e-commentary

. . .

J          “‘Joint Base State-Offense’ works, but how about ‘Joint Base State-War’ to use the cabinet agencies established in the Constitution and to clarify the mission.”

K        “Like ‘Joint Base Lewis–McChord’ or ‘Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling’ or ‘Joint Base Langley–Eustis’ that consolidate operations of the the military branches.  Then we as a country could establish a cabinet-level ‘Department of Diplomacy’ to handle foreign affairs and international relations.”

. . .

K          “I have shared this concern before.  America has a ‘Department of Offense’ on each side of the Potomac River.  Every time the Metro conductor announces: ‘Next stop . . . Foggy Bottom’, I may be the only one who smiles and realizes that it is the metonym to describe the Department of Offense built literally on a swamp in the D. of C.  America needs to build a cabinet-level ‘Department of Diplomacy’ and critically needs to establish an ‘Office of the Legal Advisor’ and hire the very few Americans who are ‘agreement-capable’ to bring America into the rules-based international community.” 

J          “War is profitable.  Peace is not.  The country needs a more balanced pursuit of peace, but war is a necessary option.”

. . .

K          “I shared a story that I reflect on frequently.  An old experienced law professor who taught comparative law in American and European law schools for over two score years shared his settled observations about the fundamental difference in training and perspective between American-trained lawyers and European-trained lawyers.  With some exceptions, an American-trained lawyer first asks:  “Can we get away with it?”  With some exceptions, an European-trained lawyer first asks:  “Is it lawful?”  Europe and the EU need some European not American thinking.”

J          “You also said something about ‘American-trained Americans’.  What is an ‘American-trained America’?  Is the problem deeper in the state?”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

“Next stop . . . . Department of Diplomacy“

Smedley Butler Pentagon

Give war less of a chance

“I was once asked if I had any ideas for a really scary reality TV show.  I have one reality show that would really make your hair stand on end: “C-Students from Yale.”  George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka Christians, and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or PPs, the medical term for smart, personable people who have no consciences.  To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete’s foot . . . PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts.  They have a screw loose! . . . So many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick.  They have taken charge of communications and the schools, so we might as well be Poland under occupation.  They might have felt that taking our country into an endless war was simply something decisive to do. What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive.  They are going to do something every fuckin’ day and they are not afraid.  Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reasons that they don’t give a fuck what happens next.  Simply can’t.  Do this!  Do that!  Mobilize the reserves!  Privatize the public schools!  Attack Iraq!  Cut health care!  Tap everybody’s telephone!  Cut taxes on the rich!  Build a trillion-dollar missile shield!  Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!  There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it.  This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.”  Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

www.challengeoppression.org  This site is asking you to sign in. 

[Only fibbing.  You know the creators of the site do not require you to sign in.  We are just stepping up our game and letting you know that we are monitoring you.  And we know that you know what happens to those we monitor who do not toe the line.]

. . .

K          “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”

J          “According to the DD 214, from August 7, 1996 to March 16, 2004.  Proudly and with distinction.  And one is never an ‘ex’ Marine, one is always a ‘former’ Marine.”

. . .

K          “They focus on the unit not the individual.”

J          “They work an extra half hour to complete the mission without spending an hour and a half completing paperwork seeking two hours of comp time.”

K          “They provide a single payer health care system collectively without bankrupting the individual while providing a basic human right.”

J          “They do not try to distinguish themselves with expensive threads.  Their uniforms are . . . uniform.”

K          “They do not try to distinguish themselves with elaborate bouffants.  They do sport crew cuts and everyone in the crew works together to make the cut.”

J          “They do distinguish themselves by distinguishing themselves.”

K          “They do get the job done.”

. . .

K          “In theory, the military is subordinate to civilian control.”

J          “In practice, for my entire life, the civilian controllers have needlessly killed and maimed the courageous and patriotic kids in the American military in unnecessary and illegal wars of aggression calculated and designed to create chaos and instability throughout the world.”

. . .

[The political events of the past week must stew and gestate and percolate for another week.]

[Savor the speech by Jim Lehrer at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of the Marine Corps on November 10, 2006 and note his reference to the greatest Marine of all time, Smedley Butler.]

[See the e-commentary at “Vet’s Day; Slavery And Due Process (November 12, 2007)” and “Smedley And Ernest On Our Friend ‘War’; The ‘Racket’ Continues (September 7, 2015)”.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Semper fi

Gung-ho 

. . .

K          “The Marine Corps has undertaken objective studies of women in combat units that raise troubling concerns.  I believe that women should stay in traditional roles such as neurosurgery, cultural anthropology, astrophysics, structural engineering, civil rights lawyering, contemporary architectural design, commercial aviation, Avant Gard poetry, hedge fund management, motorcycle racing, concert pianisting, home building, home making, Maker-ing, sports, politics, entertainment, putting everything on the line, etc. but not be deployed to the front line.”

J          “You do know that that opinion is not allowed.” 

. . .

J          “Is that because they are smarter?”

. . .

[See the article and the related articles at “Marine Corps Release Results Of Study On Women In Combat Units.”]

[See the e-commentary at “The Endless War On Women . . . By American Warriors (July 22, 2013).”]

Bumper sticker of the week:

Semper fi (to what?)

. . .

K          “We have prosecuted the War on Drugs and the War on Crime and the War on Women and the War on Terror and the War on Poverty and the War on Religion, but not the War on War.”

J          “And we have lost every one of the Wars except the War on Women.  War is a drug.  The resources committed to the War on Drugs should be deployed to fight the War on the Drug known as War.”

. . .

K          “What we must consider is a Peace on War.  However, the Military-Congressional-Industrial-Complex makes too much money on War.  The only viable resolution may be a thoughtful and thought-provoking compromise.  The U.S. government must agree to buy one hundred billion dollars of war toys a month and then pile them up in the desert and blow them up.  Rinse and repeat.”

J          “Hard on the desert.  Yet selling the movie rights could partially fund the undertaking.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at “The Flag May 31, 2010)” and “O’Bama Revisited (January 17, 2011)” for a note on Eisenhower’s warning.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.”  David Friedman

“To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.”  Winston Churchill

I grew up in a rough neighborhood . . . Vietnam