Not Sure This Will Help, Newt...

...or that you should choose to remind them of it:

Gingrich cited the Iraq war, the failed federal response to Hurricane Katrina two years ago and the inability to control U.S. borders and illegal immigration as evidence of a need for a complete overhaul of the U.S. system of governing.

"Now that may or may not make the White House happy. But I think that's the whole point about making a clean break," Gingrich told a group of reporters over breakfast.

He added: "I believe for any Republican to win in 2008 they have to ... offer a dramatic, bold change. If we nominate somebody who has not done that, they get to be the nominee but there is very, very little likelihood that they can win."

Gingrich echoed the view of many political analysts who believe voters are looking for a big change in 2008 and that Democrats hold a natural advantage after eight years with Bush in the White House.

It behooves us, Newt, to point out that in fact, you're responsible for an awful lot of the corruption and partisan political maneuvering that Republicans have done for the past 16 years and, in point of fact, much of Bush's legacy can be traced to how you handcuffed the GOP in the 90s with the continuous pursuit of a neoconservative agenda of destruction at the expense of real progress in this country.

Take "The Contract With America," more appropriately called The Contract ON America. Although proposed as "governmental reform" in the run up to the 1994, when the Contract proposals were introduced in the House of Representatives, they tackled entitlement and tax programs.

One can assume that this dubious substitution was instituted because Gingrich knew damned well that proposing a tax cut on the heels of a very successful tax increase in 1993 would be rejected out of hand by voters in 1994, not to mention tackling the then-third rail of American politics, Social Security reform.

Partisan politics reared its ugly head long before he was even Speaker, you see.

Gingrich, like Bush, squandered a golden opportunity to bring a nation together to move forward and progress into a new milennium. Instead, he tried dragging us back into the dark ages of postwar Republicanism, and tried even to undo the advances made under Roosevelt, advances that are unquestionably the most important advances made in this nation. Period. Including the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Keep in mind that Gingrich's term as Speaker was so toxic that, in 1997, before the Lewinski scandal really heated up, some of his own soldiers attempted coup on his Speakership!

So on the one hand, for Gingrich to speak about a "clean break" from Bush is, well, like an armed robber advising us to lock OJ Simpson up.

On the other hand, he should know from where he speaks, being the mentor to all the hatred and anger from the right wing.

After all, these are not the words of a conciliatory man...

An Unsubtle Dance

Clearly, this story and this story were timed for simultaneous release:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Terrorists may be conducting "dry runs" at U.S. airports to test security before a possible attack, according to a Transportation Security Administration warning to airport screeners.

In at least four incidents over the past year, security screeners have found items in carry-on luggage -- blocks of cheese taped to electrical components, for example -- that resembled homemade bombs, according to the TSA's July 20 memo.

...and...

Jul 24 - U.S President George W.Bush reiterates the threat posed by al Qaeda in Iraq and warns that an American military withdrawal will only enhance the influence.

(video at link)

You mean to tell me that it took Al Qaeda six years to suddenly start sticking cheese into people's luggage, attached to wires and circuit boards?

Please. Don't make me laugh. This has been going on since 9/11 and probably even earlier than that, especially when you consider this part of the warning:

"Past terrorist attacks and plots show that such testing generally indicates attacks will soon follow," said the internal memo, which was posted on the Internet by NBC News on Tuesday.

None of the passengers in question has been linked with criminal or terrorist organizations so far, the memo said.

Right. How many wired cheeses does it take for the TSA to issue an alert like this? One? Two? Three? A dozen? And yet none of the passengers has been found to have any links to terror organizations?

Who smokes that strong of dope in the White House that thinks we'd buy this story at all? Clearly, this is a made-up alert, designed to reinforce Bush's feeble message of the bogeyman:

Here's the bottom line: Al Qaida in Iraq is run by foreign leaders loyal to Osama bin Laden. Like bin Laden, they are cold-blooded killers who murder the innocent to achieve al Qaida's political objectives. Yet despite all the evidence, some will tell you that al Qaida in Iraq is not really al Qaida – and not really a threat to America. Well, that's like watching a man walk into a bank with a mask and a gun, and saying he's probably just there to cash a check.

BoogahBoogah! Gee, Mr. Bush, they weren't there before you got us stuck in the glue over there! One can logically assume that if anyone was a threat to the nation, it's the numbnuts who exaggerated and lied and aggravated a situation such that we're viewed as the bully who needs to be taken down a notch!

Um, that means you're the problem, since your reading comprehension is questionable.

The White House admitted as much that these two stories were timed for release:

Kevin Sullivan, the White House communications director, said the speech was devised as a "surge of facts" meant to rebut critics who say Mr. Bush is trying to rebuild support for the war by linking the Iraq group and the one led by Mr. bin Laden.

See? You see? There over there, and they're trying to follow us over here, but if we stay over there, magically all our cheese will be wire free! HOORAY FOR US!

Yea. Right. Let me have a terrorism expert say it:

"I think what the president is saying is in some sense fundamentally misleading," said Robert Grenier, former head of the counter-terrorism center at the CIA as well as the agency's mission manager for the war in Iraq. "If he means to suggest the invasion of Iraq has not created more jihadists bent on killing Americans, and that if Iraq hadn't been there as a magnet they would have been attracted somewhere else, that's completely disingenuous."

The war "has convinced many Muslims that the United States is the enemy of Islam and is attacking Muslims, and they have become jihadists as a result of their experience in Iraq," Grenier said.

In other words, to quote the immortal wrestler, The Rock...IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER anymore, at any rate. They'll kill us here with exploding cheeses AND fight us in Iraq.

Thanks, man. You really fucked us up, big time, asshole!

Homeland Security

Much has been made of the United States efforts to fight terrorists around the world, the theory being if we fought them there, we wouldn't have to fight them here.

A ludicrous theory on the face, as an organization that can pop up like a Whack-A-Mole is not likely to suddenly freeze in one place and be hammered over the head constantly.

We should expect them here and relatively soon. So how good are our domestic defenses? We do a fairly good job at airport security, even allowing for the massive holes in the screening processes (like airport employees and faulty and inadequate equipment). Our land borders are absolutely porous as evidenced by the great Mexican immigration debate (our Canadian border is even more porous).

Port screenings are still nearly non-existent, relying on the Coast Guard to interdict on the open seas any suspicious ship.

Well...not for very much longer, at this rate:

Although it is busy and obvious and well known, the coastguard has long been a poor sibling to the navy, army and air force. At the same time, its responsibilities have grown. In 2003 it became part of the Department of Homeland Security, with increased emphasis on protecting America's 361 ports and 95,000 miles (153,000km) of coastline from terrorists.

Yet the 40,000-member service has to scratch desperately for money from Congress. Its boats are often in poor shape; some patrol cutters are over 50 years old. In 2005 USA Today ran a story on life aboard a 210-foot (64-metre) cutter, where equipment regularly malfunctioned and raw sewage flooded the sleeping quarters.

In an attempt to remedy all this, and to win back prestige, the coastguard launched “Deepwater” in the 1990s. This was a $24 billion upgrade of its ships and aircraft. The goal was a modernised fleet and air arm with complementary communications and tracking equipment, lower maintenance and better conditions for the crew. Contracts to start building were signed in 2002.

Five years on, Deepwater is plagued by catastrophe. A plan to enlarge the coastguard's 110-foot cutters into more capable 123-foot boats was scrapped last autumn after the first eight refitted boats showed signs of cracking apart. The flagships of Deepwater—eight state-of-the-art 418-foot National Security Cutters, the first of which is nearing completion—have structural flaws that will probably shorten their projected 30-year service life and lead to costly repairs.

Right smack in the middle of the first battles that includes American soil since the Civil War, we're losing the ability to defend our shores. The story includes tales of corruption due to the privatization of the contracts and the hubris and arrogance of an admiralty that finally was garnering the attention it deserved in the 90s (when Bill Clinton was President, efforts to defend this nation from domestic terror attacks were not only in the works, they were being executed and were successful).

This does not bode well for the security of the US coastlines. Ships in dry dock for repairs are ships that are not out patrolling the coastal waters. Ships in danger of sinking or overweighted are ships that cannot keep up with faster, more manueverable ships and boats. It's a little like a fat cat chasing a pack of mice. Maybe he catches one or two, but the other dozen manage to steal all the cheese anyway.

This is a disgraceful situation, made more urgent by the ill-conceived "fight them there" strategy that shifts the focus of homeland security away from the homeland itself. Had Bush instead pursued a strategy of treating the September 11th attacks as a crime as well as an act of war, his focus could have been on fixing the major problems we have in protecting ourselves and not on inciting and inflaming more terrorists and more terror groups than ever before.

When a criminal breaks into a house and kills the family living there, two things occur: the police hunt down and capture the crook, and the remaining family beefs up their home security system.

Right now, we've got the cops out looking (and not very thoroughly), but we've left the doors and windows open.

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Paging Jenna, NotJenna, And Neo-Con Spawn! Attention Death Cult Descendants!

In a move sure to brighten the hearts of feudalists everywhere...

LONDON (Reuters) - Prince Harry, who is third in line to the British throne, is being deployed to Iraq, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) said on Thursday.

Harry could become the first member of the royal family to face combat since his uncle, Prince Andrew, flew helicopters in the 1982 Falklands War. Harry's great-grandfather, King George VI, saw action in World War One.

[....]He has trained to become troop commander and will be leading 12 men in four Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicles.

A codicil here: he will be posted near Basra which is one of the safest cities in Iraq, or so rumour has it.

You know, feudalism had some advantages over our current system, which is feudalist without the responsibilities: the vast number of us, even if we own our own businesses, take a knee to the lord of the manor, who may sign our paychecks, or be our biggest customer.

Corporate feudalism, I like to call it, but it also extends to politics.

In a true feudalist (more correctly in this example, manorialist) society, those who stood to gain the most from a war were at the front lines. They may not have been infantry or regular cavalry, but they stood there and saw the battle and helped direct the troops and yes, rushed into the fray. Why? Because they were forced to under contract to the monarch or local noble.

The vassals and serfs, of course, were the foot soldiers and archers that did the bulk of the fighting and dying, to be sure, but the thing is, if you knew the other side's king was on the field, he immediately became the target with the biggest bull's eye. Vassals in particular were eager to claim amongst coup the lords and royals of the other side, since their lord would grant them rewards of lands and serfs.

This arrangement is fractal, you'll notice: barons, dukes and counts were vassals to the king, the free peasants were vassals to the dukes and barons and counts, and the serfs, quasi-vassals to the peasants. If a king went to war, say in a Crusade, he dragged his knights with him as well as the various nobles as he could reasonably spare from overseeing his lands. Similarly, if a noble had to go join a war that he was contractually committed to (say an invasion of a neighboring shire), he dragged his knights and vassals with him.

What structure does that remind you of? Anyone? A multinational corporation, perhaps? I don't think that's a coincidence, and certainly explains recent corporate developments that ensure protection of the centralized authority of the "kings" of a company (and by extension, the "kings" of the United States, our elected Presidents, who are really more duke than king, but that's a different post. We'll talk about plutarchies some other time).

The difference is, rather than go and get hands dirty and doublets bloody, our current vassals and nobles and royals would prefer to get manicures while those who are least among us fight and die for their hege-money (Oooooh, someone go post that in Wikitionary!). Or as Michael Moore put in in Fahrenheit 9/11:

Not a single member of Congress wanted to sacrifice their child for the war in Iraq. And who could blame them? Who would want to give up their child? Would you? Would [Bush]? I've always been amazed that the very people forced to live in the worst parts of town, go to the worst schools, and who have it the hardest are always the first to step up, to defend us. They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is remarkably their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?

And, they're under no contractual obligation to do so. After all, this is a "free" society. Until you sign your life away for the $20,000 bonus and $50,000 in college tuition assistance.

Or, again from F9/11, as Orwell puts it in 1984:

In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.

Heven forfend that society be defined to include all of its citizens.

Draft Jenna and NotJenna now!

snarkasm, snarcasm, snarky

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