"When Static Becomes News..."

Just imagine what it was like to live in a country where the only news was manufactured news. That you were being told what the government wanted you to know. And there was no way to know whether it was true or not....

...If you were subjected to something like that, it would make you very cautious about accepting what you saw or heard. It would make you critical and questioning. And in the back of your mind, it might even remind you of the kind of things that can happen in a totalitarian system where the objective is to control what you see and hear.

But you don’t have to relive the past in Europe to experience that kind of watered-down reporting; it is happening now as we speak, which is probably not much of a surprise to anyone who keeps a close tab on the news…

If anybody needs a reminder there are several good books on the subject. Read Backing into the buzz-saw: It is a story by writers who are edited or censured by their editors; editors who kill stories not because they are not true but because they could get the newspaper into trouble with the government.

The other night on the public news channel, George Clooney and Bernard Kalb discussed the clash between McCarthy and Edward R. Murrow in the film, “Good Night and Good Luck. ” They pointed out how alarmist the general public was when anyone mentioned Communism. McCarthy. Prior to getting on the Commie kick, McCarthy was fixated on his reelection. He happened to see what the young Nixon did to get the best of Helen Gahagan Douglas by charging her as being a communist sympathizer, which later ruined her political career. After seeing how paranoid America was about Communism, he decided that this was a cause that would not only get him reelected but make him seem the true patriot.

None of that nonsense should have been allowed to get that far. Eisenhower should have shut Nixon up which he didn’t do; and the public should have stopped McCarthy before he divided the country…

Clooney’s film however, helps to point up the similarities of what happened then and is happening now. How political interest and catering to those interests can discourage media from doing an adequate job of reporting or editing on subjects vital to the public.

C-Span coverage of freedom of the press raised some solid issues that a democracy has to be vigilant about. During the course of the broadcast, concerns were raised that the reporters are not doing the job of really reporting the news thoroughly and the blame, at least in part, should be placed on a media that is not looking to rock the boat. Moreover, part of the subtext was the bad behavior of one Judith Miller who showed how the media could be used to represent a vehicle for the person being written about, thereby turning the tables on the conventional role of editing and reporting.

In an age where the media is satisfied to keep the government happy, it is the general public that is not being served.

What does that mean?

It means we are at a major disadvantage. If we want to compete as a nation, we need to have the latest and most current information. And we have to be able to trust the honesty and integrity of those who channel the news and information to us. Somehow this reality seems to have eluded most of our policy makers who seem to think we are better off being dumb, fat and placid.

As a result now, fewer than ten companies control what we see and hear in the media. And most of these media empires are operated and run as conservative businesses that do not want to offend the powers that grant licenses and monitor content.

We the public have suffered. At the turn of the century, there were something like 150 newspapers serving the New York market representing virtually every segment of society and every interest. Today, by comparison, there are fewer than a half dozen!
And you can multiply that experience around the country.

A recent study shows that the majority of people get their news from the major networks. Each of the networks run one half hour show during prime time. These shows are approximately 29 minutes with anywhere from 17 or more advertisements which run approximately 30 to 60 seconds each. That means on average about seven to nine minutes of commercials allowing 20 to 22 of news. When you consider that of that remaining time, there is generally a tribute to the fallen GI's and one or two human interest stories, that doesn't leave a lot of time for hard news or the analysis of that news.

As a result, the media is fortunate if it focuses on one or possibly two stories that have international origins. That means that we as a people are being deprived of international content that impinges on what is going on around the world unlike most of the rest of the world.

What can we do about it?

We can gang up on our representatives and force them to introduce legislation that will reverse several of the latest FTC decisions that have actually reduced competition in the news and content areas and encourage them to works towards increased diversity of communications.

At a time, when so much of life is dictated by what's going on in countries around the world, it is not in our best interests to diminsh the flow of information but to actually encourage greater diversity and variety in our points of view.

Best wishes,

Les Aaron

"The Sixties..."

If anyone is old enough to remember the sixties, the big deal was what were we going to do with all of our leisure time because of all of the technology that was about to enter our lives and free us up from the hardship of doing anything.

The big concern was identifying the right kind of companies to invest in who could channel all of that free time. About that time, AMF's stock started to soar along with Brunswick's; these guys were positively positioned to benefit from all of this leisure time that we were going to have and have to fill some way.

People were going to have more time to bowl; to hike new trails; to ride off-road vehicles; to take trips to far-off places. An investor could not go wrong in this heady atmosphere of promise. Anything was doable and anything was possible. We could send satellites into space and even land on the moon...

But the leisure concept seemed to be just that and nothing more.
Most people did not discover a world of leisure. In the 70's, booming inflation made it harder and harder to save money and now two people had to work to make the disposable income formerly earned by one. College tuition's continued to rise along with rising taxes causing people to begin to think about spare jobs to supplement their incomes...

Around the same time, executives who had struggled all their lives were starting to think about new careers that were more closely aligned with their interests. It was no longer going to be a question of pursuing those jobs that paid the most money although you hated them but instead finding a career say for example to take advantage of your love of pasting stamps in journals or collecting hub caps or digging for mushrooms. Yes, there was a whole new world out there that could make you happy that would combine your love and making money--not tons of it but enough to get by...

And then it happened. First JFK; then Bobby; then MLK. And we grew old together very fast!

At the beginning of the seventies, we awoke one day to find ourselves knee deep in a recession. At the same time, we were regrouping and rethinking our roles as we left the sixties and entered the 70's. The sixties had seen us change from naive idealists into graying pragmatists.
Vietnam was getting worse. There was a growing schism between the individual and government. Selfishness seemed to be a growing tendency among those who had gone through the love generation and now felt the impact of all the deaths of our leaders.... ; there was little point to anything since anything good would die or be assassinated; the only thing to do was make money lots of it and walk over anybody who stood in your way...

The Baby Boomers in the 80's were in full sway! We faced up to the Cold War and Reagan was making us feel good about being Americans again; although he never thought much about the problems of the have-nots.

And at last the Wall fell (Thank you, Mr. Gorbachev). America was back as number one. Vietnam was behind us. And Bill Clinton made us all optimists again!...

And now this!

How will the historians see this period? Will it go down as four years when America was never so polarized; never so torn apart; where narrow interests drove the country; where people saw their jobs go to distant shores? where the government for the first time could not provide succor to the people of one of its greatest cities; where the people finally realized that corruption reached its ugly tentacles into the very top of our government; where people had lost their confidence in the system and something fundamental was broken in the compact that was supposed to exist between government and the people.

Only time will tell. But all the signs are there.

And the polls are a bellwether some say of a government in stasis.

Americans, thankfully, are wonderfully resilient and we can expect that someday off in the future, groups of people will gather to talk about a period which by then will have been diagnosed, analyzed and investigated over and over again, a period in which many people went to jail or were ruined for violating the public trust.

And so it goes...

Les Aaron

And so it goes!

"Stoned At Court"

DE TO A STONE

PROPHETS MENTIONED OVER THE PHONE
tHE RELEASE OF THE BIG STONE
NOT ANY STONE MIND YOU
BUT A STONE THAT
COULD LEGALLY BIND YOU
UPROOTED FROM THE TOP OF THE COURT
IT GOT VISITORS A LITTLE OVER WROUGHT

AFTER ALL, WHAT DID IT MEAN?
IS WHAT WE'RE PRIVY TO A BIBLICAL SCENE
WAS HERCULES SENDING DOWN A BOLT?
OR DID THE LOOSENED STONE
SOMETHING ELSE CONNOTE

PEOPLE RUSHED TO THEIR BIBLES AND TORAHS
COULD THIS BE
A NEW VERSION OF SODOM AND GOMORRA?
WAS IT ELECTION RELATED?
THE INTELLIGENTSIA DEBATED
OR WAS IT SIMPLY THE EXPECTED BLIGHT
OF A BUILDING TILTING
TOO MUCH TO THE RIGHT?

PEOPLE CHECKED THEIR DIARIES AND DATES
AND GUESSED IT WAS SOMETHING TO DO
WITH EXTREMIST FATES...
AFTER ALL SADDAM WAS BEING
INVESTIGATED BY THE iRAQI PEOPLE
AN APPROPRIATE TIME
FOR ROCKS TO COME
LOOSE FROM OUR UNBENDING STEEPLE

WAS IT THAT
OR SOME OTHER TIRADE
THAT COULD HAVE THREATENED
ROE VS. WADE...

IF THIS LOOSE ROCK IS A METAPHOR
OF THE FOOLISHNESS OF WAR
MOST OF US CAN AGREE
THAT THIS IS A GOVERNMENT
LAYERED IN HYPOCRISY

NO ONE QUITE KNOWS FOR SURE
BUT IT SEEMS TO REFLECT
A GOVERNMENT QUITE INSECURE

WE COULD PULL OUT
AND DO IT NOW...
AND TURN OUR WEAPONS INTO PLOUGHS...
OR BUSH COULD JUST SIT THERE AND WAIT
UNTIL WE REACH 2008...
A DATE THAT THE REPUBLICANS CANNOT EQUIVOCATE
WHILE THE REST OF
CELEBRATE!

lES AARON

THE MAN WHO INSTIGATED CHANGE!

THE ‘HOWARD’ FACTOR!

Once there was a guy named Howard
who entered my life and changed it all around.

It seems as if it all happened a thousand years ago now, but
the truth is that it was only yesterday. But it changed the
world in ways that only now we're beginning to understand.

I don't know how it started. Only that it happened early
And it happened fast!

Everyone on the mailing
lists I was involved in were so frustrated by the
democrats invisibility in the public debate, their willingness
to cede power to the Republicans and their ability to ignore the needs
of the people, that we were primed for someone to come along
to deliver us from our anxieties.

We found this Deliverer in the form of one Howard Dean, a virtually unheard
of Governor from a small state that was never in the headlines for anything.

All of a sudden, this governor was starting to say the kind of things we were feeling and like wildfire we started coalescing around him. This was just around the 9-11 crisis. Before that, a friend and I had started a democratic magazine that was designed to get to the meat that everyone hinted at but nobody reported.

We were doing quite well at getting behind the stories. As a result, we were gathering support from a number of liberal and progressive publications and the support of the Internet. People like high government officials were talking to us and celebrity types like Jimmy Breslin was doing columns. It looked like we had hit a responsive chord in our marketplace; then 9-11 hit and that was the end of us. The funding simply dried up because no one would challenge a War president.

When Howard came along, he seemed like the kind of candidate we could believe in. He was saying the things that resonated with us. And he was becoming a safety valve for our own growing anger at the Republican Right Wing and the Democrats who were not standing up to be counted.

Many of us rushed to help Howard. I handled development of a base in my neck of the woods, recruiting activists and others, raising money, spreading the message and generally serving as a conduit for the Dean message.

And it got through!

Our participation grew monthly; donations were higher than other groups had raised; we were being heard by certain 'influentials' in Wilmington. People were talking us up. And there was a growing body of support throughout the state.

At some point, we were registering about 1,500 parties around the country happening simultaneously. The numbers who had joined the grass-roots organizations for Dean topped 650,000 members.

The press was beginning to follow Howard around; and that was part of the problem. Howard wasn’t allowed to make his mistakes in private or learn the subtleties of his newly adopted course. What we didn't fully realize then was that Howard had heated up too fast. As a result, the rest of the primary candidates saw him as the one to beat and focused all of their money and efforts toward that end. Howard was beaten not by the Republicans but by the same crowd that had dominated Democratic politics for decades.

For all of us, who set up the phone banks, who distributed the signs and did all of the other heavy lifting, the euphoria was gone. We had returned back to earth with a thud! What do we do now, we pondered?

Well, many of us landed on our feet. Several got behind PDA; others decided to run for office themselves and still others infiltrated the existing political system lending their acumen and their fortitude to an organization that badly needed rebuilding.

Some others of us lent our support to Kerry in various ways.

But although Howard left the candidate scene, his lessons were valuable. In the end, we all had seen that the party while still battered by the republicans was coming alive again, there were more vibrant people becoming involved with democratic issues and overall he had had a salubrious effect on what would become a mission to change the party.

Today, Howard is still there; only now he is behind the scenes orchestrating strategy and tactics and raising money for a party that is in the process of being rethought and reshaped to win the upcoming election.

And towards that end, we know that many young people at the grass-roots are working behind the scenes to make that happen!

So, while we didn’t win, we did become the instruments of change. And I wonder how many of us really realize that…

Les Aaron

Is it A Bushian Quirk That There's No Work? Or is there a Tonic for a Need so Chronic?

Oh Where Oh Where
Can my next job be?
Is it close to you
Or nearer to me?

Is it in technology
Or gynocology
Does it involve my
mind,
Or rather my behind?

Will it be important
Or minor
Or crude
Or finer?

Will it test my mettle
Or will I have to settle
Will it force me to think
Or possibly wear pink?

Will it be serious
Or silly
Or just something
relatively willy-nilly

Will it make me proud
Or just a bit loud
Will it heighten my spirits
Or nothing near it?

Will I tell all my friends
Or willmy relationships end
Will I tell all the rest
Or will they think me a pest?

It's hard to say
What I'll find today
Maybe I won't find a thing
Or maybe after this--
I'll just want to sing

I never thought
it would be such an ordeal
At times
I doubt it really is real!

I thought I might found
a job rather soon
If I took the train
All the way to Rangoon...

I knew I could work
If I didn't mind
going overseas and
becoming a Turk

It won't be long
I hesitate
That work will mean
YOu emigrate

Talking in some foreign tongue
May not exactly keep you young
But it will pay the rent
even if you're living in Tashkent...

So, be humble and willing
And you may make a killing
Not here!...But there
10,000 miles from Delaware...

Les Aaron

"Shooting the Wad!"

What gives?

I think Bush has shot his wad!

He has pissed people off about the economy, jobs, the War in Iraq and more than half the population now admits that they don't feel one bit safer with him in office.

What's more, the centerpieces of Bush's second term are no nearer being accepted by the population of this country. No one wants him tampering with Social Security because they've seen what he's capable of doing or not doing after Katrina. The Klotz factor reflects his administration's disinterest with the public's welfare and that has struck home like nothing else!
In short, the trust factor is this close to being used up. And once that's gone, what do you think will happen?
We'll you don't need a crystal ball to see it.
Moderate Republicans are emerging from their cocoons and starting to speak up against many of the things that Bush had been pushing over the years--from drilling in the Arctic wilderness to the War in Iraq.

Republican moderates are a good canary in the miner's cage because they seem to understand what it takes to survive better than most. And they see that Bush is no "populist" like his idol, Ron Reagan. Unlike Ron Reagan, Mr. Teflon Man, things are starting to stick to George Bush--things that he's not particularly happy about. Many see Bush as the problem with the aftermath of the storm; not the Mayor or the Governor of the beleagured state of Louisiana. They also see the indictments and investigations coming awfully close to the seat of power which conceivably could leave Bush nowhere to turn in his second term. And many have developed a keen dislike for both Rumsfeld and Cheney, the real president, for their brashness and disregard for things that we consider democratic freedoms...

As many of you will note, this has had the democrats coming alive at last smelling flesh and the opportunity to turn a route into a two way battle at last.

The choice of Harriet Meirs helped those who were beginning to question Bush's judgment. In this case, the hard edge came from the extreme right who accused Bush of letting them down after all of the money they anted up and the support they lent him.

After all this, Bush finds himself between a rock and a hard place!

What will the outcome be?

Well, aside from the re-emergence of the Moderates, even the conservatives are starting to break away. They were always the 'balanced books' set who believed that increasing the Federal debt could not be good for anything. Yet, Bush has managed to grow government like his dad and his icon faster than anyone.

Most conservatives believe that where we are today in debt is going to be with us a long time and they don't like the idea that China has the upper hand. Don't expect them to come out in droves to vote for the Party again!...Mostly, unless the Dems pick another Kerry, they will probably stay home...

So, whose left? The die-hards who still Bush as their one last hope. And they may be right but for the wrong reasons. It seems that at this point in time, the voting public is ready to abandon many of Bush's ideas. They no longer see him as the answer to their needs and, undoubtedly, they have begun the search for somebody they can better identify with.

For the rest of us, it looks like the only thing Bush may win on is improving border security. Apparently, this is a very hot issue along the borders and it's starting to heat up elsewhere because many perceive the illegal aliens as taking jobs away from the working class...

In so doing, he would pass on attempts to revise discussions on Social Security and some of the other programs he was trying to bulldoze through. This assessment is predicated that he won't try to engineer something to keep his party in power like a new terrorist threat. This always stands in the wings and if that happens, all bets are off for a smooth transition which many are beginning to anticipate now...

It is still too early to predict what will happen but increasingly it looks as if Rice may be the Republican Party's answer to Hillary and if that happens Cheney may even come to the surface again to once more take over the reins of his old company and declare the separate and independent country of Wyoming. Stranger things have happened!

Les Aaron

THE UBIQUITOUS FLYING BLUE BLOG
WWW.LESAARON.BLOGSPOT.COM

Bring Out Your Dead!

The Quarantine Solution...


It is somehow not quite reassuring to know that all people who have symptoms of the flu will be filed away in some kind of quarantine site away from the probing eyes of others for the express purpose of what?...."protecting the rest of us?."

When you think about it, quarantines serve as an excellent way to keep those liberal types away from the vaccines that are available to vaccinate the top dogs of the Republican party. Why? So that they will be strong enough to reprogram the voting machines to show another big win for the candidate of choice.

Does this fall under the give me a break syndrome?

Now, being a street kid, I've heard a lot of reasons for getting rid of Democrats, but this has to top the list. Quarantine, my foot!. Who do they think they're dealing with here.

Their tactic is just a way to keep Dems with sniffles from voting. Clearly, we need to take preemptive measures here to thwart their intentions…. We need to begin to take better care of ourselves which leads me to the cure de jour, the cure that has saved people from time immemorial. The reason for David’s win against Goliath: Chicken soup.

Chicken soup can cure anything. It can cure slowness of thought, headaches, neuralgia, aches of every description, homesickness, depression and the gout. The flu? Childs-play. Chicken soup practitioners and theoreticians have tamed much bigger challenges with this hearty and dependable mélange of “all that’s good for you…”

Don’t leave it to the amateurs like Campbells or Liptons who don’t seem to have a clue. They think it’s enough to walk a chicken through some hot water and then throw in a few noodles. No, my friend, that’s like comparing a bicycle to a Mercedes.

Why is it important that we take action. The reason is clear: We have to keep those voting machines tallying the results the "right" way.

That quarantine idea is pretty slick if I do say so myself.. A damn good way to get around that posse comitatus clause that says something like NO ARMY TROOPS BASED ON OUR SHORES... How can you say no to an Army that’s “protecting” us against all of those creepy crawlies in the night.

I'm sure that in addition to progressives, we will find in quarantine all of those liberal lefty reporter and editor types who make trouble for the government.

It's a good thing we have this government looking out for us...

Like the good citizen that I am, I listened to our government’s urgent warnings. I stock piled a lot of tape and plastic. I taped up the windows, laid out plastic all around the designated room. And what happened? Nothing. Could it be that
Cheney owns a good piece of 3M and a few plastic companies, too.

When all else fails, however, I have found that there is nothing like that tape to keep my mother-in-law immobilized and out of our affairs.

Anyway, for the time being, I guess I'll just avoid the temptation to find out what this quarantine business is all about. I'm too afraid it might be conducted at one of those black sites where they can hold you forever, jetison your democratic rights and accuse you of being one of those lefty commie types. This automatically gives them carte blanche to bury you in some God-forsaken hell hole for three or four years….

Instead, I think I'll go to New Orleans and hang out in the French Quarter. I’m willing to bet that this will be the last place this government will look for any American for the next eight years!...And I expect I will be a heck of a lot safer away from those Army guys who are crazy enough to have joined up without adequate armor protection.


Les Aaron

The UnChristmas!

Do We Need to Rethink Christmas?

Les Aaron

One of my friends had a great idea. An idea that moves beyond even the promise of Festivus (for those who don't know what Festivus is, I refer them to Seinfeld later episodes).

My friends idea was triggered by my little story about the search for Santa in which I discussed how frightened my big tough friends were of the little tykes who were rehearsing for leading roles in the Lord of the Flies in the days leading up to Christmas with the poor Santa being for the most part, the target de jour!

My friend argued and quite convincingly that perhaps Santa's day was over. Then he went on to question whether there was a legitimate reason for Christmas in the twenty first century considering the true nature of people.

There were some heavy metaphysical concepts discussed, but the genius of his approach bears some mention. Let me see if I can paraphrase his very contemporary concept. Instead of us pretending as if we are all good friends one day a year and showing our goodness and the rest of the time being nasty brutish oafs to each other, why don't we invert the occasion.

Say again?

Yes, it is quite revolutionary. The idea is to be nice to each other for 364 days a year and let our true natures prevail one day a year. This would truly be revolutionary and much more in the spirit that Jesus intended. The challenge would force us to work at happiness. This would not be just a story book hypothesis, but in this iteration something worth striving for. To comply and to be judged worthy to enjoy the real meaning of Christmas, It would be a requirement that we made every effort to be nice to our fellow man every opportunity we had. We could not try to beat others out at taxi stands; we would not push ahead in the supermarkets; we would avoid bullying at every opportunity. And we would show a smile and say, "please" and "thank you" every chance we got. We would work with our children so that they didn't become little beasts; but instead went out of their way to be polite to adults and behave nicely with other children.

When you think about it, my friend’s idea has legs. And, who knows? Perhaps, this holiday reversal concept might fly. It surely offers us something to strive for as we go about the stressful work of building up to be nice for just one day a year which takes huge commitments of concentration and a lot of hard work for so few hours during which we can exhibit these policies. Such an effort surely leads to anxiety and further frustration that could possibly manifest itself in ways seen as rude, ignorant and possibly even aggressive. On the other hand, if we know we have to be nice 364 days a year, we just simple adapt to the challenge understanding that we had no alternative.. It would be much better than going back to our nasty brutish ways after only one day. It hardly seems worth the effort.

We’re conducting a survey on this so that we can promote the concept.
IF it goes over, we will have to develop the appropriate logo and I’m afraid Santa will be a goner. We will also save thousands of Christmas trees around the world, which will help end floods in many outlying areas. And probably lead to a turkey support network.

Of course, there will be a downside. Coca Cola sales will suffer for example. And who knows what will happen to the SuperBowl. Also, Christmas City in China will probably end up having to make beaded moccasins or some such thing. Nor am I sure that the rest of the world will not just think this is another scheme to somehow steal their resources.
On the other hand, if we are nice to everyone for 364 days a year, it could change everyone else’s perception of the USA. And at this stage of the game, that might be a real gain and provide a much needed benefit.

Les Aaron

"The Browning of America”

What They Don't Tell You About
"Free Trade"...


Hey, they lied to us...

What do you mean?

They told us that if we got rid of our manufacturing jobs, we could move to the next plateau...

Which was?

We could become the world leader in information technology, upgrade our jobs, and serve the cause of the Third World...

That sounds admirable...

Well, they forgot a few things...

Like what?

Well, that stuff about information technology sounds good, but it only holds up if the government also helps people move up the ladder, gain more education and equips them to more effectively compete in world markets…

That makes sense...

It also fails to take into consideration what a worker need do if he or she does not have the ability to move up the ladder. What then?

Hmmm!

Anyway, nobody seemed to notice and the next thing you knew, all of the jobs moved overseas.


But you still had your intellectual property.

Ah yes, our intellectual property. That's a bit of sore point, old chum.

What do you mean?

Well, it began when the government and the private sector conspired to send information technology jobs overseas. They discovered it was cheaper to do it in Bangladesh than on Broadway...The results were obvious.

THat left?

Well, with the information technology having gone overseas, we still had our intellectual property. We could excell in intellectual property and license out rights around the world. Things still looked exceptionally positive and we were all feeling good about helping out all of the rest of the world. And moving into white collar jobs that afforded us the free time to indulge in leisure pursuits. Remember how all of those leisure industries shot up in the stock market?

So, what happened?

What happened was that more and more companies are now going to China and India to do their creative intellectual work....

You mean the intellectual property stuff?

That's right. Microsoft has opened a think tank in China. Why? Because they graduate about ten times as many engineers as we do....And all the rest are following in their footsteps. Just yesterday, one of the leading firms in the high tech market said that they are switching more than sixty percent of their work to India....which translates into fewer jobs here.

Why?

The Indians will work for a quarter of what Americans earn... And that's the bottom line...

So, what's left for us?

There still some jobs left in Wal_Mart....

What does that mean?

It means you can sell to those Americans whose jobs have fled to India products that were originally made in this country but are now made in China at a fraction of the cost.

Isn't free trade wonderful?

I think I'm going to complain.

Don't bother. I already did.

What happened?

They made me wait a half an hour; then connected me to Bombay.

So, what's the next growth industry?

Some say its portable Quarantine sites...

Say no more!


Les Aaron....

THE MILITARY'S NUMBER GAME...

Army Quotas…

Despite what all the naysayers have said, the Army is pretty close to meeting its quotas. That would normally be a reason for celebration considering that we are in the middle of an unpopular war. And most normal people are not exactly rushing up to join the military when they know that their next duty station might see bullets whizzing by their heads. .

. However, while most of us are being lulled by gross numbers that on the surface look very encouraging, the truth is actually somewhat different. To understand why, the casual observer needs to know how these somewhat obscure numbers are arrived at.

In the most general terms, the quota is a product of the Pentagon analysts working to estimate what the numbers have to be to sustain a viable military on the ground. These numbers are the total of all of the military’s projections for the numbers needed in each of the military specialties that make up the MOS system. Many of those jobs reflect highly specialized job occupations. .

Therefore, the total quota is made up of all of the number of required GI's in each of the required military specialties. Okay, assuming that you are with me to this point, while the gross numbers look promising, they do not reflect the fact that there are dangerous gaps in specialized military occupations that are not nearly at the point of being filled. To correct this discrepancy, the government feels it is okay to move those in less specialized MOS’s to fill in the gaps. What this tends to do is mask the fact that that there are dangerous short-falls in those specialized military jobs that require a high skill level and that problem is pernicious and across the board.

Therefore, what the government is doing has the effect of filling the required categories but it is with the objective of providing a level of comfort which is totally unjustfied. . It does not solve the problem but allows observers to believe that the needs are not as critical as they really are. To make matters worse, recruiters have been authorized to lower standards allowing the ranks to be filled by less qualified candidates.

In those cases where essential specialties must be filled, the military has been able to meet its targets using the expedient of major sign up bonuses that may total as much as $150,000.

Officials are saying off the record that such tactics constitute a long term crap shoot that's predicated on the fact that these important recruitment short-falls will not be felt because enough GI's will have been drawn off from Iraq so that it won't show up.

Whether this will turn out to be the case based on needs and contingencies is yet unknown. But if the military guesses wrong and they are there for the ‘long-haul,’ the weaknesses in military specialties could turn out to be a two edged sword that endangers the entire mission contributing to unnecessary deaths and increased risk.

Les Aaron
The Ubiquitous Flying Blue Blog
www.lesaaron.blogspot.com


Les Aaron
The Ubiquitous Flying Blue Blog
http://www.lesaaron.blogspot.com/

The Indispensable Man!

There's Always Hope...

Can't do anything right? Disappointed in the progress of your career?

Don't feel bad.

There's always hope.

Consider the case of one, Michael Brown, the titular head of FEMA who botched up so badly in New Orleans, that he was removed from his once proud job. During this difficult phase of his career, when the poor people of New Orleans were without food, water or shelter, Michael Brown had committed the unpardonable sin of thinking more about a babysitter for his dog than he did whether or not the people of this battered city would survive.

It never seemed to dawn on him that there might be more pressing priorities.

Because even the after-taste of this man was so odious, that the public watch-dogs pressed to have him removed a second time from the consulting position he had inherited after being dumped from his leading role at FEMA.

After all, a consulting role for a man who didn’t seem to get it in the first place seemed a rather odd assignment especially when it was paid for with taxpayer monies.

What to do with all of this negative criticism coming out on almost a minute by minute basis? How could this man in one’s wildest dreams manage to redeem himself from charges that he was so inept, so unthinking, so ill-prepared to prepared to respond to the challenges New Orleaners faced in a timely and effective way?

Well, for one he never seemed to realize that they were talking about him. In other words, the rest of the world was astonishingly crazy if they believed that he should be targeted as the reason for what happened in this ravaged city. To bounce back and face the world, it took a new suit and the chutzpah to deny your complicity in everything that went wrong. Of course, if there is guilt, you make it clear that none of it belongs to you. It was the Mayor, the Governor, and, of course, a weather pattern that never should have occurred on his watch. .

If criticism persists, you can bury yourself in semantic differentials and suggest that you didn't want to go on TV telling the people how bad things really were. And you certainly didn’t want to hurt people’s feeling. And, naturally, if the governor and mayor don't make their needs explicit, well, can that be your fault?

In the long term, you can cut any ties with FEMA, point the finger at their reorganization that had FEMA fall under the aegis of Homeland Security and then start your own consulting business.

Yes, if all goes wrong with the organization that you steered? If you had contributed to adding so much confusion in your organization that only you can wend your way through the maze, well, then you have created the perfect opportunity. You can start a consulting organization and rent yourself out to those who want to know how to get something done in an organization that seems to have no idea of what it’s supposed to be about. And, marvelously, in the process, you have become the indispensable man.

And that's precisely what Michael Brown has done.

He is now is in charge of a consulting organization that for a price will help you steer through all the confusion he created in his last life.

There is a certain irony in that and evidence that clearly
God has a sense of humor.

Who knows with this kind of logic where Mr. Brown can go from here?

Maybe he could shoot for the job of the top guy who patted him on the back for doing a great job in the first place. Stranger things have happened.


Les Aaron

FINDING SANTA...

Everybody takes Santa for granted.

He's usually some nice guy who likes kids and doesn't mind pitching in over the holidays. And it doesn't hurt if he's a little big in the beam and happens to have gray hair...

And while today’s elusive Santas may have been taken for granted in the past, the same is not true today.

The big question is why.

The fact is that the Santas of the world are becoming a rapidly disappearing species like the Unicorn or that special mysterious woodpecker who keeps popping up only to disappear again!


But there's a good reason for the disappearing Santas.

. First of all, most parents today tend to slip and slide over the issue of discipline. As a result, kids are no longer bound by conventional rules of behavior meaning that the sky is the limit.

Therefore, were anybody naively volunteering to help out, they would discover quite early in the game that it doesn’t hurt to have a Special Ops background with a major in survival skills.

And the wisdom is that one does not take on the mantle of Santa without being prepared for anything. Kicks to the shins. Pokes in the solar plexus? Routine, I’m sorry to say. The truth is that today’s kids tend to be much more creative in the punishments they dole out to unsuspecting Santas whose training for the most part hardly got beyond a kindly Ho-Ho-Ho!

Sadly, such demonstrations of conventional child-Santa relations seldom prevail in the Lord of the Flies scenarios that seem to describe most Christmas departments in this day and age.

No, being a Department Store Santa is no walk in the park.

Especially if you forgot junior’s super powered sled last or the toy rocket "you" promised. Be prepared. Always wear a codpiece.

But if the think the job of being a Santa is bad, try recruiting one four weeks before the big event.

The hard reality is that nobody wants the job. I'm convinced of that. Why? Because I've spent the last few weeks trying to recruit one. You're asking me how I got that choice assignment? Well, I had been asked to help out because my bosses figured that I am friendly and like kids. But unfortunately for them, I was already committed to a job. So, no big deal I figured. I would recruit their Santa in the blink of an eye with one or two phone calls at most.

I began with my perfect choice for Santa. But it turned out that he was a cancer survivor and had to watch his immune system I was advised. Okay, I can buy into that.

Next, I tried another friend, another good bet.
However, he told me he'd rather work from dawn to dusk schlepping around heavy rolls of felt and eight foot sections of plywood than sit down on a throne all day to be poked and prodded by kids with attitude.

That's what I ran into all day. A lot of grown men totally terrified of facing a line of kids with rapacious greed and consuming hunger in their eyes.

But this was the coup de grace. One friend, who I was convinced would take on the task, said, "no way."

I rather dejectedly asked why. He said that he could get in trouble if he were accidentally to hold the kid in the wrong way; he said he had seen it happen. In this litigious world, anxiously seeking out villains everywhere, it behooves an erstwhile Santa to hedge his bets.

Eventually, I suspect that the ideal solution will take the shape of an android Santa, impervious to everything from Death Rays to a knee to the groin. Certainly, the risk to life and limb will be reduced and insurance premiums should be virtually nonexistent; moreover, you never know, this might serve as a creative source of new jobs to offset the jobs that fled to other countries with strange-sounding names.

Les Aaron

A Holiday Gift That Keeps On Giving...

"Bombs Are Us"

Tired of seeing those American GI’s trudging around in your neighborhood
Trying to protect you and your family!

Want to get back to the good ole’ days of chaos and mayhem under your beloved
Saddam…

You can support the war this holiday season!...

Come to Bombs Are Us, the only superstore that deals in destruction.
Need to blow up a holiday tree? Want to create fireworks in your backyard,
tired of your mother-in-law? Or do you have bigger fish to fry?
You might want total destructive power for
any of a hundred reasons and we are here to comply...

Now, see our new Holiday line of explosive belts filled with the latest Decorator line of nails and tacks. These babies really make a mess! And you can use them anywhere... And get rid of your
Nagging wife at the same time…

Take advantage of this special: Buy any two of our decorative explosive belts, the Xmas models, and you automatically earn a discounted ticket to your choice of cities in the Middle East. Or if you already live in the Middle East, our special includes a discounted babaganoush and hummus buffet with belly dancing included at all Hymie’s Camel Hitch throughout the Middle East…

All kits come complete with Martyr poster, sacrificial shrine and pay-off from Middle Eastern potentate after completing the form and listening to the free included tape from bin Laden.
Includes additional free training from your radicalized Mullah or cleric and a letter of encouragement from your choice of Saudi princes…

Come one! Come All....

And that's only the beginning. Thanks to American, Russian and Chinese aid to the Middle East, we can now provide a full range of missiles and weapons at discounted prices specially decorated for this occasion..... Choose your special weapon of choice with customized message at no additional cost:

Messages Available Include:

“You think we are dumb dirty Arabs. Take this, sucker!”

“A Pox On Arnold, the American trouble-maker…How big is he now against our great weapons?”

“Kiss my big Arab behind”

“Go home Yanqui via Trans Arab Airways”

“Roses are red, violets are blue
Mess with us Arabs
And we’ll blow up you up, too…”

Or choose your own message. Special Arabic scribes are standing by to decorate your missile with your own personal message…Act now….Call: 1 800 323 454 892 992 422 071…. A special message to support National Dialysis Week was pre-recorded by bin Laden for your personal edification.


For the holiday, you can procure two deadly missiles for the price of one on our Twofer for Destruction Special...

What's more, it doesn't end there...

Beginning today, you can buy an American bullet proof vest that may not meet American standards but is perfectly good for any of our friends through-out the middle east.

The beauty of this baby can be best appreciated by those who are seeking martyrdom.
Don one of these vests and pretend you are protected as a round knocks you into the land of Vestial Virgins and "good times." Yes, your trip to the next world can be made easier in the belief that you are being protected when you are not.

Want to learn more? Simply contact our Baghdad field representative or any of the representatives of our company through-out the Middle East.

And enjoy the holiday season as if it were your own with any of the thousands of weapons from your friends in Russia, China and the US available now for the first time at totally discounted holiday prices...

Les Aaron

Girding Up the Terrorists...

"ARMOR THAT WORKS?
WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SO?"

We've got a solution for that crap that they're sending out to our GI's.
And I think you'll agree.

Check this out.

Here's the skinny: Me and my old Veteran buddy were bemoaning the crappy defective armor that was just being recalled. And we wondered how many GI's were wounded unnecessarily because the richest country in the world couldn't protect its own...

Yeah, there were reasons. But they didn't hold up!...

We talked about the fact that many of our military suppliers acquired each other or merged. And there were too few sources for good military hardware these days. Well, you know how one thing leads to another.

So, now we are stuck with thousands of vests that give an illusion of protection which was surely worse than no protection whatsoever. At least, without protection, you tended to be more vigilant. However, with protection that doesn't work, you might be inclined to take unnecessary chances figuring that you were protected. . It reminded me of the Lakota tribes who believed that their dances would render them invisible before the Army wiped them out.

It was troubling. Then my friend had the best idea of all: "Hey, we can turn this from a route into a plus," he suggested.

"How?", I inquired.

"We ship the vests to the terrorists!"

You had to know this guy was a New Yorker. Who else would think up such a crazy solution.

So, now we are going out to raise money to provide bulletproof protection for the terrorists. We will probably have to advertise but it will be worth it to get all of these terrorists outfitted in our defective armor vests. Then our guys will be able to pick them off like turkeys which they are anyway.
And we will have made our flawed investment pay off bigtime. What do you think?

Who said Americans weren't inventive?

Les Aaron

Don't Bite The Blog That Feeds You...

Here's something interesting for my friends.

Do you know when you use Google, it does not end there.

No, sad to say, Google keeps your search.

And after twenty, thirty, three hundred searches, they pretty well know what makes you tick.
And they keep that data.

What do you think they might do with it.

Market it? Beware, the folks at Google are no slouches.

They are so far beyond Gates you can't even compare one with the other.

And Google has its eye on the future.

Think about it. if you tend to look up medical diseases, they might send that info to an insurance company or even your insurance company for a fee.

Or let's say, you're always going to new employment sites. Wouldn't an employer be interested in that.

The possibilities are endless. And they begin and end with you.

I remember back in the sixties when IBM entertained the idea of computerizing all of the auto records in New Haven. The back-lash was deafening.

Now, everyone is compliant and don't seem to care.

But for the marketers, man, they could face a bonanza with your information....

Think about it.

Keep that in mind the next time you decide to do a search.

Les Aaron

Lesson: HOUSES MADE OF STRAW DO NOT STAND!

Not a good idea to build your house of straw
When the prosecutor tells you he is going to 'huff' and 'puff.'

Look at these politicos bleating about religion and values!

Every day, another indictment is handed down.

Now, Michael Scanlon, the associate of Jack Abramoff is going to testify. Not from altruism, of course, but to get a lighter sentence. You remember Abramoff? He was the associate of the previously indicted Majority Leader, Tom the Hammer Delay. Abramoff was the friend and influence peddler who took the Indians' money--money designated for buying favor--and headed for the hills...It was the second screwing of the Native Americans in nearly two hundred years..

With friends like Abramoff, Delay, better known as “the Hammer” may find himself being nailed into a coffin of his own design.

Abramoff was indicted several months ago but now for the first time, his aide has agreed to testify against his colleagues which will be sure to implicate many others as the recipients of his and Jack's largess. And the noise surrounding this decision is already very reminiscent of the furor that accompanied the indictment of CenTrust high flyer David Paul, associated with BCCI, who was found out to have been entertaining members from both sides of the aisle.

When BCCI collapsed, the rich and powerful fell in its wake. Even now, it is rumored that our representatives are already starting to scatter like a bunch of bugs when you shine the spotlight on them.

And with good reason!

They already know that those who have received “consideration:” from Abramoff in his effort to garner favor for his clients are going to find themselves in the spotlight again.. .

As you might imagine, the payment of bribes does not yet qualify as legal even if you are first name terms with the man who speaks to God; even if you piggy back on those claiming the highest moral values.

So, all in all, it should be interesting to see if the prosecutor can huff and puff and bring their house of straw down especially to find out who will be tumbling down with it.

In the end, one might wonder how much longer this administration can keep a straight face as their house collapses on all sides.

Les Aaron
Editor, Hubgram

Disclosure of Secure Information Subject to Administrative Remedies

Backgrounder:
In response to various requests, here is the jist of the article referencing J. GLechliter's analysis of the Valerie Plame leak and what actions should be considered by Fitzgerald's staff. It offers a new channel for inquiry and could lead to administrative remedies and civil sanctions.

I have worked closely with Jerry in the past and found to be a meticulous guardian of the truth and someone totally committed to the letter of the law. Partly, this is predicated on a long history in Special Ops and Intel at the highest level.

He is not only a good friend, but a courageous fighter for democracy and justice under the law which he has proven in our last collaboration to bring the truth to the American public about the service record of the president.

The following article was prepared for American Prospect by Greg Sergeant. We have received permission from G. Lechliter to reproduce it for my Blog site...

Regards,

Les Aaron
Editor of the Hubgram
The Ubiquitous Flying Blue Blog
www.lesaaron.blogspot.com

In a message dated 11/22/2005 9:37:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, GLechliter writes:
Need To KnowGerald Lechliter, the retired officer who traced Bush’s military record, has assigned himself a new task -- deciphering the Plame investigation.
By Greg SargentWeb Exclusive: 11.16.05
Print Friendly Email Article Does anybody remember Gerald Lechliter?
In the home stretch of the 2004 presidential campaign, Lechliter, a retired army colonel from Delaware with a bit of spare time on his hands, wrote a 32-page analysis of George W. Bush’s military records that showed that Bush had shirked his duty. Lechliter sent it to The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, who wrote a column, “Missing in Action,” that called Lechliter’s missive “the most meticulous examination I’ve seen of Mr. Bush’s records.” Lechliter helped revive the story, and his analysis was subsequently cited in publications all over the country.
Well, it turns out that Lechliter has done it again. And this time, he has trained his sights on the outing of Valerie Plame.
Lechliter -- who claims 25 years experience in the intelligence field -- has penned a detailed analysis of the Plame affair, and Patrick Fitzgerald’s duty as special counsel, that he has sent to Fitzgerald. He also sent a copy to the Prospect. Lechliter -- operating on his own time again -- did a close reading of the regulations governing both the proper treatment of classified information and the authority delegated to Fitzgerald. And what he came up with is worth a look -- after all, the credibility he earned when he broke ground on the story of Bush's records last year has earned him the right to another hearing.
Lechliter’s most interesting conclusion is this: Contrary to what some pundits have said, it may in fact have been a violation of federal regulations for senior administration officials -- even those who did not disclose her identity -- to privately discuss Plame’s identity among themselves. Intriguingly, Lechliter also concludes that Fitzgerald could, if he chose to, recommend administrative disciplinary measures against those officials, even if they have not done anything clearly illegal. Such recommended measures, he says, might include firing such officials or revoking their security clearances.
If Lechliter is right, Fitzgerald’s authority goes beyond simply bringing criminal charges. He can suggest punitive measures (administrative, not criminal) for top Bush administration officials who may not have broken any laws but who privately traded on Plame’s identity (a group, of course, which includes Karl Rove and possibly Dick Cheney, though it's less clear what sort of measures could be taken against the Veep).
Lechliter’s starting point is the Fitzerald press conference. The special counsel said: “Let me make clear there was nothing wrong with government officials discussing Valerie Wilson or Mr. Wilson or his wife and imparting the information to Mr. Libby.”
Many pundits have simply accepted that assertion to mean that Fitzgerald was saying that no rules of any kind were broken when the officials discussed Plame. But there’s another possibility: Fitzgerald, a very precise, by-the-book prosecutor, may simply have meant that it wasn’t illegal. That needn’t preclude the possibility that federal regulations had still been broken, however.
As Lechliter points out, no one is disputing that the fact that Plame was a CIA officer was classified. Fitzgerald said so at the press conference and in the indictment.
Lechliter points to Executive Order 12968 which governs the access officials have to classified information. It says: “Employees shall not be granted access to classified information unless they ... have a demonstrated need-to-know.”
At this point, we have been told by the indictment, at a minimum, that Cheney appears to have learned of Plame's employment status from the CIA; that I. Lewis Libby discussed it with Cheney; and also that a senior CIA officer and the under secretary of state discussed it with Libby, too.
We also know that Rove discussed it with Libby. There's much more, of course, but in sum these top officials -- Cheney included -- all appear to have been passing classified information back and forth.
The press -- and Fitzgerald -- has mostly focused on whether a criminal act occurred when one or more of these officials passed the info to reporters. But Lechliter argues that a perhaps more important question is this: Have the above officials violated federal rules by privately sharing classified information with each other? Lechliter argues, compellingly, that there’s little doubt that the above officials had no “need-to-know” this information. Therefore, he continues, one or more of them may have violated the executive order simply by passing the information on to a colleague without a “need-to-know” it.
“Clearance does not entitle a government employee to access to all [classified] information, but only to that material necessary to perform his or her valid government function,” Lechliter writes. “I cannot conceive of any plausible reason,” he continues, for these senior officials to “have a need to know the status of Mrs. Wilson.”
A violation of an executive order may not be a criminal act, Lechliter notes. But it is a violation of federal rules all the same. So what is supposed to be done about it? Federal regulations, he points out, require the Executive Office of the President to launch an internal inquiry and discipline any violators.
That, of course, appears not to have happened. And that, Lechliter argues, is where Fitzgerald comes in. Here’s how: Lechliter points to a now well-known February 6, 2004 letter to Fitzgerald from Deputy Attorney General James Comey, in which Comey defines the special counsel’s authority. The letter says that Fitzgerald’s authority is “plenary and includes the authority” to investigate “violations of any federal laws.” But it also says something that's gone pretty much unnoticed: that Fitzgerald has the authority to “pursue administrative remedies and civil sanctions ... that are within the Attorney General’s authority to impose or pursue.”
That sentence is the key, Lechliter argues. Because it very clearly states that Fitzgerald, who for all practical purposes has been granted the powers of the attorney general, can do more than just prosecute criminal acts. He can also pursue “administrative remedies” within the attorney general’s authority. In this case, Lechliter says, the administrative violations Fitzgerald could recommend "remedies" for include the improper -- though not illegal -- sharing of classified information.
“This shouldn’t be just about criminal acts,” Lechliter says in an interview. “It should also be about possible violations of administrative rules that have occurred. The Executive Office of the President evidently hasn’t conducted a proper investigation into them. But somebody has to. And my argument is that it’s clearly within the scope of Fitzgerald’s authority to do it. He can also recommend administrative action against violators.”
Fitzgerald is not required to pursue these violations, Lechliter allows. “I’m not saying that Fitzgerald has to do this,” he says. “Just that he has the authority to do so if he wishes. And he should if no one else has.”
“I took my obligation to protect classified information very seriously,” he continues. “But these officials seemingly didn’t -- and they haven’t suffered any consequences. That’s wrong. Fitzgerald could change that.”
Is this simply legal theorizing? Of course it is, to some extent. And Fitzgerald's office declined to comment. But if Lechliter is right, a key issue is whether violations of administrative rules, as opposed to criminal statutes, are going unpunished. That question alone (not to mention whether Fitzgerald, whatever his inclination, could address it if he wanted to) at least deserves more attention.
Back in 2004, after Lechliter’s analysis of Bush's military records appeared under Kristof’s byline, Lechliter recalls that he spent many hours on the phone or in person with reporters from the Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. They all subsequently ran stories based partly on his findings.
Maybe the time has come again for a reporter or two to get in touch with Lechliter. He can be reached at GLechliter@aol.com.


Greg Sargent, a contributing editor at New York magazine, writes a bi-weekly column for The American Prospect Online. He can be reached at Greg_Sargent@newyorkmag.com.
© 2005 by The American Prospect, Inc.

The Super Power That Was...

America’s Growing Irrelevance in the World


Right now, our government is claiming that we have opened thousands of schools in Iraq. My guess is that stands at the very top of the Big Lie heap.

If we have opened schools, nobody seems to know much about it. What we do know is that the kids in the Middle East learn at a very early age that we are the Big Bad Satan.

Why do they hate us so?

Because they don't understand our culture; they don't understand our way of life; and they don't understand what motivates us. Beyond that, everything they hear about us tends to be propagated by a radicalized clergy.

What's really sad in reviewing where things stand today are the many lost opportunities. Many years ago for peanuts we could have opened decent schools with decent books and middle-of-the-road teachers’ through-out the Middle East. With a relatively small effort, we could have worked with the minds of young people and changed their minds; or given them the impetus to think for themselves.

There was a hunger for education in the fifties and sixties. Now that hunger has been filled by the radicalized elements and the crazed mullahs and clerics who now see us as the enemy!
If you doubt that, let me ask if you remember Salmon Rushdie.

A fatwa was issued against him and everyone was out to kill him. Why? The Mullahs said so! That’s the truth. I know because I was a friend of Peter Mayer at Penguin who published him.
I spoke with Muslims at random in my Brooklyn community. They all agreed that Rushdie had offended the faith. "Where did you get that information," I would ask. They would tell me almost to a person, "my Mullah told me so."

But it was not only the fault of the USA, our so-called friends were also complicit in creating the present climate. For example, look back at the human rights record of Egypt, one of our longest standing allies. The Egyptians eliminated the liberal and moderate elements of their society. The only ones of influence left today are the extremists.

And while the US and the Israelis get blamed for everything that goes wrong in the Middle East, let’s remember that the Palestinians left their land of their own accord in the expectation of taking over all of Israel during their attempt to drive the Israelis into the sea. . And let’s not forget that it was the Palestinian land-lords who sold Palestinian land at outrageous rates to the zionists in expectation of profits; not the benefit of their own people. . And let’s not forget either that after the war was lost, no Arab state came forward to offer a few thousand acres of their own land as a home for the Palestinian people. No, the fact was that none of the Arabs want Palestinians on their land.

What’s more, we know that had we paid attention to the people, they never would have installed the Ayatollah in Iran; that our treatment of Mohammed Moussadegh was the beginning of the end for the west in one of the few countries where the people liked Americans and what they stood for.

When it comes to promoting democracy, we think it's okay to pit one country against the other; in the case of Iran, we sided with the anti-democratic Iraq to do our dirty work! And then we wonder why everyone now hates us! Inevitably, the Moslem sees our interdiction as the advance guard of the Fourth Crusade and who can argue with that perspective.

As Far as education goes, that boat left the dock a long time ago when we failed to fill the vacuum. And that vacuum was filled by Hezbollah and the other radicalized groups like Al Qaeda or the Moslem brotherhood.

Increasingly, only one thing is true regarding our occupation of Iraq. .

THE US IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE IRRELEVANT WITH EACH PASSING DAY!

Why doesn't anyone discuss that aspect? Is it too close to home?

If we have accomplished anything, it is to have broken up the stranglehold that the Sunni had over the Shia and the Kurd. But in so doing, we may actually have made things worse both short term and long term.

Consider, that once while we stood as a wedge between warring elements; today, what we have done is simply open the flood-gates to entropy and Civil War. Now, we cannot even lay claim to serving as a wedge between one group and another.

We preside over a city in tatters; and yet the lies persist. We are told that things are getting better all of the time while incidents double, triple, and quadruple before our very eyes!

Our role has become to serve as a vehicle for the radicalized elements to test their weapons and tactics....Therefore, at some point in time; someone has to ask how does our staying in Iraq make things any better.

We have not gotten the electricity going...
We have not made the oil flow.
We have not made it any safer to walk the streets...
Most of the parents are afraid to send their kids to school.
Most of the parents, the people in the middle, hate us as the cause of all their woe. How does that make our presence improve things?

Please Mr. Rumsfeld stop skirting the truth. Tell Americans the truth: That every day we stay in Iraq is a day we lose more credibility and relevance and hatred of us becomes more entrenched. Period. End of sentence.

Les Aaron...
THE UBIQUITOUS FLYING BLUE BLOG
http://www.lesaaron.blogspot.com/

AMERICA, HUBRIS AND THE MEDIEVAL MIND!

It would be ironic that there might be another parallel with Vietnam in our escape from the quagmire that is Iraq. Even though they were warned against the dangers inherent in getting involved in a land war without doing your homework and understanding the culture and history of an area, this government in its total arrogance shunned the extra work which was characteristic of this commander in chief, a man who doesn't take kindly to detail or doing his homework.
But like 911, this was not something trivial or easily dismissed; yet, that's the way it was treated. It is disturbing that in an age of nuclear capability that someone can be so cavalier about the concerns and issues of technology-prone world that can be shifted out of balance in the blink of an eye.

It is incredible arrogance to think that might is the answer to all questions. We have, as you've probably observed, by-passed discussion,debate, argument, dialogue, study, analysis, and the normal ways governments and people of good will normally go about settling their affairs. No, in this government, it's my way or the high-way; not surprising coming from a petulant child who is used to getting his own way; but not the way of the president of the United States who, heretofore, tended to act with restraint befitting the great strength of his country and his reputation for judgment whomever the titular head of government.

But in the age of Bush, we hear about mysticism, and biblical entreaties, the end-of-days, superstition and belief and values entering into whatever discourse is allowed and approved for publication. It is as if the hands of the clock were being rolled back not to the Renaisance but to the dark ages when superstition and mysticism prevailed. It is though we are on the outside a Contemporary force to be reckoned with but inside we are Medieval in our thought processes. To believe that despite knowledge to the contrary, that more than half of the population believes that Saddam was somewhat responsible for 911 is more than one can digest. Further, to countenance the idea that despite everything we know, everything that we have been taught in public schools for the last century, more than half of the population believes that Evolution is a theory that does not pertain in the creation of modern man!... Today, the Dominionists grow in power, number more than 16 million advocates, have influence at pivotal points in government and have 750 trained lawyers who stand ready to defeat secularism wherever it raises its head.

These Dominionists believe in biblical interpretation and that the end will pit Islam against the forces of Christianity. It is a startling revelation for a country based on democratic tenets and the rights of man and frightening to behold considering the forces of destruction that this president controls.

If ever there was a time for Americans to speak out against this kind of religious hair shirt that America finds itself wearing and reassert its democratic initiatives, it is now. If the Dominionists have their way, we will never see a liberal or democratic government again and we will become a throw-back to the Dark Ages with only chaos, Crusades and witch-burning to look forward to. Yet to them, apocalyptic definitions and literal biblical interpretations define them. They will be happy when they see the angels riding down and tossing the rest of us into Hell.


God save us from this brew. Speak up America while we still can....

Les Aaron
the Ubiquitous Flying Blue Blog

www.lesaaron.blogspot.com
. .

"The Dali Lama for President?"

The other day, the Dali Lama published an article in the New York Times that was one of the most literate, rational and penetrating debates on the roles of science vs. religion published -- especially considering the present contentious atmosphere that exists between the scientific community and the entrenched right wing zealots. An article that was completely in context for the man about whom little is known yet serves as the perfect role model for the true Renaisance man….

. I thought to myself, if somebody didn’t know who wrote this article aside from the fact that it was the titular leader of a country, one might think that whoever wrote it had to represent the most cutting edge country, a country that was attuned to the modern world; it would be a shock to most to recognize that it comes from the leader of one of the most spiritual and isolated third world nations on earth. Nevertheless, this wasn’t quite by chance. The Dali Lama is more than just a unique individual as I have learned over forty years of reading and listening to his wisdom. He is not only an informed man who constantly struggles with the issues facing his country despite the fact that he is in exile and the Chinese have invaded his country, he is very contemporary in his thinking and has an open-mind to change and a willingness to embrace change for the better..
.
All to often, those in the west, comfortable with their limited knowledge, are happy to put people into square holes, but if you think about it, this remarkable man has forced us to think that perhaps not only do we need to rethink our tendency to pre-judge, that perhaps we should subject our own leadership to the standards we apply to willingly to others. For some, what is discomforting is the fact that this speech should have come from the leader of the most technological nation on earth; and the president’s recent remarks would not surprise anyone if they came from a remote kingdom that had never had the benefit of advancing technology. And if we were to take that liberty, we would also have to recognize that we do a disservice to that country.

The conundrum here is that one cannot help but be impressed by such progressive thinking from the third world and such reactive thinking coming from the leader of the country that serves as a beacon of democracy and the country best noted for its technology edge. This kind of role-reversal is mind-numbing but has elicited little commentary. . . Contrast the sophisticated and articulated brilliance from a man who respects knowledge and learning with the embarrasingly crude ramblings of someone who would like to move the calendar back to the days of the Scopes Monkey Trial, a man who speaks almost in tongues to convince us that God speaks into his ear. This is all very strange for a leading power that achieved its leadership through its technological prowess.

But the Dali Lama’s article just didn’t talk about science; it talked about the need for balance, the need for spirituality but it also suggested that each had their defined role and that there should be no confusion of the role of each. Plaudits for this informed man of peace! There is no need to try to supplant the theory of Evolution with Creation theory.

Surprisingly, it took a man from a remote third world immersed in spirituality to help us see the light and to serve as a literate and informed counter-weight to the growing muddle and confusion between religion and science that now seems to swirl around the leaders of this once unencumbered land. While the irony is that the spokesperson for the USA should have talked up science and evolution’s role and the Dali Lama, the spokesperson for Tibet, should have been ruminating about the role of spirituality may not have been fully lost on those who read the speech, what clearly came through is the fact that never before in memory has this country seemed so awkward, so indecisive, so backwards in deciding its own future or determining what role aside from its crusader fixation that it wants to fulfill in the world.

And while it is astounding to think that the leading democratic country in the world sounds like it is running dead last against one of the most spiritual of countries, it is also remarkable to think about the training of a young child raised in Lhassa a million miles from the center’s of education and western hubris and how that child could have evolved into such a realist with such a grip on the roles of science and technology.

Of course, at the same time, that would be an over-arching simplification. The simple fact is that the Dali Lama, the 14th appointed to fulfill that role, has spent his entire life being educated and groomed for the role he was to play. He was chosen by the wise-men in his country who were deliberately trained to seek out the best possible candidate for that role. Imagine, if you will, that that was how we selected our president? Can you imagine having the brightest, most promising marriage of all of those abilities that make for wise and judicious leadership combined with great intelligence, compassion and understanding. When you compare this so-called “backward” country’s criteria for appointing its leader, it makes one wonder which is really the backward country?


Les Aaron

Will The Democrats Come In And Bail Out America Again?

To the Point: " In three years, we'll elect a democrat and everything will be okay again!"


yes, but the challenges are even merely daunting...It will not be the typical Republican one term, democrat the next to clean out the mess! We're all familiar with that and we think of it as the swinging of the pendulum. It's always the dems who come in and save the world. Because in the end, even though government grows peversely during Republican years, this growth is mainly in areas of self-interest. It has little to do with the public good! But these eight years are different! You just can't reverse the clock this time around. In some instances we are virtually at a point of no return. Or we have set into motion events that we may not be able to reel in any longer!

Look at the burden bequeathed to whomever inherits this office. Eight years of government will have to be reversed just to save the budget process and the financial underpinning of government. Jobs have been shipped off shore. What are we going to do to reinvent them? People don't trust the private sector enough to invest their money in it? What is going to happen to a housing market where people have sucked the equity out of their investments just to keep going? What are we going to do about eight years of students tossed into the milieu who have no education to speak of? What are we going to do about the hundreds of thousands of shell-shocked troops who are going to need care and medical attention? What kind of a burden is that going to place on our infrastructure? Can you reverse the effects of global warming? Can you automatically bring us back to a position where we have clean air and water? What are we going to do about a steam-rolling China that can buy us with the trillion plus it owns of American dollars? What are we going to do about foreign relations where we have polarized virtually the entire nation of Islam? When this government has to go to a remote place like Mongolia and then resend Rumsfeld to tell the Mongolians thank you for sending a couple of hundred troops to Iraq this is more telling than anything else? How this signals the deterioration in our relations with the rest of the world is there for everyone to see....How do you reverse all of the enriched nuclear materials that have been allowed to disappear off the world's markets? How do you reverse the effects of hurricane Katrina where just yesterday they talked about tossing all of the people affected by the storm out of their hotel rooms and just cutting them off? How do you apologize to the seniors who died because they didn't get attention in time? Who were not evacuated? Who did not receive food or water although it could have been delivered if FEMA had not simply become another sinecure for a friend? How do you reverse those things and so many others? How do we develop an effective alternative energy source? How do we eliminate the long years of abusing the earth with our thoughtless mining policies? How do we purge this countries of all of the self-interested politicians whose only thoughts are to fill their pockets at the public's expense? Can we reverse the effects that are rising Ocean levels and temperatures? Will this globe support such thoughtless contempt not only from us but also China and other nations too concerned with building millionaires than learning how to live on a small blue planet? Whoever takes this job will face the hardest job ever conceived by man, a job that will be thankless and frustrating and opposed by the business industrial complex and all those who earn their livings at the public trough.


Les Aaron....
The Armchair Curmudgeon

The Ubiquitous Flying Blue Blog
www.lesaaron.blogspot.com

"Coals to Newcastle?"

It's the small things....


I think most would agree with me when I say that you'd have to go far to beat the overall quality of the California wines.

So, when it's announced that a country plans to market its wines to California one has to wonder whether they are insane or that they really have something to talk about--especially when the country we are referring to is not France.

The fact of the matter is that this new crop of wine is coming from where? China. Yes, China, the land famous for its rice, is now moving into wine producing.

And purists say that the Chinese are producing some very interesting and tasty varieties.

If China can switch over its agricultural patterns in a matter of a few years to grow something it had absolutely no experience with, just imagine what that augers for other fields.

Take ship building. At present, Korea is the leader. But they have switched to luxury yachts. Why? They know that China is planning to become the ship-building monolith and doing it virtually from scratch. If the giant, Korea, is bowing out under pressure, just imagine what a force China truly is when it sets its mind on something.

The handwriting is on the wall. The admonition: America, watch your step. The Chinese are coming. And when they decide to push cars, which they are starting to do, be prepared to have your competitive edge blown away.

What are we doing about it? The same thing we're doing in New Orleans.

The Chinese are coming! The Chinese are coming! may be words we hear regularly from now on inasmuch as they already own the "stuff" market.

Les Aaron
The Ubiquitous Flying Blue Blog
www.lesaaron.blogspot.com

THE "DOUBLE STANDARD"

The Double Standard: Alive and Well.

If you recall, prior to the election, a bishop of the Catholic church went out of his way to castigate Kerry for his political views....and the Republicans did nothing to suggest that religion was not the place for politics or that one person's view does not a landslide of opinion make.. The silence from that quarter was stunning!

All along, the extreme right wing has been villifying the democrats for what they perceived to be our moral and religious failings because we did not line up with their views. Moreover, if you probe more deeply, you will recognize that the issues focused on by the Republicans--including their so-called Moderates--dealt principally with issues best left to the individual as an exercise of personal freedom; and not brought into question by government directive or policy.

Nontheless, despite the fact that the Constitution guarantees freedom of choice, the Right Wing chose to ignore the individual's freedom to follow a religion or not, choose abortion or not as per Roe vs. Wade and make all of the decisions that differentiate a free man from an individual living in a repressive society where every action is dictated.

Not a positive word about our constitutional right to express our individuality in a so-called free society. And if you think about it, these personal issues dominated the election. Of course, it had to be that away because the Republican's performance in virtually every sector with the exception of self-aggrandisement, was abysmal.

Nevertheless, they managed to get away with it!...and pulled off another coup!

Now, get this, a Universalist minister is forced to resign when he made a speech prior to the election saying that he would vote for the party who advocates freedom of choice. He didn't mention names; he merely expressed an opinion. He did not do what the Catholic prelate did. He did not get into specific cases of abortion or religion.

What happens next would seem to be more likely in a repressive regime; not a democracy. The government comes down on him and his church for getting involved in politics. In other words, and here's the rub: It's okay to ignore or encourage speaking out when it's "your guys" but the obverse of that rule doesn't apply! Speaking out only becomes politics when the democrats do it.

Now, all of the sanctimonious policemen of this administration come out of the woodwork to uphold the constitution that says that a religious institution that is on a tax-exempt status cannot talk about politics.

But if that wasn't enough, the situation is not over. Recently, the IRS, the Gestapo of this government, moved in to make a big deal of removing the Universalist church from its tax exempt status!

How long will we allow this kind of double standard to persist? When are we going to get up our backbone and speak out to such travesties?
Sure, it's easy to let one of these things slide and then another. After all, it takes hard work to do something about injustice. But remember if we let this injustices prevail, who will be there for us in our time of need? Think about the cumulative effect and then speak up!.

Les Aaron

The Ubiquitous Flying Blue Blog

www.lesaaron.blogspot.com

"Is Cheney Behind This, Too?"

I just got the word, gang. Are you ready?
Try this on for size: Nobody else can make their penultimate trip to New York City.
Imagine! Certainly, this is a watershed of sorts; a point of "no-return."
LIke saying from now on, you will pay deposits on return bottles but the deposits are so high, you can't afford them!
Lucky that my father in law made it just inside the window.. And my aunts. And a few cousins
on my wife's side.
Yes, my friends, believe it or not, in the City that never sleeps, those who want to sleep can't. The cemeteries are full. Yes, that's right, the cemeteries are full! Can you imagine such a thing?
There is a cemetery in the heart of Brooklyn where virtually everybody is buried from Leonard Bernstein to Civil War generals and just about everyone in between--from famous actors to well known politicians. In fact, there are so many famous people buried at Woodlawn cemetery that they actually give tours. It is actually an interesting way to spend the day...
there are these huge magnificent tombs and estuary and pocket size lakes and hillsides all around on this piece of high land with rolling hills that inevitably slopes to Manhattan harbor below...
But there is no more room there for anyone whether you're a king or a mafia chief and I know of at least one of those buried there...Whether you make a million or a billion, you still can't buy your way in. When the ground is sold, it is sold and that is it. Now, that may not seem like much of a big deal to someone from outside. But there are those who will draw parallels to the area code fiasco when they wanted to add three new area codes to 212 the traditional New York City area code after they gave up on the names like Virginia, Murray Hill and Sacramento. There were riots! People's social lives changed. If you were not in 212, you were simply g.u. (geographically undesirable.) And that was the end, my friend. You would never go out again! Now, even if you are a zillionaire, you will have to be buried in Queens which is like Limbo if you're a dyed in the wool New Yorker~ Buried in Queens? Couldn't have amounted to much will be the resounding comments that will reverberate through history. Queens, of course, is the Borough of diversity and cemeteries. There are 90 ethnic groups and each of them has a restaurant on Steinway Street. And there are cemeteries everywhere.
This, of course, is bad news for my friend Pat who was in charge of all of the bodies shipped to New York from Florida by train...Yes, there really was someone who did that job. Pat used to make sure that all of those who had gone to Florida to escape the cold would wind up in their predesignated final resting place for all Eternity. He used to say that they would go down vertical and come back horizontal. And Pat was good at it, too. I would kid around with him from time to time teasing him as to whether they were offering any two-fers but we can't do that anymore because everyone who is no one in the hierarchy of the dearly departed can no longer be finicky about where they wind up.

It is Queens or the high way, buddy boy!

Of course, this changes things for a lot of people who were planning everything else in their lives except their final resting place assuming that getting a place in Manhattan or Brooklyn would be no big deal. But with the iron curtain descending across Brooklyn, it is now a whole new ball game. Of course, there are always alternatives. I think I like the solution Scotty came up with. They blasted his ashes into space where perhaps a million years from now he may become the building block for a new generation. Who knows? It's kind of inspiring to think about that kind of immortality; almost what Spock got involved in in Genesis....but, hey, Doc and the Captain managed to bail Mr. Spock out before he became solyent green. That, of course, is another solution but I don't know whether I'm ready to be Mr. Fun in the Sun one day and somebody's nutrients the next. It kind of leaves me cold if you know what I mean.

Anyway, just when things were kind of looking predictable, this happened. Somewhere along the line, I am sure Dick Cheney had something to do with it. I never trust a man who spends most of his waking life under ground. Anyway, we just need to remain vigilant!

Les Aaron
THe Ubiquitous Flying Blue Blog: www.lesaaron.blogspot.com

"The Eyes Have It!"

Big Things Are Oftentimes Revealed In Small Ways!...

I was watching the military tonight, concentrating on their faces, as the REsident Paperweight gave the same tired tirade about the good guys and the bad guys...But it was the guys in the back that caught my eye and held it. I had never seen anything like it. They all looked like carboard cut-outs. They either had blank looks, insipid stares, downcast expressions or fixed grins on their faces. This was a very different backdrop than I'd seen before. Before, they had all looked enthusiastic--afterall, they were hand picked!....Now, they looked beaten and their eyes were dark and empty.

If the expressions on some of their faces was any example, Bush should be worried. I saw what looked like at least one or two potential serial types in the crowd, types who might have carried live granades. The taxi driver type who i could imagine leaping up and saying "Are you talking to me?"

If they replay the speech, look at these soldiers who make up the background and look carefully. It will scare the living daylights out of you. there was not one face that I could say was in reality mode. These were people who were trying to keep up a brave front or who were losing it on camera.

As I watched him deliver the drivel, I thought back that no, this guy was not going to make it. With three years to go, and so much happening to make people crazy, my prophetic vision didn't see him emerging from the remains of a government gone bad. For his own sake, I wish that Americans find a way of disposing of him that will be legal, efficient and expedient.
We have had enough as a people. We are all exhausted from all that we've been through and we need a change or we will all be lining up for mental tests or therapy or both. The clock is running down and I cannot escape the idea of this ephiphany that suggests we stand at the edge of great change. I don't know what it means because I seldom see things or have great visions. Seemingly, we may be at a watershed where nothing beyond this year will be the same. It is a disturbing visual image but it seems perhaps as the only answer where everyone is polarized and everyone is at some kind of standoff and tensions run dangerously high.

I still cannot drive away the image of some of those faces. . I did not see faces like that in any backdrop for any American photo-op since this eggregious miscreant was selected by the over-doctored machines. . And those faces tell me more than I want to know.

Les Aaron

"Reagan Vs. Bush Second Term..."

As we watch Bush plummet in the polls, we might be tempted to think back to the same time in Reagan's administration when it looked as if Reagan's popularity was ebbing and that the second term was going to be more of the same with no way out.

We might look back and find the experience instructive. As it turned out, Reagan used the opportunity to clean house, add new staffers with new ideas and actually come out of the second term with some positive advances including the end of the Cold War! Was that luck, insight or simply good advice? And, if so, could that happen in this administration?

Yes, it could but we'd have to pay attention to the guideposts and take a look back at the patterns this government has formed.

If you listened to the speech on Veteran's day, you heard more of the old tired rhetoric; absolutely nothing had changed. The old ideas and the thoughts that triggered the War against Iraq were mainly in place and Bush was still pushing those tired old cliches about protecting our country against terrorism as he had four years before. In total, there were no surprises making this one of the most predictable governments on record...
It is virtually impossible for change to take place in a kind of stasis where the need for change is not admitted even to one's self. Not to have moved one iota off position in three years shows someone whose intellect is malformed, calcified or incapable of handling the job he was appointed to...
Increasingly, this is becoming evident to other powers, including our allies, around the world. Even the British prime minister is beginning to pay the price for his support of Bush over the Iraq War years.

From what we have seen, this rigid unformed quality is not an asset but a leading liability. In his cowboy thought processes, the man assumes a position based on what he would like to see regardless of whether there is sufficient proof to justify his position, and then sticks to it come Hell or high water as what he thinks is a sign of his strength of character.

But no longer are people satisfied with rigidity as the hailing characteristic of one's character. In point of fact what he believes stands for his character, other's perceive as inflexibility, intransigence and almost a kind of doltish fixation on a position. In this light, such a hard stance is not an enviable position but an example that perhaps the facts have passed you by...or that you are not up to the task of handling an environment that changes faster than you can blink!

As we have seen, even when presented with new information, our appointed leader tends to dig in his heels and attack anyone who questions his entrenched position as being fundamentally unpatriotic or lacking in values.

Can he, however, despite all of the baggage be made to change in the light of a failing administration? It does not seem likely.

Bush and Rove are virtually interdependent; each trusts the other with Rove wielding more power and influence than any other presidential adviser in memory. If Rove is forced out of government by events or an indictment, Bush will be hard-pressed to do anything other than try to hold the line.


Why do I say that? Bush over the years of his governance has failed to relate to anyone else as an adviser. He is cynical, stuck in gear and untrusting of most people. He is not open to ideas; he is fundamentally opposed to change from those few dogmatic beliefs he has and he has very little interest in the fine points of leadership. He doesn't like to be bogged down boning up on issues. ANd he had demonstrated that his views are extremely pedestrian never rising to see the multiple shadings of anything. For the most part, he quickly reduces all things to manageable black and white. And while this may make his life easy, it puts him outside of the mainstream of conventional thought.

. While Reagan was enough of a realist to change when necessary and enough of a politician to realize that it was time to change the governing structure, Bush who views Reagan as his icon, is not enough of either to do what is necessary to survive over the next three years.

Therefore, it would seem that we can expect a level of inertia to persist with no new initiatives. Republicans, who recognize that Bush's support is no longer a guarantee of their own survival will start emerging as separate politicians who no longer want to be identified with this extreme right-wing government. So Bush can no longer count on their cohesiveness. And even those of the extreme right are finding fault with Bush's utter disregard for others including even his friends. If the trends continue, Democrats will increasingly feel their oats and demand change and start to stand up and be heard.. And Bush's poll numbers will continue to collapse.

There is only one thing that could change the equation predicated on their past behavior and that is the occurrence of another threat, real or imagined, here in the homeland or at a vital location overseas. otherwise, look forward to more depressing news of the same kind.

As an aside, , we wonder what happened to all those who were so willing to criticize Clinton? We wonder where have the best and the brightest taken refuge over the last six years. They are certainly not on my horizon.

Les Aaron
THE BIG BLUE BLOG
www.lesaaron.blogspot.com