First things first, the fact that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and every single cabinet-level department head below them responsible for foreign policy isn’t sitting in the Hague right now proves that there is no mystical power that enforces some karmic form of justice, at least not within a lifetime itself.  I can only hope that these men suffer as much as possible from the passionless judgment of history as they grow old in their mansions reading fan mail from their devoted acolytes.

There.  Now, the hard part.

I’m not naïve.  I know what Barack Obama campaigned on when I worked to help get him elected over a year ago.  I know the rhetoric he developed to attack Republicans for launching an ill-advised (never mind immoral and criminal) invasion of Iraq in spite of its effect on continuing operations in Afghanistan.  I know he used this as a bludgeon in order to cleave whatever foreign policy advantages he could muster against a party that people for whatever reason have been conditioned to support in matters of ‘defense.’  I know he specifically campaigned pledging to ‘finish the job in Afghanistan,’ whatever the fuck that means.

I don’t care.

Here’s a little secret that I’ll share with you about the looming ‘successful’ end of our occupation of Iraq: nobody will know for at least a decade if anything was really accomplished in rebuilding the Faberge egg we stepped on.  You see, in our (very fake) zeal to bestow ‘freedom’ upon all of these oppressed people around the world, we ignored the simple girder propping up the whole notion itself: self determination.  The idea that the people of a nation will choose the form under which they are governed, should they choose to be governed at all.  Barack Obama will never tell you that the people of Iraq could, in the very near future, choose to reject the fancy little government we made for them because it would compromise his ability to get us out in the first place.  And we have to get out because we can’t afford the cost to our treasury, and the Iraqi people deserve the right to self determination even should it prove costly in lives lost and we don’t like the people or ideology they choose to be governed by.

It is the same exact principle in Afghanistan.  We are fighting the determination of the people of Afghanistan itself.  In appraising both of our occupations, the press constantly fails to mention that we set up the system of governance in both countries with little direct input of the wider citizenry.  In contrast, the French certainly helped us throw out the British, but they had no seat at our constitutional convention.  Elections are all well and good, but if the framework of the political system is foreign to the people presided over, then it’s quite likely that they’ll let you know about it.  Quite often, it’ll be by force.

We have spent eight years attempting to convince the Afghans to reject the system of governance that existed before our arrival, but if they are truly resistant, our only choice should we demand our imposition is to stay there until they acquiesce.  Which would essentially turn the sovereign nation of Afghanistan into our colony.  Now, I happen to think that this is morally reprehensible, and reject it on that basis alone; however, should you be a more strident ‘America First’ zealot, well then there should at least be some sort of strategic aim in our interest for its continuity.  Unless the United States is going to become an international opium trafficker, there is none.  Afghanistan is quite simply a black hole for American treasure with little predictability as to our ability to successfully impose our will on the development of their system of governance.

Barack Obama knows all of this shit.  However, instead of offering a historical moment of fundamental change, questioning the motives of our post-WWII impositions in the inner-workings of sovereign nations attempting to chart their own destinies; he has instead offered forward loosely-defined middle path bullshit in the spirit of Lyndon Johnson that will result in the loss of more of our money, and countless innocent civilians and American military personnel dead before we finally get the fuck out.  Should we even get out.  Why?  Because he is afraid of the political blowback for asking a sick nation to evaluate itself and its motives.  However, in so doing, he has set himself up as responsible for the almost inevitable failure of our ‘mission’ in Afghanistan.  To borrow a phrase from (ugh) John McCain, this is not change I can believe in.

Now, did I expect him to choose this path?  Absolutely.  However, after my earlier years of ideological purity, watching the hand of the Bush Administration go about unleashing the might of our military on innocent people around the world convinced me that there are distinctions between our parties making it worth investing in our flawed system.  I believe Barack Obama was worth electing because he would not have invaded Iraq in the first place.  I didn’t expect him to fight for single-payer health care, but I knew the right would only make our health care system worse instead of incrementally trying to improve it.  To some extent, I still believe that this endeavor is still noble.

However, on this night, I cannot support my President.  I cannot offer him the political support of my silence on an issue of such grave importance.  If we are to get anywhere in making this a better nation through the mechanism of the Democratic Party, we must expect more, and demand more.  I can never accept simply living in a country so drunk on its ‘exceptionalism’ that it doesn’t merely stay silent while creeping along an imperial path, but instead celebrates it.  I cannot sit and allow charlatans to invoke the cause of freedom while ignoring its fundamental principle of self-determination.  I do not believe that there is some endemic flaw in my fellow Americans that predisposes us to accept tyranny, even in our softer, more slickly produced forms.  But, if we are to progress, it will take the courage of great men and women.  Unfortunately, tonight, Barack Obama failed in his greatest test yet.

A father’s firm proud hand
A mother’s resigned grimace
A newly-minted man’s desire for respect
An unending ocean
A world away
An omnipresent fear

An exotic, beautiful face
A flash of light
A burst of heat searing it to memory
A young boy
A kite
A trail of red, as his life drains away

A joke brings comforting laughter
A friend, a life bond
A plywood box
A sheet of fabric laid over
An object devoid of life
A statistic

A return
A town unchanged
An unsettling familiarity
An old friend unable to understand
An innocent ignorance in celebration of another day
A life lived in blocks, not continents

A war
A decade
A weary normalcy
A generation cleaved by experience
A life left in anticipation of accomplishment
Another life left to understand that seen

In my searching, I came across a chanel called ‘RT,’ which was doing headline news.

As the opening teaser played, I was floored to see no reporting from Iran.

Ever so suspicious about the motives behind not covering the biggest story in the world right now (sorry Jon and Kate), I did a little research.

Sure enough, it turns out that ‘RT’ stands for ‘Russia Today,’ and it is affiliated with a state-run news agency.  And, of course, Russia (and China) have exceptionally close diplomatic and business ties with the clerical government of Iran.

Now, I’m not coming at this from the viewpoint of some disingenuous moral superiority on behalf of an American government that currently practices the lawless detention and torture of innocent men.

But to see anybody ignore the beginnings of a possible popular revolution as unarmed men and women lay dying on the street on the behalf of selling a few centrifuges just reminds me that this is indeed a very fucked up world we live in.

And that the Iranians are on their own.  There are too many important people on clearly defined sides to allow for any international meddling.

And, of course, the United States itself doesn’t quite have an altruistic history in assisting Iranians pursuing freedom, anyways…

Have a couple of ideas I’ve been kicking around in my head for a few weeks that I’ll post tomorrow, but until then…

It is apparent in our nature that we observe and value institution and stability; often to the point of our great detriment. It seems inconceivable that we as a species are able to properly and rationally appraise both the duration of the Earth’s history, and the relative insignificance of our nascent arrival when viewed in this perspective.

But rather than have this be too grand and needlessly academic; limiting the scope to the emergence of what most would observe as ‘modern society,’ and the astounding advances in communication, transportation and commercial technology still holds this same principle.

There are very few Americans around today who remember a time before the pervasive adoption of television as a staple of societal interaction. I would venture a guess that most in my generation simply view television as they do a rock; something that just exists within our landscape. Very little thought is paid by most as to the methods of production and delivery; the idea that it is an intricate system that requires constant maintenance is not present. If broadcasts stopped tomorrow due to some disturbance in this system, I would imagine most simply being baffled that something so ingrained into our essential concept of being could vanish, yet it is far from an impossibility. Indeed, the medium itself has only existed within a lifetime, and within the most microscopic scintilla of our planet’s existence.

This same principle of contented ignorance of history and its grand scope is being played out in our financial system right now. It is easy to hold money in one’s hand, and view it two-dimensionally; perhaps viewing it as the ticket to a beer after work. Yet, through the prism of modern society and the fetishistic worship of its symbolism as a marker of prominence, it is near-impossible to recognize its essential lack of concrete value as anything but a slip of finely processed paper.

Take the Confederate Dollar. Issued shortly after the onset of the Civil War, it was the official currency of the Confederate States of America; and before the prospect of probable failure in the secessionist endeavor, it did indeed hold value. Goods and services could be purchased with it; and an economic system ran on the basis of it. But within the short span of three or four years, it essentially lost all value. Why? Because there was no intrinsic value to it beyond an idea: confidence in the Government backing it.

But as the years passed, and as the memories of this American insurrection faded into history; this worthless note suddenly found value once more. But once again, this value was built on the basis of another idea: that of historical significance and relative scarcity. Perhaps one’s great-great-grandmother took to using this essentially worthless piece of paper as a bookmark, one day leaving it between the pages of a completed tome only to be discovered by an ancestor still in crisp form. Despite being long disregarded as a piece of legitimate currency, it can be traded for a much larger sum of its modern equivalent to collectors and curators enthralled by its connection to a bygone era.

My essential point is that the pillars of our basic society are often mistaken as pieces of our natural environment rather than temporary institutions accepted by social compact. It is in our nature to cling to that which we recognize, often irrationally. This often compounds the systemic deficiencies endemic to such institutions as a result of fear upon the sight of their erosion. There is no permanence as there is no perfection. While we are now witnessing the frightening reconfiguration of our basic existence, it would speak to the better qualities of our physiological nature to recognize this moment as an opportunity to create better ideas and better institutions; while simultaneously recognizing the relative newness of our current paradigm.

We have lived before its construction, and through the will of humanity, we will live better after its dissolution into a better, newer world. That is, until we deconstruct that one, and find yet another, better model after that one invariably fails us once more. Because there is no permanence as there is no perfection.

I’ve never experienced anything like this before; the extent to which Barack Obama’s political charisma has power to sway opinion is almost incomprehensible to me.

This article listing numbers from a CBS News flash poll after the speech is just another piece of data that has been borne out since the campaign: every single time President Obama speaks to a national audience, his numbers improve significantly.

And I think this will have a significant effect on the remainder of his term, and the shape of his Presidency, because he is outlining a new paradigm.

Upon his inauguration into office, he attempted negotiation with the Republicans over the stimulus policy.  It wasn’t until he leveraged his political gifts through national campaigning, and co-opted external pressure from a nation very much so trusting his policy decisions that he made any progress.

It’s clear now that Republicans won’t move in any direction that would assist in passing any of Obama’s legislative initiatives unless they feel a self-preservational motivation to do so.

What Obama holds over them is his ability to make it a tri-lateral negotiation.  Through his truly transcendent political gifts, Obama brings the American public to the table with him as an ally in negotiations; what the Republican Party is failing to recognize is the extent to which violating Obama’s efforts is becoming a violation of national will.

This is the development of a context that may see the death of Republicanism as a primary force in American politics.  There are no alternatives coming from the other side; there is only ‘no.’

Certainly not in any way like I respect and admire Russ Feingold or President Obama.  But few Congressional Republicans can bring as tremendously an entertaining cocktail of stupidity, occupational apathy and just plain malice as the Kentucky Senator.

Today’s awesomeness:

On Tuesday, Senator Jim Bunning threatened to sue fellow Republicans if they do not support his bid for reelection in 2010.

Why, how dare these Republicans not support Senator Bunning in his quest for re-election?  What could he possibly have done wrong?

For just a Tuesday, Sen. Bunning is having one bad week. Monday, after a firestorm of criticism, he apologized for predicting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be dead within nine months. Ginsburg was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

In his apology, Bunning misspelled Ginsburg’s name. Of course, it was not the senator’s first scrape with controversy.

“Bunning once compared [a Democratic challenger's] appearance to one of Saddam Hussein’s sons, and made an unsubstantiated claim that his wife wound up ‘black and blue’ after an alleged encounter with his rival’s staffers at a political picnic,” reported USA Today after Bunning narrowly won reelection in 2004.

“The senator also admitted he was unaware that a group of Army reservists had refused a convoy mission in Iraq, and said he hadn’t read a newspaper in weeks and relied on Fox News for information.”

Oh.

I’ll miss you, Senator Bunning.  But please, please sue the RNC, the RSCC, the RCCC, and anybody else you think is trying to deny you your God-given right to remain in the Senate.

My dude wields some sharp knives, and he does it so smoothly.