Apparel for the Immobilized

Re-Hab Will Be Painful

It's been "hard work" mounting a quick comeback from this surgery. In the moments where my previous 24-7 blogging routine is triggered, I have felt myself recoiling in pain. Keyboarding is painful and full of errors and the mouse-movement even more so. Soul-searching has satisfied me that my quietus is not about avoiding issues which earlier had impelled my writing. In those recurrent sleepless 2:30 a.m. moments, ideas come to me and the spirit says, "Yes! YES!". But the flesh protests in favor of comfort and procrastination.

I find some consolation in my confidence that I have said in these pages just about everything I can say or that can be said. I feel tempted to say that just as I have had my fill of Busheney, I have also just as fully had my say. Having spoken up, I could now shut up and sit down. Spend some time and energy on physical rehabilitation and reconditioning: maybe say nothing more and let politics take care of itself.

The facts are that our nation is locked into a policy immobility over Iraq.It's similar to the immobilisme of Algérie française which eventually nailed the 4th Republic and to our own political paralysis during the Vietnam War which eventually nailed LBJ's 2nd term. In all these cases the sides - pro and con - of the debate were long-settled and well-rehearsed. But the politics were not adequate to forcing the debate into a timely cloture. The resultant costly and slow bleeding continued onto the threshold of Fascism in the case of French-Algieria, into the aborted Nixon administration of the 70's and, in our current circumstances, toward continuing irresolution of our prospective Clinton administration.

I have been gifted by friends and relatives of the reverse Bush countdown gags such as the reverse clock and the EndOfAnError 01.20.09 sweatshirt. They are treasures only in that they signify that people feel my pain. These do not amuse or encourage me; in fact this shirt is discouraging every time someone asks me what happens on 1/20/09? How can any one be oblivious? But more than that, these novelties are for me merely brutal reminders that in exactly 414 days Bush and Cheney get to blow town with their legacy assured because their Overton Window will be firmly in place. Preemptive pardons, maybe. But no indictments. No impeachments.

For me to stop posting at this point could be misconstrued as being patient or passive. I'd rather be accused of being repetitive or redundant.

How's Bush's Surge Going in Afghanistan?

Captions, please!

From the Guardian

The Overton Window, Bush's Apostasy & Wizard's Complaint

The Overton window is a concept in political theory, named after its originator, Joe Overton, former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Overton says there always exists a “window” which includes the range of all possible of public policies which are discussed within a political community.Imagine that this window is superimposed upon a long continuum on which all possible political options are represented. Imagine further, that the window is centered on that scale at a point where traditional current policies exist. As one looks away in either direction from the center, one sees options which progress in turn to:

• Popular options
• Sensible options
• Acceptable options
• Extreme options
• Unthinkable options

In the normal times, in the course of human experience, Overton’s Window would be expected to shift, incrementally, by degrees.

In the case of an ideological movement however, it would be possible to push the window in a comparatively violent and sudden shift in one direction or another. I haven’t checked this out with Joe Overton, but I think this could be managed in one or two (or a combination of both) ways:

1. One of the agents powerful enough to do this would be a cabal of influential think tanks, drawing upon resources independent of the status quo. Such institution(s) would pound on the reasonableness of extreme options and ideas with such a depth of repetition that the unthinkable becomes more familiar, even if extreme. The more think tanks and their proxies in the MSM repeat wild-eyed notions, the more they become just squint-eyed notions. Eventually they become common-place and commonly discussed ideas or debated options.
2. Shocking and unexpected events can call into question the traditional, customary, conventional and currently central point(s) of the continuum. Such an event causes Overton’s Window to gyrate sideways in the policy landscape toward the extremities.

Such an event would present an opportunity for an extremist ideological movement. Theoretical preparation for the implementation of a previously unthinkable set of ideas and policies as plausible options, could be facilitated by an unforeseen cataclysmic event. For example,an entire population could be stampeded into uncritically accepting stuff they previously regarded as beyond the pale of reasonableness.

The Bush Apostasy

As laid out in the Shock Doctrine, this is precisely what happened in the advent of al Qaeda’s attack on the United States on 9-11. Although narrowly selected by a 5-4 margin by the Supreme Court, Dick Cheney with only a week’s hesitation after the attacks, rolled out a program designed by Project for a New American Century (and allied think tanks) which envisioned the aggressive imperial enforcement of a Pox Americana abroad as well as a unitary executive domestically. The former they cast as the Global War on Terror and the latter they wrapped in the robes of “War-Time President". The PNAC program quantum-jumped the Overton Window to the right side by violating the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and the Constitution of the United States. The government of Bush and Cheney:

• Invented a doctrine of preventive war and ordered the invasion and occupation of another country which did not a threaten to America, nor constituted a credible threat to do so.
• Abused their office by directing high officials to distort intelligence reports to Congress which presented an erroneous and fictitious image of Iraq’s capabilities and intentions.
• Directed America’s air, land, and sea forces to invade and occupy of foreign government for the purpose of overthrowing its government.
• Illegally transferring $700 million from the budget for the war in Afghanistan for war preparations in Iraq in July 2002, without Congressional approval.
• Authorized the torture of prisoners by United States military personnel.
• Permitted staff to evade the Presidential Records Act of 1978 by using outside communication systems during working hours and to violate the Hatch Act by directing government employees to engage in political activities as part of their government duties.
• Permitted or directed the disclosure of a covert CIA agent’s identity as an act of political revenge and intimidation.
• Used signing statements as de facto line item vetoes, in defiance of the Supreme Court ruling that line-item vetoes are unconstitutional.
• Violated the voting rights of thousands of citizens by permitting his partisans to illegally challenge voter registrations, intimidate voters at the polls, file false charges of voter fraud, and enact laws that place undue burden on certain classes of voters.
• Issued numerous Executive Orders overriding and undermining federal laws.
• Directed the firing and hiring of Federal Attorneys officials for partisan political reasons, in violation of federal laws.

All of these items taken together amount to high crimes and misdemeanors referred to in the Constitution (seven times?) as justifying the sanction of impeachment. The most egregious arena of these out-of-the-window transgressions has to do with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Nothing else Busheney have done has more isolated America in world opinion, more squandered our economic resources, more exhausted our military assets, or more confirmed Osama bin Laden's branding of the United States.

Wizard’s Complaint

There are the complaints against the Busheney policy in Iraq which fall short of what the circumstances (violation of the established Overton window) call for. I call it the Weimar Republican viewpoint. Ironically, the prime poster boy adherent of this ‘moderate’ viewpoint is the former First Lady and current front-running Democrat. But I’d rather draw from Wizard, a frequent, articulate, and eloquent commentator in my pages. Recently, on his own (recommended) site, Wizard followed the Weimar Republican/Democrat line which is, simply, that we’re there:

But what about today? The world and the Middle East are vastly different today that they were six years ago. And our ill begotten invasion and occupation of Iraq are part of the reason for the different dynamics at play.

But we cannot undo the last six years. This isn't golf and we don't get a mulligan. Instead we must play the ball where it lays. And it lays in the slowly healing Iraq.

And besides,

. . . .the real issue is Iran. While Bush screwed up with invading Iraq and providing textbook lessons in how not to occupy a country, Iran has emerged as the leader in the Middle East . . . .

And there are, in fact, no solutions to Iran, no options, even in Bush's far-reaching playbook. Posturing and bluffing are the best the West can do . . . .

So we face a nuclear Iran. Period. There are no options. Bush will not bomb. Bush cannot invade. Israel will not be our proxy . . . .

Given these facts, and they are facts, the only logical, intelligent course is to stay and rebuild Iraq from the ground up. A strong, democratic, Iraq is the only solution, even if it take years. The United States must maintain significant forces in Iraq until that job is done.

In other words, let bygones be bygones? Make lemonade out of lemons?

No.

We share with the Iraqis - admitedly to a much lighter degree - the experience of being an occupied country. Many Americans, however, are much taken with the impression that our 'occupation' observes a time line and will lift from our necks in January 2009. I will not say what I think of that delusion because it’s not my purpose here to puncture fragile clouds of optimism.

I don't speak for Democrats or Liberals, as I consider myself a fighting Progressive. When I call for immediate impeachment and immediate withdrawal from Iraq (whichever comes first), I am looking forward, not backward. The moral imperative which is facing my once-great country is to (a) repudiate Bush-Cheney and (b) deny them their spoils in Iraq:

Make Bush and Cheney
eat their illegal and ruinous war
before they are excused from the table.

Wizard’s expression – a ‘Mulligan’ – is exactly what we need. If you want me to work with you and the Iraqi people and support/prolong this insidious and ill-begotten occupation, you have to first join with me and expel from American soil this political occupation of the American people by Busheney’s imperial presidency.

Bush and Cheney are our own home grown, state-sanctioned terrorists. They have done more harm to America than Osama bin Laden. If we don't save America from them today, their Neo-Conservative thugs will be back in four to eight years with more of their toxic Straussian thinking. These radical apostates have to be torn up from American soil, from whence they have burrowed into these past seven years. They must be cast out into the nearest desert.

To remain in Mesopotamia and prolong the occupation is to use Iraqis’ oil, soil and peoples as a buffer against demonized Iran. To remain in Iraq for years to come exactly and perfectly completes Neo-Conservatism’s original Mein Kampf for the Middle East. That would mean that Bush and Cheney win.

This is not a concession that America needs to make. America needs to annul or shatter the current Overton Window. Restore it to its pre-2001 location. The time to cancel and rollback the 21st Century as the Anti-American century was yesterday.

The Vigil Is Going on Comment Moderation

I am undergoing shoulder surgery on 27 November.

I have no idea how soon I will be able to resume keyboarding enough to resume as an adequate host. (I floated the idea of hiring a sweet young and capable secretary to move my mouse for me, but that was vetoed by Trophy Wife.)

I always dislike 'Comment Moderation' because it sort of squelches spontaneity of comments in a blog. It basically amounts to 'prior restraint'. I am employing it as the last resort - just as surgery - short of freezing the site completely.

In any event, although remaining open, The Vigil will be on comment moderation for a spell, effective 27 November. Until then, comment moderation shall remain off!

The Israeli Lobby

Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest might suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and Israel's are essentially identical.










Owen Bennett-Jones of the BBC interviews John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of The Israel Lobby which was temporarily banned in the United States but ultimately published here as The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

My favorite feature of BBC broadcasts that I am fortunate enough to catch on my local AM station is The Interview. A BBC interview is different in quality from anything to be found on American media. No question is allowed to go unanswered because follow-ups are guaranteed. Owen Bennett-Jones has a habit of drilling down to get answers from his elusive guests, and Mearsheimer and Walt are not afforded any exception from this practice.

I recommend jumping in 38 seconds into this 27+ minute tape. Alternatively, those so inclined can peruse an
abridged transcript here.

What Is the Meaning of Jack Howard's Defeat in Australia?

Bush's "Deputy Sheriff" has lost his badge and his seat.

Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd is Australia's new prime minister after defeating John Howard's Liberal-National coalition in Saturday's parliamentary election.

How can this have happened?

Howard is dismissed after his 11-year reign (four straight elections from March 1996) leaving a booming economy and an iron grip on national security and illegal immigration?

Consider:

• Howard's reforming Australian employment laws, making it easier for employers to sack workers and promoting individual work contracts instead of union-based award conditions.
• Disgruntled voters in Australia's biggest cities, with job security falling while house prices and home mortgage interest rates rise.
• His decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change in the face of a record-setting Australian drought.
• His close political and personal affiliation with Bush and Howard's decision to join the 2003 war on Iraq which led the media to describe Howard as Bush's "deputy sheriff" in the region.

Political analyst Nick Economou told Reuters:

Howard has had some successes in managing a prosperous economy. But then they made a major error by instilling insecurity in people at a time of prosperity.

Does this sound familiar?

Ron Paul Is Anointed into the Goldwater Lineage of the GOP

Barry Goldwater is My Republican of the Week.










Barry M. Goldwater, Jr., son of the late former Republican presidential candidate and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, has endorsed Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul for president. Goldwater Jr. retired from politics in 1983 after serving 14 years in Congress.

His late father, Barry M. Goldwater, Sr. is credited with sparking the modern conservative movement and was the Republican Party presidential nominee in 1964.

Endorsing Ron Paul, Barry Jr. said

America is at a crossroads. We have begun to stray from our traditions and must get back to what has made us the greatest nation on earth or we will lose much of the freedom we hold dear. Ron Paul stands above all of the other candidates in his commitment to liberty and to America. Leading America is difficult, and I know Ron Paul is the man for the job.

Ron Paul's Campaign manager Lew Moore:

The Ron Paul campaign is exceptionally honored by Mr. Goldwater’s endorsement. Dr. Paul and Congressman Goldwater fought together in the Congress for the ideals of limited constitutional government that Mr. Goldwater’s father so tirelessly advocated. The Goldwaters have left an indelible mark on the Republican Party, and theirs is a legacy which Congressman Paul will certainly inherit as President.

This endorsement formalizes Ron Paul as the natural standard bearer for true American Conservatism.