Among the many abominations foisted on us is the merging of Lincoln’s Birthday with Washington’s and calling it President’s Day. Frankly, we need more holidays, and Federal Holidays should be made mandatory paid holidays. Like in civilized countries – double time for workers and everybody else is off doing their thing. Now, celebrating Lincoln and Washington makes a lot of sense – but, Jerry Ford? Grover Cleveland? Warren G. Harding? John Tyler? James Buchanan? Seriously, give us back our holidays and make the bastards give them to workers…

There is method in my madness, by the way. Reduce work hours and you’ll spur hiring to maintain productivity. It’s a fairly simple idea and works very well especially when you’re trying to maximize employment. If you have an idle assembly line, well, if you need a hundred employees to run it, and you cut the hours of 1000 employees enough to reduce productivity to where profit is affected, it will make economic sense to hire more workers. It probably does on a macro scale anyway – as Paul Krugman and other non-Friedmanesque economists keep saying, it’s demand, stupid. No demand, no need for supply to keep up. No money, no demand…why is this hard?

I was wandering through various interweb sites this morning and discovered a number of things at places I don’t always visit. Probably the best way to be exposed to new thought and new thinking is to just go out and look. I recommend Twitter for that – follow some of the links that are twittered and be prepared to be amazed, enlightened and generally entertained.

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One of the Malcontents, affiliated with the Defeatists, is a Ron Paul person. Now, his reasoning is based not on economics, where he’s kind of a leveler, but on the legalization of drugs, and Paul’s incredible adherence to George Washington’s idea of foreign policy of non-intervention. So he wasn’t happy about the Maine results. I took a look at the figures from Maine, and wonder why we give a rat’s ass about a 5000 wingnut straw poll in our little corner of Labrador. However, HuffPo then made it interesting…The Paul Campaign still thinks it won, and not with their stay there and get made a delegate strategy discussed the other night on the Maddow show. For a cabal, the Paul Campaign is very open about what it’s doing. Now, while there has been a lot of wonderment as to what the hell Ron Paul wants since he can’t possibly win the nomination because he can’t possibly win the nomination, because, well he can’t so there! So, the Romney Cabal (which is a cabal) decides to cheat and convinces the Republican Party in Maine 50delay counting caucuses in certain strong Paul areas because of snow…UP TO 3 INCHES!! Forecast. SNOWPOCALYPSE…the way these caucus states are acting is amazing. People in Maine wander around in wife-beaters and bikini bottoms when all they have to worry about is 3 inches of snow. I’m from Syracuse, and we didn’t bother about snow until there was at least six inches down…So, now the Republicans have given Ron Paul something to really want – to screw Mitt Romney. REVENGE. They’ve made it look like to the Tea Party like the party is still the establishment doing the same old stuff – Third Party Run anyone? Brokered convention? Picture a Santorum-Cantor ticket? Palin-Bush?

CPAC’s straw poll was equally silly and more obviously rigged. Romney generated not enthusiasm but an enthusiasm sink. Not so with Santorum – and yet, he didn’t win. There’s a feeling loudly expressed that Romney’s backers stole the damn thing to avoid the brokered convention. Well, maybe so, but the head of CPAC was gloating about the possibility, of a Chris Christy-Mike Huckabee-Mitch Daniels-Scott Walker-Rick Scott , mud wrestling match. Frankly, if you want to actually look at the numbers from both, the three-four-eight headed goon who is not Mitt Romney won CPAC too. Palin is bitch-slapping Romney and that has got to hurt with the true Tea Party believers.

Now, speaking of Rick “Jiffy Lube” Santorum, I’ve always disliked the guy. Didn’t like him when he was in the news as part of the Gingrich-DeLay leadership; thought he was a buffoon as a Senator and definitely a one-trick pony. I thought he was a one-trick pony, and since he was a total loon about his one issue, he was a complete loser. Then, somehow, we started this Personhood thing followed by the attack on contraception. We need more white babies…what the fuck? Civilization will end because there aren’t enough peasants tossing their gold earrings and wedding bands and widow’s mite in the collection basket at your local intolerance emporium? So, dislike of Romney coupled with sober reflection on the viability of Newt Gingrich and voila! Rick Santorum wins three states. What the hell is wrong with these people?

Well, Vice Magazine nailed the reasons why this dweeb was both popular at CPAC and why he resonates with Republicans . Compared to Robotman, Troll Doll and the Crazy Old Uncle with the Tin Foil Nightcap, Santorum seems normal.

It’s easy to be the high-minded guy when nobody contradicts you.

Rick’s got a lot of things to recommend him. Liberals mainly know him as the feces-and-ass-lube guy, who brought his dead baby home for a sleepover, dresses his daughter in clothing that matches dolls and has a son who looks like he’ll go on to a fine career of standing in the azaleas in people’s front yards and determinedly masturbating. But while Newt plays well to the paranoid, victimized poor GOP, and Mitt does great numbers among the wealthy, Rick’s culture-war populism is appealing to rich and poor alike, as long as they hate gays and Iran.

His rhetoric is all vapor, but it’s spiritually comforting vapor. Santorum seems to think him being elected president would reverse everything that makes China preferable to America for manufacturers, some Americastantiation whereby waving hands in front of factories and muttering incantations will bring back people with metal lunchpails who are still solidly middle class. By his will alone, caring about America will erase the advantages China has in paying workers shit and treating their immediate environment like an open-air sewer and chemical dump.

He sounds smart, too. While it’s tempting to write off Santorum because he’d happily criminalize birth-control pills and onanism, he does his foreign-policy reading. It’s just that, like a bad student or a less donnish Niall Ferguson, he’s managed to study all sides of the issue in order to be wrong about it.

Now, the reason I write for Veterans Today can be summed up in two words – Gordon Duff. Gordon is the creative fount there, and when I inquired about possibly writing, he let me. We don’t agree about a lot of things, except that everything is going to hell and we have a duty as Veterans and as Human Beings to do something about it. Gordon is either more cynical or less naïve than I am and hasn’t met a left-libertarian conspiracy theory he doesn’t at least consider. On the other hand, he’s been around that particular geo-political rodeo for decades and knows a lot of people and a lot of things.

Over the years, people who are “officially credible,” have, under equally official “deniability” informed me that much of this is true. The rationale for such admissions was for me to admire how much the criminal ruling element trusted their discretion and how totally uncredible I must be or I wouldn’t be told such things.

 

He’s an expert on Southwest Asia and Middle East. His opinions may be starkly different from what you might believe, but that’s ok. He finds it ok that you disagree.

Unlike clowns who just rant and rave, Gordon engages in dialogue with his critics and commentators. I consider his work interesting, provocative and worthy of consideration – I still don’t think the Mossad, for example, was likely behind 9/11 because the Cost/Benefit Analysis doesn’t make any sense. But, the idea of false flags in the mid-east to provide cover for an attack on Iran seems reasonable and probably likely. It’s probably not Mossad running that ball but the political right pushing it. The Technocrats in Mossad can do the math as well as you or I, and have trouble finding the upside. But the true believers…wow. The upside is the return of the Messiah or the Rapture caused by the Return of the Messiah or Armageddon or the 12^th Iman…all we need is a war to get that to happen. Idiots…and, Gordon makes that point. He’s proposing a very radical re-thinking of both policy and politics, both globally and back home. Well, we sure as hell need something different, and what he proposes, a non-ideological, rational approach based on national interests and stated American values to achieve a better world is attractive. Gordon claims to be a “Republican” insider, but his Republican party isn’t the current version – he’s not a Democrat either. He’s a pretty focused “My Country right or wrong and if it’s not right, I die trying to fix it!” kind of guy.

So, Gordon’ piece today was very provocative. I think it’s really worth considering, and if someone wanted to they could develop a pretty good foreign policy from it. Certainly if half of what he discusses or recommends could be implemented, we’d see a radically different and probably safer world. For example:

On Pakistan: It is possible for the US to leave Afghanistan and have a new election with a candidate acceptable to the Taliban, a much smaller group that we are told (America tends to lie a lot), along with other groups including the northern tribes. We can cut a deal with Pakistan that would democratize that country more under Imran Khan and establish broad trade rather than warfare with Afghanistan, end terrorism in both and, this is the bad part, stop the $80 billion in drugs being sent around the world. This is where it is sticky. I know Imran Khan well and that he and President Obama will do much better together than many believe.  Khan has at least 75 IQ points on the last Pakistani leader and takes nothing from anyone.  He is the only person in Pakistan that Afghanistan can or will work with. AXE Comment: Most Americans have no idea who Imran Khan is which is sad, since he’s an actual intelligent and politically powerful guy in Pakistan who’s not afraid of anything and is articulate, intelligently nationalistic (the two characteristics are not mutually exclusive) and capable of accomplishing a lot. However, he said things that were viewed as anti-American after the assassination of bin Laden. So, any effort to team with him will invite character assassination from the Republicans. However, I personally think Obama could handle it. He arranged for the killing of bin Laden (although Gordon believe ObL was a CIA agent, a dupe, a false flag and killed years ago in the Bush Administration and kept on ice until needed. As I say, we disagree about some things.) and could do the necessary chest thumping. Possible, especially since the Republican noise machine has lost credibility on confusing the public between our President and Satan.

 

On India:  I am theoretically an expert on the region and can’t say this clearly enough…there has to be a settlement over Kashmir, a regional trade zone, and stability from China to Nigeria.Picture the huge arc across the map.  The whole area could explode and the US is not going to be able to do much about it, not with 11 carrier battle groups and shiploads of counterfeit money.The GOP has presented NO candidate with any capability and Obama, if he is re-elected, as it seems now (some skulduggery here, if you haven’t noticed), he has to “grow a pair.” AXE Comment: I’m not an expert but the history of the region points to something different as a solution than whatever the hell it is we’ve got going on there. The idea of open borders, an independent Kashmir in a regional free trade zone between China-India-Kashmir-Pakistan-Afghanistan has appeal economically. Think of it as a NAFTA in Asia. However, the economies China and India will be drivers, and I’m not sure what’s in it for them. It could turn into the Asian version of the Euro crisis. Still, worth trying. If Iran and Iraq were included ultimately, you’d be looking at a powerhouse. Probably practically impossible on the grand scale, but worth considering.

 

Israel and Palestine. Then again, we can always return to the “third rail” of all time.  America’s biggest nuclear danger comes from India and Israel, not Iran or China. It is time that, first Israel is “de-nuclearized.” If Israel has security issues, simply put in three American bases and nobody can ever attack. Read that one again. Nobody can attack any nation with an American base as that is considered a declaration of war against the United States.  That’s why Iraq is making serious errors if it every throws America out.  That’s why Turkey is so brilliant, with two large American air bases. This is why Israel is so stupid, playing victim, begging money, and now broke and hated. AXE Comment: I’ve seen this before, first time in a Harold Coyle book where I recall one or two of the existing Cavalry Regiments were deployed there under a UN mandate. I also recently head Zbignew Brezinski suggest something very similar as a response to the Iran-Isreal kurfluffle. The de-nuclearization of Israel strikes me a probably not a doable deal, but no reason not to try. If nothing else, put their weapons under US custodial responsibility. It would probably be cheaper than billeting units in Germany, and would be a strong counterpoint to chaos in the region.

 

George Will adds an interesting counterpoint to this. While Gordon is too cantankerous to be a real Republican insider (as well as too principled and too honest), George Will should be the Republican Party Ideologue on that Cabal’s Politburo. He’s not – he’s too smart. Anyone who can sum football up by describing it exemplifying the worst aspect of American life – violence interrupted by meetings – is entirely too smart and perceptive to be truly be an ideologue. He’s not happy with the Republican field – hell, I’m not happy with the Republican field, I suspect Barrack Obama thinking as a patriot as opposed to politician is not happy with the Republican field. And, he’s really disturbed with the Romney Republican foreign policy. Will writes:

 

Through 11 presidential elections, beginning with the Democrats’ nomination of George McGovern in 1972, Republicans have enjoyed a presumption of superiority regarding national security. This year, however, events and their rhetoric are dissipating their advantage. Hours — not months, not weeks, hours — after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, vicious political factionalism and sectarian violence intensified. Many Republicans say President Obama’s withdrawal — accompanied by his administration’s foolish praise of Iraq’s “stability” — has jeopardized what has been achieved there. But if it cannot survive a sunrise without fraying, how much of an achievement was it?

Few things so embitter a nation as squandered valor, hence Americans, with much valor spent there, want Iraq to master its fissures. But with America in the second decade of its longest war, the probable Republican nominee is promising to extend it indefinitely.

Mitt Romney opposes negotiations with the Taliban while they “are killing our soldiers.” Which means: No negotiations until the war ends, when there will be nothing about which to negotiate…Since 2001, the United States has waged war in three nations, and some Republicans appear ready to bring the total to five, adding Iran and Syria. (The Weekly Standard, of neoconservative bent, regrets that Obama “is reluctant to intervene to oust Iran’s closest ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”) GOP critics say Obama’s proposed defense cuts will limit America’s ability to engage in troop-intensive nation-building. Most Americans probably say: Good.

In Gordon’s piece, he equates neoconservatism with communism. I don’t see the ideological match, but Will is at least as opposed to the neo-cons as Gordon, and perhaps even more. Will’s column is something I’m liking on Facebook and Twittering, which is not the sort of thing my friends are used to. It’s worth reading and it happens to be something where I find myself absolutely in agreement with Will.

On an utterly unrelated note, except it is, I have taken to following @Philo_Quotes on Twitter. There are so many gems there that make me reconsider my own philosophical journey. I’d like to see more Kierkegaard and Camus and perhaps less Senaca and Montesquieu, but the mix is kind of interesting. Lots of philosophers really come off well in aphorisms – the meat of their argument is best presented that way. Technical philosophers obsessed with method need to be able to see that and scholars need it – human beings as human beings wondering about philosophical questions don’t. Here are a few from the last few days that I think deserve reading and consideration.

Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies. ~ Schopenhauer (Comment: No argument here, but worth considering, especially on the part of those who think women in combat related positions will weaken units. Nurturers are stone killers when those they want to protect are in danger.)

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws. ~ Montesquieu (WAR On DRUGS? The Catholic Church’s position on priestly celibacy? Or birth control. Or homosexuality. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Catalog of really stupid institutional or government nonsense. It’s hard to credit the magisterial prowess and right of an institution that does such stupid stuff. The drug was has incarcerated people for nothing except puritanical stupidity.)

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. ~ Wittgenstein (W is talking about language but it’s a reflection also on ethics and on metaphysics. If a space alien arrives, we’re not going to be able to communicate; nor, for that matter, can we really communicate with those who have totally different realities…which dooms things like Afghanistan.)

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one. ~ Marcus Aurelius (Aurelius spent his life being the good man while working at being an emperor. Worth considering as a role.

Wit is educated insolence. ~ Aristotle (Yeah. You gotta problem with that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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