The Unbearable Smugness of Being A Tough Guy Republican

Driving into work this morning I heard Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions saying that he owned an AR-15 automatic rifle, the same gun which the teenage shooter used at Newtown, and Sessions said he  liked the gun because it looks so intimidating, and he can imagine, what with all the bad weather and floods and hurricanes (not caused by global warming,) that the lights in his town might just go out some night and he will need an intimidating weapon to protect himself and his home, and a two barrel shot gun does not have enough fire power for him to feel safe.

Mr. Sessions, whose middle name evokes a fearsome Confederate general, has a  website which shows him standing in front of a  battleship. He is a man who likes big guns. He is from Selma, Alabama, where the guns are big and the brains run small. 

But, funny thing, when you look at the background of the loudmouth Right Wingers, like Rush Limbaugh, Jon Kyl, John Cornyn, John Ensign, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, not a one of these tough guys ever served. None of them ever jumped out of an airplane with a parachute and a gun, into hostile fire. None ever had a shot fired at them in anger. None of them had to dig into a foxhole while artillery rained down upon their positions. None had to wade through a swamp carrying his gun above his head while leeches fed on their legs. 

You will quickly object: Senator sessions "served" in the Army Reserves during Vietnam. But as anyone who lived through that era will know immediately, the Army Reserves did not send soldiers to Vietnam. That and the National Guard were the safe hiding places for men trying to avoid the airplane ride to Vietnam. Only the well connected could get into those safe havens. So Sessions did not serve; in a sense, he did worse, like George W. Bush, he only pretended to serve.

It does not take Sigmund Freud to analyze the personality of the man who wants to boast of his own dangerousness  and potency, who has a history of avoiding danger.

Not that Vietnam was simply a test of bravery. The bravest men during that war were the men who stood up and refused to serve, who went to prison, or to Canada. But plenty of brave men were pressured into going to Vietnam. That was a bad war, and as Thoreau famously said, the only place for a really just man under those circumstances was in jail.  Ultimately, resistance to the war played a role in forcing Lyndon Johnson's resignation (decision not to stand for re election) and that, along with the Viet Cong's winning strategy and military effectiveness,   finally brought the American public to its senses and the  realization the war was unwinnable. So  Nixon declared we have won an honorable victory,  and got out.

Mad Dog's own brother finished his surgical internship and found himself on a boat to Vietnam, first as ship's doctor, and later going up river on a swift boat, where he ducked a rocket or two fired from the shoreline, tromped up a hill, visited a village in the program to bring Western medicine to the villagers, to win the hearts and minds of villagers, who spoke no English. The villagers prepared a meal for the visiting doctor.  A translator listened to the symptoms of the villagers who wanted to see the doctor, and translated: "Same thing, doc." Mad Dog's brother wore a sidearm then, but he does not own a gun now. He doesn't need an AR-15 to know about his own courage, or to proclaim it to others. The only way you'd ever know he ever was in Vietnam would be to see the pictures he took of the villagers, which hang on the wall of his home study. And there is not a gun to be seen in those pictures, just faces, suffering and humanity.

George McGovern, who tried to end that war, had won a silver star in WWII.  Never saw McGovern brandishing a weapon. 

Somehow, the guys who have the big thing, don't need to wave it around. 

Which makes you wonder about the guys who seem to need to display the big stick.

ADDENDUM!!!
Since posting this blog, Mad Dog has read Gail Collins in today's New York Times and is informed it was not Mr. Sessions, but his South Carolina twin, Lindsey Graham, the other Senator from South Carolina Mad Dog had heard on the radio. (These South Carolina politicians--Graham, Sessions, Francis Underwood--who can keep them straight?  They all look alike. They all sound alike. I'm a white man and I still can't distinguish among them.)

Actually, in some ways, it makes the story better. At first, Mad Dog was distressed because the story was about a man who had hidden in the reserves, and seeing the photo on line 

Mr. Graham looked like the real article. Look at those camo fatigues. And his biography says he served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, having been in the Air Force in the mid 1980's.  
But, turns out, although Mr. Graham claimed such service, he never got out of South Carolina. He later replied, "I never said I was a combatant."
Do da word "poser" mean anything to you, Mr. Graham?

Mr. Obama, Tear Down Those Bases: Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman and America's Endless War Machine

Existing installations

US military bases in Germany as of 2008.

• Anderson Barracks, Dexheim (will reopen)
• Artillery Kaserne, Garmisch-Partenkirchen
• Askren Manors Housing Area, Schweinfurt (scheduled to close 2015)
• Bamberg Local Training Area, Bamberg (scheduled to close 2015)
• Barton Barracks, Ansbach
• Benjamin Franklin Village, Mannheim (Scheduled to close December 2012)
• Bismarck Kaserne, Ansbach
• Bleidorn Housing Area, Ansbach
• Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg (Scheduled to close 2015)
• Gen. Lucius D. Clay Kaserne (formerly Wiesbaden Army Airfield, renamed June 14, 2012), Wiesbaden
• Coleman Barracks, Mannheim (Scheduled to close 2015)
• Conn Barracks, Schweinfurt (scheduled to close 2015)
• Dagger Complex, Darmstadt Training Center Griesheim
• Funari Barracks, Mannheim (Scheduled to close December 2012)
• Germersheim Army Depot, Germersheim
• Grafenwöhr Training Area, Grafenwöhr/Vilseck
• Hammonds Barracks, Mannheim
• Heidelberg Army Airfield, Heidelberg
• Hohenfels Training Area/Joint Multinational Readiness Center, Hohenfels (Upper Palatinate)
• Husterhoeh Kaserne, Pirmasens
• Kaiserslautern Military Community
• Katterbach Kaserne, Ansbach
• Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart
• Kleber Kaserne, Kaiserslautern Military Community
• Lampertheim Training Area, Lampertheim (Scheduled to close 2015)
• Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Landstuhl
• Ledward Barracks, Schweinfurt (scheduled to close 2015)
• Mark Twain Village, Heidelberg (Scheduled to close 2015)
• McCully Barracks, Wackernheim
• Miesau Army Depot, Miesau
• Nachrichten Kaserne, Heidelberg (Scheduled to close 2015)
• Oberdachstetten Storage Area, Ansbach
• Panzer Kaserne, Stuttgart
• Patch Barracks, Stuttgart
• Pulaski Barracks, Kaiserslautern
• Patrick Henry Village, Heidelberg (Scheduled to close late 2014)
• Patton Barracks, Heidelberg (Scheduled to close 2015)
• Rhein Ordnance Barracks, Kaiserslautern
• Robinson Barracks, Stuttgart
• Rose Barracks, Vilseck
• Rottershausen Storage Area, Schweinfurt
• Sembach Kaserne, Kaiserslautern
• Shipton Kaserne, Ansbach
• Smith Barracks, Baumholder
• Spinelli Barracks, Mannheim (Scheduled to close 2015)
• Storck Barracks, Illesheim
• Stuttgart Army Airfield, Filderstadt
• Sullivan Barracks, Mannheim (Scheduled to close 2014)
• Tompkins Barracks, Schwetzingen (Scheduled to close 2015)
• Storage Station, Mainz-Kastel
• Warner Barracks, Bamberg (Scheduled to close 2015)
• USAG Wiesbaden Military Training Area, Mainz, Gonsenheim/Mombach
• USAG Wiesbaden Training Area, Mainz Finthen Airport
• USAG Wiesbaden Radar Station, Mainz Finthen Airport
• Urlas Housing and Shopping Complex, Ansbach (converted from Urlas Training Area in 2010-2011)
• Yorktown Housing Complex, Schweinfurt (scheduled to close 2015)

These are the American army bases in Germany.

You might ask, Why?

It is true that when American soldiers wounded in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere between the Rock of Gibraltar and India need to be evacuated for the highest level of medical care, it's nice to have that ultra modern hospital in Lansthul as a place they can be swept into an operating room, a sort of Walter Reed East. 

But, if we were not constantly sending our men and women into combat in the Middle East, Asia Minor and all points in between, we might get away with an arrangement with the Brits to set up a hospital in the friendly environs of the British Isles. 

The real question Mad Dog has asked is: Why? Why do we need all those American soldiers in Germany in 2013? Hastings Ismay, the first secretary general of  NATO said we needed American soldiers in Germany to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down. That was circa 1950. 

Do we really need to keep the Germans down in 2013?  Would we not like it better if the Germans sent their own boats to keep the sea lanes open to the oil ports in the Middle East?

We really do need to sit ourselves down and have a serious talk and say: "We really did win the Second World War."  We can bring our soldiers home from Japan now.  The Japanese might have been the Yellow Peril for our parents, but they are the people who make Toyotas for our children now. 

And the Germans, well, the problem for our parents was we could not keep the Germans from making guns and building armies and navies; the problem for us is they don't want to spend any money on defending themselves, trade routes or hunting down terrorists. Let the Yanks do it.

Mad Dog has assumed he was simply being ignorant. There must be a reason we are spending billions to keep those troops abroad. But today Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, writing in the New York Times validates that sneaking suspicion, that idea which seems so obvious there must be a reason it's wrong--the idea that we are still fight a war 70 years after it ended. 

And to keep all those servicemen armed, we need to fund facilities like the Portsmouth Naval Yard, and the Newport News Virginia Naval Yard and a San Diego Naval Yard and a Naval Yard in Hawaii.  And the Army has training camps to help prepare our professional soldiers/ Hessians/mercenaries (depending on your point of view) well conditioned and ready to fight our endless war.

Endless war, that's what Andrew Bacevich calls it. 

Ms. Hoffman is a professor of American foreign relations at San Diego State University and Bacevich is a professor of political science, or something like that, at Boston University.

If there were a compelling reason for America to have these bases in Germany and Japan, you would think these scholars would know about it.

Why, Mad Dog asks, are the Republicans, who have been screaming bloody murder about federal government spending, not apopletic about the billions which support all those American soldiers, sailors and airmen languishing in bases across Germany and Japan?

It may be the defense budget is only 14%-19% of our federal budget. But, as Everett Dirksen once remarked, a million here, a million there, and pretty soon it adds up to real money.

Mad Dog humbly suggests we save some money in Germany and Japan, and here at home at so many war machine facilities and spend that money on Medicare and a National Health system. 

Which is not to say we ought to forget about tracking down terrorists. 

But let us admit, finally, we are not likely to kill terrorists with a tank or a submarine.

Entitlement: What's In A Word and Antonin Scalia

During the recent oral arguments on the Voting Rights Act, Justice Antonin Scalia said this law is the institutionalization of a "racial entitlement."  the 1965 law, last renewed about 4 years ago by a unanimous Senate and by all but six votes in the House, says that a local government cannot suddenly change the voting hours, or the voting place or the boundaries of a voting district, without first getting approval from a federal authority if that local government has been identified as one which has a history of  denying voting rights to its citizens. Historically, this was done mostly in the South, although New Hampshire has had its problems. 

So this law prevents shenanigans carried out by locals who don't want their Black folks voting, and that Mr. Scalia sees as "a racial entitlement." Which is to say, those local Black folk are entitled to vote.

And "entitlement" suggests the mentality of a person who feels "entitled." Which is to say, this suggests a person who is not deserving but demands something to which he is not really, ethically or morally entitled, but he thinks he ought to be.

The same word has been used, with the same pejorative connotation in the case of Medicare. All those citizens who feel so "entitled" to their Medicare. They don't really deserve Medicare coverage, they just feel "entitled," those welfare queen slackers.

Of course, that word is never used when a customer of Blue Cross/Blue Shield demands that insurance company cover his hospitalization or this MRI. That person deserves to be covered. He paid his premiums.  But the citizen who has paid with every pay check for thirty years into the Medicare program, well, he is an entitled , so and so, who is just willing to bleed the government dry demanding his coverage when he really ought to be ashamed to be feeding at the government trough. 

Oh, for shame.

And the same goes for all those citizens who no longer need the federal government protecting their voting rights. After all, people are no longer put through "literacy" tests at the polls, or asked to pay a "poll tax" or sent away because they are Black. Everything is clean as a whistle at the polling places throughout the land now, in the 21st century--unless you happen to be trying to vote in Florida, and you are a 102 year old black woman, on line for 6 hours, or unless you are trying to vote in Pennsylvania where--luckily--they caught the Republican local pol on tape, crowing about how he was going to steal the election from President Obama with his local malfeasance. 

Who needs a Voting Rights Act when elections nowadays are so very clean?

And Mr. Scalia complains the very name of the law is a sham; calling it a Voting Rights Act means nobody can oppose it, says Justice Scalia. Who would be against  voting rights? (Takes one to know one: Who would be for a Death Tax?)

Mr. Scalia, ever irrepressible, did not stop with questioning the lawyer presenting the  argument against the Voting Rights Act--Mr. Scalia went on to present the case against the Voting Rights Act himself, from the bench.

What he argued, essentially, is that the Congress had to be rescued from itself by the Supreme Court. No Congressman or Senator can be expected to vote against voting rights, even though the nation really does not need a voting rights law, so it's up to the Supreme Court to nullify the law. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

What Mad Dog would argue is: With the Supreme Court now poised to usurp the role of the legislature, what this country really needs is a Congress which will vote in a court packing, no let's call it a Supreme Court Reinvigoration and Rejuvenation Act, mandating that the President appoint 2 new justices each term and only the 9 most recently appointed justices get to vote. 

And while we are at it--let's be sure those new nominees vow on a stack of Bibles to overturn Florence vs the Board of Freeholders, the strip search decision. Might throw in a litmus test on Citizens United and Bong Hits for Jesus while we are at it.

The Emperor's New Clothes: Republicans Bring Down the Government with Sequester

They are still trying to sell cut-to-grow snake oil; cut spending and cut taxes , and the economy will grow because rich people will be happy and when rich people are happy they hire poor people, and then everyone's happy. 

This is the vacuous talk of politicians trying to placate people with vacation homes, not a sensible solution for people trying to purchase, or simply retain, their first homes.

--Charles M. Blow,  The New York Times Saturday, March 2, 2013.

Mr. Blow looks at the truth and sees it and says it, but people in Kentucky and South Carolina and Arizona and Texas and even California and Pennsylvania can look at the same truth and not see it.

Those willfully blind people elected the Tea Party Republicans in 2010 and returned enough of them in 2012 so these government-is-the-problem-not-the-solution types still have a strangle hold on government.

Our bewigged silk stocking'd sometimes slave owning or slave trading forefathers distrusted government enough to build into ours enough levers to pull to bring this train to a halt whenever a bare minimum of dissenters become unhappy.

Trouble is, in the case of the sequester, even Mad Dog cannot actually see exactly which programs and  which people are getting the rug pulled out from under them. So far, the media has reported on the examples which the media presumes are the most moving and tear jerking, and Mad Dog has to admit,, actually, much as Mad Dog might love extra teaching aides in elementary schools, this does not sound like a critical loss of essential government workers. Mad Dog loves the National Parks, but if they close down, it's not like the power going off in dowtown Manchester and Portsmouth.

The problem for President Obama is the Republicans have said, "Okay, screw you, screw the government, we're going home," and for Mad Dog and his neighbors, life here in New Hampshire hasn't changed. 

Mad Dog's father traveled to Spain when the vicious dictator, Franco, was still in power.  People were sitting around cafes, enjoying the sun, the beaches, looking happy, which disturbed Mad Dog's father because here were people who were under the yoke of tyranny, still enjoying life. Nobody looked depressed, despite an oppressive government. It was as if it didn't matter the scoundrels were in charge. Government did not seem to affect people, at least not visibly, to a tourist.

Here and now, we have government being brought to a grinding halt and life goes on. It is as if the Tea Party anarchists have proven their point: We really don't need government, after all.

Of course, there is another metaphor.  How many times have you had a friend or relative, who was walking around, looking quite healthy, only to keel over dead, or collapse and be dragged off to the hospital and found to be riddled with cancer, beyond hope?

Another image might be more vivid:  You can jump off a cliff and spread your arms and enjoy the sense of flying freely through the air, and feel just fine, exhilarated even,  until you hit the ground.

That's what President Obama is warning us about--we are not going to get acute chest pain, start choking today, but the harm is being done, inside, the unforgiving hard ground is still there, awaiting us. 

It's just a matter of time.

But, as the three stooges might echo that great philosopher: What, me worry?

Sequester: Where The Money Goes

Mad Dog is still trying to track down where we allocate our funds as a people.
These charts are from different websites, government, conservative think tanks, Mother Jones. They seem to reflect subtle differences in how conservatives and liberals see the same numbers. Creative accounting.

Double click on them to make them more readable.

Notable, is how little defense spending takes up compared to other programs in some charts--as low as 14% in some and as large as 19% in others and even in those where it is 19% Veterans benefits are separated from defense spending, which of course is a little irrational. The cost of a soldier's prosthetic leg is a cost of war, not a social security benefit. With all the money we can see spent at the Portsmouth Naval Yard and in Norfolk Virginia and in the districts of the Tea Party Republicans from California to Pennsylvania, it is surprising that slice of the pie isn't bigger. Agriculture and farm subsidies look surprisingly small. "Education" is surprisingly, gratifyingly, large. I wonder what that includes. 

What is included in "protection" is not clear. Is terrorism, the CIA, the NSA in "defense" or in "protection?" Should Veteran's Administration be in "Health" for the VA hospitals or in "Defense?"  Or should it be in" pensions?" If you added up "defense" "veterans" "protection" then the defense slice would be bigger than Medicare.  Presumably, the Republican/Tea party/ Conservative Think Tank types split off anything they can from "defense" to make that slice of the pie look smaller. And they add whatever they can to Medicare and Social Security to make that look larger.

Before we can really understand the debate about whether we need to cut spending or increase income, Mad Dog suspects, we need to actually see what we are spending and on what.

Creative accounting likely plays a subterranean role here.

Wars For All the Wrong Reasons

The war we fought among ourselves from 1861-1865 was a war we had to fight. No avoiding it, and the fact it was as long and destructive as it was was important because we had to exhaust ourselves and realize no institution or States Right notion was worth that cost. Had the Union won quickly, as it could have but for the incompetence of various generals, in 1862 or 1863, the South would not have been as exhausted or convinced of its defeat. That was a war which expunged the bad blood.

And it was a good we joined the  battle against Hitler in 1942. As racist and exploitative as England and France and even the United States were, they could  not hold a candle to what Germany had degenerated into. We were a force for good in the world, even if most of the men who fought in that war did not  know it when they joined. 

They found out later just what monster they had brought down.

But since the end of World War II, we have been in more or less continuous war--with a brief hiatus during the Clinton years.

But in most of the wars since WWII, we found  ourselves in quagmires, unable to even say what winning is. 

President Obama has vowed to end the war in Afghanistan and Mad Dog believes he wants to do this, if for no other reason than its effect on our economy. His administration has voiced, through Vice President Biden, our excuse for leaving--we are not running out on the Afghans; we are handing their country back to an Afghan government which is stepping up to take our place, to keep order and to lay justice on the Afghan people.

Of course, as Americans, we understand a  lie when we hear one. There is no Afghan government. There are only some police who rape young boys, hold unfortunate citizens for ransom, sell American weapons and gasoline on the black market, traffic in heroin.  It's a nasty bunch we are handing the country over to, but then again, we never had it in hand.  It's all "Dope on the Table."  We claim victory and clear out.

As far as Mad Dog is concerned, it cannot happen fast enough. After us, the place collapses, and there is not a thing anyone can do about it. 

It's not even clear there is such a thing as an "Afghan people." As with so many failed states, Somolia, and other African "nations" there is no real nation, just a geographic area populated by warring tribes and religious fanatics. 

The lives we lost  were not in vain, if we believe all that was necessary to track down Osama Bin Laden, and without Afghanistan, without a launching pad into Pakistan, we  would likely never have got him. After the Twin Towers came down, a lot of young American men and women were willing to go to Afghanistan to help track him down and kill him. 

Now we've done it. And now we ought to get out of that part of the world  and we ought to  close Gitmo prison, a cesspool of torture which some Americans have justified because we are not torturing or unjustly imprisoning men on American soil. As if committing a crime off shore is no crime. It's the old, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. If we don't misbehave at home, well then there is no crime.

We ought to Bring 'Em Home, from Afghanistan, from Germany, from Japan, from all those bases overseas and build our economy right here. And we ought to set about the work of shutting down those huge weapons systems communities in hundreds of Congressional districts, where Americans have good, high paying jobs building weapons systems we do not need and cannot afford.  These defense workers have served us well, but as was true after World War II, it is time to study war no more and to close down the death factories. 

Mr. Obama may realize this. If he does not, we might be able to educate him.

Sequester: Do We Really Need Government, Anyway?

Driving over the fiscal cliff would stall government programs, but for the Republican Tea Party, this will come as welcome news. 
It is not clear to Mad Dog  how many of the listed losses would be permanent and how many temporary, but here is a partial list of what New Hampshire would lose:
1. Teachers and schools: >$1 million for education aides
2. Clean Air Clean Water: $1.5 million for hazardous waste and pesticide contamination programs
3. Defense: 1,000 civilian employees furloughed--presumably the shipyard or is that only in Maine?
4. Army base funding $1 million
5. Law enforcement: courts, prosecution, police 
6. Public Health: $126,000 upgrading state programs in infectious diseases and natural disasters
7. Stop Violence Against Women program: $28,000.

Comments from citizens suggest there are at least some vocal citizens who say, "Good Riddance" to these programs and expenditures.

From Mad Dog's point of view, the impact on "civilian employees," of the military in this state-- if we are talking about ship yard workers who are hard working, well trained people who re furbish submarines--is the most worrisome. But, truth be told, at some point, America has to shift from a wartime nation to a nation which concentrates on defending against terrorism. Nuclear submarines would not appear to offer much protection against the next Al Qaeda attack. Our shipyard, like so many other defense installations around the country is part of our eternal war machine.  Newport, Rhode Island lost the Navy base there  in the 1970's, and there was a painful transition from military to civilian economy, but it happened,  and ultimately, it was tough love and it worked out better for Rhode Island in the long run. 

Where would all those New Hampshire shipyard workers find work? We ought to be figuring that out right now, before the hammer comes down on that shipyard, as it inevitably will. Working on nuclear submarines must be a specialized career, but maybe some of these men and women could take skills used in boats and sell them elsewhere. It would be wrenching and an upheaval, but if we are ever to shift to a real peacetime economy, it will happen eventually.

Our defense spending, Mad Dog suspects, is not about defense or about making America stronger or safer. It is a substantial government welfare program for the defense workers at the plants and shipyards, and a boondoggle for the corporations who profit from it. Not that we ought to bring home all the submarines and aircraft carriers next week, but we ought to bring them home over a well defined timespan. 

Most of the other  things on this list sound  like programs which may be worthwhile, but, truth be told, they sound less than essential. You know how when there is a really big snowstorm and there is an announcement on the radio that only essential government workers have to report for duty. Well, none of these sound like essential government workers. 
We may love the educational aides who help with disabled children at the public elementary school, but are they essential? Just ask Rush Limbaugh. 

The state and the towns fund education and clean air and water and police and the courts. So why do we need these federal funds?

If air traffic controllers cannot go to work, if we cannot fly out of New Hampshire, that hits home.  

Really, the Democrats have to state clearly exactly what would be lost which is convincing to the average New Hampshire voter on this point: If the federal government shuts down, even partially, you will lose things you really like. What are these things?

If Medicare, Social Security or the Center for Disease Control start shutting down, that's a problem. But we are told these will not be falling off the fiscal cliff.

 If the University of New Hampshire has to cut teachers, if Route 95 and Route 93 cannot be plowed, if national parks close, if security lines at Manchester Airport and Logan slow to a crawl, then we got trouble in New Hampshire.  If Obamacare falters in New Hampshire so people here cannot get medical insurance coverage because of the fiscal cliff, that is a problem.

Of course, in the long run, if we go back into recession and all those little factories in the Granite State have no customers, that will hurt. 

But the Republican Tea Party makes one simply argument: We do not need the federal government. The Democrats have to say why we do need the government.

Mad dog awaits the answer eagerly. He knows it's out there. He just hasn't got it yet.