Things Fall Apart; The Centre Cannot Hold [W.B. Yeats]

Here we go again.  President Obama worked for about 15 months and then began running for 2012.  The other candidates who lost never stopped running.  I’m overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of the budget impasse. And who can get their head around 300 million dollars a day for two wars we are losing?

For this reason I excommunicated myself from politics and all politicians. That solemn occasion took place the day President Obama flinched and listened to General Betrayus.  35,000 troops did not leave Afghanistan. Instead, we added that number to the bare mountains and lush opium fields of what has always been in history a political and military Black Hole.  Bush began the war by consulting the biased Bernard Lewis and questionable Shiite, Ahmed Chalabi, whose personal political motives remain suspect to this day.  Who knows who advised Obama?

Again, do our presidents read history?

I have come to question the integrity of just about any politician I can think of; could it be the spiritual death of all the would be “Mr. Smiths” who want to go to Washington?  Salaries increase without debate; they enjoy the best health insurance in the world and a fat retirement for life.

The sheer complexity of the issues challenges even an old housecat with time to sort out the issues.  Study the “budget” problem.  Try it; stick your toe in the swirling swamp water.  You can’t see the bottom because the people who can “solve” such issues haven’t the guts to clear the waters.  The more mud, the more opacity, the better.

The main artery of our now moribund body politic is greed, a sense of entitlement.  The ad hoc Allen Simpson Committee, comprised of both Republicans and Democrats, put together a package of “solutions” that met the December deadline.

Simpson, retired now, was one of the most well-read members of Congress, representing for years the vast state of Wyoming. Yes, just when you thought that Nazareth of the intellect would not send forth a Native Son, Simpson arrived.  The parameters for the committee?  None!  “This will let the American people decide if they want to fix this self-created mess,” he promised in a PBS interview.  Both Social Security and taxation on high incomes were on the table.  Oil, gas and corn subsidies as well.

The results?  Silence.  Not a single candidate wants to talk about those taboo subjects.  What of military cuts or getting out of two wars we cannot win? 

Solution?  Leave the Arabs to each other and they will take care of their own business.  They hate us, but no more than Sunnis hate Shia.  Did George Bush ever even know the difference?

Another painful Solution?  We have to raise taxes and redesign Social Security:  Raise the retirement age; lower benefits for those whose retirement  reaches 60 thousand dollars a year.  In order for the many who have less, the few who have a lot, must settle for less.

All would feel the pain; life might not ever again be what it has been the last 20 years.  Middle class folks like me should live on a $300 Social Security cut each month.

The solution rests on the principle of expecting less. We need a smaller, affordable American  Dream.  Pay now [our generation] or pay later [my grandchildren].  I remember the howls when little Jimmy Carter called our dependence on Arab oil “the moral equivalent of war.”  More than 40 years ago we could have made that difficult choice to declare our independence. My dad kept saying, “this is our chance, this is our chance.” And we did nothing.

I am wondering aloud why George Clooney calls his new film, The Ides of March?  What’s coming?

See now why I had to leave the cage fighting to those who are still interested in and believe in the American political process?  Such study and discussion pricks my liver, as an Elizabethan would say.  Politics brings out my sometimes-dangerous cynicism.  Scott Samuelson once called me the “most delightfully cynical person” he knew.  


Nothing delightful today, was there?