On and On
This weekend’s round of Sunday talk shows was like a never ending recycling of the same old issues. There is the health care muddle, the Afghanistan debate, the Iran nuclear program, cap and trade being watered down, and least I forget, Glenn Beck getting the key to some city in Washington that I never want to go to. Banking reform is going nowhere with all the usual suspects.
On the President’s rethinking the Afghanistan war and a troop increase, there was Senator Kyle for Arizona saying what hawkish Republicans have been saying since time began. We leave and the enemy will see this as a great weakness and they would fill the vacuum. It will be our downfall. It must really be comforting to have such a simple world view of every conflict where wagging our…..well you get the point. What I find simply fascinating is there is no consideration of the cultural or historical record of this country or trying to understand this conflict in terms of what can really be accomplished with more blood and money.
On “60 Minutes”, there was a nice piece about General McChrystal and how dedicated he was to changing the way the war was fought. He definitely is an admirable man, but that doesn’t make his approach any more appealing. He is a fine general but this war is not about fighting, it is about minds and we still think like Western white men instead of Afghans (Note: after working on many projects in Afghanistan, Afghans are the people, Afghani is the currency).
I am sure his approach is the only way forward for “winning” the war, if we had 20 years and unlimited funds. Or would that be 50 years? Remember we have been there eight and things have gone from bad to worse. The real issue is can we afford it and is it really that high on our national priorities? If we spent that money here at home making us a stronger economy, would that greatly increase the security of the average American? I think it is time to quit being terrified of Al-Qaeda. If the Afghans won’t fight the Taliban, let them live under them for a while and see how they like it. Maybe it is a problem they have to work out for themselves.
Then there was the arrest of Roman Polanski in Switzerland for having sex with a minor fourteen years ago. Note that the child, now an adult, wants the charges dropped, but since Polanski was convicted before he ran, apparently California authorities just can’t let it go. Why do I say that? This is a horrible crime. Maybe, but California is broke. They have a population in prison that is breaking the bank, and they release roughly 120,000 inmates a year. Many of these are truly dangerous sex offenders that we now no longer have the resources to track and monitor. So we spend our precious dollars to see that the letter of the law is followed, while we drain the resources from those who could prevent truly heinous crimes. Sooner or later we need people in government who can prioritize societies needs, not pursue some personal quest at the expense of everyone else’s safety.
The level of stupidity and inaction is reaching intolerable levels, while those in Washington continue to have debates about issues that most of us moved beyond years ago. Of course banks and Wall Street need to be regulated and the tougher, the better. If it is too tough, adjust it later. The evidence for global warming is not just abundant, it is accelerating at an exponential rate (the evidence and the global warming), and yet Washington does nothing except wrangle about protecting vested interests as though disaster is not on the horizon. Our addiction to oil is being facilitated by low gas prices and yet we know the other shoe is going to drop. If you don’t buy the global warming thing (you are moron), then look at the transfer of our wealth to the Middle East. The answer is clean, green energy both for our addiction and for our economy, and yet we do nothing. Then there is health care. Oh why bother. The answer is obvious.
What we seem to be really good at today is denial. We now have a whole party whose total platform is a denial that that platform has bankrupted us. If we have health care today that we think is fine, there is no pressure for change because we can’t seem to grasp that health care costs are out of control and today’s satisfaction is tomorrow’s sticker price shock. Wall Street seems to be coming back so why fix anything? I don’t see no stinking global warming, and cap and trade will hurt some of my biggest contributors. Did it ever occur to anyone that we have become a country that can’t?