know what works and what doesn’t.

So for the near term there is not much to do in the vineyard except watch for leaf out, hope we don’t get a freeze, hunt the ever present and terrifying gopher, and repair any erosion damage from last year.  Once the shoots really start to develop, I will go through and thin them out (remember you only want two to a spur and you are going to get five or six), and for the trellis grapes (Syrah) push the shoots up through the wires.  Probably won’t have to water till June.

Wine: Last week I went to a birthday party for my good friend Mike Ward (tonight we are going to have a venison dinner there) and the food fair was definitely eclectic, cheese plates, salami, olives, clams, muscles, oysters, and lasagna.  My friend Ron Mansfield brought a Bandol which I found to be the most interesting wine there.  Bandol is a region of France (Provence) known for predominately their Mourvedre.   It is one of the oldest growing regions in France and was planted some 2500 years ago by the Romans.  What I found interesting about French Mourvedres are their more tannic and complex flavors than what we produce here in California.  California Mourvedres, at least the good ones, are very fruity (cherry) with some tannins, but generally a very mild wine.  French Mourvedres seem to have less up front fruit, but a ton of complexity and tannins with a longer finish.  I think most found this wine that Ron brought a little big, but I found it very interesting and was a great food wine.  Some wines are made to drink alone, and some are made to go with food.  This wine would have been exquisite if served with tonight’s faire, venison.  Just try to keep in mind that when you taste wine there are many styles and in one circumstance a wine can just be so-so wine and in another, exquisite.  Learn to inform your tasting with how this wine might be served and it just might expand your horizons on what you like.  Carpe Diem.

Yesterday it was reported by many news organizations that there were large protests against….well government, taxes, gun control, Obama, you name it.   What I found interesting based upon the numbers was that if this were a protest about global warming it would have been reported as a small turn out.  Why the deference to these fruit loops?  And fruit loops they are.  At least some liberal bloggers got it right:  “Fizzle in the Drizzle.”

Ever try to talk to one of these people rationally?  Basically everything about government except national defense and the interstate highway system (and some object to this) is bad and just burdens us.  They want fewer taxes, but they hold dearly to their Medicare.  They want to send their kids to private schools or home school them, but fail to see how public education has created the environment where the majority of the nations education has created a literate and prosperous society.  They fail to see that the food in the markets has been subsidized through water projects and investment by our government in agriculture.  Their great medical care is grossly subsidized by government aid and research.  In a word, they fail to see any connection between the myriad things that government does and their affluence today (as compared to most other nations).  It is denial and selfishness on the grandest of scales.

Let’s face it, these folks are not deep thinkers.  They decry our tax rate yet pay one of the lowest rates in the industrialized world.  They point out that we have one of highest corporate tax rates in the world, but they never look at the effective rate, what corporations actually pay.  They say we are being taxed to death when the reality is our taxes are lower than they have ever been, especially for the rich.  But even if their claims were true, the real question is are they part of the nation and have a responsibility to pay for services they demand or not?  Of course they would deny any services demanded until something tragic happens in their lives and then they demand to know where government is to help them out.

But there is a more disturbing element to this than just a bunch of nut cases on the fringe.  They are being pandered to by a failing opposition party and its noise machine, Fox News.  I guess that would be okay if these people were harmless, but if history is any guide, Timothy McVeigh was a product of just these sorts of fruitcakes.   The Governor of Texas suggested succession recently.  Morons such as Michelle Bachmann from Minnesota suggested rebellion.  Fox News actively stokes their fires.  It is survival by appealing to the irrational fringe masses.  It is the bankruptcy of their ideas and their desperation to hang onto power, any power, that they eschew any moral or intellectual integrity to attract anyone that will follow them.  Their ideas don’t make sense and in this crowd nobody cares.

The Republicans, and make no mistake, while these people may say they are independent, they vote Republican, are pandering to these folks in a very dangerous way.  Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) went after Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, when she issued a warning that with tough economic times, these groups could, as they have in the past, generate domestic terrorism.  What’s wrong, Representative Cantor, is the truth to hard to bear.  Veterans groups were offended because the warning also said that returning vets could be a problem if they found themselves on the street with no alternatives.  Wasn’t Timothy McVeigh a returning, disgruntled vet with lots of military training?  These are obvious conclusions yet we can’t say them because they reflect directly on the Republican’s base.

I guess what is really troubling to me and which shows how morally bankrupt the Republicans are, is that after 9/11 if you disagreed with the President you were a traitor.  But now we may face an even greater threat to our well being in our unraveling economy and their response is to sow discord every step of the way.  It exposes everything you want to know about conservative Republicans.  They only care about their beliefs and yours are irrelevant.  If the democratic process puts them out of office, then succession and rebellion is their answer.  They are the embodiment of the intolerance of their ideas.

There were three stories over the weekend that strained my logical mind. A couple of them reminded me again of how many Americans expect so much and want to invest so little to get it.  The last one reminded me how illogical and child-like we are about God.  To wit:

There was a back page story in the New York Times (or maybe the Washington Post) about how the banks are going to fight President Obama’s plan to move the program for educational loans to students directly to the government.  Banks have been administering this program which provides loans to students and earning exorbitant fees while 97% of their investment is insured by the federal government (read getting paid for taking no risk).  It has been very profitable for banks at taxpayer’s expense.

The Obama administration figured out that instead of paying these fees to the banks, they could use the money to expand the pool of student loan money.  Let the howling begin.  Banks are hiring big time lobbyists to tank this idea because, they claim this program would put people out of work and of course kill the goose who is presently laying one of their few golden eggs.  These are probably the same people who decry welfare to the poor and don’t see this program as their own corporate welfare.  Okay, so some people will lose their jobs if this program is killed, but how many more kids will get a chance for a future?  Isn’t it amazing how self-interest can affect our perception of a situation?

Then there is the GOP’s Tea Party scheduled for Wednesday.  Now this is one they did not think through.  They are protesting the hike in taxes proposed by the Obama administration to pay for our deficit.  They are likening themselves to the Boston Tea Party and the revolt against the tea tax.  But there is a little problem with this analogy.  Americans in British-controlled America had no representation in the British Government.  Their mantra was no taxation without representation.  But these present day protestors do have representation, and it would appear that they just don’t like the outcome of the democratic process.

What is even more interesting about this “protest” is that the majority of these folks just want little or no government.  They actually believe that we would be better off if government only built roads and provided for the common defense, but all that other stuff like schools, energy policy, regulation of drugs, environmental policy, etc. ect., well we would just be better off without them.  These folks are an amazing group who want a lot, but are unwilling, or unable to recognize that the advantages they have are paid for by others and they don’t want to contribute.  In their world, we are definitely not all in this together.  If government were to really go away as they imagined, they would find their supposed Nirvana of free choice a world of chaos and risk.  These folks are usually the first to cry for help from the government when bad things happen, but the last to want to pay for those services through taxes in good times.  See any of these guys turn down Medicare when they reach 65?

Finally on my list of top 10 illogical things is the thanking of God for the rescue of the captain of the freighter hijacked by the pirates off the coast of Somalia and the survivors of the Italian earthquake doing the same for their survival.  Here is the part I never get.  If God is all-powerful, shouldn’t we also hold him accountable for the hijacking in the first place?  Shouldn’t the French tourist who was killed in another attempted pirating rescue be part of his plan?  What about all those kids who died in the earthquake in Italy?  How can you have it both ways?  He is a wonderful and merciful being because he decided that I should survived and we will just ignore the collateral damage while I was getting saved because I am special and he watches over me?

Just another typical day in the world where people send most of their time not examining reality and just believing what is convenient to their world view and sense of entitlement.  This does not bode well in a world where we need to make some major changes.

Here are the things in the news that prick my sense of “hello?”:

Iraq – Violence is trending upward there.  Apparently our strategy is to keep doing what we have been doing and hope things calm down until we can leave.  It is not going to happen.  Iraq is a mess with seething unresolved power stuggles between the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis.  They are all vying for position when we do leave. Remember that we gained the Sunni support by buying them off.  The Shiites will not want to continue buying them and would like to take away their weapons.  Most of the nation has segregated into their sectarian groups.  Many of the critical issues about sharing power have not been resolved.  I am afraid our sense of holding the top on this boiling caldron is misplaced responsibility.  It is time to set a date certain and get out understanding that there is going to be a great deal of violence before all of this settles out.  The alternative is to stay forever which just exacerbates our problems elsewhere.

Ted Stevens – Ted Stevens, his legal team, and Chris Mathews have been declaring that Uncle Ted has been found innocent and that he unjustly lost the election because of prosecutorial abuse.  Two problems with this:  First, he wasn’t found innocent or guilty, the conviction was overturned, rightly so, because of the misconduct of the prosecutors.  But the evidence about his accepting unreported gifts stands.  Several jurors have stated that they would have convicted him anyway.  Second, the conviction did not come until after the election and the facts about the gifts he did accept and the cozy relationship with those that sent him campaign money were probably more a factor for his defeat.  Ted was business as usual and it was time for his ilk to go and that is what Alaskan voters decided.

The Stock Market – The stock market showed signs of a gain and pundits are starting to say maybe we have bottomed out.  What fools these people are.  For one to understand the crisis we are in, one must look at the world economy, not just the United States.  Our ability to buy and sell will be a function of the health of the world economy, and right now things appear to be worsening.  This rosy outlook also assumes our economy is the stock market instead of the ever increasing unemployment figures.  Think of it this way:  We can not go back to our number one export item, packaged debt, and take up where we left off.  So just what is it that we are going to sell to the rest of the world to make ourselves solvent again?  Right now the economic engine just continues to slow down because we haven’t faced this truth yet, the truth that we are not the great innovators we once were and our failure to invest in ourselves is the root of our problem.

Cutting Services to Balance the Books – States are cutting way back on services to reign in their deficits but many of these cut backs will actually result in bigger bills later.  Aid to the elderly is one of those items, and as they don’t get the help they need, they get sicker and then the costs for the taxpayer balloons.  You can think of many other examples.  Just maybe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of down the road expenses.  Maybe states ought to do a long-term cost analysis before they go slashing services.  Or maybe our politicians are finally thinking like businessmen, short term.

Heroes – What got me going on this one is the rescue of the Captain of the freighter that was hijacked by Somali pirates.  I listened to CNN report this and use the word hero over and over again in their description of his actions.  Maybe he was, but just when did it become heroic to just do your job.  Our military are heroes or so the press tells us at every step, but actually they are just doing their jobs.  Captain Sullenberger is a hero when what he did was his job.  All of these people are thrown into extraordinary circumstances and they do what they are supposed to do and we are so shocked we call them heroes.

Let’s take Sully.  You are a pilot and your job is to plan and train for bad things.  It is routine discipline for a pilot to think through bad things that can happen and plan alternatives.  So when you are taking off, you think about engine failure and what are your options.  In his case there was only one option unless you think you can land an airplane in New York City, and through his flying skill and luck, he landed in the river with no fatalities.  He made sure everyone was off the plane before he got off.  That is not being a hero, that was doing his job.  Now he is writing a book about his life.  Oh brother.

If you were in any of these guys/gals positions would you not have done the same thing?  What other options do you have?  Maybe the financial community and our “business” leaders are representative of what we think is now the norm these days, those who look out only for themselves, take what they can get, and get out.  So when someone actually does their job in difficult circumstances we think they are heroic.  I think when we just start expecting people to live up to the responsibilities of their job and not call it heroic, then we may be a society that can begin to heal itself.  We need to move away from this personal worship thing and just expect people we put in charge to do the right thing.  It would be a nice change.

I would be the first to tell you that a strong opposition party is an important and balancing element in a functioning democracy.  But what we are seeing is an opposition party controlled by the conservatives that are mindless and obstructionist rather than offering alternative solutions.  This I have chronicled here before and simply to offer either a resounding no to Democratic ideas or offering ideas about cutting taxes and capping spending, neither of which address the issues before us, is to have no ideas at all.  But now they are focusing on issues that have no relevance to our real problems and are simply distractions from the real issues that face us.  Let’s bring back the cultural wars.

In Iowa the State Supreme Court ruled what is obvious to most of us, that under the equal protection clause of their State constitution, you cannot deny gays the right to be married.  If you do, then you are creating different classes of people with different rights and believe it or not, our government was create to prevent just such abuses.  But then the conservatives found themselves an issue.

“This isn’t over, not even for this year,” said Bryon English, a spokesman for the Iowa Family Policy Center.  “Everyday folks who get up and go to work were shocked at what happened here, and it’s really gotten people activated,” (New York Times).

Now this statement in itself is really interesting.  Apparently people who think gays and lesbians should have equal rights don’t get up and go to work, but just lay around thinking up perverted things to do to screw up the conservative’s ordered world.  Second, the economy is in the dumper, we may be facing the biggest economic crisis of our history, and gay marriage has got people riled up?  You can always count on conservatives to focus on the big issues.  Couldn’t they throw in an amendment for prayer in schools and the teaching of creationism, and then all our problems would be solved?

But it would take two legislative sessions before these fine American citizens could deny their fellow citizens their rights, and in that time they may just find out that the sky is not falling, that heterosexual marriage is not threatened, and unless they were a closet gay who was hoping government (you know that thing they hate) could keep them from acting out their perverted fantasies, nothing has happened other than some of our fellow citizens are finally being treated equally.

The conservatives really have only three issues other than cut taxes and spend less and they are all variations of “be afraid fellow citizens” issues.  They are of course “terrorists are everywhere, torture, torture torture”, “Gay marriage will destroy marriage as we know it, control what goes on in the bedroom”, and immigrant bashing, “all our problems are because of those barbarians taking our jobs.”  They are all about fear politics which is aimed at appealing to your emotions so that your rational mind is handicapped and cannot deal with rational dialogue.  Since the terrorism card is wearing thin, they are starting the immigrant fear card again.  You know, if it wasn’t for all those illegals, everyone would have a job now, wouldn’t they?

So rumor has it that President Obama wants to address the immigration issue.  Most of us would agree that the issues are as follows:  Allowing workers we need to come into the country legally; securing our borders; and dealing with illegals and their children who are already here.  Now the conservative solution is much like their approach to gay marriage, fear and loathing.  “We don’t need no stinking foreign workers because Americans need the work.”  But then reality seeps in when most Americans simply won’t do that work, and studies have shown that a steady influx of immigrants keeps our economy vibrant.  Oh those damned details.

Securing the border is important, but building fences is destructive and counterproductive, and cannot be our first line of defense.  Since the economic down turn, illegal workers are not what are coming across the border, but drugs from Mexico and guns from the U.S.  Sooner or later we are going to have to deal with the reality of immigrant labor and a way to legalize it so that border incursions truly are illegal activities that threaten us instead of hombres quien quieren trabjo (who just want work).

Ah, but here is their favorite: illegals already here.  “We are not going to reward law-breakers.”  But then there is no practical way to remove 20 million people from our society and what do we do about their children who are innocent victims of our selective vigilantism?  This country is supposed to be about justice and fairness and what these conservatives want is to scare you into thinking that justice and fairness only applies if you are a member of the right group.   What we want is citizens who work hard and contribute to our society and that is what most of these folks do.  So it is time for a rational approach to these problems without the scare tactics which is all the conservatives have to offer.  “Be afraid America, these barbarians are stealing your jobs, lowering wages, bringing in diseases, becoming part of the criminal community, and destroying our economy.”  All we need is a bigger fence and more prisons and everything will be fine.

So once again our opposition party is focusing on all the wrong things and trying to use fear to distract us from our real problems.  The big question is are we going to go down this dead end road again or are we finally going to marginalize these morons and start dealing with bigger issues?

Vine: Sorry to be missing in action, but I got home late last night and have been either working in the Bay Area or visiting my son in San Diego so things have gotten away from me.  So here is progress in the vineyard:  First, I have moved all the Syrah pre-pruning debris down to the burning area and burned it.  Just as I was completing that task los hombres showed up to prune the Grenache, which is just starting to show bud break.  The picture shows the post pruning and you can note the un-pruned Mourvedre in the lower vineyard.  The second picture shows the results of the pruning on the Grenache.  These are all head trained plants, which means that they are supported by a single stake.  What you are looking for is about six or seven spurs evenly spaced around the plant, along the main trunk, and they will be the basis for the new shoots this year.  Note how they are cut back to only two buds and the rest of last year’s growth is completely removed along with unused portions of last year’s spur.

This morning the crew again showed up to do the final pruning on the Syrah so all that is left is the Mourvedre.  They were quite excited that I had already removed the majority of the shoots from the wires in my pre-pruning.  Mourvedre buds out late so it will probably be another week before we prune those.  Just a reminder, we wait as late as possible to prune so that we do not force early budding that would be susceptible to frost damage.  Up where I live there is still a risk, but that is part of the package of growing mountain grapes.  I got some help from a friend, Aldaberto Santana and his son, and we got the pruning debris from the Grenache raked up, loaded, and transferred to the burn area so the rest of the week, until they do the Mourvedre should be light work week.  Next week I will post some pictures of budding out so you know what that looks like.

Wine: Nothing spectacular to report here.  I am so spoiled because I live in an area where my friends produce wonderful wine.  So unless something is really spectacular, it is hard to top what I drink for a table wine.  I went to SF weekend before last for my sister-in-laws five year cancer free surprise party.  The wine was only okay, but then who cared on such a wonderful occasion. There was enough joy in the event that wine was an afterthought.  As always, trips to SF have to have one soiree to one of the wonderful things to see in SF.  This time we went to the Palace of Fine Arts.  I got my needed dose of Van Gogh, Degas, Monet, Manet, and Toulouse-Lautrec.  This was followed by a nice crab melt sandwich and Amstel Light at the Ferry Building (Ferry Plaza Sea Food).

The trip to San Diego was just a quick visit with my son, but I do have a restaurant recommendation for you.  We like to eat and just kind of hang around in La Jolla.  So we took a very early flight into the city on Monday and then met our son for breakfast at The Coffee Cup.  It is just a little cafe, but it fixes a mean breakfast and is a delightful place to watch the locals walk by while you soak up coffee, eggs, bacon, pancakes, French toast, etc, etc.  Our one big night out was to a restaurant called the Crab Catcher on Prospect Street in La Jolla.  The setting is exquisite with an outside deck overlooking the ocean and the seafood is just perfect.  I had king crab legs (with beer, of course) and they were perfect.  The two restaurants I can highly recommend down there is 910 and the Crab Catcher.  We still have to try George’s, which is also highly recommended for their seafood, next trip.  Carpe Diem.

Sorry about the missed posts, but I have been otherwise occupied.  Last week I got one of those, “Can you come down to the Bay Area and help us out with a Project, say today?”  So of course I complied and as soon as I got back we left for San Diego to visit my son (where I am now).  It’s hard to get riled up about politics when the sun and the surf are so beautiful, but I am a trooper.  Also for those of you who distain my politics and enjoy Wine/Vine, I have lots of news, but it will have to wait for this weekend because as soon as I get back from here, I am back in the Bay Area on another project.  In this economy, I would be a fool to turn down any work.

I did, however have a couple of interesting conversations with several conservatives.  One has to wonder why, in a world where 70% of the population blames the banks for our problems and generally think President Obama is doing the right thing, I only run into the other 30%.  Oh well.  Anyway the conversation went something like this:  “George Bush was really a liberal and the problems we face are the fault of government and Bill Clinton.  Obama is destroying what we know as America.”

Needless to say I took issue with these ideas that apparently are totally uniformed by a study of the Depression, books on what caused our problem today, or reading of any kind other than conservative noise machines.  What I found so striking was the shrillness of it.  They were almost frantic.  It was as if fear had taken over their minds and reasoned consideration of other arguments could not be tolerated.  I think we are seeing the same thing on the TV Cable News where many discussions are breaking down into shouting matches.  We see language from politicians such as Michele Bachmann and others which boders on trying to create anarchy.  It is, in fact, incitement to riot to the conservative mindless.  What it really exposes is that they don’t believe in Democracy.

I say that because as much as they would like to ignore it, George Bush and his fellow Republicans were and are super conservative and they had their way (12 years in Congress and 8 years in the Administration) and the result of their policies are the disaster we are seeing before our eyes.  Now it is somebody elses turn and they are not willing to even considering another approach.  I think this is a primary difference between the conservative Republican faith in their economic dogma, and the Democrats.  Democrats will try a different approach and if it doesn’t work, will make modifications.  As evidence by the Republican’s no new ideas, Republicans are Johnny one-note and are inflexible to change.

The shrillness scares me becuase if you recall, the second most lethal terrorist attack in the United States was from one of the radical rights brethren, Timothy McVeigh.  The language they are using is food for thought to another McVeigh.  For my own part, I am so relieved that we have a President like Barrack Obama where rational thought is put into policy whether it is funding for family planning or understanding that our Cuba policy to pacify right wing Cuban-Americans has totally failed.  Dogma no longer rules.

There are many things I would like to see changed in this new administration or I think they are being too timid about, but I am willing to let things play out and see if I am wrong.  The conservatives I talked to have their minds closed and want him to fail because they already know he will.  If he doesn’t fail then they may actually have to examine everything they are so desparately hanging onto.  That would be devastating to their psyche.  They can’t have that so he must fail.  It is kind of like being an alcoholic.  I wonder if we can devise a 10 step program for recovering conservatives.

Rush Limbaugh said on Tuesday, “if he (Obama) fails, all of us are saved.”  The trick in this is the word all.  If all means fat white men who have run Wall Street into the ground and gotten rich on the Bush Tax cuts, then he is absolutely right.  If he is talking about the other 98% of us, then he has got it all wrong.  I listened to another white Republican Congressman (are there any other kind?) explain how what President Obama is proposing will ruin our country by destroying innovation as government takes over running everything.

Not withstanding that any government takeover simply brings in new management and financial backing, until the assets can be re-privatized, just what great innovations is the Congressman talking about?  Would that be the innovation of our domestic automobile companies whose cars are now not wanted by anyone?  Would that be the same CEO’s who don’t believe in global warming and therefore have no energy efficient cars?  Would that be those wonders of innovation that came up with selling debt as a way to run our country into the ground?  Would that be the leaders of Wall Street, those pinnacles of business acumen, that didn’t see the expanded leveraging and investment in CDOs as very risky enterprises?  The only company I have seen truly being innovative lately is Apple and nobody is suggesting we take them over.  Or would that be those wonderfully innovative Republicans whose answer to $4/gal gas is drill baby, drill?

Let’s face it, we have had unfettered business enterprise for at least the last eight years and it has been an unmitigated disaster.  So this little problem with the economy is a bump in the road and we need to get on with business as usual?  What is wrong with these guys?  Global warming doesn’t exist (see George Will who is supposed to be an intellectual but apparently does not understand science and cherry picks his facts to suit his beliefs) while the world watches the poles melt?  Tax cuts to business will spur the economy when everyone is being laid off and no one is buying?  Better yet tax cuts and caps on spending will help the deficit?

Here is the bottom line:  Republicans do not have a clue on how to lead.  Their whole ideology is that the market place will work its magic and we just need to keep government from interfering with its invisible hand. It’s about a free ride where all you have to do is cut taxes for the rich and everything will be fine.  Oh, and I forgot, we need to project our power by the use of military force.  My how all of that has worked out so well.  So when the market place is not working, the invisible hand may be in the invisible pants playing with itself, and military force in the role of diplomacy has proved to be a bottomless morass, they are out of ideas other than to just how do we get back to the good old days when we were getting rich and the rest of nation was sliding slowing into oblivion.

So when these guys spout their tried and failed policies, try to seed fear, and hope you don’t ask questions, ask how will they will fund, or help fund our children’s education.  Ask them how they will fund the needed investment in our infrastructure.  Ask them what they are willing to invest in alternate energy research.  Ask them if they still believe global warming is a mirage and what is wrong with having those who pollute (like coal burners) pay for the damage they cause.  Ask them why if unfettered industry is so innovative why have we done nothing about energy independence or why our automobile industry is on its last legs.  Ask why, if our bankers are so smart and proposed regulations are a power grab by the government, who should regulate these bozos.  Ask them how more private insurers competing with each other is going to help the millions who are losing their insurance or reduce the costs of business who have in the past, been burdened with these costs.  What part of denying claims and cherry picking enrollees will help all of us get health care?

My point is quite simple.  The Republicans cannot come up with a good idea because they can’t shed their failed ideas.  Until they finally come into the 21st century and recognize that their approach has failed and quit trying to fit failed solutions to new conditions, they look like fools.  Maybe they always have been fools, but rich, well paid fools who made fools of us.  Shame on us.

There are various news stories out there that give us a real look in the mirror and bits and pieces is my attempt to summarize some of my favorite for your reading pleasure:

• Iraq and Afghanistan – Several stories have appeared recently documenting that in Iraq, there is still seething ethnic rivalries and resentment at the American occupation.  Baghdad is basically a segregated community where many Sunnis have not moved back.  In Afghanistan, similar dislike of the American occupation is being recorded and with the infusion of another 30,000 American troops, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are gearing up for heated battles.  Does it ever occur to anyone that maybe more troops is the problem?  What if they had a battle and no one came?  One thing we are learning is that military action is expensive.  So where does the Taliban and al-Qaeda get their dough?  If nobody cared would there be a problem anymore?  Maybe it is time for them to solve their own problems.
• The Washington Post on Sunday ran a front page story that basically told that the CIA’s first high value detainee, Abu Zabaida, which they tortured, and which Cheney and Bush lauded as a great source of information to justify their torture policies, gave no reliable information.  Well that is not quite true.  He gave some very reliable information before they started torturing him, but the reality was that he was not a kingpin in al-Qaeda as Bush and Cheney claimed.  This comes as no surprise to anyone who has read The Dark Side by Jane Mayer who last year pretty much totally chronicled the keystone cops approach to interrogation that the CIA applied, the torture that led to nowhere, and the murders and brutality committed in our names that was totally unproductive.  Jane couldn’t name sources, but apparently now they are willing to tell their tale so the major news organizations are picking it up.  Welcome America to a story that will make you sick to your stomach.
• In a related story, Spain may indict some of the Bush Administration officials for war crimes in their part in promoting torture.  It is a very sad day when we have to look to Spain to uphold the law that the United States used to stand for.  If the Obama Administration does not investigate our war crimes as required by our treaties and leaves it to other countries, it will further decay our moral standing in the world if not our morals themselves.  Why is this so hard?
• Meanwhile in Cambodia, they have started their first trial on the torture and killing that occurred at Tuol Sleng prison where at least 14,000 people were tortured before being executed during the reign of the Khmer Rouge.  And what is the chief warden’s defense.  I was just following orders and they would have killed me and my family if I did not comply.  It will be the same defense that will be heard in the U.S. if we prosecute those who partook in torture.  Sooner or later we have to establish that following orders is not a defense against these crimes against humanity.  Oh, I forgot.  We already did that at Nuremberg after World War II.  You think we could remember that.
• In North Korea, two American female journalists may face trails for entering the country illegally.  With the North Koreans, there is probably no basis to the charges.  The connection I see is the missile launch this month.  In the warped North Korean mind, it may seem logical to have a couple of American hostages in case we try to shoot down or prevent their missile launch.  If the launch occurs without incident, the situation with these two will probably clear up.  Hopefully.
• President Obama made another trip to Congress this week, this time in the House, to encourage Democrats to support his budget.  Some Democrats (Conseradems as Rachel Maddow calls them) in the Senate are playing right into the Republican’s hands with their idea to force many votes that would be subject to the filibuster.  Let’s get back to majority rule instead of minority rule so we can get something done.  If you are afraid we are being too aggressive, just think back to the last eight years and ask yourself we could do more harm than that.  It is time to try something new and that is what this budget is about.
• President Obama moved aggressively to reject the automakers plan, asked for CEO resignations, and set a deadline for real action.  Republicans are screaming government intervention and others are saying that the CEO should have stayed on.  Just remember the cardinal rule:  When the strategy must change, you need new generals.  Old thinking won’t get us there and that applies both to Republicans in general, and CEO’s specifically.  We don’t need to fight last years wars all over again.
• Simon Johnston and Paul Krugman, both economists, have noted something we all ought to be thinking about:  Restoring the financial markets to business as usual is just setting us up for failure once again.  Packaging and selling debt is not the growth industry of the future and financial institutions can never again be too big to fail.  There are major implications of these ideas in the regulations that must come out of this debacle and in the mindset of Wall Street.  You can bet the vested interests will fight this every step of the way and is why change and progress are so hard.  The pockets of both Democrats and Republicans is lined with Wall Street Money.
• In the debate to overhaul health care, many are arguing that a government program similar to Medicare competing with private insurers would be unfair.  But I have come up with a way to level the playing field.  All government programs would have to charge a 30% surcharge so that the administration costs of the private insurers trying to either deny claims or skim healthy members would be competitive.  Then every one would have the same inefficient systems.
• Our prisons are full and overflowing, and more importantly for most politicians that used “throw the key away” rhetoric to get elected, the costs are now swamping our state governments.  We have the largest incarcerated population in the world with 1 in 10 Americans having been incarcerated.  Why does it take the all mighty dollar for politicians to finely recognize that many in prison don’t belong there and to start doing the right thing?
• Last but not least is that there seems to be a bipartisan movement in the Senate to finally relieve the restrictions on travel and trade with Cuba.  Most now see our economic and travel restrictions there have been an abject failure.  But we still have diehards such as Senator Menendez, Democrat from New Jersey, who see this as rewarding their bad behavior.  Let’s see.  The policy has been totally unsuccessful, but to change it would be to reward them?  Is this not the definition of inflexibility and stupidity?  Reminds me of the Republicans and their continued campaign of denying global warming.  Those melting ice caps and the new studies by the majority of scientists that show the phenomenon accelerating are just liberal tactics to destroy the economy.  See any connection between this kind of thinking and the failure of the auto industry to adapt to change?

You know, it is sad when you can see the way forward but you just can’t get the rest of the country to move in your direction.  Whether it is health care, global warming, energy policy, torture investigations, our prison systems, or Cuba restrictions, why is it so hard to do the reasonable thing?