Week of 06/09/2014

The GOP’s Hypocrisy Is Shameful
– by David Matthews 2

Here’s a little piece of advice for the GOP from one of their former card-carrying members:

If you’re going to criticize and castigate the President of the United States over a prisoner exchange, you better check your own record on the subject before you open your damned putrid mouths.

So President Barack Obama authorized a prisoner exchange with the Taliban in Afghanistan.  They release one of ours, Bowe Bergdahl, and we release five people from our Guantanamo Base in Cuba.

And that had the GOP up in arms… as usual.

Apparently it’s in the script.  Whatever it is that Obama does, the GOP is expected to scream bloody murder over it.  They are expected to automatically condemn it, question its legality, accuse Obama of being a dictator, claim to know absolutely nothing about it, and do everything in their power to destroy, discredit, defame, or de-legitimize it.

And, of course, this GOP script gets regurgitated by conservative and neo-conservative talk radio personalities, Fox News, the conservatives on those other “liberal” cable news channels (that supposedly don’t exist), and of course the conservative and neo-conservative editorials and columnists.  They all have to be on the same page, don’t you know?

So first there’s the idea that the exchange was “illegal”.  Member of Congress weren’t supposedly “notified”.

Wait… this is the same group that refuses to talk to Obama unless he panders to whatever condition they know he won’t give in on?  The same group that accuses of Obama of not giving in when he does, and of being a dictator when he shows strength, and being a wimp when he tries to get consensus?  The same group that can’t even agree on the time of day even with an atomic clock?  The same group that deliberately plays the political equivalent of Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s On First” skit with their rotating “critical issues”?  The only “loop” they seem to be interested in when it comes to Obama is the kind that involves a rhetorical rope.

There is a good chance that Obama’s people may have reached out to the legislators and were turned away simply out of habit.  Or Obama’s people only reached out to those within their own party.  Or, as it was discovered, some of them left early because they just “couldn’t be bothered” with it.  I have no doubt that whatever “bare minimum” standard that needed to be met was in this matter.  It just was not the GOP’s “standard”, if they even have one, and that presumes too much nowadays.

Then there’s the idea that the United States would be coming to any kind of agreement with the Taliban, the same gang of thugs and criminals that we’ve been going after for over a decade.  Oh, right, like we didn’t negotiate with the Vietnamese?  Or the North Koreans?  We negotiated with the Soviet Union to end the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Not too long ago we negotiated with Russia to keep us from getting involved in Syria.  This is the same White House that routinely brokers deals with career criminals we otherwise call “Too Big To Fail” so they would pay pocket change instead of jail time.

Besides, it’s not like Obama’s people are strangers to negotiating with idealistic extremists.  After all, they’ve had to deal with the Tea Party crowd since 2010.  And some of them have lately gotten into the habit of carrying around assault rifles in public places.

Then we have the questioning of the trade itself.  According to the GOP script, these five prisoners in Gitmo are “dangerous terrorists”, otherwise why would they be in Gitmo in the first place?

Bear in mind that we’re not talking about a Super-Max correctional facility, where we have people that have been tried and convicted in a court of law so we know the seriousness of their crimes.  These could be terrorist leaders, they could be foot soldiers, they could even be some sap who drove a cab or delivered groceries.  We really won’t know and we only have the government’s “word” who they were before being snatched up and taken there. 

We can’t try them in an actual tribunal – military or civilian – because some chickenhawk “genius” in the Bush Imperium decided it was okay to use “enhanced interrogation methods” on them and violated the Geneva Convention.  So these were five people that we were going to have to let go at some point anyway.

Sorry conservatives and neo-conservatives, but you have only yourselves to blame for that one.  If they weren’t hating America before they were captured, they sure as hell do now, thanks to you and your Koran-flushing “Our god is better than their god” buddies.

By the way, did you know we also held Haitian refugees there as well?  Not just in the early 1990’s, but also after the 2010 earthquake.  So we were keeping refugees in the same place as the supposedly “most dangerous terrorists”.  Did that make those refugees equally “dangerous”?

Then, of course, the script demanded the GOP go after the serviceman himself.  They attacked Bowe Bergdahl’s name, his character, even his family.  According to the script, he’s “a deserter”, “a traitor”, even a supposed “sleeper agent”.  They’ve even made comparisons to the fictional Showtime series “Homeland”.

Okay, first the “desertion” claims are being investigated.  But here’s a possibility that the cons and neo-cons do not want to consider: that he was asked to do something “off the record” by our intelligence community and got captured for it.  It certainly would explain the claims made by one of his fellow servicemen that he kept to himself and was studying other languages.  But of course we will never really know, because the intelligence community won’t admit to it publicly.

Over fifty years ago, there was a little thing called the Bay of Pigs Invasion.  Even today some people refuse to admit that there were American servicemen involved in that failed invasion, but I know there was because my father was one of them.  So it is no stretch of the imagination to think that Bowe Bergdahl could have been caught up in something for our country as well.

But you know what?  Even that isn’t the worst of it when it comes to the GOP.  Character assassination and borderline slander are par for the course nowadays.  We shouldn’t be surprised to see them use these tactics.

What makes this whole thing even worse, even more disgusting and despicable and disrespectful, is that prior to Obama actually going through with the trade-off, the GOP actually were demanding Bergdahl be released!

No, I am not exaggerating.  I am not making this up.  Members of the GOP were the ones that actually demanded the trade-off be made!

Cons and neo-cons were posting Twitter posts over and over and over again demanding that Bergdahl be released at all costs, and then immediately after the news reports came out that Obama actually did it, those same people were screaming bloody murder!

Before the release, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma (GOP) said "The mission to bring our missing soldiers home is one that will never end. It's important that we make every effort to bring this captured soldier home to his family."

After the release, he was complaining about “people who have killed Americans, people who are the brain power of Taliban.”  Not exactly holding true to the “make every effort” part.

Then there’s Senator and failed Presidential Wannabe John McCain of Arizona (GOP), who actually said on CNN in February that he was open for such a trade-off.  But after it actually happened, said that he "would not have made this deal."  And this from someone who was a POW himself!

And true to the GOP script, any mention of online praise from the GOP on the release of Bergdahl were quickly erased in Orwellian fashion.  “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.”

Let’s get brutally honest here… the hypocritical actions of the GOP on this subject only further my disgust of the party that I once was a proud card-carrying member of!

You know, it is one thing to be critical of Obama’s actions after they happen.  It is another thing entirely to be a blatant hypocrite about the subject, demanding action and then condemning it once it does happen.

The only thing that changed about the effort to get Bergdahl freed was that it was Barack Obama that did it.  The GOP seemed to be quite content about screaming to the high heavens to get Bergdahl freed as long as it didn’t happen under Obama’s watch.  They were raising Bergdahl up as a martyr for their unholy crusade.  Now they’re treating him as a pariah.  Why?  Because of Obama!

All that talk about “support the troops” and not leaving anyone behind apparently means not a single damn thing to the GOP.  “Make every effort”, they said!  Or did they really mean “make every effort as long as that ‘that guy’ in the White house doesn’t actually do it and get all the credit for it”?

Keep in mind that I’m not the only one noticing this and is disgusted by the maliciously orchestrated actions of the GOP.  Congressman Paul Labrador of Idaho (GOP) is also apparently disgusted by the blatant hypocrisy of his own party.  Governor Butch Otter (GOP) is also apparently keeping a level head about this.

“I'm not going to speculate on anything beyond what I know,” Otter said, “and what I know is that after almost five years, a young man from Idaho no longer is in enemy hands. There are processes in place within the military and in Congress for whatever happens next. Those processes need to run their course.”

Sadly, though, I suspect these are the exceptions to the party, and not the rule.

The fact that the town of Hailey, Idaho, had to cancel their planned homecoming parade for Bergdahl due to the orchestrated hate calls coming in should speak volumes of how dangerously malicious this has become, and how the people behind this need to be reined in and shut down. 

We’re not talking political disagreement or mild criticism anymore.  We’re almost talking acts of domestic terrorism.  And all in the name of partisan politics!

It was ten years ago almost to the day that the GOP attacked the credibility of then-Senator John Kerry, questioning his war record and picking apart his stances as a way to discredit him in the 2004 Presidential Election.  It was ten years ago that then-Vice President Dick Cheney stood in front of the GOP at their national convention and went down Kerry’s political history, pointing out all of the times he reversed himself.

“Flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop,” he chanted.

Well now it’s the GOP’s turn to be picked apart and questioned and discredited for their orchestrated hypocrisy.  It is high time the party answer to what they have wrought in the name of Obama-hate.

Flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop.

It is high time that Senator Inhofe and the rest of the GOP contingent that speak out of both sides of their mouths on this subject either apologize or else resign for being a disgrace to themselves and to the American people.

Flip-flop, flip-flip, flip-flop.

And for Senator McCain, himself a former prisoner of war and who should know better than anyone else in that party about what “supporting the troops” really means, his shameful hypocrisy should lead to his resignation.  But, of course, it won’t.  Because that would require something that the overbearing political party has sadly lacked these past few years: integrity.

Flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop.

As for the rest of the con and neo-cons out there who have flip-flopped on this subject, I say this: the next time you want a POW released from one of your wars, shut your hole, and rescue them yourselves!

Week of 06/02/2014

Stop Lying!  Dreams Can And Do Die
– by David Matthews 2

There’s a commercial by an insurance company that really pisses me off.

Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks narrates it as we see him getting ready for practice.  He’s talking about dreams and how they are supposedly powerful.

“They cannot be beaten, broken, or taken,” he says.  “Dreams fight, they persevere, they go on.”

“Dreams,” he says, “will always prevail.”

Sorry to disagree with you, Mister Wilson, but you’re dead wrong about that.

I’m sure that it must be great for you to be able to live out your dream of not only playing professional football, but to also be one of an elite few in that already elite group who also get to wear a Super Bowl Championship ring.  That is a great achievement in and of itself that you should be very proud of.

But that does not mean that dreams are as strong or as resilient as you believe them to be in your commercial.

Dreams do not prevail.

Dreams do not persevere.

Dreams do not fight.

Dreams can be taken, broken, beaten… and, yes, Russell Wilson, dreams can and do die!

For every dream that is realized, an untold number of other dreams die.

Sometimes they’re left to wither like unpicked fruit.  Whole fields of dreams that are left to rot.  Potential that goes unrealized, unappreciated, unused, or simply unable to come to be.

Think about all the people that had the same dream that you did, Mister Wilson.  All the ones that grew up watching football on TV, playing Pop Warner football as kids, having that same dream of one day being a pro player and then going on to win the Super Bowl.  How many of them never got past those Pop Warner days?  How many of those dreams died in those small town fields?

Think of all the ones that went on to play football in high school.  I know from experience that not everyone with a dream of playing in high school sports are allowed to see them become real.  And it’s not for a lack of trying or a lack of determination.  It is because someone else consciously decided to take that dream away from them.

Of that group, think of the smaller number of high school athletes that were allowed to take that dream and move it up to the world of college sports.  What about all those other young kids with dreams?  Or did you think they didn’t have the same kind of dreams you did?  And of that group, how many of those don’t make it past college to go professional?

A whole lot of people with the same kind of dream that you had, Russell Wilson.  A whole lot of people with ideas in their head that they can one day play professional football and make it to the Super Bowl and then win it and get one of those rings that you are so proudly wearing. 

Those dreams did not fight to become real.  Those dreams did not persevere.  Those dreams did not prevail.  They were battered down by reality, broken into little pieces, reduced to being nothing more than fleeting fantasies that are mildly sustained by watching the game on TV instead of actually playing in it.

How about the people who dream of being actors and actresses?

You know the story, right?  Young person leaves Small Town America looking to make it in Hollywood, only to find that he or she is one of millions with the same dream, and none of them have even a remote chance of making it real.  They wait tables or bag groceries while going to acting courses and auditions.  Maybe they can get some work on some independent project, or they decide to do porn.  But for most of them, their dreams die withered on the vine. 

Their dreams don’t step up.  Their dreams don’t fight to continue.  Their dreams don’t prevail.

How about something a little more ordinary?  Something that more people can relate to?

Millions of Americans have a dream of owning their own home.  You know, that good old fashioned “American Dream” that the politicians love to boast about.  The dream that you see in those commercials by realtors and home improvement stores.  The ones you see on cable TV channels like HGTV and DIY.

And they managed to make that dream happen, didn’t they?  Oh there were plenty of people willing to give those millions loans on top of loans to make that dream happen.  They supposedly made the numbers work so people would get those homes and keep the economy going.

Only the numbers really didn’t work.  Not for the people that couldn’t afford the balloon payments they found themselves in.  Not for the people that found out that they were “underwater” financially, paying for a home that was no longer what it was worth.  Not for the people that suddenly found themselves out of work, unable to make the payments, and were forced out on the street.

Those dreams did not fight for the homeowners.  They did not persevere.  They did not endure.  They didn’t stand up for the homeowners.  They were battered down by collection agencies and tossed out into the street by court-ordered foreclosures.  And all so the criminals in the banking industry can make their profit margins.

No, I have learned that dreams never put up a fight.  They expect you to chase them.  They expect you to do all of the hard work and shoulder the burden, and there’s absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that you’ll be able to achieve them, much less enjoy them for any length of time.

Let’s get brutally honest here… a dream is really nothing more than fantasy.  If you are lucky, if the fates and fortunes of the universe allow it, if you can afford to and are allowed to pursue them and make them real, then it does seem rather magical.  It is almost like it is destiny for you to have these things or to do these things.

But, in fact, it is just a luxury.  It is something that can only be pursued if the fates and fortunes of the universe and those with power will allow it.  Otherwise it is just a tease, a tempter, a siren steering you towards nothing but endless misery and heartache.  A tormentor; continually reminding you of what you could have if only you were allowed it.

The football player who can only watch the game from his TV set.  The actress who can only give her best performance in front of a webcam.  The would-be homeowner burdened by meticulously engineered graft, watching as others profit from their pain.  The struggling writer churning out articles week after week, year after year, with hardly a word and certainly not a penny for his troubles.

And therein lies the twist.  Every dream that I have tried to pursue… every single one… required the permission of others.  Working the dream job requires the permission of others.  Getting the dream car requires the permission of others.  Having the dream spouse obviously requires the permission of at least the person in question.  It’s hard to believe that a dream can have any kind of power if it can be denied or revoked at the whims of others.  No amount of dime-store inspirational posters or motivational poetry can change that.  And certainly no insurance company with an overplayed pop jingle can truly protect something that is as ultimately impotent as a dream.

I’m glad that you are able to live out your dream, Russell Wilson.  Not only that, but you were also able to make some extra money on the side talking about it.  But don’t think for a moment that this is something anyone can do.

Week of 05/26/2014

We Have Failed Our Veterans
– by David Matthews 2

I will say this about “my country, ‘tis of thee…”

We love waging war!

We do!  As the late George Carlin once said, we’re the only nation in the world that has rockets and bombs in its national anthem!  We send hypocritical chickenhawks to Washington who continually pledge to “get tough” on the world when bad things are said about us.  We’re known around the world as war-mongers, the only country (at least as of this article) to have ever dropped a nuclear device on another nation, and we did that twice.

We love war!  We love waging it.  We love preparing for it.  We love coming up with all of the propaganda to get ourselves in the mood for it.  We love watching it on the cable news channels as we get ourselves into that evangelical “with us or against us” mindset.

And you know what we love more than that?  We love winning those wars.  Oh our previous elected doofus, President George W. Bush, could not wait to get that “Mission Accomplished” banner flying when it came to the Iraq War!  We hadn’t even found Saddam Hussein yet and we were declaring the fight over with and looking for new wars to wage.

What we don’t like to do, though, is clean up after our own messes.

Oh it’s easy to send in the contractors to fix up the infrastructure.  That’s why Halliburton loves our war-wacky chickenhawk crusades; because they get paid the big bucks afterward.

What’s not so easy is taking care of our own servicemen and women after the fighting has stopped.

For the past few weeks, our Veterans Administration has been embarrassed at the revelations of their gross incompetence when it comes to doing their jobs of helping those that served.  News of secret waiting lists and veterans literally dying before being “allowed” to have the help they need.

This is not how we should be treating our servicemen and women for all they did on our behalf.

And yet… I angers me to say that this is par for the course.

Let’s get brutally honest here… we have a long, long, long history of giving our veterans the shaft!

Yes, on occasion we’ve bent over backwards for them.  This was certainly the case after World War II, between the tickertape parades and the G.I. Bill and all of the programs that were supposedly designed to help the supposed “Greatest Generation” get back to a post-war life.

And, yes, there were those celebrations after the Gulf War, since President George H.W. Bush wanted the world to know not only who “won” that conflict, but also that it was supposedly time to start the “post-war economic boom” that never happened.

But do you remember the tickertape parade for the soldiers that came home after the Korean War?  No?  How about the Vietnam War?  Yeah, there were the ones in the eighties… long after the fact.  But the soldiers that came home from the conflict were pretty much left to fend for themselves.

How about World War I?

Here’s a little piece of embarrassing history for our country… in 1932, America’s veterans from World War I assembled in Washington D.C. to demand what was promised to them.  Our government responded to the peaceful request by our veterans with tear gas, bayonets, and tanks.  Led by Douglas MacArthur and George Patton, of all people!

Go ahead and look it up.  It was called the “Bonus Army”.  There was plenty of footage then.  They even made a movie in 1933 based on it called “Gabriel Over The White House”.

No, we feel we don’t need to reward our servicemen, do we?  We just expect them to simply carry on like nothing ever happened.  “Welcome home, now get back to work.  Get back with your lives.”

There is a little meme going about that says that if we can’t take care of our veterans, then we shouldn’t be waging wars in the first place.  Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders recently tweeted “If you think it's too expensive to take care of #veterans, then don't send them to war.”

While there is a part of me that overwhelmingly agrees with the idea, the truth of the matter is that, with some exceptions, we’ve been pretty much screwing over our veterans since the end of the American Revolution.  And we will continue to screw over our servicemen and women, because the people that call for war are not the ones that pay the price for it.  They sit comfortably in their offices, thousands of miles away from any kind of danger, watching with excitement and bloodlust as the carnage plays out on the cable news channels.  They reap all of the benefits and risk none of the consequences.

But that doesn’t mean that we should simply give up on our veterans!  Nor should we simply let the gross incompetence continue.  The people responsible for the gross incompetence, the ones that have been cooking the books, the ones turning veterans away as a matter of policy, and the ones that have stuck their heads in the sand instead of doing their jobs and putting a stop to that, they all need to be held accountable.  They all need to be fired and face possible criminal charges.  And, yes, that includes the overseers in Congress who are supposed to make sure these kinds of things did not happen.

President Barack Obama made healthcare reform his signature legislation.  With that in mind, it is nothing short of an embarrassment to know that his White House would let this kind of gross incompetence to continue when it comes to the healthcare of America’s veterans.  His people should be doing a building-by-building visit, checking the books to make sure there are no more embarrassments for them; that our veterans are getting exactly the help they need without delay.

Let’s put it this way: if the Obama White House cannot guarantee healthcare for our former servicemen and women, the people that voluntarily gave their lives in service to “king and country”, then how can they ensure the healthcare for the rest of the nation?

The script tells us that we must all “support the troops”, and I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of us do just that.  But that support should not end just because their service does.  They deserve nothing less than what is promised to them for their willing sacrifice.