Welcome, February 2010

Welcome, gentle readers, to the twelfth edition of Robbinsense.

In our 100-day assessment of the president’s performance, Robbinsense gave Mr. Obama a C to C-. We had a number of comments from readers that our assessment was harsh and premature. Two weeks ago we passed the next significant milestone, the one-year mark. With approval ratings tumbling toward 50%, the election of a Republican senator in Massachusetts, and a shocking ruling from the Supreme Court, it appears that our assessment may have been on the money.

We have still seen no significant change from the mess that Mr. Obama inherited, nor have we seen as yet any evidence that such change might be forthcoming. Operations in Washington appear to be on track with “business as usual”, instead of “change that you can believe in”.

Considering the impact of recent events and the gravity of the situation, our February issue will focus on this matter. Jackson Dave takes a look at where we are and speculates on where we might go. The issues currently on track are many and deep. I want to apologize up front for the length of Jack's essay. We try, at Robbinsense, to keep our articles under 2000 words, but this was apparently impossible.

Correspondent Bill Jellick, from our Boulder desk presents an additional view. Bill’s an obstreperous sort and usually stirs up the pot.

Additionally, our editorial staff presents an over-view on war in the late 20^th Century.

Next month we’ll take a look at facts and figures. Also, we'll try to get to the most protean, if not compelling, enigmatic and controversial political force (or is that farce) of our age: Sarah Barracuda, herself. Where are we going? And why? Does Jackson Dave really sport a Sarah Palin for president bumper sticker?

Robbinsense will endeavor to publish between the first and fifth day of every month. If you wish to be notified of new posts, contact the publisher; otherwise, just stop in for a pique. If you enjoy an article, please pass our site on to your friends; and don’t hesitate to insert comments---this is a "public forum". (Under “Select Profile” you may select “anonymous” or input your name under “Name/URL”. Leave “URL” blank---unless you have one. If all else fails, send an email to the publisher. Posted comments cannot be altered; they can only be deleted. If you wish to edit a comment, post your corrected comment and notify the publisher by email.)

Happy Reading

Year-One Assessment

by Jackson Dave

In 1989 the Berlin Wall was dismantled by joyful East Berliners. Soon the Soviet Union collapsed. To a naïve world, it appeared that a new era of peace was at hand; the Pax Americana would descend and the world would become a better place for all….sure!

Disruption of the world order, held in place by the cold war, blew the lid off hostilities and hatred that have festered for generations. Poverty and injustice persist worldwide. In short order, genocide in East Timor expanded; Somalia erupted in warfare, dragging a reluctant U. S. response…then Bosnia, Montenegro, genocide, mass-mutilation in Sierra Leone…on and on. In only 15 to 20 years we find a world more dangerous than the one featuring our controlled proxy wars against our “evil”, imaginary rival.

Move forward 20 years and re-visit the euphoria felt by many over the election of a black man to our presidency. Not only did we eclipse our legacy of slavery and racism, but the political order of the “neocon” was swept away with the disgraced Bush administration. Now embarrassed Republicans would recognize the sour fruit of their political extremism and begin to co-operate in national revitalization…sure!

Three weeks ago, again the lid was blown off. Consensus is exposed as a house of cards, and the Supreme Court of our land---the third pillar of our precious government---is exposed as a bunch of political hacks. What’s going on?

To this point, your editorial staff at Robbinsense has engaged in a tacit policy of “political” avoidance. But what we see emerging in recent weeks is so steeped in political swamp-dredgery that we are compelled to speak to it.

Mr. Obama has been exposed as a cerebral, somewhat bland technocrat who can command a dais and inspire with rhetoric, but has no apparent gift for leadership. Of the many promises made during the campaign few have been fulfilled, and many have been sidetracked by his own dithering. (Approximately 125 of 500 promises have been kept.) One promise, however, that has been kept was his striving for bipartisanship. This has been naively pursued even in the face of obstinate obstructionism by Republicans.

At the one-year mark, we should have seen one, maybe both wars brought to an end; we should have seen healthcare reform; Gitmo should have been closed; torture as well as torture-by-proxy (extraordinary rendition) should have been categorically renounced (instead of just stopped, sort of); financial institutions should have been brought to heel with solid regulation ending the practices that brought us to the brink of ruin; we should bear a new face of international cooperation, putting an end to our “war on terror”.

Instead, the wars go on, with expanded troop levels in Afghanistan, now wide-spread bombing in Pakistan, lingering military presence and killing in Iraq. We are still widely regarded as world policeman and bully. Terrorism, on the heels of international outrage stalks us on our streets and in our skies. Our financial structure with massive infusions of cash from the government has rebounded, bringing health to Wall Street while Main Street remains on life support with 11% unemployment and manufacturing stagnation. Interest rates are bottoming out, retarding investment, while banks have a choke-hold on personal credit, thumbing their noses at the tax payers who bailed them out. Collateral debt obligations, as well as credit default swaps and mind boggling hedge-funding go on their merry way with bankers pulling huge salary bonuses right under our noses.

Republicans succeeded in delaying healthcare reform “until somebody died”, as Tom Coburn prayed on the Senate floor. (In this case it was the Kennedy Democratic Senate seat.) After advocating a (wildly sensible) tax on soda pop, and with moderate support from congress, the president allowed the effort to die before resistance from the food industry. In the face of bi-partisan support, he opposed the "family care-givers stipend", which would compensate family members for tending to vets with traumatic brain injury, affecting 22% of those injured in our current wars. Even on the environmental front, Mr. Obama recently put on hold impending regulation to reclaim salmon habitat, leaving the Pacific Coho on life support. The Obama plan adopts the Bush plan’s legal and scientific clap-trap in its entirety! “Bush Lite!” On and on it goes…

The Massachusetts Senatorial election was not a repudiation of Mr. Obama, so much as it was a shot across the bow letting this government know that “change we can believe in” has been a farce, and this government has but another six to eight months to engage.

Beyond Mr. Obama, congress is a disgrace, absorbed by fund raising to stoke political and personal greed. As healthcare reform sunk into oblivion, Max Baucus (D-Mont), heading the Democratic effort opened up his campaign to a $4 million contribution from the industry he was supposed to be reforming. Senators Lieberman (I-Conn.), Bayh (D-Ind.), Nelson (D-Neb.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) accepted millions from the insurance industry then promptly opposed the “public option”.

This putrid Congress lies at the very heart of our government. And if that’s not bad enough, the third leg of our government, the Supreme Court, is equally determined to continue “politics” as usual, opening floodgates for the river of money that’s destroying us. How is our technocrat president going to make a dent in this political deluge while continuing the political game that brought us to this point? Our only hope is for citizens to stand up and DEMAND that the president perform and reform. We hope this Massachusetts shocker is precisely that.

As for the Republicans, where do we begin?

We assume that the first order of government is on behalf of the public good. Yet one need only look at our election process to realize that the majority of the people in government must have a personal agenda and ambition to wade into this swamp. Can one of our two major parties blatantly appear to have no concern for the welfare of this nation whatsoever? Would that be the party that runs Patriotism up its flagpole as a pillar of its public stance?

Republicans, for the last year, have engaged in a campaign of “NO”. Their policy of blocking all significant legislation is a policy of political “scorched earth.” Even in good times this might be seen as naked obstructionism, but coming now when we’re confronting economic and financial melt-down, budgetary crisis at all levels of government, failing infrastructure, multiple wars on behalf of Republican doctrine, one might think that the public wouldn’t tolerate it.

Republicans, in a frantic chase to posture themselves for the next election cycle, demonize the president, calling him Hitler, his programs “communistic”. Having demonized the president or his programs with hyperbolic calumny, they place themselves in a position from which it is political suicide to compromise. In the meantime, as long as they can block any real change, Republicans can prevent a turn-around in our country’s fortunes that might be credited to Democrats.

While we acknowledge that both parties tend to operate the same way, recall that George W. Bush received cooperation from Democratic legislators, not only in his economic agenda, but also his war plans. Likewise, in 1981, with Ronald Reagan’s solid mandate, Democrats made no concerted effort to block his agenda. Fully 1/3 of House Democrats voted for the ill-fated Reagan economic agenda, billed as “voodoo economics” by his own VP and panned by his budget director, David Stockman, who in an article in the Atlantic Monthly, called it a “Trojan Horse”. (To save face, Reagan kept Stockman on, but he was effectively muzzled.)

So can Republicans be appeased by any policy? In the mid nineties America experienced unparalleled prosperity. Bill Clinton, a solid centrist, dropped Republican-opposed healthcare reform. He abandoned gays in the military, giving us “Don’t ask, Don’t tell”; he balanced the budget, pushed and passed NAFTA, and enacted welfare reform that significantly reduced welfare rolls. He also pushed an anti-crime agenda, expanding the scope of the war on drugs and imposing mandatory sentencing guidelines. This is a record that would make any Republican wildly proud. A logical person would presume that they would love him. But no, the Republicans loathed Bill Clinton and derailed his second term with investigations and eventual impeachment. Republicans are not motivated by issues---even their own issues! Republicans are motivated by power. They use issues to manipulate ignorant people.

In the struggle to enact healthcare reform, Democrats invested valuable months in trying to gain bipartisan support. Over and over, Republican demands for revisions and amendments were fielded, with hundreds of amendments approved. So many amendments were enacted that the AMA and insurance companies endorsed the bill! It broadly tracked the Republican alternative to the 1993 Clinton healthcare bill, with new cost-controlling devises favored by both parties! And how many Republicans voted for this package? None! The entire process was a charade, a delay tactic. Republicans are only interested in discrediting the Democratic president.

Their “policy” plan is simple and harkens back generations. Until the 1930s, our government, patterned after British tradition, had no provision for helping citizens during hard times. When the economy spiraled in after October, 1929, millions were thrown out of work and into extreme poverty. Co-incidentally, abnormal weather patterns and disastrous farming techniques left soils vulnerable to depletion and erosion in the Midwest. This brought about “The Dust Bowl," which drove additional millions from their destroyed homes and farms. Republicans blocked any efforts for congress to intervene, and under (Republican) Herbert Hoover, the government did nothing to help these people.

When FDR came to power in 1933, Republicans opposed programs that might help the needy. Roosevelt was demonized for driving up the national debt, labeled “Communist” and Fascist , another Hitler, (in power at the time in Germany). Does that sound familiar?

Calling FDR or President Obama “Hitler” or “Communist” is preposterous beyond consideration. But this is still the Republican plan: Just throw out accusations, names, calumny---however outrageous---(“death panels”)---and keep hammering it to see what eventually sticks. We are so dumb that eventually after hearing it, enough people start to make the desired association. Again, the strategy is not to achieve any kind of meaningful legislation---it’s only to derail the Democrats and get Republicans back in power.

This pathetic spectacle of Congress is like a small-town football team trying to organize. The community is wildly enthusiastic because Billy Farrell has a Favre-like, rapier arm. But Johnny Martin, with no arm, has the only football in town. He refuses to let the team use his ball unless he gets to play quarterback. Rather than field a team with no passing game, they just squabble, leaving the town frustrated and confused. The Democratic majority could have pressed a decent bill to the floor for debate and allowed the public to watch in disgust as Republicans filibuster. But no, the Dems are in collusion and wrangle for the 60-vote super-majority, which forced enough concessions from recalcitrant blue-dogs that the Republicans could achieve, and the country could see a bill that was by then pork-laden, unwieldy and unpopular.

As this essay goes to press, a backlog of 70 executive administration appointments is being held up by Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala) on behalf of two minor pork-barrel projects for his state. In the face of wide-spread distrust of their own congressional delegation by the public (45%), Republicans (who supposedly oppose earmarks) stand lock-step behind Shelby in blocking any and all public business of the Obama Administration.

Beyond this mess, the sad truth appears to be that the common American has been dumbed down to the point that no expression of evidence or logic can sway him from what he wants to believe. When our stupidity is validated by smarmy politicians, we like them! It’s easier to accept ourselves as we are than to think and change! Middle-class Americans believe Republican lies because they're being told they are victims. This is a disgusting, yet wildly effective technique for manipulating gullible or ignorant people. It also undermines any sincere efforts that Mr. Obama or the Democrats may put forward.

As for the Supreme Court:

Since Richard Nixon’s presidency, a central feature of Republican and conservative rhetoric has been to attack “judicial activism”, a vague term used to describe the (Republican, Earl) Warren court and anything with a liberal outcome. Turns out this only applies when it serves ideological convenience.

Brown vs. Board of Education, widely regarded as the greatest moment in Supreme Court history, was opposed by Republicans because it up-ended an 89-year precedent of Jim Crow. “Brown” overturned Plessey vs. Ferguson, and was handed down by unanimous vote. There was no partisanship on the panel. But the Roberts court’s campaign finance decision makes “conservative” rhetoric laughable. It eliminates a key component of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. “McCain” was a continuation of statutes piling up since the (Theodore) Roosevelt administration. There is not a shred of evidence that the framers of the 1^st Amendment wished to protect the prerogatives of corporations to sway elections. For years, conservatives have argued that judicial restraint requires deferring to the choices of the elected branches of government. Where, oh where is the conservative outcry over this monstrosity? Yet the court has dramatically restricted free speech in other areas, such as government employees and students. These people are colossal hypocrites!

Misconduct on the court is obvious.

Any freshman law student knows “jurisprudence” demands that a judge excuse himself from a case where personal conflict exists. Federal law says "any justice or judge shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might be questioned..."

For nearly three years, former Vice President Dick Cheney had been fighting demands that he reveal whether he met with energy industry officials, including Kenneth Lay when Lay was chairman of Enron, while Cheney was formulating the president's energy policy. A lower court ruled that Cheney must turn over documents detailing who met with his task force; but on Dec. 15, 2002 the high court announced it would hear his appeal. In a flagrant, public misstep, Judge Antonin Scalia, a personal friend of Cheney, went duck-hunting with his friend while Cheney was under indictment before his own court! Did Judge Scalia recuse himself from the panel? No, he voted on behalf of his friend!

This same stinking cabal put George W. Bush in the Whitehouse after losing the election of 2000, and has now assured that Republicans will dominate this government indefinitely, or until the people of this country stop it. (Recall that with countless irregularities, the Florida Supreme court had mandated a recount of the Florida vote. Our framers mandated that the STATES would control election of the president.)

Still, in the interim period during confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor, we heard conservatives wailing over possible “activist” tendencies of a Latina judge.

Supreme Court judges are “supposed to be” politically impartial, but if they’re not, too bad. There is no recourse within the constitution to deal with improper behavior. The president can refuse to enforce their rulings, risking impeachment himself; but the judges cannot be impeached. Congress may pass legislation to circumvent bad policy, but that again may be over-ruled. In any case, our current ability to predict Supreme Court decisions by weighing in the two parties’ political preferences is a case study in the character of the nominees placed before the Senate. It also marks a low in our nation’s descent into corrosive partisanship.

There is recourse for this decision. Congress could mandate that actual funding sources for ALL campaign-related material must be prominently displayed. If the court can enforce “freedom of speech” for corporations, Congress can mandate that the public be informed of who’s speaking! For films or advertising, large, prominent indication of the sponsors should be indicated both at the beginning and end of the material. This must preclude “straw man” references to bogus, front groups (“Citizens for Better Government”, or such dribble) that hide the real sponsors. When intelligent people see that Exxon/Mobile or Bear Stearns funded an attack ad, it could easily back-fire. We can be certain, however, that Republicans will oppose such a measure.

Progress over the last year? Obviously we're on a better track than under President Bush. We feel confident that we're in vastly better shape than we would have been under would-be President McCain, even if he had followed through on all of his promises!

But the struggle for healthcare reform casts too much light on Mr. Obama's performance to ignore. In a politically motivated drive to pass (any) healthcare reform, the president sold out to the political interests that would inevitably oppose the bill. By taking the "public option" off the table and requiring people to buy over-priced policies (whether government sponsored or not), he was throwing meat to the industry. A bill that would drive insurance stocks up cannot be a good bill, and ultimately would solve nothing! The hope and promise that propelled Mr. Obama to office---the expectation that this man would reform "politics as usual"---has been betrayed. Needing a microscope to find change, we grade the president: D, not passing. Congress gets an F; the Supreme Court F-; The Republican leadership in congress: F---.

The only practical solution to this and many of our political problems is campaign reform. Real reform is impossible unless we DEMAND it by promising to remove every recalcitrant bum from office who stands in its path. Asking voters to actually do this, however, is spitting into the wind. But with strong leadership, this is something that the president may be able to accomplish. If Mr. Obama is to regain momentum and the public esteem that he brought to office, he must begin by attacking the government itself, and delivering the kind of reform that he promised. The Massachusetts election is an opening salvo from the public, though it appears after his swearing in that Scott Brown is a dubious choice to begin the campaign. Stay tuned.

Jackson Dave is a staff writer on Robbinsense

Political Perspective

by William Jellick

Boulder, Colorado. So how did we get to this point? Are we now, like California, so deeply divided that as a nation we're becoming ungovernable? I have a feeling it has something more to do with the Republican Party than anything else. Employing strategies and tactics characterized by a scorched-earth, win-at-all-costs ethic requires them to fight against everything proposed by the Democratic administration (even supporting the troops (gasp)) lest their opponents bask in the glow of some success.

Analyzing their behavior, Republicans appear to have 3 goals, in this order: 1) gain power and dominance, 2) prevent those who have the power they crave from using it and 3) destroy whatever government they happen to belong to regardless of whether or not they happen to be the governing party.

When out of power they throw all their energy into destroying those who are in power. Their tenacity and focus is remarkable. In fact, if it wasn't so deadly it would be admirable. They have no pretense of trying to work with their opponents - they simply denounce all opposition with a zealousness of conviction that echoes a religious cult. Any action that they did not initiate, and some that they did initiate that might now have the potential to help an opponent, is tagged as ruinous to life as we know it. If this reckless policy is not imminently dangerous, it’s likely to be "the first step down a slippery slope to certain oblivion."

Democrats are deemed “evil” and unpatriotic if they don't work (agree) with Republicans in power. And because of goal #2 above, Republican rules prohibit supporting any Democratic initiative, even if it is one that they would typically champion. They make their position brazenly obvious: a Democrat can never be right on an issue, even if it's a position that is usually considered to be a “Republican” issue. An opponent can never be strong enough on (pick one) a) National Security, b) supporting business, c) patriotism. “A Democrat can never be right”, to paraphrase Mary Matalin.

Their rhetoric, always designed to mislead, is riddled with exaggerations, innuendos and outright lies, and is delivered with a righteousness that Moses himself would envy. They expect bi-partisan cooperation from their opponents but do not reciprocate. Everything they believe (and those “beliefs” are frequently as changeable as the weather) is unquestionably right when they alone express them. Everybody else is wrong.

We cannot function as a democracy with our 2nd largest political party in the grip of such insanity. Why must Senate Democrats have a 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority to get ANY legislation passed, but turn into “patriotic” rubber stamps for Republican policies when the Reps. have less than a 60-vote majority? It’s like dealing with a hysterical person - or a child. Reason is futile.

So what to do? Since think-tank programmed propaganda will fall like atomic rain no matter what, should the Democrats just push through their agenda and brace for the fallout? What Democratic political capital would be jeopardized that isn't already eroding because of hesitation brought on by---fear of Republican hysteria influencing the next election? It will happen anyway, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow. So is it best to just leave the Republicans to their hyper-politicizations and get on with the business of governing without them? Absolutely.

A thread of the Republican narrative myth says that the “left” has been using these same tactics for years and therefore it's only fitting that Republicans should follow same. But when you read everyday Americans’ opinions you often hear that they are fed up with Washington or that they want the parties to stop bickering. They don't pick sides, although they really should because knowing who is instigating the bickering would help them understand what is happening to our government and inform their vote.

Now it may be that the Democrats actually did provide the inspiration for the Atwater/Ailes/Rove Willy Horton-style of dirty, misleading, divisive and incendiary politics that have come to be synonymous with the Republican Party. However, that (if ever true) is ancient history and gone from most peoples' memory. The Republicans, with their “only we can be right” posture stand naked and alone - exposed as practitioners of a political style that thwarts democracy and creates divisions deep in our body politic that promotes extremism and radical actions.

It is time for President Obama to recognize this. His opponents aren't tough negotiators - they don't negotiate at all. Their “our way or the highway” approach is their only position. He has precious little time left to take action before our fickle, uninformed, low-information electorate “throws the bums out” and returns the carpetbaggers to power. And one thing they do have down is what to do with power when they get it.

William Jellick is an Information Technology consultant.

wjellick@yahoo.com

On War

The most salient issue in “politics as usual” is inertia around the war machine. We cannot know what resides in Mr. Obama’s heart in regard to continuing our fighting, bombing, killing…in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan… But there’s no easy answer here. The American public was coerced into supporting this misbegotten conflict, and while most see that we were duped, we are still ambivalent.

Mr. Obama is a cautious and cerebral man, trying to do what’s politically expedient. He’s trying to avoid mistakes that may compromise his presidency. He’s being influenced by the noisy rabble on the right and its ability to sway public opinion.

Republicans have a large stake in these wars. Aside from starting them, they have wholeheartedly supported their continuation, and will continue to so---by any Democratic president. The cynicism of the Republican’s position is that by wishing the worst for Mr. Obama, they also wish the worst for our country. The dilemma for Mr. Obama is that while continuing the wars will keep the right at bay, it assures that violence will continue and almost surely return to us. Continuation of war is politically safe for Mr. Obama; his opposition from the left is soft. Outrage from the right would be deafening if he pulled out, because staying the course validates the right! If Mr. Obama ended the wars and brought peace, Republican war policy would be exposed for the disaster that it’s been. The Republicans’ only hope for absolution would be terrorist attacks. Anyone who doesn’t believe that the Republican establishment will be overjoyed by terrorist attacks on this country while Mr. Obama is president is wildly naïve.

The irony here is that any Republican president could safely end these wars. The Republican establishment and noise machine will spin it as a triumph, and Democrats will be delighted with the only ultimate resolution. (Mr. Bush couldn’t stop them because that would have been an admission of mistakes.)

Half a century ago and half a world away, we find a Democratic president on the horns of a similar dilemma. At the close of WW II, Ho Chi Minh (our ally during the war) asked President Truman to help him keep the French out of Vietnam. Under advice from the State Department, Truman foolishly refused. (Roosevelt hated the French and had no intention of allowing them to re-claim their Southeast Asia colonies.) So Ho looked to the Soviet Union for assistance, setting the stage for the hottest of our many “proxy” wars with Russia. When the French left Vietnam in 1954, Eisenhower, proposing his "Domino Theory", took up the cause, delivering arms, "aid" and advisors to support Ngo Dinh Diem, a cruel and corrupt dictator. Fed by hatred of Diem, civil war intensified. Kennedy, hemmed in by his own campaign strategy of “out-Nixoning Nixon”, continued this woeful policy, but with great ambivalence.

Mr. Johnson assumed the presidency knowing that he was unpopular and considering himself an “interloper”. As such he was reluctant to reverse Kennedy’s position without himself being elected to office. Johnson agonized for sleepless months over his options, not wanting to commit to war, but still captive of the inertia of the cold war and “common knowledge” of Eisenhower's domino theory.

During the 1964 presidential campaign, Nixon and Goldwater were evoking wild enthusiasm from Republicans by pushing American commitment to expand the war. When Goldwater won the nomination and amped up his campaign, Johnson, pummeled by America's military naivete and captive of his patron's "bear any burden, pay any price", looked for some way to defuse his rival’s jingoistic support. In August, at the height of the campaign, a small incident occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin that gave Johnson the pretense to expand the war and show his mettle. Congress passed the resolution, and Johnson began bombing North Vietnam. Turns out, Democratic support for the war was tepid at best. Johnson won the election in a landslide because of broad apprehension over Goldwater; but having made his bargain with the devil, he couldn’t find his way out. Politically, it came to a Republican to extract us from that war.

There are striking similarities between the Vietnam debacle and our current dilemma in the Mid East. Perhaps the most striking difference is the contrasting character of the two “enemies”. Vietnam was a safe harbor for our military adventures because the Vietnamese were a gentle, agrarian society. We could safely dance there without bringing it back home. Our adversaries in the Middle East are not gentle, loving and docile people. This tar-baby has thorns; and it’s coming back after us. Killing these people does not slake their blood lust. Someone must extract us from this mess without using guns, bombs and missiles. Someone must use intelligence, diplomacy and a totally new approach to the problem. This is CHANGE, and it’s the essence of what our president “offered” us in words during his campaign. And it’s what we desperately need now.

In a 1936 speech, Ret. General Smedley Butler, twice decorated with the Medal of Honor, stated, “War is a racket….. I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." Nothing has changed.

For the past hundred years, time and again we (should) have learned that wars can only be won politically. Much as guns and bombs couldn’t defeat the Vietnamese without bringing on global war, military means won’t accomplish our goals in the Middle East. Our war machine is an enormous hazardous to us, as it will fall into the hands of reckless and naïve leaders whom we will be reckless and naïve enough to put into office. We’ll never know what would have happened if in 1964 President Johnson had said, “No” to war. But we know all too well what happened when he said, “Yes.”