I'm So Giddy or ISG

When do we ever learn? When do we finally say... I've seen this movie before? In America, in the 21st Century perhaps never. The word leaking out from the ISG is that we should gradually 'draw down' our troops in Iraq and we should engage Iran and Syria in multi-lateral talks. No timetable exists for the draw-down and no incentives exist for Iran and Syria to come to the table and, quite honestly, what do we have to offer, so why should they? We have treated them like just so much shit on our shoe for the last six years but now we need to talk. I seriously believe that we should engage all the hostile parties in the Middle East but in order to do that we need to address the ancient problem - Israel and Palestine - therein lies the root of all our problems, an artificial state in a sea of artificial states... but not just a state, Israel is a state of mind, for us Judeo/Christians, Israel represents a benign, controllable buffer in a Holy Land beseiged by the infidel, for Arabs it is a twisting knife in an open wound. So how do we placate a fertile crescent of hostility while ensuring the continued existence of a predatory, expanding, will-o-the-wisp hegemony? Beats the crap out of me! Perhaps, though, we should have some fresh thinking on this one because what we are experiencing now is quite possibly the worst acid flashback an old drug addled hippy could ever imagine. Seeing Baker front and center, and Bush in complete and utter denial and an administration incapable of sticking to the script is giving me the most uncomfortable case of political reflux one can imagine. Now, these people were supposed to be the 'grown-ups' and under their careful, experienced tutelage America would enter a new golden age of prosperity and global respect... well that went real well... so the grown-ups called in or were forced to accept the 'old-grown-ups' to clean up quite a bit of a mess. But the OGU's were responsible for their own quite a bit of a mess and some of us still remember that and trust them about as far as we could projectile vomit them and, get this, the GU's feel about the same way, still recalcitrant after all these years. So they will ignore the ISG, make up their own shit and carry on as if none of us will notice. As Atrios would sat Na Ga Appen... we're all over them like flies on shit. I don't trust Baker and his Study Group and I have never trusted Bush and his bunch of NeoCon incompetents. We need fresh ideas and some real thinkers... so who are they? - suggestions.

Carville

The nattering classes are all a buzz about James Carville's somewhat puzzling personal condemnation of Gov. Howard Dean's '50 State Strategy'... and indeed the good Governor himself. Perhaps that derives from the fact that they, like Mr. Carville, don't really understand it and are therefore laboring under a weighty dillusion and convincing only themselves. The 50 State Strategy as I see it is a long term answer to the Republican machine built in the early eighties and late nineties which ultimately delivered them the House and Senate in '94. It was a grass roots operation that ignored, in fact abhorred, DC insiders and instead focused on the localized mobilization of a disenfranchised heretofore ignored, but large, voting bloc within this great nation. The aim was to re-take Governorships, State Houses, State Senate seats, Judgeships and gradually manipulate the structure and plurality in microchosm. They would create the talking points, they would direct the conversation and debate to the topics they felt were the motivational and emotional winners for them. The strategy... 'Start small, think big' worked. Dean is, in my opinion, of the same mind. For too long Democratic DC strategists have held themselves and their mandate in high regard, believing the center was the battleground without ever accepting that their 'base' really meant anything, therefore the base had no seat at the table and no voice within the machinery, culminating in a veritable petry dish of disaffection and a nationally assumed irrelevance. So, for the last 12 years, just enough of the center has , irresolutely and inexplicibly, held for the Republicans through fear and sytematically imposed ignorance. No matter the money, the ad buys and the righteous indignation the DLC and it's centrist ilk spewed forth they failed to bring a victory. '04, enter Dean and his plan... Dean went back to the Democratic roots and glavanized State leadership, he brought them money, realism and groundtroops, reconnected and reestablished the lines of communication between DC leadership and its most fervent supporters, empowered the grassroots and the netroots and began the much needed reformation of the Democratic groundgame. His plan was not derived from a need for immediate success but, much like the Republican scheme, had a long term goal, change the dialogue (The war in Iraq is unpopular, a need for the separation of Church and State is widely accepted, people are being left behind, the need for some kind of socialized medicine has become apparent, Corporations cannot run amok and must be overseen, the Constitution must not be interpreted as the executive branch sees fit, international treaties are not 'quaint'... all big issues) excite the base, motivate. (I still believe that Dean was as suprised as everybody else at the overwhelming success of the Democrats in the mid-terms but it truly was a referendum on Iraq and the mood of the American people had been severely misjudged by the WH and Republicans nationwide.) Therefore, he was not willing to wade in at the last minute on individual races with DNC $$$$'s because that was not the plan - '08 and '10 and beyond were his targets and should remain so, unlike the DLC and Carville, this is not about instant gratification and personal benefaction, it's about our party's future health and power, without power we can not create policy. As a by-note, it has also been proven, with a majority of those races, it would not have mattered much if we had thrown everything we had at them we would still have lost. So Carville, in the best interests of the party he supposedly loves, slightly more than himself and all those Ad $$$$'s, should STFU and keep his Rahm lust to himself.

Veterans Day - 2006

Peace
Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!
Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death. Offered Without Comment - Rupert Brooke 1914