Saturday, May 3: To begin, I'd like to explain my absence from the journal for the past month. For one thing, we are now in the busy season for my line of work and I've been working like a borrowed mule - it's been pretty much nothing but work, eat and sleep...and sometimes too little of the latter. I can't complain too much because it simply comes with the territory that there are seasons like this - and it's probably going to be pretty much the same for at least the next couple of months.
But more significantly, the past month has been a time of extreme tension for Jonna and myself. I didn't want to post anything about it until we had some sort of resolution, and that resolution came last night so I can go ahead and 'splain it all.
In March I had happened upon two job opportunities that were extremely promising; one as a full-time chauffeur for a couple in San Diego and the other as chauffeur/butler/estate manager for an estate in Beverly Hills. The San Diego possibility evaporated almost immediately - the couple's kids had been trying to get it set up for their parents (in their late eighties) but at the last minute it seems that their parents had said something to the effect of "We don't need no stinkin' chauffeur" and that was that.
The Beverly Hills one was another matter. It was a very, very (very!) lucrative position that would employ both myself as mentioned, and Jonna as well - as housekeeper. We went up to Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago to interview with the business manager of the owner. The interview went extremely well and we were asked to come back up last week to look over the estate. I don't think i would be appropriate for me to go into too much detail, but the estate was originally built by Keyshawn Johnson - the football player. The current owner bought t for 13.8 million. It's across the street from the home of Johnny Carson's widow. There's a half million dollar Rolls in the garage. You get the picture.
We met the rest of the staff and again, the interview went extremely well. The business manager said she would let us know by this Wednesday or Thursday at the latest - and we were pretty sure we would be offered the position. I got a call Thursday afternoon. She said that while both she and the staff really, really wanted us for the position, the owner wanted someone who had more direct experience managing an estate such as his. She still felt certain that we would be the best people for the job and told us she was going to try once more to talk him into it. Late last night we got an email from her. She was not able to convince him, so that's the end of it.
Need I say that it was a crushing disappointment? Not only had all signs pointed to this actually happening, but it would instantly have moved us from a place in our lives where we're scratching to get ourselves re-established to a six figure income in a job we are both extremely well qualified to handle. At least the extreme tension of the past month is finally over and we can get back to thinking about other things once again.
Not that we have ever stopped thinking about the current political situation. I want to touch on a few things tonight if I don't collapse before I finish:
I'm not going to take back anything I said about Rev. Wright.
However...
I am more than saddened to conclude that once the spotlight fell on him he became caught up in his own celebrity and lost all common sense. As a result, much damage was done.
Rev. Wright should have been a golden opportunity for many, many desperately needed dialogues. There could have been tons of good achieved with serious, thoughtful inspection of the meaning and purpose of prophecy, the unique perspective on American society the black Christian experience has to offer, our own culpability in the state of international relations and on, and on, and on. That's what could have happened. That's what should have happened. But having achieved the spotlight, it seems that Rev. Wright chose instead to immediately become a cartoon of himself and in so doing completely destroyed the potential he presented. In addition, he elected to do this at a time and in a fashion that could only serve to do maximum damage to Senator Obama. I do not pretend to know what motives propelled these events, I only know that it was a terrible loss - and Obama did the only thing he could be expected to do faced with these circumstances.
While I'm (loosely) on the subject of religion, I wanted to toss another little tidbit out there. I expect many of you have already seen some of the incredibly loathesome emails floating around out there regarding Obama. It continues to boggle my mind that anyone is so filled with hate and fear tat they would either generate or believe the sort of thing that this stuff represents, but I wanted to give you the latest one I came across as an example. Here it is:
"According to the Book of Revelations the anti-christ is: The anti-christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal.... the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destory everything. Is it OBAMA??"
Verbatim - including the spelling errors. If anyone lays this one on you, you might offer them a bit of basic education:
1. The book is called Revelation (or more fully, the Revelation of St. John), not Revelations. If anyone calls it Revelations, you can immediately certain that he or she has absolutely no idea what he or she is talking about.
2. Revelation does not even use the term anti-christ. The term is only used by the author of the epistles (letters) attributed to John. The author of these letters is almost certainly not the same person as the author (or authors) of Revelation.
3. The entirety of the Bible - both Old and New Testaments - was written over a period of approximately 800 to 900 years, with the most recent parts of the New Testament having been written no later than some time in the second century AD. The Muslim faith was not established until the fifth century AD. It should be obvious, but I'll state it anyway - nowhere in scripture does it say anything about the lineage of an antchrist, let alone that he would be a descendant of those of a religious faith that didn't even exist when scripture was written.
4. Nowhere in scripture does it say anything about the age of an antichrist.
Once you've provided these bits of basic education, you might try to engage the person in a serious conversation around exactly what it is about this man that they fear/hate so intensely that would make them gullible enough to believe this sort of garbage or frightened enough to display their own ignorance by propagating it. But it probably won't work.
Our dear friend Theresa from Indiana sent along a letter she wrote to the Chicago Sun Times. They actually published it, though she says it was rather heavily edited. As I couldn't say it any better, I asked if I could reprint her original letter here. She sad yes, so here it is:
"I am tired of having government work for the richest sections of our society and ignoring the rest of us. As a teacher at an Indiana public high school, my husband pays a little over $6,000 per year on health insurance premiums to cover our family of three. This health insurance has yet to pay for one single doctor’s visit, as we never meet the $500 deductible per person. I’ve seen friends have to file bankruptcy because of medical debt. Last year, my husband’s best friend died needlessly, at age 43, because he delayed seeking medical care while waiting for his health insurance to kick in. We even spent one year without health insurance, because we simply could not afford the premiums on a teacher's salary. I know my story is not unique and perhaps that makes it even more painful.
Under Barack Obama’s plan, every citizen will have healthcare and we will pay less for it. This is something I believe in and something we NEED. The other candidates are professional politicians. McCain wants to continue the failed policies of George Bush and the Clinton administration already had 8 years to change the system and failed to do so. It is time for a change.
We can no longer allow the shrinking middle class to shoulder the biggest burden in our society. The system has to change. As citizens of the United States of America, we have the power to change things. We have a responsibility to make sure it is no longer “business as usual” among our elected officials.
Many people dismiss Obama's message of change and hope as either naive or foolish...or even a lie. Sure, I'll be disappointed if Obama does not live up to be everything I hope he is, but I will not regret believing in his message. I am voting for Obama because I still have hope and I still believe that we can create a better society. I can live in fear that my child will grow up in a world of war and poverty and hate or I can choose to bring my child up with the belief that he can do anything in this world he wants to do, as long as he believes in it and works hard to accomplish it....I choose hope over fear. And, beyond politics, that is why I choose Obama.
Be well!
~Theresa"
Theresa's last paragraph hits the bullseye - and I wish those who continue to support Senator Clinton could fully take this in. All my life I have been waiting for a truly serious discussion among presidential candidates of the problems our nation faces and the possible solutions they might offer to those problems. I have yet to see it. Senator Clinton continues - on a daily basis - to demonstrate clearly that, despite the seeming contradiction, she is what I hope will be the last of a dying breed of "good ol' boy" politicians whose candidacies are all and only about winning. Although his campaign has occasionally slipped, Obama himself has consistently and resolutely attempted to offer the sort of campaign I've wanted to see. I'll be doing everything I can to help him get that chance.
Friday, March 28: Time for me to put my two cents in regarding Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Wright. I've been sitting back for a while now, listening to the relentless goofiness. I've also heard and read many of the Rev. Wright's sermon excerpts - and read them within the larger context of his sermons. And I have one word to describe the Rev. Wright who has been scourged in the press, tried and convicted in the public arena and reviled across the nation:
Prophet.
Where do I begin? I think I need to start with a little primer for those who have been misdirected by the fundamentalist/literalist, superstition-as-religion dumbing down and corrupting of the Christian faith. The title "prophet" has a specific meaning - and it has nothing whatsoever to do with fortune-telling, predicting the future, or in fact anything whatsoever mystical. So it has always been, and so we had better figure out it needs to remain. A prophet is one who speaks truth to power. A prophet is one who has the wisdom to understand what those in power are doing that is destructive and the courage to speak out against those practices. The first test of a true prophet - and actually the only test - is whether or not what the prophet has to say is applicable to the prophet's contemporary society. If the prophet's words do not address the situation in the prophet's own time and place they are not prophetic.
Prophetic words have a built-in multiple function. As human society seems hopelessly prone to forget the lessons it has learned and repeat its mistakes ad infinitum, the prophet's words may well find relevance far beyond the prophet's own time. This is where people tend to confuse the prophet with a fortune teller. The relevance of a prophet's words to generations beyond the original audience are not an indication of the prophet's supernatural capabilities - rather, they are an indication of society's incompetence. If we didn't find ourselves in the same stupid predicaments over and over again this mystical illusion of fortune telling wouldn't exist.
All of this is true of all prophets and all prophecy. So those of you who are convinced that the revelation of John is a prediction of some coming end-time apocalypse must remember that unless John was actually saying something relevant to the people in the place and at the time he set the words down, his work was less than useless. It's time to let the suprstitious element of faith behind and recognize that the authors of the "End Times" books, the evangelists such as Robertson and his cohorts are laughing all the way to the bank...and they're laughing at you.
The prophet speaks truth to power. Another thing that we tend to forget is that for the prophets of biblical times, religion and government were the same entity. If you spoke out against the practices of the religious leaders, you spoke out against the practices of the political leaders - they were one and the same.
Back to Rev. Wright. I'm not going to make it easy for you - I'm going to give you some homework. Go back and actually read or listen to what Rev. Wright has said. Not the shards and fragments of his sermons published all over the place, but read or listen to them within the fuller context of the sermon. It's easy enough to do - they're all over the internet.
Done? OK, now get out your Bible - you know, the big, dusty book on your coffee table with the picture of the blond haired, blue eyed Jesus on the front? Turn to the book of Hosea and read it. Read Micah. Read Jeremiah (hint: they're all in the Old Testament). Now, read the words of Jesus (New Testament). If you do this - and do it objectively - you will realize that if you condemn Rev. Wright for what he is saying, you will have no choice other than to condemn Hosea, Micah and Jeremiah as well. You will have no choice other than to condemn Jesus. And there is your bottom line.
Rev. Wright, I will maintain, is a prophet. Not only is he a prophet, but he is a patriot of the first order. Rev. Wright loves this nation deeply - so deeply that he cannot pretend he does not see the truths he sees. So deeply that he is compelled to speak the truth.
My greatest regret right now is that Senator Obama, fully aware how few Americans truly understand the nature of either patriotism or faith, feels compelled to distance himself from the Rev. Wright if he is to have any hope of attaining the presidency. It is a true shame. We are still resolutely and blindly mired in that place where we must pretend that our nation is without fault or flaw; that we bear not one iota of responsibility for the terrorism directed against us, that we have not committed a whole litany of outrageous transgressions against peoples, nations and cultures, that our leadership is always and only directed by the highest and most noble of motives. As long as we remain there, we will never be able to see ourselves in a mirror - even darkly. We will never be able to learn from our errors and transgressions. We will never be able to become the people we pretend to be.
We will never be able to hear the prophet.
Saturday, March 22: Meanwhile, back at the war...
As the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq comes and goes and we near 4,000 American deaths and still who-knows-how-many Iraqis, some journalists have taken the occasion to re-examine the positions they took at the onset of the war and where they find themselves today. I came across one such article on Slate.com - a mea culpa - sort of - by Andrew Sullivan. I found it rather disingenuous, but at the same time worthwhile, because he outlined many of the positions some of my friends clung to as they supported our actions in Iraq. After reading the article, I quickly browsed the readers' feedback to it - and happened on what I think is an excellent rebuttal and disection of Sullivan's piece.
At the risk of running afoul of Slate, I want to print the article by Sullivan here, followed by a reprint of the article with comments inserted by someone only identified as M. Donovan. First, the article itself:
How Did I Get Iraq Wrong?
I seriously misjudged Bush's sense of morality.
By Andrew Sullivan
Posted Friday, March 21, 2008, at 12:16 PM ET
Editor's Note: To mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Slate has asked a number of writers who originally supported the war to answer the question, "Why did we get it wrong?" We have invited contributions from the best-known "liberal hawks"—and others—many of whom participated in two previous Slate debates about the war, the first before it began in fall of 2002, the second in early 2004. We will be publishing their responses through the week. Read the rest of the contributions.
I think I committed four cardinal sins.
Historical Narcissism
I was distracted by the internal American debate to the occlusion of the reality of Iraq. For most of my adult lifetime, I had heard those on the left decry American military power, constantly warn of quagmires, excuse what I regarded as inexcusable tyrannies, and fail to grasp that the nature of certain regimes makes their removal a moral objective. As a child of the Cold War and a proud Reaganite and Thatcherite, I regarded 1989 as almost eternal proof of the notion that the walls of tyranny could fall if we had the will to bring them down and the gumption to use military power when we could. I had also been marinated in neoconservative thought for much of the 1990s and seen the moral power of Western intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo. All this primed me for an ideological battle that was, in retrospect, largely irrelevant to the much more complex post-Cold War realities we were about to confront.
When I heard the usual complaints from the left about how we had no right to intervene, how Bush was the real terrorist, how war was always wrong, my trained ears heard the same cries that I had heard in the 1980s. So, I saw the opposition to the war as another example of a faulty Vietnam Syndrome, associated it entirely with the far left—or boomer nostalgia—and was revolted by the anti-war marches I saw in Washington. I wasn't wrong about some of this. Some of those reflexes were at work (which is why I find Obama's far more pragmatic opposition so striking in retrospect). I became much too concerned with fighting that old internal ideological battle and failed to think freshly or realistically about what the consequences of intervention could be. I allowed myself to be distracted by an ideological battle when what was required was clear-eyed prudence.
Narrow Moralism
I recall very clearly one night before the war began. I made myself write down the reasons for and against the war and realized that if there were question marks on both sides (the one point in favor I did not put a question mark over was the existence of stockpiles of WMD!), the deciding factor for me in the end was that I could never be ashamed of removing someone as evil as Saddam from power. I became enamored of my own morality and the righteousness of this single moral act. And he was a monster, as we discovered. But what I failed to grasp is that war is also a monster, and unless one weighs all the possibly evil consequences of an abstractly moral act, one hasn't really engaged in a truly serious moral argument. I saw war's unknowable consequences far too glibly.
Unconservatism
I heard and read about ancient Sunni and Shiite divisions, knew of the awful time the British had in running Iraq, but I had never properly absorbed the lesson. I bought the argument put forward by many neoconservatives that Iraq was one of the more secular and modern of Arab societies; that these divisions were not so deep; that all those pictures of men in suits and mustaches and women in Western clothing were the deeper truth about this rare, modern Arab society. I believed that it could, if we worked at it and threw enough money at it, be a model for the rest of the Arab Muslim world. I should add that I don't believe these ancient divides were necessarily as deep as they subsequently became in the unnecessary chaos that the Rumsfeld invasion unleashed. But I greatly underestimated them—and as someone who liked to think of myself as a conservative, I pathetically failed to appreciate how those divides never truly go away and certainly cannot be abolished by a Western magic wand. In that sense, I was not conservative enough. I let my hope—the hope that had been vindicated by the fall of the Soviet Union—get the better of my skepticism. There are times when that is a good thing. The Iraq war wasn't one of them.
Misreading Bush
Yes, the incompetence and arrogance were beyond anything I imagined. In 2000, my support for Bush was not deep. I thought he was an OK, unifying, moderate Republican who would be fine for a time of peace and prosperity. I was concerned—ha!—that Gore would spend too much. I was reassured by the experience and intelligence and pedigree of Cheney and Rumsfeld and Powell. Two of them had already fought and won a war in the Gulf. The bitter election battle hardened my loyalty. And once 9/11 happened, my support intensified as I hoped for the best. Bush's early speeches were magnificent. The Afghanistan invasion was defter than I expected. I got lulled. I wanted him to succeed—too much, in retrospect.
But my biggest misreading was not about competence. Wars are often marked by incompetence. It was a fatal misjudgment of Bush's sense of morality. I had no idea he was so complacent—even glib—about the evil that good intentions can enable. I truly did not believe that Bush would use 9/11 to tear up the Geneva Conventions. When I first heard of abuses at Gitmo, I dismissed them as enemy propaganda. I certainly never believed that a conservative would embrace torture as the central thrust of an anti-terror strategy and lie about it, and scapegoat underlings for it, and give us the indelible stain of Bagram and Camp Cropper and Abu Ghraib and all the other secret torture and interrogation sites that Bush and Cheney created and oversaw. I certainly never believed that a war I supported for the sake of freedom would actually use as its central weapon the deepest antithesis of freedom—the destruction of human autonomy and dignity and will that is torture. To distort this by shredding the English language, by engaging in newspeak that I had long associated with totalitarian regimes, was a further insult. And for me, it was yet another epiphany about what American conservatism had come to mean.
I know our enemy is much worse. I have never doubted that. I still have no qualms whatever in waging war to defeat it. But I never believed that America would do what America has done. Never. My misjudgment at the deepest moral level of what Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld were capable of—a misjudgment that violated the moral core of the enterprise—was my worst mistake. What the war has done to what is left of Iraq—the lives lost, the families destroyed, the bodies tortured, the civilization trashed—was bad enough. But what was done to America—and the meaning of America—was unforgivable. And for that I will not and should not forgive myself.
Now, for the same article with comments from a rather torqued off M. Donavan interspersed. I'm going to do a bit of editing to eliminate some of the instances where Donavan is being a bit cute, but other than that I'm not changing a word:
I find the piece by Andrew Sullivan so disingenuous, such a slovenly and disgusting piece of self-pity and self-delusion-- deeply offensive.
I simply could not let this man get away with this tortured confession to absolve himself of his awful pre-war behavior. It only deepens my lack of respect for him and the rest of his crowd who are now only half heartedly begging our forgiveness while still trying to justify their support for George Bush and the rest of his gangsters as well as the war and its “moral core.”
Interspersed below are my comments on this shameful and dishonest act of contrition.
M. Donovan
How Did I Get Iraq Wrong?
I seriously misjudged Bush's sense of morality.
By Andrew Sullivan
Posted Friday, March 21, 2008, at 12:16 PM ET
I think I committed four cardinal sins.
Only four?
Historical Narcissism
I was distracted by the internal American debate to the occlusion of the reality of Iraq. For most of my adult lifetime, I had heard those on the left decry American military power, constantly warn of quagmires,
For good reason.
excuse what I regarded as inexcusable tyrannies,
I hear this a lot from righteous (now repentant) war supporters. They never give specific examples of this. Most of us who opposed the war also opposed Sullivan’s mentors’ fervent and long term support for these “inexcusable tyrannies”
and fail to grasp that the nature of certain regimes makes their removal a moral objective.
Again, we didn’t fail to grasp that by installing and/or supporting them for years we had created the monsters and now unleashing the most powerful military the world has ever known against the population of Iraq – Saddam’s victims- would only heap more death and destruction upon those Sullivan and his crowd insisted we were out to liberate. We “grasped” it all too well.
As a child of the Cold War and a proud Reaganite and Thatcherite,
Well there’s your problem right there. I’m not sure but is he still proud? More below.
I regarded 1989 as almost eternal proof of the notion that the walls of tyranny could fall if we had the will to bring them down and the gumption to use military power when we could.
“Gumption” to use military power? Cute, Andrew. If only the U.S. had the “gumption” to use its military power we could bring all the baddies down - you know like the three million souls in South East Asia we liberated from their bodies in order to save them from their own foolish ideas about how they wanted to govern themselves. I guess his patron saint Ronnie had the “gumption” to use U.S. military power against the terrible threat of the nutmeg capital of the world Grenada as well as use our military intelligence, personnel, weapons and training of death squads against their own people in Central America and several other outposts of the Soviet empire throughout the world. But that was in the less complicated days of the Cold War. That was “roll back” baby. I bet you miss those times, eh Andrew?
I had also been marinated in neoconservative thought for much of the 1990s and seen the moral power of Western intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Still trying to figure out what the morality is of facilitating the violent disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, the demonizing of yet another people (Serbs), lying and grossly exaggerating their crimes while downplaying and ignoring Croat’, Bosnian’ and KLA and most significantly NATO crimes as an effort to shore up the “credibility” of NATO, -as was explicitly stated by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton- while simultaneously trying to neuter the UN (greasing the wheels for Bush’s Iraq adventure) and in the process brag about the criminal 78 day bombing of Serbia’s civilian infrastructure (a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions) not to mention the invasion and bombing of Kosovo and subsequent overseeing of the ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Roma and other undesirables turning it over to a warlord and gangster leaving it to fester in a cesspool of international slave prostitution rings and rampant mob mayhem (that’s what I call “humanitarian intervention!”) against every international law on the books and in violation of the UN Charter and therefore Article VI of our constitution. For more on this see Michael Mandel, David Binder, Peter Brock’s and others’ exhaustive studies as well as Amnesty International and other human rights organizations charges of multiple war crimes committed by NATO in the former Yugoslavia throughout the nineties.
All this primed me for an ideological battle that was, in retrospect, largely irrelevant to the much more complex post-Cold War realities we were about to confront.
When I heard the usual complaints from the left about how we had no right to intervene,
“Intervene” like a referee? A cop breaking up a fight or apprehending a criminal? Such a clever rhetorical cleansing for wanton murder.
how Bush was the real terrorist,
Demonstrably true.
how war was always wrong,
Except as spelled out in the UN charter. Again let’s not confuse wide support for international law with a tiny minority who are adamant pacifists.
my trained ears heard the same cries that I had heard in the 1980s. So, I saw the opposition to the war as another example of a faulty Vietnam Syndrome,
What the hell is this pesky Vietnam Syndrome? It keeps showing up in the population. Is that the syndrome under which people use recent history of U.S. crimes to show how the same motives and rhetoric are at work again to justify another slaughter?
associated it entirely with the far left—or boomer nostalgia—
Yep those dang far lefty boomers long for the days of napalming women and children.
and was revolted by the anti-war marches I saw in Washington.
It’s just sickening to see people opposing war isn’t it Andrew?
I wasn't wrong about some of this. Some of those reflexes were at work (which is why I find Obama's far more pragmatic opposition so striking in retrospect).
I became much too concerned with fighting that old internal ideological battle and failed to think freshly or realistically about what the consequences of intervention could be.
Perhaps a dose of Vietnam Syndrome could have helped you with that.
I allowed myself to be distracted by an ideological battle when what was required was clear-eyed prudence.
Indeed. But how would “clear-eyed prudence” have changed your thinking?
Narrow Moralism
I recall very clearly one night before the war began. I made myself write down the reasons for and against the war and realized that if there were question marks on both sides (the one point in favor I did not put a question mark over was the existence of stockpiles of WMD!), the deciding factor for me in the end was that I could never be ashamed of removing someone as evil as Saddam from power.
But wait a second, wasn’t he evil when you were supporting your beloved Ronnie (and the Donald) in his sustained and loyal backing of the beast of Baghdad when he was committing his worst crimes? And by the way, were you going to personally remove Saddam? I don’t recall you pulling up in a tank at that farmhouse and pulling him out of his rabbit hole. I haven’t read any of your dispatches from the front lines of hell you helped create in Iraq.
I became enamored of my own morality
Wait, we might be having a breakthrough here…
and the righteousness of this single moral act.
Nope. Back to the confused and delusional “thinking”. It was at its heart a moral act.
And he was a monster, as we discovered.
So when he was committing his worst crimes under the tutelage of your patron saint in the eighties he was what exactly?
But what I failed to grasp is that war is also a monster,
Failed….to….. grasp….that…. war ….. is……also….a………monster. I rest my case.
and unless one weighs all the possibly evil consequences of an abstractly moral act,
Just plain drivel. What moral act? Possibly evil consequences??
one hasn't really engaged in a truly serious moral argument. I saw war's unknowable consequences far too glibly.
“Glibly” hardly describes the kind of righteous ranting you employed in your lust for war my friend.
Unconservatism
I heard and read about ancient Sunni and Shiite divisions, knew of the awful time the British had in running Iraq, but I had never properly absorbed the lesson.
Oh dear. “Well sorry about all that killing I supported. I failed to properly absorb the lessons of history.”
I bought the argument put forward by many neoconservatives that Iraq was one of the more secular and modern of Arab societies; that these divisions were not so deep; that all those pictures of men in suits and mustaches and women in Western clothing were the deeper truth about this rare, modern Arab society. I believed that it could, if we worked at it and threw enough money at it, be a model for the rest of the Arab Muslim world.
Oh boy. After bombing them to dust, you thought that if we really worked at it and threw enough money at it we could teach those lesser peoples how to be a model for the rest of the “Arab Muslim” world??? So the ones we didn’t kill we could bribe into being a “model” of what? And for whom?? Do they have a say in whether or not they want to be killed and bribed into being our fucking models??? Christ, man!
I should add that I don't believe these ancient divides were necessarily as deep as they subsequently became in the unnecessary chaos that the Rumsfeld invasion unleashed.
Ohhhh! It’s Donald’s fault! Of course.
But I greatly underestimated them—and as someone who liked to think of myself as a conservative, I pathetically failed to appreciate how those divides never truly go away and certainly cannot be abolished by a Western magic wand. In that sense, I was not conservative
You don’t know what the word means.
enough. I let my hope—the hope that had been vindicated by the fall of the Soviet Union—get the better of my skepticism. There are times when that is a good thing. The Iraq war wasn't one of them.
Misreading Bush
Yes, the incompetence and arrogance were beyond anything I imagined. In 2000, my support for Bush was not deep. I thought he was an OK, unifying, moderate Republican who would be fine for a time of peace and prosperity. I was concerned—ha!—that Gore would spend too much.
I was reassured by the experience and intelligence and pedigree of Cheney and Rumsfeld and Powell. Two of them had already fought and won a war in the Gulf.
Yes I remember Cheney and Powell charging those berms and single handedly wiping out hundreds of Saddam’s Republican Guard with their machine-guns.
The bitter election battle hardened my loyalty.
I guess we can blame his support for the war on the Democrats in 2000?
And once 9/11 happened, my support intensified as I hoped for the best. Bush's early speeches were magnificent.
Somebody get me a barf bag. If you stand by that assessment of that cretin’s speeches you are beyond rehabilitation.
The Afghanistan invasion was defter than I expected. I got lulled.
Nothing like killing more innocent people than were killed on 9/11 to lull you. And boy look at how much safer that Afghanistan invasion has made us! Oh I know, if we’d only kept our eyes on the ball there and not invaded Iraq…
I wanted him to succeed—too much, in retrospect. But my biggest misreading was not about competence. Wars are often marked by incompetence.
Often? Name one that wasn’t. Guess the neo-cons confused you on that point too.
It was a fatal misjudgment of Bush's sense of morality. I had no idea he was so complacent—even glib—about the evil that good intentions can enable.
Oh here it is! It’s those GOOD INTENTIONS gone bad again! Dang it! Hey Andrew I wish you could have shown up in a town square in Iraq somewhere prior to the arrival of the B-2 bombers and been able to explain to those who were about to die how GOOD your intentions were. You putz.
I truly did not believe that Bush would use 9/11 to tear up the Geneva Conventions.
You were shocked! Shocked! Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton did it all the time. But Bush? "I was surprised!"
When I first heard of abuses at Gitmo, I dismissed them as enemy propaganda. I certainly never believed that a conservative
Again try and get yourself educated on conservatism before you label yourself or any other war monger one again.
would embrace torture as the central thrust of an anti-terror strategy and lie about it, and scapegoat underlings for it, and give us the indelible stain of Bagram and Camp Cropper and Abu Ghraib and all the other secret torture and interrogation sites that Bush and Cheney created and oversaw.
I know it’s a damn shame ain’t it? Don’t you just feel awful now?
I certainly never believed that a war I supported for the sake of freedom
Wait. Freedom or WMD’s? I’m confused. Er… uh… I thought you wanted to make models out of them. Is that the freedom you had in mind? Now I’m really lost.
would actually use as its central weapon the deepest antithesis of freedom—the destruction of human autonomy and dignity and will that is torture.
I know that’s just awful. But dropping cluster bombs on civilian neighborhoods, you know “SHOCK AND AWE” is just dandy in your model making project, yes?
To distort this by shredding the English language, by engaging in newspeak that I had long associated with totalitarian regimes, was a further insult. And for me, it was yet another epiphany about what American conservatism had come to mean.
I know our enemy is much worse.
Enemy? Who? The Iraqi people? I’m confused. Al-Qaeda? Saddam? He’s dead, no?
I have never doubted that. I still have no qualms whatever in waging war to defeat it. But I never believed that America would do what America has done. Never.
Do you restrict your reading to old Reagan speeches about the “city on the hill?” Do you know anything about American history at all? Have you ever thought to investigate the nature of power….?
My misjudgment at the deepest moral level of what Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld were capable of—a misjudgment that violated the moral core of the enterprise—was my worst mistake.
Oh that moral core! If only they hadn’t corrupted it!
What the war has done to what is left of Iraq—the lives lost, the families destroyed, the bodies tortured, the civilization trashed—was bad enough. But what was done to America—and the meaning of America—was unforgivable.
OH. MY. GOD. It’s just like the terrible damage the Vietnam War did to us! What we did to Iraq is bad but what it did to US IS JUST….WELL IT’S JUST…..UNFORGIVABLE!!
And for that I will not and should not forgive myself.
Good God, Andrew for heaven’s sake forgive yourself for enthusiastically cheering on the carnage in Iraq but never, and I mean never forgive yourself for what all of this did to the good ol’ USA.
Mr. Sullivan, I beg you to stop. You need to stop and read your piece again and then take some time, do some serious contemplation and then ask yourself what you could sincerely do to get some insight into your soul going forward.
What you have laid out here is a lie to yourself and your readers. I'll say it again. I find your remarks deeply offensive to the hundreds of thousands killed by U.S. power and madness in this war and other wars before it which I believe you have implicitly defended here as well. It is sad that this mealy-mouthed excuse for a confession is the best you can do. It is sad that outlets such as Slate and most of the mainstream media take you so seriously and give you a platform to spout your views without much challenge.
M. Donovan
My thanks to Mr. (or Ms.) Donovan - I don't think I could have done a better deconstruction of Andrew Sullivan's self-serving blather myself. Notice that I boldfaced one particular paragraph of M. Donovan's work - because I believe this is the crux of the entire issue, and it is something that everyone who supported this war - and particularly those who continue to cling to the hope that somehow it will all wind up producing something worthwhile - will have to come to terms with at some point. Because the underlying base that allowed this war to happen - and permits it to continue day after unforgivable day - is an arrogant, racist, xenophobic attitude that the American way is the only way; that it is imperative that the entire rest of the world be reshaped in our own image; and that in the end we are the only people in the world who really matter. Wrap it up in as much moralistic glitter and righteous equivocation as you like...it will still stink like week-old fish. Will we never learn to perceive things from the perspective of the other? What our politicians are calling a "model of democratic freedom for the Middle East" would be called a "puppet regime" if any other country in the world was attempting to do it. The best outcome we can now hope to achieve for Iraq is this vaunted "model", and every other nation in the world will - appropriately - see not the model, but the strings controlling its every action.
Also, Joe Klein writes an interesting article in today's Time Magazine. The concluding paragraph states:
"[Will we] have a big election or a small one? Will we have a serious conversation about the enormous problems confronting the country - the wars, the economic crisis, the looming environmental cataclysm - or will we allow the same-old carnival of swift boats and sound bites? The answer depends on the candidates, of course, and on the media - where cynicism too often passes for insight. But most of all, it depends on you."
I have come to the conclusion that the nation in general - and the Democratic party in particular - stands this year at a crossroads. Day by day the choice becomes clearer. One candidate has become entrenched in the tried and true - the negative attacks, the win-at-all-costs mindset, the relentless effort to build one's self up by tearing one's opponent down. The other candidate attempts at every turn to offer a different sort of campaign than any of us have seen in our lifetimes; one that seeks to address issues directly and honestly; one that refuses to do what is politically expedient if it comes at the expense of integrity; one that risks the easy exploitation of peoples' fears and prejudices by refusing to jettison the realities of friendship, family and faith. One candidate - and only one - has the potential, as Mr. Klein puts it, to "...create a new sense of national unity - not by smoothing over problems but by confronting them candidly and with civility." I sincerely believe that if, in whatever years I may have remaining in this world, I will ever see the America I love and believe in, an America rising out of its ethical, moral and spiritual morass to re-embrace its Constitutional foundation and finally abandon its ever-more-thinly disquised lust for global domination, that hoped-for renaissance will begin this year - with the decision the Democratic party makes this summer - and the confirmation of the wisdom of that decision by the voice and vote of the people in November. As for me, I will hope for - and work for - a big election.
Sunday, March 16: A few semi-random thoughts floating around in my head this evening. Many of them were spurred by a report by Ari Shapiro I heard on NPR yesterday (you can hear it yourself at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88324592). The report was about disabled soldiers and offered considerable interesting - and highly disturbing - information. Mr. Shapiro reports that injured vets receive benefits based on the amount of their disability as determined by the Army. If a vet is determined to be 70% disabled or more there are many benefits available to him or her. But if the disability is determined to be about 30% or less, the vet will receive a one time severance package and no continuing health benefits.
Mr. Shapiro's report highlighted three different veterans. One was Sgt. Grayson Galadis, who was injured by an IED in Iraq when the Humvee he was driving ran over it. Shrapnel broke his tailbone, nicked his spine, and made a general mess of his abdomen, including injuries to his intestines, liver, kidneys and spleen. Surgeons kept his abdomen open for three months, washing his intestines and internal organs daily. They removed one third of his colon. After over a year he had recovered sufficiently enough to be discharged. The doctor overseeing his case classified his abdominal injuries as a "hernia"(!) which did not qualify him for any disability. However, Sgt. Galadis also suffered from sleep apnea and a drop foot, so he was classified by the Army as 30% disabled.
Sgt. Galadis acquired the volunteer services of a civilian attorney, who persuaded the Arny that the "hernia" alone constituted a 50% disability and, with his other medical problems, Sgt. Galadis is now deemed to be 80% disabled and eligible for full benefits.
There's more. The GAO reports that in 2001 - a year before the Iraq war began - more than 600 soldiers retired with permanent disability benefits. In 2005, three years into the war, 200 qualified. The Army contends that statistics do not reflect the reality, as the year a soldier qualifies for benefits does not indicate the year the soldier actually applied for them. I don't know how they figure this justifies the dramatc drop from pre-war to war time, but that's their argument. They also claim that the actual number of permanent disabilities granted is rising - to about 300 in 2006...still only half of those granted the year before the war began.
Disabled American Veterans has been active in securing private attorneys for injured soldiers (who are normally represented by military attorneys, of course) and George Washington Law School in D.C. has even begun a clinic to train students in this particular area of advocacy.
But wait - there's even more. Bush administration officials are less than enthused by the private help vets are receiving. They acknowledge that the system is a mess, but contend that veterans obtaining civilian attorneys only serve to shore up a system in need of fundamental and systemic change. These, of course, are the very people (and the only people) with the power - and funds - to make those changes happen.
Before I shuffle off into my next rumination ladies and gentlemen, I want to reiterate a few points that should be more than obvious to everyone by now. Perhaps more than any other administration in history, this particular administration has wrapped itself in the self-righteous banner of Friend of the Military and Supporter of our Troops. Look at the statistics above. The 600 vets approved for disability in 2001 would have received their benefits under the policies of the previous administration - the Clinton admnistration. Think about it, please. Back to this in a minute.
My other thought for tonight was spurred by watching a documentary last night about Pete Seeger. I expect you're all familiar with Mr. Seeger. During the McCarthy era Pete Seeger and his group, the Weavers, were blacklisted. Mr. Seeger himself was indicted in 1956 for contempt of Congress, found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison. His case was later appealed and dismissed on a technicality. This is the man, of course, who wrote such songs as "Where Have All the Flowers Gone". "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "We Shall Overcome". The program I was watching observed that now, fifty years later, Mr. Seeger has received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a National Medal of the Arts, and the Kennedy Center's Lifetime Achievement Award. Though not stated directly, the program seemed to heavily imply that we have come a long way from the days of the Red Scare and the atrocities we committed against many truly patriotic citizens in our fear-driven xenophobia.
But my immediate response to this program was to realize that not only have we not changed at all since those times, but we seem to have become nothing less than bipolar. We recognize the injustices to a man like Pete Seeger and offer the olive branch of various (completely justified) awards and national respect at least partly as a means of apologizing. Yet at the same time we find ouselves right back in a national mindset (vigorously encouraged by this administration and its supporters) that declares any form of protest to be anti-American, any disagreement with those in charge to be supportive of the enemy, and any attempt to end wars, outlaw torture and turn away from aggression to be nothing short of treasonous.
And my reaction, as it has been for the past several years, is - where is the outrage? Why are the citizens of this nation not out in the streets demanding an immediate end to the depravity under which we are presently being governed? Why do we continue to sit back and permit things to continue along this demented course when we know - both off the top of our heads and deep within our souls - that the very soul of America is withering and dying moment by moment?
When I began writing this piece I figured I was going to end it with a despairing confession that I don't know the answer to that question. But part way through setting these thoughts down I realized that I think I do know why this hasn't happened. I think I know why we are continuing to permit our republic to disappear down the drain - and I'm going to make the accusation.
I can't accuse the people - individually or collectively. During my walk across the country we discovered that individuals everywhere, regardless of their political persuasions, almost universally are disgusted. People are despairing about where we are headed and feel powerless to do anything to change it. They feel like they cannot make any difference - that it is all far beyond their control.
While I can't fault the people individually, I can neither fault them collectively - because collectively I understand that people need a banner under which they can march; they need something or someone to provide them with a sense of the legitimacy of their concern and a concrete rallying point that can spur them to action.
And it is here where the fault lies - where the banner should be provided and the rallying point should be established. This is the domain of the fourth estate - the press. In our free society it is not just a good idea that the press should serve as a check on the actions of our leadership - it is its ultimate mandate to do precisely that. This is what is presently lacking. This is the portion of our society that has most completely abandoned its responsibilities. And I can even tell you why it has happened.
While nearly every right and freedom provided us by the Constitution has been under zealous attack by this administration, one particular freedom has remained unscathed - and that is the freedom of the press. It has been a brilliant maneuver, because it recognizes that unless we feel our own station is threatened the threat is not all that terrible. So this administration has carefully kept its hands off the press - and the press in turn has kept its hands off the administration.
When we have situations like what is happening to our disabled vets as mentioned above, every time a representative of this administration begins to wave the flag and tout their loyalty to the military, the press (joined by the military itself) should rightfully be slapping it down with the facts they already know to be true. Every time our leaders drag out the fear mongering in order to control the attitude of the citizenry and actions of Congress (by the way, remember that the textbook defiition of terrorism is the use of fear tactics to conrol the attitudes and actions of others), the press should be all over them like white on rice. When we are tempted to pat ourselves on the back for honoring citizens such as Pete Seeger, the press should be reminding us forcefully that a nation that launches pre-emptive wars, refuses to disavow torture, tosses its vets into the streets and rapes its own social programs in order to fund a mindless and counter-productive war cannot pretend to be any more evolved than its mcCarthyite neanderthal predecessors. These are the fundamental responsibilities of the press - and the press has consistently failed to do its job.
Last week Mr. Bush vetoed a bill that would have limited interrogation techniques to those specifically contained in the Army Field Manual. First, let us review some long established facts:
Fact #1: Torture does not work. It does not provide useful information. History proves this. Experts on the subject adamantly agree. It does not work.
Fact #2: The use of torture is the mark of an inhuman, inhumane, morally bankrupt society.
Fact #3: Torture Does Not Work.
Fact #4: The implementation of torture by a society subjects the citizenry - particularly the members of that society's military - to the extreme risk of the reciprocal and escalating use of torture.
Fact #5: TORTURE DOES NOT WORK!
Given the facts, there is only one justification for Mr. Bush's veto action. He refuses to outlaw torture for no other reason than that he wants to be able to torture people. Period. End of discussion. We have a president with the mindset of a schoolyard bully, plain and simple. I have no way to process such a mindset - I have never been able to wrap my head around the sort of personality that exults in causing harm to living things. But that particular mindset can be the only thing at the heart of this determined resistance. Are there really that many people out there who would continue to stand in the same corner with such a person? I am truly sickened at the thought. And I realize that in the world of schoolyard bullies, the only thing that seems to deter them is a champion - someone who will stand up to the bully on behalf of those being terrorized. While we're talking about a bully here who also happens to be the president, there are still those with the ability to stand up to him. One would be the Congress, which seems to have been hiding under its desk for the past seven years. But the other - the one that is by the structure of our nation charged with the task - is the press. Why is this war not over? Why is our Constitution in tatters? Why has our military been depleted, abused and abandoned? Because the press has not done its job. And until it does - or until we can locate another institution with the influence and courage to tackle the job the press should have been doing for these past many years - the bullying will continue unchecked.
Wednesday, March 12: I had a dream last night. I dreamed I was sitting in front of the television set at the top of the hour when suddenly the screen went black. An announcer's voice came on:
"The following two hour special is sponsored by the Democratic National Committee - and the campaign committees of Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama."
The black screen slowly faded in to a shot of Senators Clinton and Obama, sitting beside each other at a table. There was no one else present. Senator Clinton spoke.
CLINTON: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of America. Shortly after the Texas and Ohio primaries I received a call from Senator Obama. In response to his call, he and I both managed to slip free of our handlers and advisors for a private meeting the next evening.
OBAMA: Tonight's program is a result of that meeting. We expect you will find it unusual. We hope you will also find it interesting and informative.
CLINTON: We have both found it extremely difficult, given the atmosphere and expectations of a national campaign, to adequately express our mutual and deeply felt concern for the future of our nation.
OBAMA: Over the past eight years we have managed to alienate most of the rest of the world through arrogance, short-sightedness and incredibly poor decision making.
CLINTON: Where once we were viewed by most other countries as a skillful mediator - a reasonably even-handed diplomat on the world stage able to bring opponents to consensus and foster peaceful solutions to global problems, we have come to a place where we are - perhaps justifiably - viewed with suspicion and fear. Even the staunchest of our historical allies have perhaps begun to wonder what in the world has come over us.
OBAMA: We have consistently abandoned our ethical and moral foundations - and even our very own Constitution - in a vain and ultimately futile quest for the illusion of safety. Fueled by an administration whose greatest talent is the ability to exploit fear in order to accomplish its objectives - and abetted by a legislature...which we confess included both of us...that found itself incapable of mustering the courage to confront the erosion of our national soul, we are convinced that there have been few times in the history of our nation when the very substance of our republic has been in the jeopardy it is in today.
CLINTON: While driven by our mutual passion to heal the wounds inflicted on our nation and reverse the course that drives us daily farther away from the people we believe ourselves to be - the America we hope to become - we have recognized, as we expect you have, that the campaign for the presidential nomination has spiralled crazily downward into a seemingly endless personality clash, consisting of little more than cheap shots, one-liners and flimsy personal attacks that has not served us, has not served the ideals we pursue, and - most importantly - has not served you.
OBAMA: Tonight, we have created this opportunity that we sincerely hope will begin to reverse that trend. This is not going to be a debate, As you notice, there are no moderators to ask us inane or leading questions or to try to goad us with our own words or those of our opponent. We are here tonight to engage in a discussion, and to provide you with an opportunity to hear us, word for word.
CLINTON: We have established a few ground rules for our discussion. We have both promsed that there will be no personal attacks. In fact, there will be no attempts by either of us to prove that one of us is right and the other wrong, or that one of us has a better plan, greater qualifications or a clearer vision for our nation's future than the other. In other words, there will be absolutely no campaigning tonight.
OBAMA: We hope that you will choose one of us to be the next president of the United States, and we believe that whatever your choice, you deserve to know more about what we are thinking and what we believe and how we expect to accomplish the changes we believe must be made than you do right now. Both Senator Clinton and I truly feel that we have the capability to bring much that is positive and constructive to our country, but neither of us claim to be all knowing or all wise. While we are hoping that you will learn much about us tonight, we quite frankly are both also hoping that we might learn from each other as well.
CLINTON: We have not established a specific agenda for our discussion. It will lead wherever it will. But it is our intention to try to cover some specific points through the evening that we think are crucial. We plan to spend some time discussing the growing disparity between the very rich and the very poor in our country - and what we might be able to do about it.
OBAMA: We want to discuss the standing of our nation in the global community; how our foreign policies have fostered much of the hostility that confronts us and how we might modify our dealings in the world in ways that will foster peace and international cooperation.
CLINTON: We want to talk about how we might begin to erase the many conflicts that divide us internally and set us one against the other, how we might rise above the labels of race, gender, class, region, politics and religion and come together first as citizens of a common country with a common vision and a common interest.
OBAMA: These are merely examples; we have many topics in mind. We don't expect that we'll come to any earth shaking conclusions this evening, but we do hope that it will be an experience of growth in understanding and insight for both of us - and perhaps you, as well.
CLINTON: We also hope that we just possibly may have hit upon a new way of doing the business of politics tonight - a way that will finally put the issues - and the nation we love - at the forefront, and perhaps even put to rest the old habit that has been practiced for too long now - the campaign circus that does little more than demean the candidates, ignore the crucial issues we face, and insult the voters...the people who really do run this country.
OBAMA: So this is where we begin. We only hope it isn't too late. What issue would you like to work on first, Hillary?
At this point I woke up. The TV was on, but Senators Clinton and Obama were not on the screen. Instead there was something about Geraldine Ferraro and another piece about an Obama supporter calling Clinton a monster...and a whole bunch about the governor of New York and a prostitute.
Oh well, I can still dream.
February Journal:
Wednesday, February 20: Following the advice of a dear friend, I intentionally have taken a lengthy break from the journal. I simply had to get out of the intensity for a while as Jonna and I have been working on settling in here. I have to confess that it wasn't particularly difficult to stay away from posting - because I've been working like crazy during this time. My job is a real feast-or-famine phenomenon. It was nearly famine through the holidays (as it usually is during holidays), but beginning the second week in January it's been feast time. Until this week, I had exactly one day off work since the middle of January, so there's been precious little time for me to do any writing anyway. At any rate, thanks to those of you who have been concerned about us - we really appreciate your concern and want you all to know that we're just fine.
A highlight of the past month was Superbowl weekend. I spent Thursday through Monday of that week in Phoenix along with three other chauffeurs from our company, schlepping partygoers up and down the side of Camelback mountain for Superbowl parties there. It was an extremely lucrative few days - but also quite a challenge. We were driving 28 passenger mini-coaches up and down steep, twisting roads with very little clearance. One gate we sometimes had to pass through was so narrow that I cleared the rear view mirrors by about an inch on either side...and had to come back down through them backwards! One of the nights the word got out that the particular party we were servicing was an open party (it was not) and the police wound up closing down the entire neighborhood for about a mile radius because hopeful partygoers had turned it into complete gridlock. The only vehicles they would let into the area were our mini-coaches as we made the trek to remove people from the mess. We definitely earned our money. I thought we had all made it through without inflicting so much as a scratch on any of the vehicles. Our boss later told me that one of the vehicles had acquired a small crease. I didn't ask which one - I just knew it wasn't mine.
While I've been absent from the journal that doesn't mean we've not been following current events. It should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed my journal that I'm very pleased with the growing momentum behind Mr. Obama's campaign. As you will recall, the primary impetus for my walk was the restoration of the Constitutionally mandated balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of our government - and the return to Constitutional faithfulness on the part of our leadership. Mr. Obama is a Constitutional scholar and, I think, the most likely candidate to actually do something concrete about restoring the foundatons of our republic. In light of what is going on, I would like to offer a few observations that I've been holding back for the past month:
I have found it interesting - and a bit paradoxical - that the people who have been backing those who tout their years of experience (both parties) as a way to dismiss Mr. Obama are the same people who undoubtedly would be in favor of strict term limits. Seems a bit odd, does it not?
As I read the coverage of the campaigns I also sometimes read some of the reader feedback on some of the columns. Recently I have seen Clinton supporters who proclaim that if Obama becomes the candidate they will vote for McCain rather than support him. I've also seen Obama supporters saying the same thing about Clinton. Since their policy positions are so similar I would like to ask you, if you fall into one of the aformentioned groups, to sit down and seriously consider your personal racist or sexist bias. Regardless of which of the two candidates emerge as the nominee, I would suggest that we make a concerted effort to rise above whatever prejudice we may hold and strongly support the nominee.
While I've made clear in the past my reservations about various candidates, I have until now refrained from actually speaking out directly for any of them. Tonight I will break that silence. Tonight I'm going to ask you to throw your support behind Mr. Obama and do all you can to work for his nomination and his election. There are a number of reasons why I've come to this decision and I'd like to outline a few:
If we have any hope of honestly addressing the incredible array of abuses inflicted on our nation by the current administration - and ending this insane war - I believe our first imperative is to give the entire Republican party a time out from the presidency. We must elect a Democrat. Given this realization - and through no fault of her own - I contend that Clinton is the most vulnerable candidate we could put forward. There is a solid element out there that is possessed of a virulent hatred of the Clintons, and I am certain that if she becomes the Democratic candidate the Republican slime machine would have a significant portion of the populace convinced that she tithes to the church of Satan and routinely sacrifices babies in midnight rituals before the campaign is over. Should she become the nominee and should she manage to get elected, the animosity would not cease, and I predict that she would be completely incapacitated by continuing blind resistance and opposition to any change she may try to make.
I also believe that Clinton is the least likely Democratic candidate to actually make the changes we so desperately need - particularly in the areas of Constitutional faithfulness and the war. Some of you are not going to like to hear me saying this, but I don't think you could successfully argue otherwise - Mr. and Mrs. Clinton are not, and have never been, liberals. They are at best moderate politicians - and at this time we don't need the maintenance of the status quo that a moderate would bring to the office. For the sake of our nation, we need corrective action from people who are unafraid to confront the status quo.
Mr. Obama has now proven himself on many levels. The organization and effectiveness of his campaign is proving his ability not only as a leader, but also as a manager with the wisdom to surround himself with competent, effective people. Where Clinton's campaign team has unerringly shot itself in the foot at every turn over the past month and a half, Obama's has maintained both momentum and message. Who would you hire - the person at the top of Clinton's present campaign or the person at the top of Obama's? Think about it.
Obama is also proving to be a truly inspirational figure, able to motivate and mobilize people both across and outside of party lines. If you're buying the oft-leveled charges of empty rhetoric, take some time to visit his website. His positions on issues are clearly laid out for all to see. Do not allow the talking heads - who have proven themselves to be completely incompetent over the last couple of months - to shape your perception of reality for you - take the time to look for yourself.
Obama would also be the candidate most immune to the type of despicable campaigning that has marked the election process for the past forty years. We have already seen that attempts to "go negative" on Obama have invariably backfired. I firmly believe that this phenomenon would continue, and the result would be that we would either see a landslide victory in November - or a campaign in which candidates were forced to abandon the personal attacks and actually address the issues in clear, understandable terms...and what a change that would be!
As we talk about change, we are presently confronted by three likely contenders to be the next president of these United States, Two of them are long established Washington figures who would certainly surround themselves with familiar faces also with long resumes and established credentials. In other words, two candidates who would construct a team consisting of the very people who have presided over the madness of the past eight years. We have a third candidate who does not have that history of establishment and would be inarguably likely to surround himself with fresh faces, motivated advisors, people who have genuinely been inspired by the candidate. No matter what your take is on the required level of experience we should expect of a chief executive, it is hard to imagine any group doing worse for the American people that what has been done lately. Add to that the realization that no president runs the nation by him/herself, but rather our governance is mostly orchestrated by the unelected advisors the candidate brings to the office, and I think you can see that we really do have a choice between more of the same and at the very least a sincere effort to right the ship of state.
So there it is - at least some of it. While at the beginning of this campaign I must honestly say that Obama may not have been my first choice of candidate (then again, he may have been), he has risen dramatically in my estimation and I believe he possesses true potential to bring many positive qualities into the presidency and to become the effective, competent leader we so desperately need at this hour.
P.S. At Jonna's suggestion, I will confess that at the beginning of this contest Mr. Edwards was my first choice. Despite how he was often characterized by the media and opponents, I have felt that Edwards was completely sincere and a person whose heart and head were both in the right place. He had the courage to admit his mistakes, had the audacity to promise a swift end to the war without equivocation, and at a time when Obama had not yet found his voice and his stride, Edwards offered both clarity and conviction. Indeed, his positions have had significant influence on both Clinton and Obama and his efforts in this campaign have had significant positive impact. While I will be pleased with any number of alternative scenarios, I continue to hold out hope for a president/vice president ticket I mentioned very early on in my journal - an Obama/Edwards ticket.
January Journal:
Thursday, January 17: We're getting closer to initiating the American Dialogue facet of the website. When I get it up and running it won't be complete...or anywhere near. But we should have at least a couple of essays in place when we finally launch it, and will be continuing to look for more.
On the homefront, Jonna and I have been putting much of our effort into rebuilding a life for ourselves, though not to the exclusion of talking, thinking and writing about what's going on in our nation and the world. Tuesday night we attended a meeting of the Ramona Peace Forum - a diverse and passionate group from Ramona, California who remain active in their protests and continually seek new ways they might be able to make a difference. Dave Patterson from the San Diego Vets for Peace is nominal leader of the forum and bought supper for us, which we consumed bite at a time beween lively and animated discussion throughout the evening. As we have noted so many times over the past year and a half, few of the members of the Ramona forum were much young than us, and I don't believe that any in attendance last night were under thirty. Very sad and, the longer this goes on, more and more distressing.
We've also been invited to a reception next Wednesday for San Diego Magazine's "Fifty People to Watch in 2008". Jonna's getting pretty nervous about this. Depending on who shows up, we'll be rubbing elbows with a crowd that is considerably different from us - from movie and TV personalities to corporate CEOs to politicians (mostly Republican - it's San Diego, after all) to high mucky-mucks in the southern California philanthropic arena...not exactly the sort of folks who have us on their speed dial. It will be interesting. If you've checked out the magazine's website (sandiegomagazine.com) you'll see that, of the fifty people they selected this year, the only one that generated a negative comment online was - guess who? Yep. Nothing I'm unaccustomed to, but I do find it intriguing how some people who are offended by what they think I'm trying to do will try to dismiss it. This one was another from the camp that concludes that since I had Jonna and the guys with me and a motorhome to sleep in most nights along the way I didn't "really" walk across the country. I guess it's only supposed to "count" if you do it carrying a backpack and eating wild berries and roadkill along the way. I responded - politely - apologizing for violating the Rules for Cross-Continent Walking while also pointing out that nobody ever told me they existed.
A little commentary on the political events of the past week and a half or so: I'm wondering how many of you bought into the alternate version of reality the media served up during the New Hampshire primaries? Here's what was presented: In the many weeks prior to the New Hampshire primary, Clinton was leading Obama in the polls by something like ten points. But after Obama's win in Iowa, the talking heads convinced themselves that this win would inevitably translate into a groundswell of support that would see him winning New Hampshire by five points or more. On the evening of the primary Clinton wound up winning by about six points. The pundits went bananas - this was a stunning upset, a comeback of "historic proportions". Yes, I actually heard at least one of them use that phrase - historic proportions. All of this chatter, of course, assumed that you had bought the media version of reality. What actually happened was that the ten point lead Clinton had in the weeks prior to the primary had narrowed to six points by the time of the vote. In others words, she managed to hang on to some of her lead. Nothing more or less than that. Yet to hear the chattering wizards of the press waxing breathless you would have thought it was a Dewey Defeats Truman moment (boy, I'm betraying my age with that one!). Keep your wits about you, ladies and gentleman - I'm certain that this is but the first of many bizarre manufactured realities we'll be bombarded with in the next many months.
Sunday, January 6: At the beginning of every year in its January edition, San Diego Magazine publishes and article on Fifty People to Watch in San Diego. This year, quietly rubbing shoulders with southern California's film and TV personalities, sports figures, business magnates, political movers and shakers, musicians, restauranteurs and social elites is one solitary war protestor/peace activist...me. How 'bout that? The magazine had called me in early December but I didn't want to say anything about it until the issue was actually published because, quite frankly, I really didn't think they'd go through with lumping me in with the San Diego glitterati - but there I am. Of course, I told them back then that I didn't see much point in putting me in with a group of People to Watch in San Diego, because I'm pretty confident that I'm already being watched...by the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security, the Secret Service. etc. etc. Still it's a nice gesture. You can see the magazine online at sandiegomagazine.com.
I have to confess, though, that people aren't exactly beating down our door to talk to us. Once again, I'm sure that a big part of the reason for that is that we're just not weird enough to attract attention. I don't rant and rave, scream or shout. I don't look or act like a nut case. I just speak in calm, measured tones and offer reasoning that actually makes sense. I talk about the vision that most Americans share of what our country is about and how we see ourselves participating in the global community. I talk about the Constitution and how essential it is to the continued prosperity and vitality of our nation. I talk about the ultimate futility of war and the preposterous notion that we can spread democracy through force. But none of that is flashy. None of it is freakish. It just makes sense.
It's OK. Jonna and I both need time to decompress and gather ourselves together again. We're busy putting a bit of a home together for ourselves; we're both writing, scratching up enough income to keep going and generally enjoying being together and off the road. And, of course, we're still observing the insanity of the political process. The conventional wisdom of the press now seems to be that the "surge" in Iraq is working. The only thing that is working is the effort on the part of our government to lower the bar so far and redefine the meaning of success so drastically that we can point to a short term and unsustainable modification of the situation in Iraq and declare it to be a success. It's roughly the equivalent of paying your gas bill, electric bill, mortgage and car payment by charging them all to your credit card and declaring that you've succeeded in meeting your financial obligations. For those inclined to buy the idea that the surge is working, I'd like to ask a few simple questions:
Have we succeeded in removing our military personnel from a conflict in which they shouldn't have been involved in the first place? Have we succeeded in establishing anything even remotely resembling a government in Iraq that will be sustainable ten minutes after the support of the U.S. military is removed? Have we succeeded in reducing the amount of hatred being generated against our nation on a daily basis? Have we succeeded in moderating the influence of the radical fundamentalist element of Islam? Have we succeeded in terms of making our own nation any less likely to suffer the backlash of future terrorist attacks?
Once again, our military has done what it has been asked to do - and has done it admirably. But when that military itself now has the foresight to tell our government that there is no possible military solution to the problem, how is it possible for us to slap a label of "success" on a campaign whose only purpose was to buy time - to prevent a president from being forced to bring an end to this monumental debacle before he is able to slink out of the Oval Office?
Wednesday, January 2: My long absence from the journal has been anything but intentional. First, there was the long trip to Missouri and back, which you'll read about in the previous long-delayed post. Then there was the business of my web host going through a major change that left me unable to personally access and edit my website. Then Theresa, my web guru in Indiana, went on an extended holiday trip during which she was unable to get online. Upon her return home, she discovered that her home computer operating system had decided to go south (or to parts unknown) for the winter and had to do a complete reinstall. And on. And on.
At any rate, if you're reading this you'll know we finally got all - or most - of the kinks smoothed out and I'm able to post again. Keith and Michelle were both out of town for the holidays so it gave us a chance to settle in quietly for a bit. I've been quite busy at work up until a few days ago. Things get very quiet in our business during the holidays - something that many people find odd. But the company I work for caters primarily to business and professional clientele and there aren't many companies scheduling conventions, meetings, seminars and such over the holidays. There is an incredible number of fly-by-night limousine operations with one or two cars in the San Diego area who will slash their rates just to get business over the holidays so we don't do a lot in the way of party-type traffic. Even so, I found myself working over New Year's Eve, which also happens to be our anniversary. Jonna calculated that we haven't been together on our anniversary since 2000 - either she was working or I was working or we were in different parts of the country. We've decided that this coming New Year's Eve we'll have to change that.
While Keith and Michelle were away we dog-sat for Michelle's dog, Sadie. She jumped right in there and became one of the pack instantly. We would wake up in the morning with one dog sleeping on the right side of the bed, one on the left, and one at the foot. Sadie's a bit larger than our guys - I think she's a mix of Rottweiller and either Aussie or Border Collie - but she's a sweetheart. She's going to have to shed a few pounds in order to keep up with the guys, though.
The afternoon of New Year's Eve I received word from our son Jay that my mother had passed away. It was not unexpected, nor was it something for which we had not been prepared. There have been a number of instances over the past couple of years when she had surprised us by pulling through various dire circumstances, but a couple of days after Christmas she fell and broke her hip and, while the surgery to repair her hip went well, her body simply did not have the strength left to pull through the recovery process. Then, as Michelle arrived in San Diego on New Year's day, she received word that her mother had passed away. Certainly a bizarre coincidence.
Other than that, life has consisted of working, writing, settling in and both of us trying to shake an incredibly stubborn cold that we imported from Missouri. Sadly, the political situation has remained static - which is to say insane. We have a quarter of a million of our military personnel waging campaigns that will do nothing in the long run but continue to worsen our safety, our stature in the world, our economy and the stability of the entire planet in general...and people hum along through the holidays as if none of it was happening - and it doesn't even seem to be a critical campaign issue at this point. Unless we wake up and figure this out we really are looking at literally decades more of the same, which, rather than resulting in something called success or victory will surely result in a ferocity of backlash from which will may never be able to recover. Yet the blinders are still in place and the Bush Doctrine - as he himself has called it - promises to eventually destroy our nation - either from without or from within. Reminds me of an old saying - where there is no vision, the people will perish.
December Journal:
Friday, December 23: My apologies for being absent from the journal for so long. It's been a hectic time, but we all arrived safely back in San Diego yesterday afternoon. Somehow we managed to dance around a vast array of treacherous weather and had essentially smooth sailing throughout the entire adventure. That said, I figured I'd lay out a bit of a travelogue:
After arriving safely at Becky and Joey's last week I took a couple of days to decompress. Jonna and I wanted to make the trip to Chicago last Sunday to spend a day with our youngest son, Dietrich. Of course it snowed about eight inches in Hannibal on Saturday, but by Sunday morning the roads looked like they were in good shape so off we went to Chicago. The drive was no problem - athough we passed probably a couple of dozen vehicles that had slid off the road in various places. It was all freeway, however, and as long as you stayed in the right hand lane and didn't do anything stupid there was no problem.
Have I mentioned that the van has no heat? The van has no heat. We left Chicago Monday afternoon to return to Hannibal and the next several hours were some of the coldest of my life. Jonna bundled up in a sleeping bag in the passenger's seat, but not having the luxury of being able to wrap myself in a cocoon, I nearly froze my toes off. Yet one more reminder of why we moved to San Diego in the first place.
We spent Tuesday packing the van. The original idea was to rent a trailer to haul all our stuff back to San Diego - we had everything that had been in Nessie plus some stuff we had stored at Becky and Joey's. But after looking it over I figured that we ought to be able to fit it all inside the van. That meant we wouldn't be able to use the van for sleeping quarters on the way back as we had planned - but being without heat sort of messed that up anyway. And it would actually cost us less to stay in a motel every night on the way back than it would have cost to rent a trailer anyway.
I managed to fit everything in the van, stuffing every nook and cranny I could find, and still had enough room for the guys to be comfortable behind us. We headed out Wednesday morning planning to generally take the same route back I had taken out. That plan held until the third day.
We had stopped in Tucumcari for the second night of the trip and in the morning I cranked up the computer to check weather. The next leg would take us due west into Flagstaff, then down through Phoenix to Yuma. But they were predicting a high of 25 degrees in Flagstaff, a low of 9 - and a strong possibility of snow. Remembering the trip from Chicago to Hannibal, I felt it would be prudent to head south as quickly as we could, so at Albuquerque we bent south on Interstate 25 toward Deming, headed for Tucson.
It was a good thing we did. Nasty looking clouds hung just over us and darkened the skies to the west the entire way. A couple of times it did catch us just a bit and we hit patches of rain, but generally we barely skirted the edge of the nastiness. It was a two-fisted, white-knuckle run down I-25 though, as heavy crosswinds tossed us around like a basketball.
After the third night's stay in Tucson the remaining few hundred miles were a piece of cake and we made it into La Mesa early Saturday afternoon. We had brought along an unwelcome hitchhiker, though - Jonna and I both arrived with a terrible nasty cold that's had her in bed ever since our arrival and me not doing too much better. Just tonight it's beginning to feel like we'll make it out the other end, so tomorrow I'm hoping we'll both be feeling much better. Keith and Michelle have both gone on the road for the holidays so we have the place all to ourselves until after the first, which will be very nice as it will give us a chance to settle in...and collapse. Wherever home may be, there's no place like it. And we're home.
Those of you who have been reading my babble from the beginning will recall Don Day. I met Don last September as we were first trying to get the word out about my intention to walk across the United States. Don had been suffering from an impressive array of dire illnesses for some time when I met him. As I understand it, his doctors had given him less than a month to live several times over the previous couple of years, but he always managed to confound them. I was told that when he read about what I was intending to do he was at that moment on what everyone - including himself - thought was his deathbed. But he became so excited about what I was trying to do that suddenly he was up and at it again.
Don has had a long and illustrious career that often involved fighting city hall - and winning. He wanted desperately to dredge up his old contacts and network and work them on my behalf, but his health remained terrible and it was all he could do to cheer me on. I let him know that just his personal support meant the world to me and not to worry about trying to do too much, and he became my official press agent. He also wrote a letter formally firing Duncan Hunter as his representative and appointing me in his place - and he gave me his dogtags to carry with me to Washington. I promised him I would do that - and I did. His fondest wish was that he would be able to hang around until I made it to D.C. and would be able to fly out to meet me there. He got part of that wish - he made it through, but was not in any sort of shape to fly cross country to join me when I arrived.
When I returned to San Diego the business of getting re-established and settled in kept me from seeing Don again until right around Thanksgiving, when I finally made it over to his place and returned his dogtags to him. Although he obviously was still in terrible shape, he looked better to me than at any time since I had met him.
While we were in Hannibal Jonna got a call from Don's daughter. Don had finally lost his long battle on November 26th, just four days after Ann Herman. In the confusion that always follows such sorrow they had been unable to find my phone number and had forgotten all about the website until the day she called. Don's death came just days after I saw him last.
Jonna always called Don our personal leprechaun; he had that look about him and, even in the condition he was in, always had a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye. We wish we could have known him before he had been robbed of his health. I would like to have seen him at work on the various windmills he tackled - and defeated; I'm sure I would not have wanted to try to stand in his way when he took on the powers of government so few seem to have the courage to confront.
Don credited me with getting him up off his deathbed and giving him the life he had beyond last September. I can't accept that credit. It was his passion to see injustices addressed, his determination to do the right thing regardless of the effort or cost that inspired him and kept him going. I was just along for the ride for a far too short time. Our condolences to his wife Sandy, the kids and granddaughter. Your loss is shared by many.
Friday, December 14: We are FINALLY back together again! I managed to successfully duck between midwest storms and arrived in Hannibal yesterday about 3 p.m. The trip was generally uneventful - save for the fact that the van has no heat and I nearly froze my toes off every evening. That said, a brief travelogue:
Tuesday - La Mesa to Gallup, NM: Smooth sailing except for the area around Flagstaff, where I encountered light snow showers; not enough to affect the road conditions, but enough to make me tense and nervous. My sustenance for the trip consists of a pound of really nice, thin-sliced roast beef I bought the evening before I left, a loaf of bread, mayonnaise, a bag of pretzels and sufficient Mountain Dew to keep me lubricated. In other words, only the finest health food. I stopped for the evening at 640 miles in West Gallup, New Mexico, where I parked beside a Love's travel station and cranked up the portable propane heater that Keith had kept in the van. It turned out to be barely useful. It did provide enough heat to keep the van warm through the night, but went through two canisters of propane to do so.
A short glimpse into the rather strange way my mind often works: I hadn't driven through the area around Gallup for several years, but in the back of my mind I remembered that there was a town near Gallup along route 40 that was named Brown-something. Brownsville? Brownburg? Browning. That was it. Browning. There was a town near Gallup named Browning. I don't know why I remembered it, but I did. So I began looking for it. Sure enough, I found it the next morning, east of Gallup. But it wasn't Browning.
It was Thoreau.
Seems that my unconscious associations work - they're just one peg off.
Wednesday - Gallup to Springfield, MO: I didn't really intend to drive so far in a single day, but wound up putting in exactly 900 miles before the day was over. I don't think I've ever driven through the area around Gallup in the daytime before and was delighted by the beautiful painted mesas decorating the high desert landscape. I was concerned about this leg because of the recent nasty weather that had ravaged the area, but the skies remained clear and the road was dry so I had no problem - other than the lack of heat. When I called Jonna to report my progress as I passed through Oklahoma City she insisted that I take a motel room for the night and thaw out a bit. I was not reluctant to comply.
By the way, is there another city in the country with freeway roads as LOUSY as those in Oklahoma City? Every time we have to pass through there we dread it. They are the roughest, nastiest roads in existence.
In keeping with Jonna's wishes I planned to stop for the evening in Tulsa. There was one minor hitch - there were no motels rooms to be had. People who had been without power since the ice storm came through had booked every available motel room in Oklahoma. So continued on. Sold out in Joplin, Missouri as well. It was not until just south of Springfield, Missouri that I found an available motel. It was a good thing, because I was so cold that I was right on the verge of pulling over and using my last propane canister to thaw my toes out. I got into the room right around 3:30 a.m. The first thing I did was run a tub of nice, hot water and soak myself until I stopped shivering. The good news is that this left less than 300 miles for the third day of the trip.
Thursday - Springfield to Hannibal: The skies had been clear and blue for most of the trip, but gave way to a leaden overcast through Missouri. The weather remained dry, however. I found a new favorite business name as I passed through Springfield - the Snorty Horse Tavern. I didn't stop. My route took me through Lake of the Ozarks and Jefferson City, and it was in Lake of the Ozarks that the effects of the ice storm became evident. Trees were still laden with ice everywhere, and the number that had lost major limbs to the weight of the ice was truly impressive. The scenery was quite beautiful, with trees shimmering silvery all along the route.
I had kept the room until the 11 a.m. checkout time so I got a late start, but 255 miles later I pulled into Hannibal. I had successfully ducked in between Mother Nature's wrathful storms and made it without incident. Jonna was there to greet me, of course, and the guys and I rolled around on the living room floor for a while - Spoof frantically chewed on my beard (an obsession of his) while Finn gave the rest of my face a thorough bath. I had been gone way too long.
The plan now is to head to Chicago on Sunday to spend a day with Dietrich before heading back west. We'll return to Hannibal Monday night, pack things up Tuesday and leave Wednesday morning - if the weather cooperates with our plans. The original idea was to rent a small trailer to haul all our belongings from Nessie back home, but with the fact that the van has no heat, we may pack everything nto the van instead. We had planned to sleep in the van each evening, but the lack of heat makes that difficult. Besides, it will probably cost us less to hit a motel each evening than it would have cost to rent a trailer. There may be some things we'll have to leave behind, but we'll be back next spring to fetch Nessie anyway, so what we can't take can wait until then.
So, a few days to visit and recuperate and we're off to California. To say I am looking forward to getting everyone home again would be a gross understatement. But now we're together.
Sunday, December 9: Mother Nature is not playing fair. She has at her disposal a seemingly limitless array of atmospheric phenomena - which she seems to have employed with sadistic and gleeful abandon over the past few days - while all I have is a 23 year old van and a burning desire to be reuntied with my lady love and our puppies. Obviously, Ma Nature has won the burrent round and has delayed my departure until at least Tuesday morning. But I will not be denied much longer. She can't keep it up indefinitely. Well, actually she can - but I will find a moment shortly when her back is turned and I will sneak on through to Missouri, gather everyone up and whisk them back to California. Mother Nature may be impressive, but I am determined. I shall prevail.
Wednesday, December 5: The time has come - at long, long, long last - for spouse and doggie retrieval. We've finally scraped together enough pennies (and nickels and dimes and...) to make the road trip eastward, gather everyone up and haul them on back to San Diego. I'll leave Sunday morning. Jonna will be going to Chicago for the last few days to spend some time with our son Dietrich, so I'll pick her up there, turn around and head back to Hannibal, pick up Finn and Spoof, lash a little trailer on the van's butt and pack it full of our worldly belongings and stirke out for the west coast. It's been way too long. We've had a number of occasions in our married life when we've had to be away from each other for extended periods - and we don't like it one bit. We're just going to have to knock that off.
I wish I could follow my walking route, but we have to do this as economically as possible, so I'll be roughly following the route I would have taken last winter had the weather not forced me to stay south through January and February. I'll be on my walking route through Gila Bend, but will bend north there to go through Phoenix, Albuquerque and Oklahoma City. Of course I'll be taking the computer along so I can stay in touch.
Not too much to report here over the last week - just been working as much as I can to get to where I can make this trip. Nothing really new on the political scene for that matter either. The intelligence on Iran was cooked? Surprise, surprise. Nobody's holding this administration accountable for anything? Surprise. The stupendous neocon fiasco known as the New American Century that spawned this sorry war, trashed our nation's reputation and dismantled our Constitution is going to cost us three trillion dollars - or more? Surprise.
I have an assignment for America. First, turn off American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, your iPods, your video games and any and everything else designed to distract you from the real world. Next, borrow a Civics or American History textbook from your nearest 8th grader.
Read it. See if you can find the parts that talk about the Constitution. See if you can find the parts that talk about separation of powers and checks and balances. Read these parts several times.
Now, contrast and compare. We have an executive branch that is claiming (Guantanamo, wire tapping, etc.) that the judicial branch has no authority over its actions because they are necessary for national security. Is there a provision that permits this claim? We have a Congress that claims impeachment would be too divisive and traumatic. Are these grounds to ignore the provisions of the Constitution? This same Congress has - and is - failing at every turn to exercise oversight over the demands of the executive branch. Is this permissible - or tolerable? We have "free speech zones". Can you find mention of such a concept?
Take your time. Take it all in, and hold it up to the daily workings of our government. Let me know when the light begins to dawn. Let me know when you've figured out that the normative operation of our government at this very moment bears little - if any - resemblance to the principles described in those books that tell us how our republic is supposed to function.
I know you're waiting for new leaders to emerge who will finally begin reassembling the nation you love and bring us back on the path that leads to the ideals of what and who we believe and profess ourselves to be. But here's the thing. Whatever leaders emerge from the present morass have been an intrinsic part of that morass for a considerable period of time already. It is only reasonable to conclude that most likely none of them are capable of making (and few of them are even capable of perceiving) the drastic corrections that must be made. I know I said it well over a year ago, but here it comes again: it is now up to us - the People - to demand a return to Constitutional principles and responsible leadership. We can settle for nothing less. Less than a year from now we have a national election scheduled. My personal recommendation would be to kick all of them out. Certainly we must rid ourselves of enough of the current crop to convince those that remain that we mean business. We want our republic back - and we will do whatever it takes to get it back. Our intrinsic tendency to trust those in positions of authority to do the right thing has been taken as apathy. It has been interpreted as carte blanche. It is neither of those, and that tendency to trust has finally hit the wall. Be prepared, ladies and gentlemen - brothers and sisters. The time may well be at hand when it will be necessary for us to stand up, once again, individually, as patriots. The time may well be at hand when, in order to secure freedom for our children, it will be necessary for us to make courageous sacrifices. We have a legacy to honor. We have a republic to preserve. If our elected representatives won't or can't do it, we must be ready and willing to do it ourselves. We are now well beyond the need for a course correction; it's time to haul out the map.
Tuesday, November 27: I met so many absolutely wonderful people during the course of my walk that it would take a long, long time just to list them all. But I confess that there is a special place in my heart for many of the folks I met early on - those who assisted me before I had even a thousand miles behind me and nobody (but myself) had any reason whatsoever to believe that I would make it clear across the continent. Even so, they came to my aid in many places along the way - from Banner to Imperial to Yuma to Tucson to Sierra Vista to Las Cruces to El Paso.
And among those caring, giving people there were those whose spirit gleamed especially bright. One of those was Anne Herman, who I met in El Paso. In fact, other than my own son, I enjoyed Anne's hospitality for more nights than anyplace else along my journey. I tried to make a point of not imposing myself on anyone more than two nights along my way, but circumstances dictated that I had to remain in El Paso much longer than normal, and through much of the time I was Anne's guest. I didn't even realize until the third evening at her place that she had actually given up her own bedroom for me and was sleeping on the couch.
Anne had literally traveled the world working for causes of peace and justice. She was far, far from wealthy in any monetary sense. I think she shared understanding that what resources we have are ours to hold in trust, and that wherever there is a need that we can meet we do so, without any particular concern about our own needs. Her car was pretty much held together with spit and baling wire, but she would happily drive out to pick me up each day after my walk - and return me the next morning so I could continue. At the same time, she was helping a young soldier through the convoluted process of seeking conscientious objector status and working on lord knows what other projects.
She and I both knew back then that she wasn't in very good health, but that was just the way things were. There wasn't much anyone could do about it, so she just kept on keeping on. She lived with her daughter Beth in El Paso, and when Beth accepted a position at the University of Alabama this summer, she sold her house and they moved together to Alabama. Today I received word from Bob in El Paso that Anne had been diagnosed with cancer and had contracted pneumonia a short time ago. Battling both proved to be more than her body could take, and Anne passed away on Thursday.
The world is a bit darker and colder. There are precious few people with Anne's heart and spirit - so few that it makes our loss great. She is one of those people whose impact on the lives of other cannot possibly be measured, as even she would have had no idea of the number of lives she enriched, the number of hearts she touched, the number of friends she made. But I don't think the thought of measuring her impact would ever have occured to her; her reward was in the doing - simple as that.
A couple of months ago I was stunned and a bit flustered when I happened to encounter a website where someone had listed me as one of their heroes. I remain unable to wrap my head around that - I don't feel like there is anything particularly heroic about me - I've only done what I felt I had to do. But if, for whatever reason, you have ever had the loopy notion that I fit the role of hero, I want to let you know tonight that your heroes have heroes. Anne was a hero to me, and I know without doubt a hero to many - and if you really wanted a good idea of what a hero is all about I would have unreservedly pointed you in her direction. It was my great, great pleasure to have known you, Anne. You will be missed by many. You will be missed by me.
Sunday, November 25: The Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone and, despite the fact that Jonna and I are still half a continent apart, it turned out to be a good time here. Kari, Joey, their kids and John - a long, long time family friend all came over. Michelle invited one of her sons and his girlfriend and we all celebrated the day in very traditional style. This was my first time being in charge of the entire Thanksgiving meal preparation and I was looking forward to it a bit apprehensively. For me, the most challenging part of cooking is timing; everything has to be done at the same time and that's quite a challenge when you're talking about something as prodigious as a Thanksgiving feast and you only have one oven to work with. I did have help: Kari made the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, some chili and a cranberry relish, and Michelle made the stuffing. She was disappointed that keith and I vetoed making the stuffing in the turkey, but Keith was worried about being sure everything was done completely through and I was concerned about the extra time that would add to baking the turkey, so she gave in. I prepared everything else - the turkey, gravy, a plate of celery, carrots and olives, mulled cider, crescent rolls, two pumpkin pies and two of the world's best custard pies. They aren't the world's best because of the cook - but rather because of the recipe. Anyone can make them, and I'll put the recipe in here so you can give them a shot. It turns out a better, thicker custard pie than you've ever seen - and if you've never had custard pie you're in for a treat.
At any rate, the timing came out just right, everything was done beautifully and we all stuffed ourselves silly. The kids stayed through the evening and everyone got to know everyone and had a good time together. Mykah fell in love with Michelle's dog, Sadie and asked if she could stay with grandpa overnight. We understood that it wasn't really grandpa she wanted to stay with, however. Tucker, Mykah's brother and grandchild number three, remained true to form and spent the evening climbing on, under and over every obstacle in sight. I'm afraid Kari and Joey are going to become much more familiar with the emergency room than they would prefer. Tucker's only a bit over two and they've already paid several visits. Tucker seems as yet unable to grasp the concept of gravity.
Since Thanksgiving day we've been experiencing my favorite part of the holiday - the leftovers. Friday it was hot turkey sandwiches, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pie. Saturday it was turkey salad sandwiches and the last of the stuffing, mashed potatoes and pie. I'm always happy when I get to make the turkey salad, because I make it very simply - turkey, mayonnaise, a little salt and pepper and sliced green olives. The stuffing and mashed potatoes gave out on Saturday, so Sunday we continued with the turkey salad and pie. Today the pie and turkey salad was gone, so I boiled the remains of the turkey for a while and made turkey soup with rice and vegetables. That should last us through tomorrow, at which point we say a fond farewell to Thanksgiving leftovers...and begin looking forward to Christmas dinner.
Work is slow, as predicted, but they've been able to find me enough to assure that it won't be terribly disastrous come next payday. But at the same time some unforeseen circumstances have dictated that my journey eastbound to fetch Jonna and the guys is going to be delayed once again. We're still shooting for some time between Thanksgiving and Christmas - but it now looks like it's going to be closer to Christmas than to Thanksgiving. Sigh.
On the political front, I see that the far right war brigade is making as much as possible of a relatively quiet period in Baghdad. Lest we forget - whatever the situation is or becomes in Baghdad - or in Iraq in general - is completely beside the point. The point is that what we have been doing and what we are doing in Iraq is unethical, immoral, un-American and flat out wrong regardless of the outcome. The point is that we were misled - flat-out lied - into a war that shouldn't have happened in the first place and certainly shouldn't be continuing. The point is that the people who manipulated us into that war continue to avoid being held responsible for what they did. The point is that this misbegotten war has led to the devastation of our own nation both financally and constitutionally, and has placed us one very small step away from morphing our republic into a police state or a dictatorship...and the abuses to our Constitution and our rights and freedoms continue, while we have no idea when, if ever, those abuses will be corrected and our republic restored. The point is that the anti-American sentiment in the world continues to build day by day, assuring that we will be under extreme peril from terrorist activities for generations to come - and despite billions upon billions of dollars being thrown away, not one single thing has yet been done to address that threat in any sane fashion. The point is that no one in a position of leadership even seems to be talking about any of this, but rather they continue to play the game of partisan maneuvering - completely abandoning the idea that what they are supposed to be doing is working for the good of the nation rather than the prosperity of their party. The point is, well...I think you get the point. I wish more people would.
A fairly early start tomorrow so I have to call it quits for now and turn in. But first, the custard pie recipe, as promised:
MILK CUSTARD PIE
4 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups whole milk, scalded
Unbaked pie shell
Scald milk. Stir rest of ingredients into milk. Pour into 8 inch pie shell and sprinkle with nutmeg. Bake at 350 degrees until knife inserted in center comes out clean (about 1 hour and ten munites).
Double recipe to make two 8 inch pies.
To make one 10 inch pie, double recipe except - use 4 1/2 cups milk to avoid a watery pie.
Hints: When you see the first hint of browning anywhere on the surface of the filling, the pie should be done. The most difficult part is getting the filling into the pies and getting them in the oven without spilling them all over the place. I recommend filling the pie shells about 3/4 full, sliding them into the oven, then filling them the rest of the way using a measuring cup. The pie should be as full as possible and I think this is the only way to do it without making a real mess. DO NOT use 2% or anything other than whole milk - it will produce a watery, thin pie.
Monday, November 19: I had yesterday and today off work, which is a real good news/bad news event. On the good news side, I've been working many and long days for a while now and it was good to pretty much collapse for a couple of days. On the bad news side, it marks the beginning of what may well be a very lean time stretching until the beginning of next year. This surprises most everyone, because most people tend to associate limousines with parties and such and assume that the holiday season would be a very busy time for us. But the business of the company I work for is heavily concentrated on corporate and professional clientele, and very few businesses schedule conventions, meetings or other corporate events over the holidays so our work slows way, way down. I'll be campaigning for as much work as I can get, but there won't be anywhere near as much available for a while as there has been. Then again, on the good news side, some time between Thanksgiving and Christmas will be a good time to take off and finally make it back to Missouri to fetch Jonna and the guys.
I was invited to speak last night at a dinner meeting of the San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice. It was a soup supper and the food was excellent. I wanted to keep my focus, so I wrote what I intended to say beforehand so I wouldn't get too carried away - which I have a tendency to do if I don't exercise a bit of discipline. Besides, I was asked to speak for about ten minutes and wanted to keep within the time frame. I was a bit taken aback when I finished and the room gave me a standing ovation. I didn't expect and wasn't prepared for that sort of reaction. When I'm asked to speak I usually come up with some sort of theme for what I have to say, and I did that last night. I'm not going to post the entirety of what I said last night, but here's the thematic portion of what I offered: Whenever I'm offered the opportunity to speak I gladly take it, because even though I'm nobody in particular, I will jump at the chance to let people know how I feel, even though I often step on many toes when I do so. And tonight, I want to let you know how I feel.I am amazed. I am amazed that the strongest, wealthiest, most promising nation ever to grace the face of the earth - a nation that I do not believe could ever be toppled by war or by terrorism or by enemies from without is, as I speak, being held hostage by a spoiled, rich, poster child for arrested development with a boundless ego and a bit of a messiah complex who, abetted by half of our Congress performing as enablers and unfettered by the other half who seem unable to locate a single backbone in their entire ranks, is resolutely dismantling our republic and selling it off to the highest bidders for spare parts.
I am amazed that we have come to a place where our unions no longer have the strength to protect our workplaces or our jobs.
I am amazed that the average citizen has become so distracted or apathetic that collectively we sit silently by and watch our Constitution - the very foundation of our entire society - being shredded into dust.
I am amazed that the Democratic party seems determined at this point in time to back the candidate who presents the least potential to actually correct any of the abuses our system of government has endured over the past seven years.
I am amazed that in the year 2000 one of the central campaign themes was the rule of law, and seven short years later the man sitting in the Oval Office has issued over 150 signing statements asserting that he is not bound by over one thousand, one hundred and fifty provisions of those laws.
I am amazed that fully twenty-five percent of the homeless people in this country are veterans of military service - and nobody seems particularly disturbed by that.
I am amazed that thousands upon thousands of young families who put everything they had into the promise of the real estate casino - I mean the real estate market - are suddenly discovering that not only are they losing their piece of the pie, but the entire bakery has become off limits to all but the fattest of us.