Indifference

Washington – Lack of adequate health care may have contributed to the deaths of some 17,000 US children over the past two decades, according to a study released by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. [Link]

The children of America need the public option. The poor and disenfranchised need the public option. The marginalized working class need it, the wealthy need it, the corporations need it. Even the insurance lobby needs it, though they’re too greedy to know – to myopic to see – that they need it.

Obviously, the capitalists and their paid-off legislators are too indifferent too the needs of the people and the good of the country to see that we get it, but we need it.

 

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.

The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference.

The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.

And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

– Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize 1986

 

 

eight years

I was just reading an article about Marines trying to make headway in Afghanistan. It says, “The eight-year-old war is at its most intense, with more than 400 NATO troops dead this year. U.S. Afghan commander Stanley McChrystal has told President Barack Obama he needs 40,000 troops to push back a resurgent Taliban and convince the population insurgents will not win.”

Can that be right? Eight years already? Yep. Bush started shocking and awing in Afghanistan after 9/11, in 2001. So the war has already lasted twice as long as WWII, which lasted from 1941 to 1945. But don’t worry, Vietnam lasted longer. And if there’s anything we Americans can do, it’s get our asses stuck in a quagmire.

My nephew was born in 2001. He’s in the 3rd grade, he can read and write and he knows more about dinosaurs than I’ve forgotten. And for the entirety of his life so far, we have been at war in Afghanistan. And we’re doing this why? To save the people there from the Taliban? To win friends and influence people? To make a rhetorical point? What a waste of life and treasure. What a meaningless crock of shit.

noble subjects

I read this today by Howard Zinn, a writer whom I generally admire, and I have a brief reaction.

I was dismayed when I heard Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on wars in two countries and launching military action in a third country (Pakistan), would be given a peace prize. But then I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel Peace Prizes. The Nobel Committee is famous for its superficial estimates and for its susceptibility to rhetoric and empty gestures, while ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

Howard, please. Try not to lend more volume to the incessant idiotic cacophony of the great and miserable unwashed.

We do not get to complain about somebody – anybody – receiving or not receiving one of the Nobel Prizes. It’s not a public matter.

The Nobel Foundation is a private institution established in 1900 based on the will of Alfred Nobel. The Foundation manages the assets made available through the will for the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. It represents the Nobel Institutions externally and administers informational activities and arrangements surrounding the presentation of the Nobel Prize. The Foundation also administers the Nobel Symposium Program. [Nobel Foundation Web site]

The Nobel Committee can give the peace prize to Wile E. Coyote, if they want to, for conspicuous failure to catch and eat the Roadrunner. So put your earnest dismay back in the pocket from which it so easily emerged.

If they give the literature prize to me, for this blog, the rest of you can just sit there agape and applaud politely. And kiss my pink butt, ‘cuz I’m going to Sweden to meet the king. White tie, baby. I would look good.

Every single day, we the thundering herd grow more insistent that everything that hits the news is our business. Which makes it no more true, but incrementally more annoying.

Besides, Obama inherited those wars – including the incipient ones Pakistan and Iran – and we all knew we were foisting them upon him on the day he declared candidacy.  And he has taken great steps to heal the worst divisions between people. So there. Does that mean he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize? Again, what the hell do I know? That’s none of my business, or Howard’s either.

Gore Vidal

The writer is still with us, and I think we should lend an ear while he is. In fact, at 83 he’s still kicking ass and taking names.  As proof of which, this interview with The Times, London.

His voice strengthens. “One thing I have hated all my life are LIARS [he says that with bristling anger] and I live in a nation of them. It was not always the case. I don’t demand honour, that can be lies too. I don’t say there was a golden age, but there was an age of general intelligence. We had a watchdog, the media.” The media is too supine? “Would that it was. They’re busy preparing us for an Iranian war.”

See, can’t get much more on point than that.

what goes around

Did Chicago lose the chance to host the 2016 Olympics because of airport security issues?

Among the toughest questions posed to the Chicago bid team this week in Copenhagen was one that raised the issue of what kind of welcome foreigners would get from airport officials when they arrived in this country to attend the Games. Syed Shahid Ali, an I.O.C. member from Pakistan, in the question-and-answer session following Chicago’s official presentation, pointed out that entering the United States can be “a rather harrowing experience.” [NY Times]

Well, I hope this is exactly what happened to Chicago’s chances, because that would be beautifully poetic justice. We built the post-9/11 Amerika we wanted to live in, and we can live in it without the pleasure of hosting the Olympic Games.We made our bed by inaugurating, if not electing, Bush-Cheney twice.  Now we can sleep in it, alone but for the millions of people here illegally, who did not come in through an airport.

Back in August, the Obama administration continued Bush-Cheney’s policies for search of laptop computers at airports. This is a violation of the 4th amendment of the Constitution, and it’s overboard to be said to reasonably serve a compelling state interest in security. It’s wrong.

We elected Barak Obama in part to get our civil rights back, and he’s been dropping the ball. So it’s fitting and proper that he comes back from Copenhagen with nuthin.