Saturday, December 29, 2007

American Health Care.

After the death of Nataline Sarkisyan, in California on December 27, 2007 when CIGNA, the family health insurance plan, refused to cover the costs of a liver transplant we hear more people calling for an “European” type of health coverage for all Americans.

Right away, we hear others answer backt that that type of coverage is ineffecient and a waste of money and time. That seems to almost imply that our way is better.

Actually, we are not really looking for the perfect plan right now. We will gladly accept one that is inefficient, wasteful, arbitrary, confusing and down right stupid. All we want is that it be better than the one we have now.

As far as the costs - and it will cost money - we probably don’t care much about that either. Taxes will have to go WAY up. OK. But we will lose our insurance payments. I know a young lady with two young children who are paying $800 a month for their health care plan. They are all in perfect health and seldom use any of its services. They have to keep the plan though, because of the threat of a serious illness or sudden accident, also they need to get the plan and keep it when they have no medical problem. If there is a problem, and they are uninsured, they can’t get any insurance from anybody.

So, taxes would go up. How much? $10,000 worth? Probably not. Eurupe does it for a lot less.

Is Eurpoe’s health care as good as our own?

Depends on who is answering the question.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Presidential Duties.

President Bush has repeatedly said that the first job of the president is to defend the United States.

Now many of the presidential candidates are repeating that statement. They are all wrong.

The first job of our president is to support and defend the CONSTITUTION of the United States of America.

In final analysis the nation of the United States is not as important as its constitution is. There are lots of other nations but there is only one constitution of the United States. And if that goes the way of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib then it is all lost.

If we lose our constitution, it will not come back again. It is our child now, our responsibility, all of us. The president's job is to help lead us in this task. When we scrap it to defend the nation, we are giving away our birthright.

© john Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Armenia?

Why the fuss over Armenia? And why right now?

Pelosi said, in defense of that question from others, that it was never the “right time”, OK, but still, why choose what is possibly the WORST time to bring this up in the last 92 years?

Perhaps Karl Rove might have sneaked into Nancy Pelosi’s bedroom in the dark of night and whispered into her ear that he was unhappy with Bush and neo-cons for sending him “on down the road” and he knew exactly how to get even by bulldozing this condemnation resolution through the House of Representatives. That would surely embarrass George Bush, and might even lead to Turkey invading Iraq from the north, thus opening up another front in WWE (War Without End).

Of course, it simply plays into the hands of George Bush and provides the neo-con arsenal with some badly needed ammunition. It gives Bush an opportunity to look statesmanlike, and also shines a bright, international spotlight on the ineptness of the Democratic Party, and their organized lack of direction. It also gives unnecessary support to the old idea that only the president should deal with other countries, otherwise surly chaos will occur.

If passed, the resolution to condemn the obviously brutal slaughter of 1915 would make not a difference in anything except to stir up old hatreds. It would not “prove” anything or be any kind of a verdict from any widely respected court of justice, but only a political slam against people no longer alive by those who see the world as a tiny place.

This condemnation only serves to reinforce why the American people, as well as the people of the world, hold the United States congress in even greater contempt than they do the American president, and why, when in this time of great peril, whenever we look around us for someone to come to America’s help we find only the pitiful democrats.


©John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Lee Bollinger, School Yard Bully

Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, introduced the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the student body Monday. The introduction consisted of a series of verbal slaps to the face and insulting kicks on the shin. I'm sure it made Bollinger look like a big man in his own eyes, but the images that will remain with the people of the world will be different. My feelings were these:
1) Bully - you agree to introduce a guest, and instead you insult him instead without warning.
2) Barbaric - Ahmadinejad is not an Arab, but he is Muslim and a player in that arena. To insult a guest in that culture is to demonstrate barbarianism.
3) Sophomoric - Bollinger's words were not those of an educator, one who is a seeker of truth, one who constantly tests and looks for new ways. Instead they were the words of a preacher, one who already knows everything important and knows all the facts.
4) Stupid - Ahmadinejad was known to be slipping badly in public opinion throughout Iran, the Moslem, and particularly the Arab world. Many felt he was through and finished. After Bollinger's insults, Ahmadinejad was regarded well, as handling himself properly.
5) Shrouded - Bollinger's tirade tended to obscure Ahmadinejad's true lack of understanding of critical factors.
6) Wasted - Instead of challenging Ahmadinejad to comment on several important concepts, Bollinger told him before he began speaking that he (Ahmadinejad) was not worth listening to.

Columbia University fell in my own estimation as a result of this sad performance, and Ahmadinejad did what he could to save the day, including his faux-pas about no gays in Iran, and yet, one was left to wonder how George Bush would have performed speaking to and entertaining questions from the student body of a college in Iran, or anywhere else, like – for example – any American university.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

The Angel of Death Theory

The neocons seem near the end of a disastrous period of rule in the United States and hopefully they will be succeeded by saner heads. They are in such disgrace that nothing could possibly save them. Nothing that is, but the Angel of Death.

Who is the Angel of Death? It is George Bush of course, but wait – there’s much more to the story than just that basic fact. Think about what is at stake:
1) Many powerful Christian fundamentalists seem convinced Armageddon is near, that God’s Kingdom is at hand, and they have a role to play in that fulfillment of destiny.
2) Some Jewish fundamentalist seem to believe that there is window in time that is currently open, in which it will be possible to destroy not only Iraq, but Iran as well. Then, Saudi Arabia and Egypt will will be split asunder by New Israel which will expand to include Jordan, Syria and all of Palestine.
3) The American military is not in good shape. It may be near collapse and it now needs, according to some neocon aspirations, to be reborn as a great mercenary army. The current “surge” then would become not a temporary offensive but the beginning of a new invasion and a new military.
4) The Republican Party, which would be the “host” of these neocons, fundamentalists and mercenaries is in significant disarray. Its traditional leaders are in no position to confront these powerful members of its new core areas.
5) Nuclear strikes by the United States on several Iranian targets would render the United Nations helpless, and prove it to be useless.
6) The United States would then truly be the only superpower in the world and Israel would be free to control the Middle-east.
7) And this opportunity could be rapidly passing us by. If events run their normal course, and America begins a drawdown in Iraq, and the Republican Party loses badly in the forthcoming election, and the current administration is removed from power perhaps for years to come, then this great chance would be gone, and the neocons would lose an apocalyptic opportunity. It may well be now or never.
8) Last, and maybe most important of all, the American press and media are dying and continue to exist only on carefully fed bits of goodies dispensed from the government and are able to only broadcast crude cartoons and the most blatant sensationalism.

But you protest that the American people would not put up with any attack on Iran now, and the world community would see it as an outrageous invasion of a national sovereignty that would threaten them all. So how could such a sudden preemptive attack by America ever take place?

That’s where the Angel of Death comes in . It’s frighteningly simple. George Bush is assassinated. Willingly? Of course not. The assassin would be some member of the Neo-Con fraternity, perhaps one who seems poised for “greatness”. Someone with easy access to the president. He of course would be killed after the deed, along perhaps with other unaware members of the administration and they would become great heroes of a White House “shootout”. AND an Iranian would be produced as the villain, whisked off to Guantanamo, or elsewhere, never to be seen again as President Cheney took charge and immediately carried out the carefully planned series of missions, including carefully prepared leaks of false information about Iran’ s accelerating “preparation” to attack America.
© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Proud to be an American.

If we are serious about fighting a real War on Terror, and intend to win in Iraq and the middle east let’s MAKE the congress declare war. Let’s have the draft reinstated and take every American man and woman between the ages of 18 and 46. Let’s pick them up from their homes and from where they work and send them off: six weeks training and then on to Iraq for two to three or more years – no leave or vacations until the war is over. Let’s institute wage and price controls, bring back rent control and freeze the interest rates. Let’s begin rationing of goods, sell no more tires, restrict the sale of gasoline, put a 35 mph speed limit on all American roads. Let’s shutdown the auto industries and most of the other major industries in America and turn them into great war production machines. Let’s start collecting trash and converting it into war products, re-institute war bonds and let our kids buy war stamps in school. Let’s do all of this, IF we really believe George Bush when he says we are in the greatest battle of civilization’s history.

After all, that’s what Iraq is doing and that’s what al Qaeda is doing, and that’s what the Taliban is doing, and that’s what “Greatest Generation” of Americas did during World War II. But it seems like we don’t do any of that any more. We want to fight wars on the cheap, we think we are simply invincible and nobody can stand to fight us anymore. Besides, God is on our side and He will see we win in the end.

But this war in Iraq is lost in spite of God and everybody. It’s lost like the last few wars we “fought”. And for the same reasons. We lost Korea because the American people didn’t really want to fight it, they didn’t really believe in it. President Truman sent the troops in for an easy victory but the people had to be “sold” on the war later when the fighting turned tough. They didn’t buy it. We lost in Vietnam because the American people didn’t want to fight that one either – especially after they found out Lyndon Johnson lied to them about the Gulf of Tonkin “attack” so we could get rough with North Vietnam and the Veit Cong. We lost Afghanistan because we just simply quit there so we could go invade Iraq. We lost Iraq because the American people never did believe George Bush and they didn’t want the war in the first place.

After all, Bush wasn’t “just wrong” on every single issue from the WMD to the AlQuida in Iraq, to the Saddam Hussein planning the 9-11 attacks, to the yellow-cake thing, to the “MIssion Accomplished” thing, and the “bring them on” thing, and his cute little “what insurgency?” thing. He wasn’t just ignorant about Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, Abu Ghraib, Walter Reed, and so on. He was lying. He was lying to the congress, lying to the American people, lying to the world. It’s his war, his personal war and he has only a few people really behind him, namely a few Bush patriots like Cheney, Libby, Gonzales, Perle who have sworn allegiance to Him, not the constitituion, and – of course – “the troops”.

So now this war has become a special kind of hell for a few Americans. Those are the “Troops” we just mentioned. They go and come and go again. We say we won’t forsake our “troops” there so we send them back again to relieve themselves. And we send them back sooner and keep them there longer. And again. And again. And again. And we still won’t forsake them there so we send them back again – too often they are the same guys – we did that in Vietnam, remember? Meanwhile, the rest of us are here at home, building our lives, moving up in our jobs, putting down roots, getting our kids through schools, moving to new neighborhoods, buying better houses, new cars, TVs, computers, and we won’t forsake our troops, either. We help them to rotate over again to relieve each other more quickly and help them to stay there longer to give “the troops” back home a break. We watch our own kids get married, we go to the high school football games, and watch the news occasionally. We put new bumper stickers on our new SUVs to show we really do support our troops. We wave the flag. We stomp our foot. We support our president! Hot damn! It’s good to be an American.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Fred Thompson

It is already apparent one of the approaches that Thompson will try will be that of the good ole southern gentleman. He will admire Hillary, and even hold a door open for her should the occasion arise, and he will make it clear that while he thinks she is fine and dandy that it is simply God's own words that the ladies belong in submissive status in someone's home. Of course he won't say any words that come close to stating such beliefs, but it will be interesting to see how he and his handlers approach that. As far as Barrak is concerned, Fred will again evidence admiration for the good boy, he will be proud of him and will make it clear – again without words to this effect – that Barrak is a credit to his race. Thompson's role will be that of the gentleman with the white man's burden, he won't say this but his actions will not be lost on his core.

Monday, August 27, 2007

The Sport of Executive Privilige

I don't really want to hope that Michael Vick receives a severe punishment for his misdeeds. After all he did not kill innocent children or destroy villages faraway from Washington. He didn't lie to congress or rip-off American taxpayers to the tune of several billion dollars (a day!). He didn't have secret plans to enrich his family and friends with great treasures of oil revenues while at the same time making his country even more dependent upon his Saudi friends services. But the real problem is that it is all the same thing. It all boils down to "Executive Privilege". If you are rich enough or powerful enough - then the laws of the nation don't apply to you. Then you live in a different world. You can do whatever you "need" to do.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Bridge Collapse

Not the first time this has happened. This is a bridge that had been identified as "deficient" in 1990. There are some 40,000 other locations identified as "deficienct" in American infrastructure. Meanwhile our roadbuilding continues and it all is based on accomodation of more and more automobilles. America has no serious light rail service available with the exception of a few highly-populated regions. We will not convert overnight to a light rail service but we can begin. Minneapolis would be a good place to start. Not to replalce highways with light rail but to begin providing that alternative for our people. We don't have to begin there but it would be not only appropriate but also symbolic. Let's face it, most of America's problems are automobille-related. Without our dependence on middle-eastern oil, our endless-seeming communutes, our high accident toll, pollution, sprawl, congestion and so on.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Obama Blew It

Obama said that if he were president of the United States and received "actionable intelligence" that the Waziristan area of Pakistan “needed” to be bombed that he would not only bomb it but also send American troops in regardless of what Pakistan wanted. This shows the world that Obama thinks he is seeking recognition by the Democratic Party of the U.S. that he will become acclaimed as Emperor of the Planet, rather than a temporarily factotum of one of the now second-world nations in the international body of nations.

Of course Karl Rove will say nothing, only lick his chops, he certainly would do nothing to impede Obama from becoming the Democratic Party candidate in the elections. Nonetheless, a plan of action is now being assembled in Rove's magic kitchen of ways to treat this at the proper time. What if Obama is not the candidate? No matter. Every Democratic Party candidate-to-be will be forced to comment on Obama's statement, and every Republican Party member will have a unified response already prepared for him or her.

Unfortunately Musharraf has no good options, but he cannot let this pass. To remain quiet would be interpreted by his Pakistani opponents – including the Taliban – as acquiesce, and he will be so charged by them. He has no choice but to respond. No matter what, his position as Emperor of Pakistan has been weakened. Not that Musharraf’s passing would be reason for regret, but the region is ripe for political and religious explosion. If we could only bring the diplomatic forces of the world to help soothe the irritations of this part of the world and not to cast more gasoline upon the smoldering embers.

But alas, that is not to be. America has also been shown again to be the little country boy, walking along a dirt road, carelessly kicking rocks out of his pathway and dreaming of becoming rich and famous, but totally unaware of the world in which he lives.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Who to Believe?

The war drums are beating again as generals and staffers claim Iran is providing new types of explosive devices. They leave the matter with a pregnant pause as if to say "So what should we do"? It all seems to imply a need for revenge, attack and more war.

Iran says they are not doing this so who are we to believe? Iran or our president? Unfortunately, George Bush and his entire administration has lied to the American people, the US Congress and the entire world about everything connected with the war in Iraq from the WMD to the Saddam-connection-with-9/11, and on and on and on. Now we have to decide who we should believe in a he-said, he-said type of thing. Too bad this had to come up right after Scooter Libby had his prison sentence for lying under oath commuted by George Bush. Seems that maybe he did lie, but according to our president it was a "necessary" lie, or maybe it was a "patriotic" lie?

So when it comes to a show-down between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and George Bush as to whom do I believe . . . and if the choice may lead to war . . . then . . . well, maybe we ought to just see what this other guy has to say if he will agree to participate in an international discussion. I'm sure Mahmoud has been wrong in the past too, but every - single - time?

© John Womack 2007. All rights reserved.

Monday, July 02, 2007

Commute? Commute What?

The word “commute” means to exchange, replace or substitute one thing for another. Bush said he was commuting Liddy’s prison sentence, but took a prison sentence for lying, and replaced it with a reward for lying. Did Bush misspeak again, or was this something different? Maybe this is some of those “consequenchies” he promised to bring to America if he was elected?

Perhaps what was really commuted was the American constitution. Maybe our system of laws with its checks and balances, and division of powers has just been commuted to a new system of “doin’ what comes nacherly”, a new form of “it’s a miracle, by George!” It sounds like what they used to refer to back in the old swamps of north Florida as a “he-coon” running his territory the way it ought to be done.

It’s not so much that Bush is telling us he is going to do whatever he WANTS to do, but he is making sure we all know he will do whatever NEEDS to be done. Who decides the difference? He does. The He-coon is taking care of his pack. . The Decider is telling us that He and His “people” are above the laws that apply to ordinary people. If His people need to lie, then they should lie. If they tell a necessary lie He will take care of them. And rest assured that Libby will be pardoned along with many others at the last minute.

This also informs the American congress and courts that they really aren’t needed anymore. And if they ever are needed again, the Decider will call them and tell them where and when to assemble and what they need to do. The president will take care of America.

The same may apply to our military. They can now attack whomever they need to attack. How will they know who that is? The Decider will tell them. He may already have done that. Like He already did in Iraq. If He needs advice He can consult His old friend, Dick Cheney.

So – what to do? Well let’s face it, democracy never triumphs, it never wins in the end. It is always an uneasy balance between different and often opposing forces. It’s messy. It always involves uncertainty and makes its citizens do things they really don’t want to have to do. Like talking with each other about our common problems, like war, like presidential power, like patriotism. Notice I didn’t say we need to talk TO each other but WITH each other.

Can we even talk with each other again? Republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives, white and black, male and female and all the in-betweeners. All that can be done, not easy, but doable. But there is still a bigger problem, and that is the communication between America’s rich and poor, its educated and uneducated. Can we do that? Probably not.

But remember that revolution is always an alternative, too. Let’s not let that become too attractive to too many Americans.

Maybe we can’t talk to everybody, but at least we can talk to our friends and to our congress people. We can do e-mail, telephone calls, letters, blogs, articles to our local newspapers.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Choosing a president

The selection process is awesome. Raised hands, minor confessions, good postures, happy faces turning into Rushmore visages, these and other images sway supposedly intelligent people on the other end of the great tube.

Yet this process has been carefully developed and refined. It is really awesome. Look at its results: First of all, forget Carter. He was a misfit and should never have gotten here. But since WWII we have picked out some real doozies. Eisenhower was a natural, then came Kennedy and from there it got grim. Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Regan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II. All of these people have many things to keep them from ever being elected to ANY position, much less the hightest one we have in America. So what happened?

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell has come and gone. Few noticed his coming, many more noted his passing and not all of those did so in sorrow.

I hesitate to speak of him now because that is to honor him in a sense, but not to speak now is to pretend he didn’t matter. And he did matter. But what was the matter with Falwell?

As a child I was shocked when I first heard the old Baptist maxim (filched, unknowingly to me from the Old Bard) that “Even the devil can quote scripture.” I couldn’t really beleve that until Jerry Falwell shined a great light on that. There is another axiom that proclaims scripture alone is sufficeient for salvation. That is, if a person learns enough scrpiture, he or she can find the truth to eternal salvation. Jerry Falwell showed that reliance only upon scripture can create a “scripture savant”, an amazing and entertaining performer who hits all the right keys but doesn't really know what he is doing.

Falwell often preached from the top of a great pile of stones he had prepared to hurl at those who turned to abortion as a last desperate hope. Mostly poor, young, confused children themselves, whom he would blame as adultresses and condem to bear "their" child, who for many of them was not of their own intent. Then, after they birthed they could labor on and on endlessly through medical and educational and cultural and governmental and economic gestations seeking care and help for their child who was really sired by domination, disinterest and contempt.

Falwell also showed us that gays and lesbians were largely responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001. They brought this event upon all of us by their being alive, according to Jerry Falwell. But since Christians believe that all people were created by God and we know that approximately one out of every ten human beings are homosexual we must either assume that God is a failure at producing people – because a 10% rejection rate would be unacceptable ANYWHERE, by ANYBODY, or since scripture says all men are created in the image of God, then obviously God is telling us something about who “He” really is. God is gay? Well, obviously. How wonderful. Falwell though created god in Falwell’s own image. How sad. Falwell was truly a preacher of the little god.

©John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Immus' Problem

He had a lot of followers but not many friends. He was a pioneer in lots of ways, way out there all alone, taking shots at whatever pleased him to shoot. He seemed to some to be a poor man's philosoper but he was all alone in this too.

He fails the test of democratic dialog as presented from Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and he does not fit with the democratic foundation of John Stuart Mill, Hume, Kant, Emerson, Bayer, Rousseau and many others – all these and their thoughts and opinions are foriegn to those of Immus.

Teachings from Moses, Jesus, Mohommed, Buddha, Ghandi, Dahli Lama, all of these and their ideals appear foreign to Immus. There is no room for any of them in his ideas.

His appeal is carefully confined to the lower class of Americans who are in debt, confused, worried and fearful of the future. These are people who don’t understand the nature of their problems and simply want someone to show them what to do without telling them to go do it. To these people he offers a target where they can focus their fearful gaze and instead of understanding the nature of the corporate cancer that is stealing their lives away, they are told to fear those who are even worse off than they are.

He is a master of inuendo. That’s what I grew up with in Mississippi: “You know what those people are like.” He belittles those whom he perceives as inferior to him and his pack, hence the “nappy-headed ho’s” comment was a typical snicker stick that his crowd could giggle over.

I see nothing positive in his entire presentation. His approach is to attack the wrong targets – for example placing blame on Snoopy Dogg Dog as being a black performer of bad rap instead of putting the blame for all of that on the marketing processes that made Mr. Dog moderately rich, and the the corporations who support him so powerfully wealthy in money and social power.

Immus seems to me to be a fundamental facist. The solutions to his problems are not to understand the nature of our problems and to work together to improve the lives of the people affected by them, but to build walls, to isolate “his people” into some “nation” that will be “pure” and will always instantly know the “proper” solution to every problem, and will obiedently serve some not yet identified powerful leader. He and his ilk are peddlers of human values for those who have none of their own. Tells people what to think instead of how to think.

Fascists always work on the people like a cook serves up Gyro’s, shaving off the outermost pieces of the lamb in that case, the population in this case, as the meat slowly turn over the fire. First the Jews, perhaps, then the homosexuals, then – like Hitler – the communists and then the gypsies, the blacks and browns don’t have to go – completely – as long as they can be subservient and helpful, Asians make a nice slice, Indians might be next, and so on. There are always people on the outside and always new people learning to slice. What’s the solution? Education is our only hope, but schools no longer educate students, so we have to teach each other. People like Immus, Limbaugh, Michael Savage and many others, take advantage of this great vacuum of knowledge, it is their home behind the baseboards of civilization.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Learning to Shoot Without Bullets

Sean Bell was shot and killed back in New York. He was shot by the police because they were mistaken. They thought he had a gun. He didn't have a gun. The police thought he was going to try to hurt them. He was trying to get married. Simplistic summation of events, I know, but there was one thing that hurts all of us. That was the simple fact that the police shot this guy fifty times.

Why fifty? Why not a thousand? Well, that was because they didn't have assualt weapons handy at the time - all they had was pistols. Why not just one shot? You know, the old John Wayne way? One shot – to any part of his body would have accomplished the same result - and been a lot neater - and might have spared his life - and saved the police a lot of trouble.
Why not a shot into the air, or down at the sidewalk?

They were probably trained to shoot just like I was, back in the military: to unload your weapon on the enemy, zap him with 4, 5 shots (we had revolvers - if we had had automatics, we probably would have gove to 10 to 15 rounds). That was the way we treated the enemy. The military way. Fine for shooting in a war zone, facing emenies everywhere, alien creatures - we didn't speak their language, know what they really meant except to hurt us.

Police have a very different job. a constabulatory role. That means they need to know their neighborhoods, know who lives there and what they do, how they talk, what they mean. It also means educating the people on your beat and also learning from them.

I guess that's what hurts so much about this senseless, stupid killing. It was not only not necessary, it was also a notification for all of us that more and more of our police are out to get us. They are not trying to protect us because they are afraid of us. That's scary.

© John Womack 2007, All rights reserved.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

War Comes Home

Former Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel and his fiancée Renee Kline were married on Oct. 7, 2006, in Metamora, Illinois.

The photogaph is compelling and I thought it should be in the public domain especially when I read that it has never been published in any major magazine. Apparently it was made for People Magazine who did not use it. It is copyrighted by Nina Berman and you can see this part of her work here: http://www.ninaberman.com/index3.php?pag=prt&dir=marine

Monday, March 05, 2007

Liberman to Switch Parties?


Well, Liberman is pretty Republican already, and probably could be persuaded to move - except for a few things. Number one is that right now he is one of the most powerful men in the world. With the senate so closely divided, he can swing some things one way or the other - he has become a de facto "Decider" – in the sense of that word which referrs to the fait accompli instead of the Bush-like wishing it were so. And if he were to just simply switch parties, he would become just another Republican and lose a great deal of his present power. Number two, with the world so tied in knots in the Middle East, the true axis of which is oil, Israel and the American corporate need for oil, Liberman has other important constituencies as well as his American ties. Finally, what if Cheney should step down before the conventions? Who would be a possible vice-presidential replacement? Could it be Liberman? Well, of course not. He is clearly not as suitable as McCain, or Juliani, or Romney, or that snappy senator from South Carolina, or . . . . So what would have to happen for Liberman to switch in a great big way?

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Friday, February 16, 2007

President Gerald Ford

President Ford has now been dead for almost 50 days now and the time for compulsory statements of praise is about to end and it is time for his legacy to begin to be detailed.

My own feelings were and still are that he was a generally decent man and that it was ironic he would become the unelected president to preside over the 200th anniversary of the American nation. Of course he was effective in dealing with congress, having so much experience over in the House. But there is only one thing with remains in my mind from his work in the oval office and that is the pardon of Nixon.

I wrote on that day: "The Ford pardon of Nixon is a catastrophe for the United States. The entire question of Watergate concerned the answers to these two questions: 1) Are presidents accountable for their actions while in office? 2) Are presidents subject to the laws of the United States? I continued: "I am afraid that our system of government is now irretreivably doomed for it cannot exist when the president is independent of the laws of the country and is subject only to his conscience. we have today found out just how deeply the power of the presidency goes and we have been informed that we arenot a nation of free people but that we are subject the the whims of our soverign."

The result of the Watergate investigation and the removal from office of Nixon indicated that the nation had survived its great crisis. Ford's pardon though, made all presidents from now on independent of the laws of the country and subject only to what they hear from God."

Since then we have seen other presidents who obeyed the dictates of their conscience instead of the laws of the nation: Reagan in his Arms-Contra, Clinton with his use of the power of his office to obtain sexual favors from women who worked for the United States government, and now George Bush who calls himself "The Decider", one who makes decisions according to his own conscience and without regard to law.

Gerry Ford spent too much of his time in Washington in apparent awe of presidents, and now he has given to us a legacy that the president will be the one to decide when to enforce the constitution, and when his conscience tells him that the constitution should not be used.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Articulate, bright, clean and a nice-looking guy!


I know what Joe Biden was trying to say, I grew up in Mississippi a long, long time ago. Folks back then referred to a black person who possessed those four characteristics as being "a credit to his race." That comment is right on the mark, and Barack Obama definitely is that, indeed. Too bad we can't say the same thing about poor old Joe.

Actually Obama may very well be elected the first black to serve in the White House, but many people will vote against him because of his color. Right now the problem with his color is not that he is too black but that he is seen by many as being too green.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Decider or Dictator - What's the Difference?

We have wondered about the distinction between Decider and Dictator ever since George Bush announced to the world that he had appointed himself as The Decider.

At first it appeared that perhaps he might have meant that The Decider would be a gentler, kinder ruler than dictators habitually have been. The Decider might be someone who could guide America confidentially and decisively through the night with the light that he alone could see.

But now as he seems to prepare an attack against Iran, and denies that such a thought ever even crossed his mind, the memories of his earlier attack against Iraq begin to echo louder with each of his disclaimers. Troops deploy, naval task forces assemble, threats are uttered, ominous words rumble, and George Bush remains imperturbable. All this is chillingly similar to his 2003 preemptive military invasion of Iraq. Then we catch the distinction.

A dictator is one who tells you what he is going to do, and what YOU are going to do. The Decider decides what he is going to do but he doesn't tell you. You have to figure it out after he has done it.

Cool, eh? Well, that means that we, while not appointed or designated as official "Deciders", ourselves, nonetheless, we have some decisions of our own that will very shortly have to be made.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Now Iran.

With the attack on the Iranian embassy in Iraq yesterday, George Bush has shown us a glimpse of what is to come.

Now we reflect that some of the new military men just placed in charge in Iraq are not those with experience in desert warfare or counter insurgency. Their experience is with strategic attack from the sea and the air. Two carrier task forces are now somewhere in that area and they certainly have the horsepower to hit Iran savagely, with or without nuclear weapons.

Reuters just reported that Israel has plans to attack Iran, probably with nuclear weapons and with the strong support of the United States and Great Britain. Apparently those plans cover possible action in the future, but who knows how far away that might really be?

The American attack on the Iranian embassy yesterday IS a declaration of war on Iran. We certainly took it that way ourselves when our embassies were attacked in the past. The attack also upset our Kurdish allies in northern Iraq where the attack took place. Does this indicate a major change in the American plans has just taken place?

The Iraqi leader, Al-Maliki wants the U.S. to withdraw from Baghdad and not prosecute military action in the city. This from NY Times reporter John Burns on Jim Lehrer newscast January 10, 2006. So, there are some indications that America is preparing for a new war.

The American military leadership appears to be in a state of confusion, with many opposing our continued presense in Iraq.

The attack in the Iranian embassy will certainly provoke some kind of retaliation by Iran - what and when will soon be seen. It this retaliation is so "construed" by the American presidential administration, it will "justify" and attack on Iran - to "defend" the U.S. honor.

What will an attack by America on the country of Iran lead to?

John Womack