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

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