How A Few Marylanders Changed the Course of History

The Lesson of 265 Brave Marylanders for Us All!

Being a bit of an amateur historian, I thought I would write this arcane bit of history up as best I can and send it along to my online friends as a reminder that history is being written every day and that we can never afford to take anything for granted especially in the wake of 9/11.

This is a true tale documented in research and recorded on a small plaque at the VFW hall in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Were it not for that small sign, I would never have checked this story out!....However, I think is important to know because at a time of great division and misunderstanding that we face now, it is a lesson about the courage and selflessness of others at times of great need.
I hope you enjoy it.


Historically, it has to do with the first time that the Continentals faced the full might of the British forces. And that was during what was to become known as the Battle of Brooklyn. Even today, the Stone House where General Washington had his headquarters still stands and there is a plaque that signifies its role in the history of this country and another at the VFW Hall on ninth street and sixth avenue that pays tribute to the Marylanders that is so small and obscure, it would be hardly noticed by anyone unless you look for it. However, if you stand at the highest spot along the spine of Brooklyn, the Terminal Moraine in Sunset Park, and you look west towards the East River, you might be able to imagine this whole scene being replayed in your mind’s eye.

The story begins on August 22, 1776 where General Howe deciding not to take on the Americans where they were strongest, moved 88 of his frigates through the Narrows to Graves End from Staten Island where 15,000 English and German troops were to debark for what was to become the Battle of Brooklyn.

At the time, George Washington had fielded his troops on both sides of the East River and throughout Manhattan in expectation of an attack by the British. What is now referred to as the Battery, was really a location for the canons that were positioned to take on the British troops.

To put things into some kind of narrative perspective, at the time the Continentals under George Washington were a rag-tag army. America had no navy. We had no experience with heavy weaponry and we fired muskets that needed to be laboriously reloaded. We were not experienced in close order drills or the elaborate military tactics of the English. It helps to also remember that the British were victorious all over the world and had never lost a major battle to any power.

At the same time, many American merchants and businesspeople supported the English and thought that things would return to normal once this little disagreement between England and its colony was settled.

What the Americans awoke to discover was the biggest Armada ever fielded by the English at the mouth of New York harbor. King George had sworn that this insurrection would be put down and if he could not raise sufficient numbers of troops , he would hire German mercenaries. Not only were the English there in force, their troops were supplemented by the German troops that George had promised.

It was this declaration by George the III that spawned the writing of the Declaration of Independence. And as it turned out, this was the first theatre of war after its signing.

When the Americans saw the Germans landing, it changed their whole perspective. All of a sudden, it was brought home to Americans that this was not just a Colony being brought to kneel before it’s masters but in truth a foreign invasion.

Unfortunately, because of the colonists lack of training in warfare, General Howe, who led the Expedition, realized that our guns were pointed in the wrong direction to do any serious damage. And that Washington had divided his troops. Both of these maneuvers had played into the hands of the English.

The only thing that was really on the side of the Continentals was the traditional Brooklyn weather in the month of August..

With the Narrows running rough and the winds strong, the British decided to
Land in Staten Island in order to regroup their forces and plan their strategy.
Howe, recognizing that it made little sense to attack the Americans head on, decided to do an end run and head east and then north and then back again to where the Heights were.

In Brooklyn, the high ground constituted a spine that ran almost parallel to the East River and then east. This long gradual slope moved west down to the waterfront.

It was the British strategy to move the Hessians up from around Coney Island and the rest of the forces north and then west to trap George Washington’s forces.

Washington recognized at almost the last minute that by separating his troops, he had placed himself in a dangerous position.

It could well be that at this vital time at the very beginning, the entire Continental Army would be destroyed and the move for Independence lost. If this had happened, there would be no no democracy and no America. We stood at a watershed and what happened now would determine the fate of the country.

Fortunately, the forces of General Howe were held up by typical Brooklyn August weather which consisted of almost torrential rain and high winds and fog that made it almost impossible to make much progress of any kind or even to keep informed of what was happening in the battle shaping up..

Delawareans and Marylanders under the command of William Smallwood supplemented by Hazlet’s regiment of Delawareans under the command of William Alexander protected General Washington flanks in an area known as the Heights which commanded the slopes leading down to the East River facing Manhattan.

As the events of that day played out, it became increasingly clear that the heroes of the Battle of Brooklyn were these volunteers, the Delawareans and the Marylanders. .

The upcoming battle placed the Scottish 42nd Black Watch and the British grenadier comprising more than 5,000 men against the 1700 men under the command of General Wm. Alexander. They gathered to die on that day, and die they did for home and country. ..

As the battle labored on, and the Americans fought bravely, it was realized they were no match for the superior numbers and training of the English.
Alexander realized that he needed to execute a withdrawal if the Continental Army was to survive to fight another day.
.
To ensure an orderly retreat, 265 Marylanders agreed to volunteer to not only hold the Heights, but to counter-attack under the hero Mordecai Gist. Gist counter-attacked and nearly drove through the British lines repeatedly..

After ordering the sixth counter-attack, Alexander realized that the British were being re-supplied with fresh troops. Over 256 Marylanders died that day. And only 9 survived including Mordecai Gist. They are buried today in unmarked graves in Brooklyn near the Heights where they were encamped.


Washington’s Army faced deadly peril in trying to evacuate before the British realized what happened. But the gods favored the Continentals. At that precise time, the rains started to fall and the winds began to blow. John Glover and the Brigade he controlled known as the “Marbleheaders” along with the Massachusetts’ 27th Regiment organized and managed the evacuation that night in the face of hard driving rains and strong winds that blinded the British to what was actually taking place..

In the morning, much to the chagrin of the English, it was clear that Washington had escaped the British trap. Were it not for the courage of the Delawareans and especially the Marylander volunteers who gave their lives to slow down the advance of the British, things might be considerably different and in fact we might be still living as a British Colony.

It helps to remember these things when we find ourselves so deeply divided over issues that cannot compare to the watershed events of the Battle of Brooklyn where were it not for the courage of a handful of men who were dedicated and committed to noble ideals of freedom and democracy, America might have only been a footnote in history and the world would be considerably different place.


Les Aaron

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Between a Rock and a Hard Place…

In fourteen months time, we’ll be having the mid-term elections.

That doesn’t allow much time for changing minds.

But if we don’t start working now, the line-up could conceivably stay the same. That means our candidate, whomever he or she may be, will face a hostile Congress.

That’s like trying to run a race with one leg tied.

So, if we plan to win, we also need to plan to lead. And we can’t do that with a Congress dominated by a truculent and belligerent Congress. If you have any doubts of that, think back to what Clinton had to confront when he wanted to go in to Bosnia and the difficulties he faced in trying to get rid of bin Laden.

The next president will have so much on his plate that without the full consent of Congress it will be virtually impossible to role back the disastrous policies of his predecessor. And if we don’t role back all of the damaging legislation, we will not control a debt spinning out of control or the imbalance of trade that is currently being swept under the rug with disastrous consequences.

That is why we cannot afford to waste this opportunity to identify good candidates and start building a groundswell of support now. Our focus must be on upsetting the status quo using whatever means are within our power. Without becoming an inexorable force, it will be impossible to restore sanity to a government that has lost its grip on reality and has forgotten what the words physical prudence means.

Can that happen?

Well, it depends on who you talk to. But one prophet says that anywhere from 1 to 435 seats are up for grabs. And maybe that’s a good way to look at it. While the numbers will get more refined as we go forward, we should think that all of the seats are winnable unless proven otherwise.

The good news is that the prospects for change are probably better than they have been for a long time. And that’s because democrats are top-heavy at the State and city level. And we can expect a lot of good candidates to emerge from that mix. On top of that, there is another operative force oftentimes referred to as the ‘grass-roots.” And it is suspected that this is where any future change is going to come from.

If the ‘grass-roots’ rises to the occasion—and they might if the democratic party continues to act as a power vacuum—and if the present inventory of state and city officials who consider themselves democrats decide to make a run for nationwide office, we can expect to see some interesting fireworks.

It may be too early to speculate now, but if change is in the air, I think the pundits are right, it will come from the bottom, not the top. And that just may be good for America.

Les Aaron

Alphabet Soup

SATIRE:

The Real World Behind the Initials

By Les Aaron

The heads of the ITDPF delivered a call to the OCCBT, “Charlie, it’s me, Fred. Better get Barney on the phone. Something urgent has come up.”

“What’s up, Charlie?”

“The jig may be up. When you get Barney on, I’ll explain.”

“Hang on.”

“Barney here. What’s doing, Charlie?”

“We have Fred on the other line, Barnie.”

“What happened?”

“Barnie, it looks like we may all be in hot water.”

“Why do you say that, Fred?”

“During the hearings for 911 the other day, Janet Reno was being questioned.”

“Okay.”

“And she was being asked about her meetings with us…”

“Oh, oh.”

“And one of the commissioners asked her to explain…”

“Oh my God.”

“Well, Reno looks up with a very befuddled expression and asked anyone if they could help her out here…”

“It came to that?”

“And of course no one could…”

“It came to that did it?”

You know, Barnie, we should have expected that it might happen some day…”

Why?”

“Well, you can only operate in the dark for so long under these obscure initials.”

“but that’s precisely what allows us to operate so long…”

“And that could be good,” chimes in Charlie.

“Why?”

“Because nobody knows what to ask us…”

“That’s our strength.”

“Yes, you could look at it that way. And we’d be fools
not to recognize that.”

“Right you are.”

“There is a real danger, however, that we may all face now.”

“And, pray tell, Fred, what might that be?”

“Somebody might figure out what our obscure initials stand for.”

“Little chance of that I would think.”

“How can you say that?”

“Well, they are not used or published anywhere in the government or Agency records. We’ve seen to that.”

“And a good move it was.”

“But just the same, they might try to puzzle it out.”

“Well (wink! Wink!) we should be able to worm our way out of that one…
Wouldn’t you say, boys? “

“But what if they persist?”

“We could always refer them to a sister agency.”

“And how will that help?”

“We can assume that our sister agency will refer them to another sister agency and by the time they’ve worked their way half-way through the loop, they will have forgotten why they wanted to speak to us in the first place…”

“Very Kafkaesque…. Yes, you can see the castle but you can never get there. Don’t you know?”

“And by that time, we’ll have our own program of disinformation in place.”

“Like what?”

“Well, this is good. I’ve never talked about it before…”

“And that is?”

“What if we traded on initial each…Say for example,
I trade you say the “I” from “IDTPF” for your “O”.
In “OCCBT”….So now I would become ODTPF and you would become ICCBT.

“Wow…”

“Fred, you’re a genius, man.”

“It would take them another twenty years to realize that we are the same agency.”

“Yes, we could go on that way anonymously forever theoretically. How did you think this one up?”

“Well, gentlemen, in twenty years I’ve run the IDTPF nobody has ever sent me a memo, asked me a question, or even remembered my name. You don’t get power like that in Washington being an amateur, my man. Do you?”

“I would guess not.”

“Hey, just for the heck of it.”

Go ahead Charlie.”

“It just might be fun to sit down together and talk about what we really do.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Make it kind of a board game….you know, just so we get to know each other a little better.”

“You’re kidding of course.”

“Of course.”

“Because you know that just might throw us off our game.”

“And can’t have that can we.”

“No, I guess we can’t.”

“It would definitely erode our shield of invisibility.”

“But it would be nice to see each of you in person some time, some place.”

“Get off it, Barney. Why ruin a good thing.”

“Yeah, Barney, you’re being to sound like an old-fashioned romantic….
Next thing you know, you’ll be asking our real names…”

“No, can’t have that, old chap.”

“Sorry, I guess I just got carried away.”

“No problem. We all have our moments…”

“Well, gentlemen, it was a pleasure chatting. Must get back to what I do best.”

“And that is…”

“Nothing, old sod. Nothing.”

Charlie, Barney and Fred cracked up at their own wittiness and the line went dead.


Author: Les Aaron

War Trumps Peace

WAR TRUMPS PEACE




It is very hard not to believe that there isn’t embedded in our point of view the belief that there is no profit in peace. Why else would we tend to jump into wars using our young people as cannon fodder without trying to navigate and negotiate the issues first.

They are many people in high places whose financial futures are dictated by war and its practice. Don’t believe that? Just ask yourself on what type of company sits John Major, George Bush Sr, Howard Baker (Reagan’s right hand man), Carlucci, National Security Adviser for Ronald Reagan, and shortly, the prime minister of England. It’s called the Carlyle Group and it racks in money by the bucketful doing among other things buying and selling military contractors. The process goes something like this: They buy military contractors who do not have a contract and, amazingly, after they buy them they wind up with a contract. Then they sell them for a hefty profit. Isn’t that an amazing feat? And they don’t even have to ante up their own money. The Saudi princes who sit on the Board, too, take care of all that.

How can any of these people operate to achieve peace in the world when the rest of us know that they profit on the sale of military hardware and armaments?. Isn’t there something amazingly inconsistent about sitting on a board that makes profits on war while they are charged with legislating the peace?

. But that is only the icing on the cake. Look at the stock market and the stocks that seem to be doing well. Most, tend to be concerned in one way or another with military hardware or the housing market.

Why is the military market looking so strong?

One reason, we’re paying 200 million dollars per Raptor, a 135% increase over the price they were sold at. Why? There’s no competition. Many of the former military subcontractors have been merged, or absorbed and so there are fewer companies out there who build these complex military systems. And so the price goes up. Less competition leads to higher prices.

But that’s only a small part of the story. While we are spending more than 400 billion dollars on open allocations to support the military, that doesn’t include what’s being invested in secret operations like the CIA, NASA or other clandestine operations who hire literally hundreds of thousands of people who labor away at things that are excluded from tax-payers’ knowledge. And we are purported to be a free and open society. Imagine if we were “closed” society.

Nor does it include the anti-missile system that’s been in the works since Reagan’s day and still doesn’t work although they expect to invest more than $264 billion in developing the system anyway. Can you imagine any other kind of enterprise investing more and more money in a system that hasn’t worked and no one believes will work year after year? Only in America.

Contrast those kind of potential profits to hardware manufacturers, distributors and others in the channel—including lobbyists, public relations people, advertising agencies, think tanks and others with an axe to grind—with the potential for profit in peace and its hard to see how we can ‘afford’ peace.

But here’s the irony.

There’s a vast body of untapped potential in peace industries. Like cleaning up the environment, finding new technologies that are recyclable, that contribute to clean air and water, that improve health and longevity--processes that eliminate toxins and employ new thinking to eliminate waste and restore the natural balance of things that clearly dwarf the profits to the arms manufacturers of today. . Yet, we’ve not yet even tapped into their potential. It is to Al Gore’s enduring credit that he shone a spotlight on these promising areas for development. Still, nobody is doing anything to see these needed industries develop? Why? They for the most part, conflict with those who profit from the status quo.

There are two facts to consider here: The rich are close to the source of authority and power; and there is a strong amount of inertia here that suggests that those closest to the source of power have no reason or incentive to change what they are doing now. And therein lies the conundrum.

Clearly, if we are ever going to change things, we need to change the power structure. We need to move the war-mongers out and the peace-niks in.

This will happen in time when the fish run out, when the job market is paralyzed, when everything we buy that is tangible comes from China; and every new idea is turned into cash in South Asia.

And until we can figure a way to do that, whatever administration that is in office, will continue to benefit from war while the rest in their mistaken patriotism, give the only thing they can give: the flower of this once great country.

What the solution should be should be driving this country til the election. If not, if we don’t get serious, if we leave the heavy-lifting to one percent of the population, we are doomed to the scrape heap of history as a country that saw in its power only the exercise of more power.

Les Aaron

We Hold the Advantage; Yet We Are Not Using It!

In the last several conversations I've heard on NPR and other venues, I was absolutely astounded to learn that the Democratic Party knows that it needs to change and is looking to the “grass-roots” as a guide to the way it should reorganize.

Hold on a minute. Why didn’t anyone tell us? Most of us didn’t realize that we possessed the "power. "

I don’t know about you but the rank and file, the entrenched membership of the Party do not seem to happy to cede power to guys like us. But, you know, tough! Perception is 99% of the battle!

The big guys seem to think that we are the future. And you know what, they are right!....But here’s the key: They hold the perception that we are the future. And we’d be damn fools not to use that perception to shape a new Party, a party that shows some inner strength and does not resemble a jello mold.

Much of the perceived influence evolved and was shaped prior to the last Primaries when Howard Dean was able to mobilize a force that up to that point was never acknowledged for the sheer weight of numbers it could bring to the liberal/progressive argument or its capacity for raising huge amounts of money.

Dean showed what could be done leveraging the Internet to create ‘Meet-Ups” that gave him a virtual army of volunteers numbering into the hundreds of thousands. At one point, we had more than 650,000 volunteers committed to the election of Howard Dean. And as a result of the internet, we held outside meetings, raised funds, organized parties, got out the volunteers, organized telephone banks and posted signs. We attended parades, fund-raisers and spread out to involve others who stood on the fringes but realized that they didn't like what was happening in this country.

The fact that we didn't make it in Iowa did not cause us to go away. Many of us formed grass-roots organizations linked via the Internet with weekly phone-ins and others actually began the process of running for office.

In short, while the rest of the Party looked like they were on sleep medication, we were doing something. Perhaps that's why we are thought of today as the ‘movers’ and the ‘shakers’ of the democratic party.

But at the same time there is a problem we face. The trouble is that many of us are not moving that advantage forward. We are not acting as if we hold the future in our hands. We have not connected with our local parties or tried to organize at the local level. With the loss of Dean on a day to day basis, we seemed to have lost some of our inertia in many parts of the country.

We need to leverage our ‘strengths.’ We need to take the bull by the horns and believe in ourselves. We have to believe that we are perceived as the power holders in the party, the minority that can make a difference. And, believe me, as an attendee at many democratic functions throughout the state, our contribution is sorely missed inasmuch as democratic politics is proceeding in the same slow pathetic way it did for the last fifty years, virtually unchanged by real world events and that dooms us to perdition for another four years. But that doesn’t have to happen if we grass-roots people, the so-called "radicals," lefties, progressive liberal types of the past start finding our common ground and start pulling our weight at the Party level.

Remember, perception is 99% of the battle and we already have it. It's time to find like minded souls in our areas and branch out. We need to pinpoint those who are fed up with the inertia we have had to endure for eight years and recognize that we need to start making a difference now. The clock is running out; the competition, the Repugs have had thirty five years to practice their form of media assasination and persuasion. If we don't act now, the question is when:?

Yet, never has an opposition party had more issues to use for ammunition. Never before have we had a better opportunity to toss out the baggage that can’t see beyond wars and self-interest.

Nevertheless, this has not translated into a benefit at the polls; and the existing Democratic structure has failed to capitalize on its advantages.

Clearly, if there is going to be change, it is going to come from the “grass roots;” and that means us. So, in addition to sending emails, we need to get out there and beat the bushes (literally, I hope). We need to band together, gather converts and change the party dynamics that is mired in apathy and blind to reality.

This forum needs to be open for debate.

Les Aaron

The Theraflop Threat

The Theraflop Threat

les aaron

When I first journeyed back to the US from Japan after touring the country in the early sixties, I warned my friends and associates about the potential economic threat we faced. When the laughter subsided, these folks pointed to the array of flimsy, cheap plastic products identified with Japan that graced their desks and looked querrilously at me as if I had lost my marbles.

They had not seen the latest Akai recorders, the Sony twelve transistor radios, the Canon 35 mm. cameras or any of the other quality products that were either on the drawing board or the fast track to production.

In retrospect, that may now seem like ancient history, and we’ve hopefully learned the lesson of taking our competition for granted.

Or have we?

Today, I find myself experiencing pangs of deja-vu every time I think of China as the new Japan, a modern day version with even more clout!. And I cannot help but believe that can’t appreciate how far they’ve come in such a short time or how committed they are to becoming the world’s economic powerhouse..

Let me cite one simple example. In my regular travels through Kowloon to the New Territories, a land bridge that separates mainland China from Hong Kong, I would pass one area that was largely allocated to rice cultivation. Today, on that precise place stands a city of more than one million housed in dozens of skyscrapers that supports a bustling infrastructure. All, constructed from scratch in under ten years.

How many cities of one million plus has America built in under ten years?

In comparison, consider that America has nine cities of one million or more. China, today, has 121 such cities. If that isn’t impressive enough, in addition to its 121 major cities, China has vest pocket cities that are committed to making specific products. For example, there are cities of 50,000 or so people that do nothing but make pocket books; another that makes socks—yes, believe it or not, an entire city that makes socks of every size and description. And the inhabitants work for pennies on the dollar. How can you compete with that kind of economic juggernaut?.

But it doesn’t just stop with cheap manufactured goods, today, China is on a roll.

Consider computers: Today, China is getting ready to break the petaflop barrier.

What’s that?

The petaflop is a measure of computing performance that describes the ability to perform 1,000 trillion mathematic operations a second. That’s eight times the speed of the fastest computer ever built! Right now, the best America seems able to do is about one-tenth of that although we are committing more resources to the challenge.

What’s more, of the 500 fastest computers in the world, China presently has 19. And, today, this country only a generation ago was known for tee shirts, bowls and garden tools, is preparing to catch up and perhaps lead the world in computers, perhaps besting names like Cray, IBM and Sun Microsystems..

What does that mean?

It means we can longer take China for granted. Or they are going to eat our lunch.

They already have a trillion dollar surplus of US dollars gained by stunning trade imbalances with the US. And they are crafting alliances left and right with all of our former allies for raw materials and manufactured goods.

Unfortunately, with the distraction of Iraq, little of what is really happening in the world trickles down to us. But the truth is that China is a force to be reckoned with.
Consider this story: Up til now, the leader in custom yacht building has been Korea. Korea builds more yachts than any other country in the world. But when they learned that the Chinese had set their sights on yacht building, they immediately changed their business model. The reason: The Koreans know that once the Chinese sink their teeth into a market, they drive out all competition. That may be something to think about when the reality sinks in.

In the meantime, it seems that our government continues to turn a blind eye to the Chinese Juggernaut imagining that it doesn’t represent a threat to our economic stability and that is a bit of naivete we can ill afford.

Les Aaron-

The Armchair Curmudgeon

I invite you to visit Superblog: http://lesaaron.blogspot.com

Political Hide and Seek

“Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Truth to tell, we know what’s the problem is but we’re practicing denial. The whole country is out to lunch. Why do I say that? We’ve been operating with half a government and the people don't complain. In fact, they don’t complain about anything. And if that doesn’t make you scratch your head, what does?

Thirty years ago, people would have skinned your hide if said or did anything politically incorrect. There were lawsuits filed up the yin-yang for just about any kind of violation of anyone’s rights you could think of.

Need a yardstick for comparison. Case in point: In the sixties, when IBM tried to work a deal out with Hartford's government to put registration info on the computer, the public outcry was deafening.

Why?

At stake was the battle for privacy.

But today the stakes are even higher. We have seen government troops posted on American land in opposition to the law. (See Posse Comitatus) . We have seen people put on ice in violation of habeas corpus. We have seen people denied access to their lawyers. We have seen people’s personal records violated without a court order. In effect, there is no comparison with what IBM tried to do; yet, nobody speaks up.

Admittedly, we have experienced a reign of terrorism. And it might be suggested that the people if given the choice would rather give up certain rights in return for protection. But if that’s the case, why aren’t they speaking up about the failures in providing adequate protection for the American people? And that will be an issue that will resonate with us for years down the pike.

But our defense of our issues was longstanding; it was not an exception. And in the past, we as Americans defended our right to speak up on the issues, whether right or wrong.

We saw the public protecting its privacy or standing up for the issues it believed in time and time again right through the administration of Bill Clinton. The attacks on Clinton helped further exacerbate the relationships between people whose views became polarized.

But, curiously, afterward, despite a raft of policies, most of which were not designed for the average citizen, there has been little discussion or outcry. How can that be? Sociologists have to be puzzled by the vacuum that seems to exist. One might hypothesize: Is there really a silent majority?

Or are the people to whipped trying to keep their families and lives together at a time of falling wages and falling expectations? Or is it that TV has contributed along with computer games and other distractions to keep people from thinking about government and its role in their lives?

Most assuredly, this debate will go on indefinitely as kind of a watershed in American politics. In effect, with more than half of the population claiming to be Democratic or Independent, many of the current issues have to be incendiary to most people. Yet, the scarcity of voices on virtually any subject beyond the war is mind-numbing at best especially when contrasted to the activism of the past.

One answer might be that the overwhelming majority of people don't know what to believe. That might happen at a time when the voices emanating from all of the cable show's are very hard edged, very subjective. And for the most part, the mainstream media has avoided asking the hard questions. Most certainly, in any attempt to gauge public reaction, the media must be deemed to play a pivotal role. And in this case, the media is under the gun.

By highlighting their own differences with the Administration, the media stands to undergo critical scrutiny by the powers that be that could affect everything from "access" to tax issues. For the most part, there is little advantage to playing that game especially when the government has been so cooperative in assuring that the few superpowers in media will be allowed to continue their acquisition of new media outlets despite the fact that all they are doing is denying a diverse viewpoint to the people.

The long and short of it is that the public is faced with fewer choices when it comes to getting its information and already most of the US claims to get its news from the major networks. That means a meager diet of one half hour a day once a day. And of that half hour, less than fifteen minutes constitutes real and tangible news. That's pitiful compared to the rest of the world. And the fact that for the most part, America does a poor job of covering what's happening through-out the world.

Contrast this with the earlier part of the twentieth century when people in a single city like New York had access to more than two hundred newspapers each offering a different point of view and magazines of every description plus commentators and reporters of note who voiced their own views not to accommodate any Czar who controlled content as we find today.

Added to the diminished streams of independent reporting, there seems to be an undercurrent of disinterest and anti-intellectualism in the culture that causes the media to "dumb down" the editorial product and in so doing diminish the quality of the product. Twenty years ago, you would never imagine that some day you would find lurid articles on people and things on the front page of the august New York Times. It just would not happen but the Times understands that its objective ultimately is to sell newspapers so all of the news that's fit to print, their slogan, becomes all of the news that sells newspapers instead, a compromise to profitability.

If the media in general is right, that we are in a dumbed down culture, there is little motivation to change the product since the ultimate litmus test is "viewers." The cable stations like FOX which is known to have a prejudicial and parochial viewpoint does not seem to have suffered for it; it's viewership is up threatening the larger stations and, clearly, Murdoch has gauged the pulse of his viewership correctly!.... Why is viewership important? It determines advertising rates and that correlates with profitability.. In the end, it's about not rocking the boat and revenues. And by underestimating the public's taste for reliable, fact based data, the cable networks and other media superpowers are laughing all the way to the bank.

les aaron

Raptor Fails Rationality Test!

The Raptor Fails the Test of Rationality

Would you pay more than double the original asking price for a fighter that was designed for another age and another type of conflict when you already have a fighter that can’t be compromised that costs about one-quarter of the new one?

That is precisely the situation that the Pentagon buyers found themselves in when they decided that they pushed for a new ‘invisible’ jet called the Raptor.

While the Raptor is a real neat looking plane with built-in stealth, it was designed for a totally different mission than we face today. The decision to go with a new fighter was made in the middle of the Cold War at a time before Russia crumbled. .

The problem is that the nature of conflict has changed. We no longer stand toe to toe against the Russians; instead we are trying to adapt the military to a new type of mission to fight an amorphous enemy who live in caves and call no state their own.

To face off against such an enemy, it pays to consider that the Air Force already has a formidable weapon in its F14 Tomcat, an all purpose fighter built thirty years ago which can still do things that separates it from any competition. The trouble is that the new Raptor costs more than four times what the old Tomcat costs.

Nevertheless, what is mind-boggling is that the Pentagon decided to forge ahead even though there is no application for the F22 and the cost of the plane has skyrocketed. This is instructive to anyone who is trying to understand what the Pentagon is trying to accomplish.

The increase in the cost of the Raptor traces back to the original order for the Raptor which was quoted at $85 million a clip. In the intervening time from the placement of the order to delivery, the cost of the plan went up $115 million to nearly $200 million per plane, something like a 135% increase. As a result, the Pentagon had to drop its purchase order by nearly fifty percent to 300 aircraft.

How could that be? What buying authority would go along with such outrageous up-charges? Here’s the answer: Remember the spate of mergers and acquisitions allowed to go through by the government beginning in the 80’s and carrying through to the 90’s? Well, a lot of those mergers involved government military contractors. Now, there are fewer companies who can pick up the slack and provide competitive bids. The remaining companies know that the government is between a rock and a hard place and will pay any price to get what it wants.

Of course, all of this is beginning to look like a case of trying to address one mistake by making additional mistakes when the sane response seems to go back to the drawing board. After all, who could hold your toes to the fire if you’ve doubled your prices per aircraft? The bigger question, however, is why do we need the Raptor in the first place?. For the most part, our enemy are terrorists armed with box cutters and other types of primitive weapons. What do we need 300 Raptors for to fight a war with an enemy who lives in caves and calls no country its own?

One might ask where are the checks and balances? Armed with the F14, the F15 Eagle—a fantastic fighter on its own, the F16 and the F18, which are perfectly adequate to any defense measures, why did our prescient buyers in the Pentagon feel that they needed still another fighter to fight our air battles?

Would common sense dictate that perhaps that $60 billion could have been better used by another branch of the service or perhaps another part of government to address another problem or series of problems? Or does the competitive nature of the Pentagon preclude such thinking?

It seems to this critic that another government investigation is order when we need to spend $60 billion to build a fighter designed for a Cold War mission that no longer applies in order to stave off an enemy that lives in caves and fights us with twenty-five cent box-cutters. Something is wrong with the kind of thinking that seems to suggest “Wink! Wink! Let the boys have a good time with taxpayer money!”

Where are the checks and balances? And when are our legislators going to investigate this canard.

Les Aaron
Hubmaster
Blog: http://lesaaron.blogspot.com

Sleight of Hand As An Instrument of Policy

Sleight of Hand As An Instrument of Policy:



It goes without saying that elected governments are in the long term responsible to their constituencies. Therefore, if they should embrace radicalized policy, they need to be in a position to justify their decisions. This is where things can get sticky.

The nearest analogy I can think of is developing a hypothesis and then justifying it with downstream evidence. What this does is reinforce the basis of your decision which, in effect, reinforces support for your decision. But in practice, the original hypothesis is either borne out or it’s not. If the direction chosen is not reinforced and supported by the downstream data, modifying the orignal hypothesis or going back to the drawing boards to rethink the problem may be the best alternatives. This is the rational, scientific way of proceeding to logically justify a case and, therefore, is the most credible strategy.

Another approach might plunge ahead ignoring the original hypothesis if the downstream data does not support it. This “damn the torpedoes” approach, “full speed ahead,” plays down the factual basis of the hypothesis and suggests that those who institute the policy know what’s in the public interest. This is a hard sell to the voting public and does not always win in the court of public opinion. There is still another approach, a variation on approach number two, that employs a hypothesis that seems to have emerged fully formed out of the desired result.. In other words, the hypothesis is constructed around the result the policy-makers want to achieve. This is where reality frequently gets left behind. If the information gained from experience doesn’t support the hypothesis, the data is either rejected or adjusted to fit the desired outcome regardless of the facts of the case. This is the kind of government that rules by fiat that is dismissive of criticism that we find ourselves stuck with at this critical time in our history.
If anyone doubts that all they need to is re-examine any of the far-reaching policies and programs instituted since this government took office. It does not take hard scrutiny to see this kind of thinking helped carve our policies in everything from economics to our strategies in Iraq.

By shaping the facts to fit the desired result, our government is practicing self-deception on a massive scale and operating largely on a basis that ignores the facts; but what’s even worse, it is extending it’s self deception to the people. And that is the crime!. If we need any proof of it, one could draw a straight line from the contrived arguments used to bring us to War with more than 1,600 dead! There is no clearer delineation that that! And that's after we plunged into war fudging the facts and ignoring the truth in the full knowledge that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11; nothing to do with terrorism; nothing to do with WMD!....

This habitual mind-set that is in play today is of special concern because it is predicated on an absence of factual data and sets up unrealistic expectations that cannot be fulfilled. It is dangerous because it commits us to programs that in the long term are counter productive and not in keeping with our best interests.

Not only do such actions cause our friends and allies to question our judgment, it makes them wonder how long the US will remain a Super-Power.

Viewed from a different perspective, it appears to the leaders of other countries that perhaps we have lost our way, that Americans cannot see things clearly or that we are in the throes of old-age and creeping senility. And in many respects they are right!.

Signs of this are already evident on the world stage. For example, while we have been subjected to non-stop images of Iraq that are inconsistent with what our leaders would like us to believe, at the same time, our allies have been busy falling all over themselves lining up alliances with China.

Do they perhaps see the future better than our prophets do?

They are aware that we have been running a montly trade deficit in the 60 billion dollar range with most of that being attributable to China’s excess of exports over imports. China watchers are wondering how we can appear to be so sanguine under the circumstances.

Today, we are seeing literally thousands of jobs being transferred to South Asia and China. Entire manufacturing segments have disappeared. And we no longer can even boost a machine tool sector which is the backbone of any manufacturing recovery. Corruption is widespread through even some of our largest companies. And many have relocated their headquarters to tax havens to escape paying their taxes in the US. Yet, no one at Justice or the Executive seems to blink when confronted with this kind of data.

All told, the overall picture is increasingly depressing and eerily shakey. It is the feeling that you are standing on a foundation of sand.. And it’s easy to see why the other world powers shake their collective heads when asked about the US.

Perhaps it is too early to point to our demise as an economic super-power, but the signposts are there and the questions are not being addressed.

How long can we continue to bury our heads in the sand before the truth intrudes depends to a great extent on the honesty and courage of our elected officials. Right now, from the hollow rhetoric we’ve seen and the specious arguments being offered, that does not seem to offer much encouragement.

Les Aaron

The Armchair Curmudgeon

Come Visit the SuperBlog, the Big daddy of all Blogs
http://lesaaron.blogspot.com

And We Didn't Even Blink: From Garden Buckets to Yachts In One Generation

HUBGRAM


Cause for Alarm.
Or just another “Ho-Hum?”

If some of you were out of out pigtails and knickers by the mid-fifties, you might remember what Japanese post-war products looked like. Mostly, they were embarrassingly poor examples of what could be turned out cheaply in plastic. In fact, in those days, plastics was considered the medium of the Japanese; it was cheap, ugly and usually poorly manufactured.

Most of us today, tend to equate China with the same kind of shoddy manufacturing.
They kind of fill in the gaps for things we can’t make cheaply enough for mass markets.
So, we don’t get particularly excited when we hear the latest list of Chinese goods flooding our stores unless of course you’re a curmudgeon like me who worries about the off-shoring of jobs and the economic loss to our country that isn’t being made up or taken very seriously..

Yesterday, I was parading through a growing list of Chinese imports that included things like garden tools, hardware items, small fixtures, cooking implements when I came across one that sent me reeling. There buried in a list of innocuous every day items appeared ‘yachts.’ Yachts? This must be a typo. Maybe they meant ‘pots’ or ‘cots’ or maybe even ‘dots.’ This needed a little detective work. So I got on the computer and found an article on the subject of yachts that appeared in last week’s New York Times. Yes, it seems it was no mistake.
China is really making yachts! Not the entire yacht, mind you, which is kind of an amalgam of parts from Seattle to the Netherlands but who knows? Maybe in five years time, they will be doing the whole shooting match.

The story goes that China’s custom boatyards has prospects for twenty five more of these million dollar plus yachts over 100 feet long; and plans to roll out a yacht design that is well over 200 feet.

Now, this is a far cry from my garden bucket and spade which are made in their totality in some distant province in China where laborers toil away for pennies we are told and there is no such thing as days off or benefits.

I don’t really mind that so much; although I suspect I should. But I do mind the fact that the Chinese are upgrading. In fact, the article went on to say that BMW is making some components in China and that Cadillac and Mercedes will be building cars there shortly.

To this ole boy, that’s kind of worrisome. Why? Because I remember what happened to Japan. They learned the ropes darned quickly and jumped way ahead of us in modern manufacturing practices. For more than a decade, we struggled to catch up.

Will this happen in China?

Well, here’s the skinny. The Chinese turn out ten times as many scientists and engineers as we do. They have built remarkable cities in under ten years where there were only rice paddies before. And we are informed, that they can afford to keep the cost of labor down virtually forever since there is a standing supply of labor from the agricultural provinces.

Why is this something to worry about?

Well, because we are not being told the whole, unvarnished truth about our balance of payments. Our government covers up the fact that we are importing a great deal more from China than we are led to believe. The numbers prove the point. Even the figures that are revealed are staggering; that is, we are in the red thirty five billion dollars a month. According to my informed sources, the truth is probably closer to fifty billion dollars a month.

Now, fifty billion dollars may not sound like much money to you but when I was an advisor in Korea in the early sixties, the Economics minister confided in me that their annual budget for imports amounted to about only 50 million dollars. China’s monthly deficit with the US was 5,000 times their annual budget!...Now, of course, at the time, their budget was very low. Maybe we should use a different yardstick. Say, for example if a school in current terms costs one million dollars to build, you could build sixty thousand new schools in one year with the China deficit alone. That should help put things into perspective.

Who holds all of that debt?

Guess. The Chinese do. The trouble is we are in an economy where the interests rates are rising and that everyone goes to the same well for credit.

Where does that leave us? With a rising debt service that will eventually crush any attempts to balance our budget.

So, unless the entire scenario changes, it would seem that our financial future under the following circumstances needs to be attended to and rather quickly.

Cause for alarm? That may depend on your perspective. But when China starts to build yachts, I think it’s time for everyone to sit up and take notice.

Les Aaron- The Hubgram

When You Pull Your Head Out of the Sand, We Have A Few Things For You To Do...

"What can I do? I am only one person...."
les aaron


“I’m only one person, what can I do?” How many times have you heard that kind of answer.
It’s the passive negative response and to a great extent it is the reason we are where we are today. To anyone who says “I’m only one person…” I recite chapter and verse. I remind them that the big changes in the world have come from one person. Think Washington, Churchill, Lincoln, Roosevelt… When it comes to change, new ideas, ground breaking concepts, for the most part, they have been the work of a single person working alone ie. Madame Currie, Steinmetz, Einstein, Galileo, Newton, Darwin and on and on in every field you can imagine…

Here’s just a few of the things that don’t take much time or effort that one person can do to make a difference. And while one person can change the world, think what can happen if everyone decided to do the things below. Imagine if every like-minded person in the country took a moment or two out to do one of these things every day or every other day. What do you think would happen? Would 100 million letters going to the Speaker have an impact? Would 100 million signatures on a petition wake up the press?
You can answer that question yourself but here’s just my short list of things you can do without having to be a genius only an American who cares where we go from here.


Write a letter to your Representative

Write a letter to the newspaper

Send an email to a radio, cable or TV station’s website

Sign a petition

Tell your friends about a petition

Attend a meeting

Attend a march, a protest, a vigil

Speak up when the opportunity presents itself

Organize a gathering of friends to discuss an issue

Send out a press release

Start a discussion group

Serve as a conduit for information

Attend a political meeting

Speak up

Put up posters that focus on an issue

Write an editorial

Hold a Party

Show a film or DVD at your house

Protest

Send an email about an upcoming program to your friends

Spread the word

Organize a group

Raise some money for a deserving candidate

Organize a New England Town Meeting

Ask a candidate to come speak to your group
Sponsor some activism

Send a check to your favorite cause

Stay current with what’s going on

Join your local political party

Have a dessert party, a tea or some other function
To bring together like-minded people

Join an Internet group

Sponsor your own mailing list

Start a network or serve to connect two different organizations

Write a newsletter

Build a database of like minded people

Get people engaged

Start a group to protect civil rights, learn about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights

Bring in a progressive movie to your local theatre

Call up and complain about Right Wing dominated radio

Don’t let the Right Wing have the last word

Start a Think Tank on the issues


Do these things and tell others and get everyone involved in a Tsunami of communications that will literally drown the opposition and get them to cry “Uncle.”

It is the way to make change real and immediate.


Post these on your bulletin board and pass the word around!
Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon

http://lesaaron.blogspot.com

How Did Your Vigil Go?

How did your vigil go?

Ours went very well. There must have been more than one hundred people conducting a silent vigil in front of a local museum. That was more people than I've ever seen assembled for anything in this town. Of course there were the Bush bufoons across the street waving the flag inferring that we were patriotic and we were not, as if they could preempt patriotism. What oafs! But the fact that many of us wore our combat identification gave the lie to that claim. We maintained a silent vigil for over one half hour. And I can't tell you how many cars drove by and waved, tooted their horns and shouted us on.

We were also covered by the media. It turned out that a reporter was interviewing a friend of mine and she told him to speak to me. Well, I got a little exhuberant and I expect if he reprints what I say, I will be drummed out of town by the Republican majority for being unpatriotic and a liberal traitor. It had been a banner day. I started it out picking up the big editorial paper and discovering that it was full of attacks on me for an article I wrote that was critical of this president for a policy that sent troops to war but allowed him and his family to invest with the Royal family. I laughed all the way to the local coffee bar. I look at that kind of stuff as an indication that I've arrived. People are starting to react to what I'm saying and that left me smiling all day.

Before I left for the Vigil this evening, I had written another commentary to the leading local media excoriating them for publishing some stupid poop that stating in affect that what Cindy was doing was impacting the war effort. And my response to them follows just in case you're interested.
All in all, a very successful evening that brought people together from all parts of our town in support of Cindy Sheehan and it was good and renewed my confidence a little bit in what Americans are capable of when they start pulling together.
.

Les Aaron
http://lesaaron.blogspot.com


Letter to the Editor:

There has been talk both 'pro' and 'con' about the Vigil scheduled to commemorate the lonely vigil Cindy Sheehan has been forced to hold outside of Bush's ranch in Southwest Texas because the president will not meet with her or explain why her son was sent to die in Iraq.

What was especially interesting were the characterizations and comments coming from a critic who said that her actions were not supportive of the War effort!

Excuse me? Let's take a step back for a moment. If I'm not mistaken, Cindy wanted to ask the president why her son was sent to die. I think that's a perfectly valid question. But it should come after the most important question is posed, "What was the justification for going to War in the first place?"

It seems that all of the rationales for going to war that were played to the UN were chipped away and found to be either false, inaccurate or inappropriate. Even the administration stopped talking about the reasons it had put forward for going to war saying only that "Saddam was a bad guy!"

Well, that may be true but it's hardly a reason to declare War. There are plenty of bad guys in the world. So, why did we decide on Saddam? We know he was not connected with bin Laden. We know that he had nothing to do with 9/11. So we know those couldn't have been the reasons. We know that he didn't have WMD; that he was in no position to attack us "within 45 minutes" as claimed. And we know according Valerie Plame's husband that he was not buying nuclear materials from Zaire.

On the other hand, we do know that he sits on one of the world's largest supplies of oil. We do know that he attempted to take Bush Sr.'s life. We know that Cheney's old company has received billions of dollars of contract work from rebuilding the oil fields. And we do know that Bush's former campaign manager presides over billions of dollars of consulting projects for Iraq. And that military contractors who build up Bush's war chest, have never found a war they didn't like.

But none of those are reasons to go to war. And none of those justify sending the flower of our youth to be wounded and killed. So before we start blaming Sheehan for not supporting the War, let's get serious and start finding serious answers as to why we are in Iraq in the first place and ask ourselves whether they are worth the lives of all of those young people.

And just in case you ask, I am a veteran who served most of his time in the Army as an Adviser in Asia; I am a supporter of Veterans rights; and I am a founder of the Purple Ribbon Society and served as Kerry's Vet coordinator in Southern Delaware.

Thank you for printing this letter.

Les Aaron

How They Got Howard

For years, I have studied on the impact of dirty tricks on the outcome of elections. I have followed Donald Segretti and am familiar with his mastery when it comes to making airports disappear from maps...I am familiar with the tactics orchestrated by Lee Atwater who had Willie Horton destroy the election for Dukakis. And his followers like Newt Gingrich, Graham, Armey and the rest of the right wing cabal who would sell their mothers down the river if there was any profit in it. ...Therefore, in the light of the travesties that these experts at media manipulation have participated in, I don't discount the following possibility which would seem very much in keeping with their willingness to spin the truth for their selfish ends....

les Aaron
Armchair Curmudgeon



Treating the Grassroots with Pesticides...

A Page From the Segretti Playbook

Satire by Les Aaron


The tactic worked He knew it would. After all, he and has staff were experts at the game. There was none better. Pros who knew how to rewrite the truth. Agile spinsters who had been plodding away it for the last thirty five years. And getting voters to think that ‘up’ was ‘down’ and ‘down,’ ‘up.’ It was all in the game. But there were players and there were masters of the craft. And he and his colleagues were the best money could buy. .

It was brilliant that Miller thought of it. Take the camera to the post-primary rally.
He knew something would come of it. Something that they could use. It was so easy.
Just edit it out of context. Change the sound. Block out the background. So simple even a child could do it. And it worked.

The people were already saying, “Dean the Madman.” “Dean the lunatic.” The media loved it. He knew they would. It was raw meat. And good for the ratings. But best of all, it sealed his fate. They would never support him now. And his work was mainly done.

All these ideology driven youngsters working their butts off for this guy. And, most importantly, those voters who didn’t give a crap what happened in politics. If they paid attention for two weeks it would be a lot. Yet, they considered themselves authorities.
The blow-hards always do, he thought. They were the targets, the multitudes who got their information from the networks and orchestrated sound-bytes. They were all vulnerable to what he and his colleagues could spin. And spin we did, he thought to himself.

Best of all, they, the great unwashed, the lemming voters who play follow the leader and get burned every time. They just don’t get it. They are so easy to manipulate. So vulnerable. We get them all patriotic by playing the war card. We get them fired up against France and Germany because they won’t play ball with us. We put a little powder in an envelope and they’re eating out of our hands. We’ve got them where we want them. And when they wake up and find everything gone, it will be too late.

Mike laughed to himself. What fools! But how would they know. They weren’t privy to the meetings. They don’t know what kind of people are out there. People who will stop at nothing to get their way. We are only facilitators, ‘enablers,’ he rationalized. Just businessmen doing what we do best.

It’s their fault; not ours. They just don’t understand what goes on. And don’t want to. Which opens the door for people like us to come in and shape the environment and the debate. . It’s what we do, he thought. So, they get what we deliver. We have the money, the resources and the morality of field mice. They don’t realize how little respect we have for any of them. And their liberal, progressive sensibilities.. And how we would sell out their mothers for a dime. It’s laughable, he thought.

Mike thought back about he and his cronies had effectively stopped the Florida recount by organizing mobs of people to storm election offices around the state. Little did the people or the media realize that they were in our employ. Hired trouble-makers to do our bidding. Nor did they realize how foolish we were able to make Dukakis look when he donned that helmet and climbed into the tank. Or how we managed to put the gay issue on the table when Clinton got elected. Little did folks realize that Hillary was right. ‘It was a conspiracy.’ Nor did anyone realize how we made Senator Muskie look like a cry-baby when he was making his bid for the White House. How often do you get paid for having fun at somebody else’s expense.

No, nobody realizes that Atwater was a genius at setting up the apparatus for manipulating and controlling the media, Mike thought. The Democrats never knew what hit them. Yeah, Atwater was world-class. But what would you expect? Didn’t he learn from the master, Segretti. Segretti who could make airports disappear. Reinvent geography. Change schedules, lose speeches, cancel media engagements and do the thousand and one other things to derail all of his boss Nixon’s challengers. He made it look not only easy but fun.

Yet, nobody figured it out! ….Too bad, the dems are so naïve. It takes something away from the good times Mike thought as he lifted the paper cup of coffee to his lips.

Now, with Dean out of the way, it should be clear sailing through the election. After all, the other guy was an insider and any insider leaves a big foot-print. Time to move on, he thought.

Mike reached into his pocket and picked up the miniature mobile phone and dialed a number known only to him. “Mark, it’s me.
We’re finished down here. Got anything else for me to take care of? Oh, really? Sound’s good. Yeah, I’ve got a valise all packed. I’ll meet you later. A bonus? Well, that’s very generous of you and the committee…”

Les Aaron
Editor, Hubgram

The Hall of Blame

Hey, How About An Award for Finger Pointing….
Or the Next Best Thing…

It is time to show we appreciate all the work being done by this Administration to rewrite history. You know, we, the great unwashed, think that history takes care of itself. Well, I’m here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. History is hard work. It demands constant attention; otherwise, people could start believing anything. Goebbels understood this when he was rewriting history some sixty years ago. In fact, most successful leaders, tyrants and dictators have learned the tender art of revising history should not be left to chance.

So as a matter of course, people are constantly reinventing history for any number of reasons—although usually it’s to avoid something if it’s recent history—like jail or perhaps exile or even worse! Those who take the longer view, are usually thinking in terms of their family’s reputation. I mean who want to say that I am the great grand grandfather of the guy who shot Lincoln? Unless of course, he lived in the south where he might receive a warm ovation. Or would it be quite proper to admit that “my grandpa shot the Arch Duke and started WWI.” It’s just not good taste. And who knows, there still might be a vindictive grand-child around with blood in his eyes or, what is worse, a pending law suit that’s been building interest for nearly a hundred years…….

Now, we should warn you that we have had presidents in the past who took pride in saying what they meant and meaning what that said. Guys like Truman who said something about ‘the buck stopping here.’ These ‘anomalies’ fortunately no longer exist; otherwise, there’d be a hell of a lot of revisionists out of work. Of course, that was a long time ago. Today, the buck stops anywhere but ‘here.’ Usually, the buck stops on some assistant’s desk, some lower level flunky who will say anything to keep his job or stay on friendly terms with his superior in the mistaken belief that falling on the sword will be appreciated. Because rewriting history can’t be left to say chance. In fact, off the record, one of the most popular courses in journalism today is Rewriting History 101. This was first noted in the Time of Nixon, and in response to Donald Segretti’s advertisement that spawned an entire new industry suggesting “An immediate need for people with good imaginations who could write and weren’t troubled by moral issues.” . The fact is that, today, any graduates who demonstrates an appropriately sufficient moral turpitude and a strongly anti-humanistic bent would seem to qualify and can be assured of several job offers at graduation. Just check the guys who work for all those Think Tanks that are nothing more than ‘fronts’ for a litany of clients with special interests..

Anyway, rewriting history has become one of government’s most lucrative jobs. This government is constantly engaged in it and the schools are having trouble keeping up with the demand despite all the money the NRA keeps pumping in.

Now, it’s poor old George Tenant’s turn. When it was his turn in the barrel, the issue was British Intel. Never mind, as long as we have our scapegoat de jour. It is not the point of this little light-mot to question why Mr. Tenant, a survivor who came from the streets of Brooklyn, has decided to play sap of the day and take a bullet for his selected leader. Nevertheless, my point is that if we have to sit through such sugar-coated melodrama, we should at least be able to get a chuckle out of it.

Thus, the reason for my proposal.

Would it not be fun to turn their “who me? You must be kidding…” Alfred E. Newman pose when queried about responsibility for any action behavior into a kind of political “Entertainment Tonight” for us who must endure ad infinitum the exquisitely shallow interrogations in prime time... We believe that part of our homage to such invention would have at its centerpiece my contribution to the future of political satire: the Hall of Blame.

This would be the only place in the known civilized world where those who are the targets of invidious comparisons would have an opportunity to talk back. In the Hall of Blame, all of the targets of the world would be gathered in waxen effigies with their sins posted for all to see. In addition, in our Hall of Blame, we would go one step further. We would permit the recipients of the blame game their own fifteen minutes in the sun to counter all of the claims, innuendos, half-truths, excuses and lies heaped on them. This will be the only place in the world, where they get to go on record. This of course, would drive the revisionists crazy and probably contribute to another bout of George falling off his chair and hitting his head and blaming the pretzels---Hmmm. A statue of a pretzel?

Kleenex, the sponsor, would hand out boxes to all those who pay tribute to our long-suffering leaders as they enter the Skotch-Gard protected interior realm consisting of the great Hallway of Suffering and Banality and the Inner Sanctum referred to as the Dodo’s Sanctuary for the Perennially Dysfunctional…. There, our illustrious leader can relive all of the threats and innuendos and half-truths and practice his lightning quick draws in front of the mirror or Cheney, if we can catch him above ground and he’s not protecting the good ole’ US of A from his underground abode. The only way I could think of improving on this is having Mrs. Cheney join him and then fill up the hole. But after an hour or two in this temple of self-indulgence, our compassionate leader can leave there inspired to go onwards and upwards ready to sacrifice any and all to his aspirations with no pangs of conscience….Even the Pope would be fair game to the White Knight seeking to lay down the gauntlet…

The Hall of Blame would be made up of everyone that Bush has blamed in the last three years. While this may sound like an impossible or perhaps extravagant venture, it would indeed help put things into some kind of perspective and we would better understand what poor George has had to contend with from the rest of the world.

Although this Palace of Tedium would be focused on the temporal, there would be an ethereal quality as well. For example, God’s word would appear everywhere etched or perhaps molded in polyethylene which again would only be appropriate since this material with other monomers and residues have filtered down through the waste stream to pollute our air and water for so many years and has been sanctioned by our president in return for the generosity of the Society of the Plastics Industry. (I don’t know why nobody has ever thought of this: Consider if coffins were made out of plastic diapers, hot dogs and Twinkies with their five hundred year half-lives, they would never go back to nature allowing us to keep Uncle Joes remains around a lot longer than if he were buried in conventional wood? )….

The excessive use of God will also be a highlight of the Temple inasmuch as such comparisons have been drawn before by the Reverend Billy Graham and his son, despite a little tongue-twisting by the Devil recently; that in combination with George’s own words in the pursuit of his Great Crusade reminiscent of that other crusade that wound up a disaster. To impart the necessary solemnity, it has been suggested that we ask God himself to intervene. However Charlton Heston was too ill and infirm to take the contract but perhaps it can be arranged to have his voice taped for posterity to lend legitimacy to the voice-over. Carl Rove is already working on thunder and lightning scenarios…

The second theme would be patriotic. There would be American flags everywhere of every size and description…. This would also spark a cottage industry allowing some of us to return work and having a beneficial effect on the economy since tax cuts contributed little outside of an immediate flurry in cruises to the South Pacific by those in the upper brackets. (For the rest of the world, the tax break was used to buy a pack of cigarettes or a round of cokes at Dairy Queen) . In all shots of George, the flag would be conspicuous just in case anyone doubted his patriotism. Not to leave anything undone, there would be a suitable tribute to George landing on the carrier Washington in his flight suit with the words “The War is over’ and showing everyone cheering…”as George rearranges his synthetic enhanced parts from the right to the left.

We would also want to feature a Saddam wing where effigies of Saddam would stand next to an appropriate rewrite of history where Saddam is shown picking up the ball from Osama. No mention of course of all the aid we gave this dictator who incidentally never changed his stripes when he was attacking his neighbors in Iran with poison gas and other toxins...Or bombing the Kurds in the north. Of course, there must be millions of Kurds asking why this government didn't think it was important to do something about the problem then? Of course, the Kurd’s message will not be translated so nobody will have a clue what they are talking about including the FBI or CIA..

Perhaps we could have one real Saddam and six imitators standing together in some waxen retro suggesting that people try to pick out the real Saddam before he blows you away with WMD. However, that might not fly since most people fifty and older might see this as a reconstruction of Ernie Kovacs and the Nairobi Trio sponsored by General Cigar.

Osama, also referred to as that ‘tall, Arab Geek”--all six feet four inches of him-- would be shown hiking over those mountains lugging his kidney dialysis machine with some kind of intellectually condescending explanation as to why the best equipped intelligence services and military in the world combined with limitless supplies of money and a $25 million award can't find a man that needs dialysis three times a week in a place where medical services are as scarce as hens teeth...If you posted this kind of reward to find Judge Crater, I wouldn’t doubt that you’d fill an auditorium.

...Naturally, there would be an entire wing devoted to both Hillary and Bill since until Osama came along, they were to blame for everything that went wrong in the world from fluctuations on the Richter scale to California's economic woes.....from the dangers of smoking cigars to a return of the Cold War.


We could even have an Axis of Evil wing where Bush could really show each of the dictators garbed in appropriate Nazi uniforms sitting on an electric chair powered by one of Enron's subsidiaries and Bush throwing the switch which, as you may remember, he became quite good at allowing him to sleep like an empowered baby at night.. There would be a balloon over his head saying something to the effect, “Better living through electricity…” or some other equally compassionate statement...
When you think about, perhaps we should have small areas for both the President of France and Germany's Premier. Who can forget that they were the ones who held up our invasion of Iraq because they didn't believe that intervention based on the available information was required until the Inspection teams had a chance to complete their work. Of course, this would lead to a very big statue of the team leader who was repeatedly and wrongly accused of so much as being a compliant tool of the enemy which, of course, he was not.

There are many other candidates for consideration at the Hall of Blame ranging from several officials in the Canadian government who referred to George as an idiot to the Mayor of London... They will all get their day in the sun if we get to go ahead with this idea...

No doubt, before the end of the day there will be many more in our Hall of Blame since the list of enemies of the US keep growing geometrically as our insults, innuendo and scathing remarks intensify arithmetically. In fact, if the current trend continues, we can expect the Hall of Blame to become one of the largest free-standing structures in the United States containing most of the leaders of the free world and certainly all of the democrats and independents and an honest author or two. This will stand as George’s contribution to the Free World. ..... The only group probably not represented will be the media since by their cowardly willingness to accept every bit of revisionist history, they wouldn’t qualify. Meanwhile, the rest of us at least will have a few laughs.

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon

It's Time We Stood Up!

I am calling for all of us who still have our sanity to push for national programs of conferences aimed at addressing all of the abuses being heaped upon us and targeting reform. Reform on all of the major issues on which we have heard nothing. You can be sure, too, that this lack of discussion; this laid back acceptance of everything has encouraged the right wing to take it to the limit.
And we're stuck with the results.
It's time we did something about it; it's time we took action!
. We need a forum on Iraq. We need a national discussion of the challenges we face in Iran. We need people to come together to discuss mundane stuff like jobs; the economy. We need to push for environmental conferences to demand reforms. We need to re-examine the entire issue of privacy. And so much more. Where are our politicians? Clearly, you have to take action like Cindy to get anything done. We are in effect the Court of Last Resort. If we don't do it, who will? The Congress. The SC? Our executive body. All of the rich and educated? Our editors and reporters? Sure, don't hold your breath. All there interested in is maintaining the status quo and not rocking the boat.
Well, Hell, I am here to say we need to rock the boat. If we had rocked the boat before, we wouldn't have had to deal with such a bunch of losers. If these guys are being paid to represent me they don't deserve one thin dime. I haven't seen one piece of legislation come through over the last five years that serves my interests or any one I know.
If we get together and form coalitions of the concerned, maybe we can get something done.
Surely, nobody is getting anything done now and I'm only getting more and more frustrated with the fact that this government can push whatever it wants through without any roadblocks, no discussions, no objections! It is a travesty, a canard waiting to be exposed.
Where are you fellow Americans when it comes to standing up for your rights. Think about it. ANd let's get organized and make it happen. You know how Nature abhors a vacuum and that's what we want ourselves stuck in. In the meantime, the window is closing and we're left to twiddle our thumbs. Are you willing to do what's necessary to save our country, save our environment, and save our futures? If so, let's get together and make things happen.
What do you say? And who wants to design the flag?

Spread the word.

Reverse Darwinism from the Unintelligent Designer

Born Again Darwinism: The View From the Top

Les Aaron .

Follow up to George Bush’s recent interview
with a reporter regarding Intelligent Design
and our misunderstanding about Darwinian theory.

The following conversation was not reported in the mainstream media:


Reporter:“Mr. Bush, in listening to your arguments pro Intelligent Design, it would seem that you are substituting good science for religious interpretation.”

Bush: “Well, as I see it, Intelligent Design kind of does it all. For the first time, it allows scriptural thinking to unite with science. And isn’t that good for America?”

Reporter: “But, sir, there seems to be one thing you’ve omitted, sir.”

Bush: “And that is?...”

Reporter: “It overlooks Evolution.”

Bush: “Well, you can’t have everything. You know how it is (wink! Wink!). People are really starting to believe that stuff and we need to set the record straight.”

Reporter: “What stuff is that, sir?”

Bush: “That stuff about us being descended from monkeys. Whoever dreamed up that nonsense. Must have been a democrat!”

Reporter: “Well, that’s what Darwinian science suggests, Mr. President. And the proof would seem to bear him out.”

Bush: “That’s all hogwash! Take it from me, son, this Johnny Come Lately, Darwin, has been smoking too many of those funny cigarettes. We all know lthe truth. And it’s time that we owned up to it.”

Reporter: “And that is, sir?”

Bush: “Hey buddy, That ole boy snake put Eve up to some hanky panky…
And that’s why the storks bring the babies out to the cabbage patches late at night.
You know we all have to pay up for our misdeeds.”

Reporter: “I think you mixed a couple of metaphors here, sir, not too mention some old wives tails. .”.

Bush: “But you get the point.”

Reporter: “How do you, Mr. President, think this whole Intelligent Design thing got started.”

Bush: “It is clear as the nose on my face.”

Reporter: “What is?”

Bush: “We got that damn snake to thank for it.
He let the whole damn cat out of the bag in the Garden of Eden…”

“Reporter: ”I see, sir. But how would anyone know that was all part of Intelligent design?”.

Bush: ‘”Faith, son. You need to have faith.”

Reporter: “And how can you be so certain.”

Bush: “Well, I don’t like to brag but I got a little whispering in the ear going on.”

Reporter: “The Lord?”

Bush: “Hey, you said it not me; pretty good source, don’t you think?.”

Reporter: “Okay, sir. And that voice helped you to conclude that Darwin was wrong”.

Bush: “That Johnny come lately is so far off the mark it ain’t funny. Sure, the bottom line is people come from people; no monkeys, no crawly, hairy things involved. I got it from the top. ”

Reporter: “I see sir…”

Bush: “That’s what makes it intelligent, son.”

Reporter: “How do you propose, Mr. President to get that idea across when almost everyone has studied biology and believes in evolution?”

Bush: “How? By golly we’re doing something about it right now. We’re removing all the references to animals and people from all of the school books….”

Reporter: “God told you to do that?”

Bush: “No, Carl did.”



See my new blog: lesaaron.blogspot.com

Beware Things Bovine

Beware Things Bovine

The Most Dangerous
Animal of All
Is Not an animal
With a scary call,
It is not a moose
Or a warrior goose

It is not an elephant
With an attitude
Or something that
Flies at a higher altitude,
It is not small or mean
Or even a “killing machine”


No, it’s kind
And considered benign
And not inclined to make
A row,
What we refer to
Is the lowly cow

Although it has no evil past
The lowly cow
Emits an awful gas
That raises temperature by degrees
Affecting species
And bringing disease

But what has the environmentalists
Really swarming
Is what the lowly cow
Can contribute to global warming
Some might think it’s cow’s
Getting even…
For man’s gourmandizing
At the expense of reason

Although regarded as a source of
Food
Very kindly and not too smart,
Man chooses to ignore the fact
That beef is the antithesis of
A healthy heart…
Milk, too, is cast in a pall
Because it contributes
To cholesterol


The irony is
That the steaks we cannot live without
Are implicated in everything bad
From heart disease to the gout!

So the lowly cow
Get’s our undisputed vote
As the creature
Noah should have
Left off the boat…

And whether or not
We care to disguise
Global warming’s effect
On things like water’s rise
We should rethink
Whether growing volumes of methane
Will turn us into the “missing link”

So, enjoy your steaks while you may
While vegans continue to pray
That animals may go their way
Unthreatened by our display
Of gourmet cookbooks and appetizing menus
That should be excluded from man’s venue

Our advice: If you truly hunger for a snack
We urge you to ignore your Mac
And replace it with something green
That is increasingly looking palatable
Considering that the alternative
Is creating a planet no longer habitable

Les Aaron

Back at the Ranch...

Back at the Ranch…

It was good to back at the ranch he thought. Georgie boy sat on his scarred old rocker looking out at the smoke rising off the burned out land and the heat distorting the light so that it looked as if the scrub bushes were doing a little dance to welcome his return.

A smirk started to appear on his plain, bland countenance. Small cold eyes belied the grin that widened as Georgie Boy took it all in. It was good to be back among dead things, he thought.

Yes,he thought, some might call it a wasteland, a Bosh-like tryptich of half animal half human beasts devouring the ungodly in a place so bleak so inhuman, it left one in a kind of life-sucking limbo between abject fear of evil things and a total incomprehensible vacuum that seemed to swallow up whole anything that resembled human emotion or feeling.
.

But Georgie Boy saw none of that. For him, this was the center of the universe. The place that God had personally selected for him to launch his crusade. And that acceptance was a kind of a medal that he carried with him all the time.

He sat back and thought about how his life had always been shaped by good fortune. His took pride in a background that he invested with a heroism that was not there. He had a facility for taking events that were bland and undistinguished and imbuing them with qualities that were merely invented. It was so much easier that way than dealing with the tedious reality. No, there was no hard work; no toil, not even a commitment to the military that he could point to outside of his imagination. But that didn’t hold him back. It seemed people want to get caught up in his imaginary life. With the result, that he had garnished prime jobs from the governorship to the presidency without ever having to work for them. This was the new American example. What could be done with no qualifications and no talent providing you had the right genes. . He was a model for others who couldn’t cut it under normal conditions. And that made him feel good. Why should those bloody nerds who study their butts off get all the goodies, he questioned. God was right. It was nice being a member of the happy sperm club.
.

He laughed again, a pale,thin laugh that was sucked up by the heavy moisture laden air. “Yeah, man. The big Cajuna returns, he thought. He smiled to himself, stretched and got up from the rocker. He looked around. It made him proud to think that there was nothing he could see that he did not own. Acres and acres of some of the ugliest and harshest terrain on earth. And that made him feel strong and potent, master of all he purveyed, the tarantulas, snakes, brush, flat enervated desert scrub, the overarching flatness of it all. It was like a medieval view of the end of the world. All you had to do was go out far enough and you’d fall off. . It was the perfect home for someone who wanted to be out of the mainstream and couldn’t care less about what the rest of the world was doing.
.
It was a good place for a Saint or a Messenger. Or someone who would change the world to suit his beliefs. And, fortunately, all of the rest had lined up to do his bidding. That, too, was funny considering at Yale no one placed much stock on Georgie boy accomplishing much of substance with his life.

Georgie Boy stood up, stretched, looked down at his lizard boots…. They felt comfortable, just right on his feet as if they were part of his anatomy. He thought that if they had to inject him with lizard, his body would not reject it. He smiled at that. He looked down. He could see the start of a little swelling around his waste. The fries and nachos must be getting to him. It was clear he needed to go for a run soon. But for now, he would go inside and stretch out on his favorite old recliner. Yes, that was the move.

He loved this place. The strangeness, the hostility of the land. If that wasn’t enough, he loved it best in August when the heat scorched the already scorched ground and even the snakes played dead. And he would be all alone out there with his guns shooting whatever living things he could find and cutting and burning any living vegetation. It was empowering, this parade of death he contributed to.. He liked to watch the buzzards swoop down like emissaries of death and do their work, picking clean the remnants that littered his turf. They were part of his personal cleanliness committee, he thought.

Georgie liked things clean and neat.
He liked empty desks and prided himself on not having more than a half a dozen books on his mostly empty book shelves. A clean desk is a clean mind, he liked to think..

For him, for some strange reasons, the lizards and the crawly things made him feel right at home. It also endeared him to Washington. He couldn’t put his finger on it but It was like they all had something in common. They were all God’s creatures were they not?, he ruminated. And wasn’t that good? But it was something more than that, it was almost as if these spineless denizens of this nether world understood each other.

For him, returning to the familiarity of the ranch was almost like a salmon swimming upstream….a very lucky salmon at that. He realized almost intuitively that he was a lot like this dead place. He never created anything. He never had any ideas. He favorite amusement was hurting things. . He didn’t read aside from the sports pages. . He didn’t take pleasure in good music. No, for him he relished the chance to be here far from where people forced you to keep up with books and magazines and culture. How he hated culture and those who pretended to enjoy all those things. Those gold-plated phonies. All of them. He had seen enough of them at school. He remembered the way they looked at him, made fun of him and talked about him behind his back. He would spend the rest of his days getting even….

But here, it was different. By himself in the land of nothingness. Where he and his guns would fight the last battle against Evil and save the world. Yes, that was it. Save the world. .That was a notion that he could relate to. In his own mind, he could see himself posed upon his charger garbed in white and protected by layers of armor. In his strong right hand, he raised a sword; in his other, the standard of a free world, the American flag superimposed on the Bush coat of arms.

George preferred the company of others who felt the way he did. The good old boys who liked things the way they were before the dark skinned folks came over. Yup! Times were better then. You knew who the good guys were.

Even then, you didn’t mess with Georgie lightly. No siree, he thought. Attack him with a box cutter and you would be nuked. His reaction was never in equal parts; it was always total aimed at total devastation of the opposition. And almost everyone was the opposition.….How much like his enemies he really was….


Despite his religious conversion that came just in time and saved his world, he in truth had little compassion for others or their problems. What people never grasped was that he saw himself as being destined for greater things; someone who would be capable of bearing responsibility for the ultimate challenge. Yes, there was more to Georgie than that cruel grin, boozing and cruisin’. And if you penetrated to get beyond that, you would find a kind of dead zone where there was little beyond the reptilian to respond. Despite his pretensions, he operated on harsh primitive instinct and that meant he was quick to strike out. Not that he was complex. It wasn’t that. It was just that with his imagined self-image, he couldn’t see himself as he really was; nor could he accept the reality if he did.

His home reflected the man better than anything else. It fit him like a glove. It was the place he chose. It was hot yet cold to its very marrow as he was. It was a tough, brutal place that he could identify with. Nothing transcended the physical dimension in his land. . And for him, those were the challenges he could deal with. Limited man meets limited environment. And so they got along well..

But as unfriendly as the area was, he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. . He was in his domain. Like Dante standing at the Gates of Hell. It felt good. He liked to be close to the land—not the living land of a Willa Cather or the land as immortalized by the thousands who gave up everything for the chance to make something grow. No, it was not about breathing life into the soil and building something. No, it was quite the opposite—an opportunity to reign over a nether region that seemed to reek of death and things dying.

It was a place of absolute extremes….something metaphysical, biblical in its scope. It was the end of earth. And who could live in such a place without deep fundamental views…an alignment with your maker perhaps?
And this had happened, quite profoundly, it turned out after a life of debauchery. Was he Sodom’s savior, he wondered….Was he the new St. Augustine ready to sacrifice all for the final battle yet to come….

But this reflection had to take a back seat to the new challenges he faced.
Fortunately, he was blessed with the kind of nature which allowed him to put everything into little comfortable compartments. That meant he slept like a baby nights even if the night before he had given orders that would result in committing American boys to an uncertain future, actions with a political intent. No, he had a stomach for making tough decisions because they never involved a risk on his part. Yet, he felt that this wasn’t enough. That there was more to do. He felt that he needed to fulfill his real role. And until he did, he would be living as a shadow figure incomplete and not fully realized. He was willing to wait it out. He knew it was coming soon. He just needed the trigger. And he thought he knew what it was.

In his heart of hearts, he knew that God would some day call him on a special mission. And, now, it seemed as if it were forming himself before his eyes. Could he have ever realized himself so fully were it not for 911. 911 was the leading edge, the watershed that defined him, he realized. He could not help but see himself engaged in the holiest of missions: To rid the world of the heathen Arab, the terrorist anti-Christ who would infect his land and his life. And if that required drastic actions and sacrifice, he was prepared to do what it took. There was no need for soul searching or questioning; there was only a need to go forward and do God’s work. Of course, at times, he had fallen badly. At other times, he thought himself the male equivalent of a Joan of Arc, the instrument of the Lord committed to do his bidding. But he was a humble man in his heart of hearts. He wanted man to fulfill his role in Christianity and if meant that he would have to take extreme action, he was not beyond that. And, secretly, he supposed, that was why God had chosen him over any adversary.
At times, he had turned out the lights when he was alone, to see if he could yet see the illumination coming out from his being. It had not happened yet, but it would. He knew it as sure as night followed day.

At times, he would allow himself this time to daydream about his noble mission in life which lent purpose to a life that could have easily gone awry were it not for help he received from family, friends and his minister. Thank God for their patience and their guidance, he thought. Nevertheless, the other dimensions to him did not lessen. He still clung to many of the things that had shaped him in his youth. Fundamentally, he was a chameleon who could change on a dime. He could be a religious zealot one moment, and one of the boys the next. In a sense, he might have reminded some of his more learned friends of an Ivan the terrible who seemed like he was a friend to his peasants until he would toss their baby off the roof or force them into the arms of a half-starved bear for his own amusement.

On the other hand, he still clung to his physicality, it was the one thing he felt proud about. He had salvaged his physical self but his thinking processes had been damaged, even he had to admit that. . They say that’s what happens when you experiment too much with foreign substances. But what the hell, he was still a better man that most. In fact, half of his young life he couldn’t remember. Friends whom he trusted confided that he had been quite the lady’s man in his youth. The good time Charlie who was the first to want to party. Or so he was reminded even though he had no memory of his descent into debauchery.

Nevertheless, it made him feel like a man. No matter what anyone thought, they would never get him to deny his life. . In short, he liked the way he was. He liked being a good ole boy; he liked his quick temper, uncritical nature and impatience and unwillingness to be flexible. He liked cussing and making fun of what he and his colleagues considered lesser folk. He liked giving in to his baser emotions. For him, it was a natural state. He never saw a conflict between the role he was chosen to play or humility which he never had. Nor was it possible for him to believe that even the savior was not without his mortal traits. Best of all, he never had regrets. Mom always said that having regrets made no sense. You had to get on with things. So with it all, he could pull the switch on a mother in the electric chair who never had a chance; yet sleep the sleep of the innocent so accommodating was his mind-set.


On other matters, he had always felt that it was a sign of strength that you make up your mind fast and not be one of those who gets too involved in looking objectively at facts and then making a decision.

The key to great success, he had always believed, was reacting intuitively and quickly. . That showed great strength and decision making skill. It removed you from those wimps who can never make a decision. And he guessed rightly that many people would respect you for those qualities.

Being decisive was often more important than being right, he thought. Yes, he was at peace with what he was. . But there was more to it than that. Cheney and the old gang had taught him, if you take a position, you must win. And that meant bullying it through half the time. Using bluff, lies, intimidation…whatever it took. It was the end game that counted. Nobody ever remembered somebody who was right; they remembered the winner. And he never forgot that.

Being a winner. That’s what made you good and remembered…..And he relished the hard-ball approach in everything he did. He might not be as smart as Clinton or Gore, but he knew how to bust chops and how to use propaganda and pressure to get his way.

And that was the bottom line….Poor Gore. He was such a patsy. So easy to suck in. So bright and yet so vulnerable for his kind of gutter tactics. How he loved to put the smart boy down. And then kick his teeth in. No siree, no fair play with good old Georgie boy. Fair play doesn’t win ball games. No way, Jose.

He moved over to his snack dishes which were always full of stuff that had no natural analogy. They were greasy fibrous clumps of stuff that spewed out of great machines… But they filled him up. No questions asked. . He loved his snacks.

‘Never let them see you sweat,’ he giggled to himself,
as he munched on some pork rinds and watched his favorite local team beat the living daylights out of that team from up north. Thought we were hicks didn’t you, he thought. That’ll show you.
“Yeah, yeah, eat their lunch” he shouted to the dog who looked at him, anticipating the abuse which would come next, let out a groan and proceeded to crawl under the couch.

Yes, life was good in this land of milk and honey. Now, he would just take a little nap. Maybe now he would dream about the Garden of Eden and Eve. Or maybe he would dream about himself riding through the desert with clad in armor and ready to do the Lord’s work.

Whatever it was, he began feeling himself drift off and as he did, he thought about how lucky he was to have the Lord by his side. It was almost more that a little boy from West Texas could hope for…