Winning The Drug War

Y'know, someone should start campigning on pot. Seriously, single-issue campaign, "Elect us and we'll let you buy a spliff in your local liquor store". Take the voter registration drive around college dorms, Walmart parking lots, clocking off time at Burger King... I swear, man, every stoner and slacker in the country would vote for you, they'd be lining up to register as voters. That guy buying Zig-Zags and a turbo dog from a gas station at three in the morning? Yeah, you know he'd vote for it.

I figure that we can probably count on virtually all of the 18.5 (or thereabouts) million regular stoners right there. Then you just add a second tier with standard liberal policies and presto, you've got the votes.

Now, yeah, I know politicians are terrified of being called "soft on drugs" but pot isn't a drug anyway. It grows on bushes, you dry it, chop it up and smoke it, cook it or make tea from it. Make tea from it? That's not a drug, that's a fucking condiment. And think of the marketing. OK, the drug companies would hate it ("No, Mrs. Cratchett, don't use the cheap, easy-to-grow natural substance. Use our highly addictive expensive pill that doesn't even work as well") but can't you just see the food industry getting into it. Staag Chilli, now with a new hash-flavoured variety. Would you like your hemp juice with or without pulp? McDonalds could add it to their burgers, be more fun than that couple slices of gherkin they put in everything and since everyone would eat them and start craving munchies, more sales! Now, granted, you might have a problem with staff eating all the product. I gather McDonalds gives it's staff free meals (which is good 'cos on their wages, you can't afford to eat anyplace else) but the poor bastards are so overworked and underpaid, they never get my order right anyway and at least they'd smile if they were high.

Those problems in schools? We got all this fear about juvenile crime, start feeding your kids hash cakes. Drunk young men smash each other with glasses; stoned young men eat Mars Bars, watch re-runs and giggle. I'm not seeing much threat to society there. And they're no problem if they do turn violent. Ever see a stoned guy try and have a fist fight? It's like watching a Weeble, you can't even remember where you left your fists, never mind hit somebody. Oil? Who needs fucking oil? You're in no fit state to drive anyway, just sit your ass down and watch Scooby-Doo. No more health-care problem either, cannabis is the new wonder drug. It's been shown to help treat conditions as serious as Multiple Sclerosis and as minor as insomnia, so why doesn't the pharmaceutical industry lobby for it's legalisation? Because they can't patent it. Cannabis is a weed and an especially virulent one at that, it'll grow pretty much anywhere and it's quite hard to stop it growing once it's started. It'll grow in your windowbox, your back garden or behind your trailer and it's real easy to prepare too. You just stretch it out under a heatlamp for a while. A proven treatment that anyone can make? That's far too simple, where's the profit in that? And war? Forget war. If the world got stoned, there would never be another war. There'd just be this gigantic smoke-up, Rizla, Zig-Zag and Zippo would become the new cornerstones of the global economy. You see Bush and Ahmedinajad rattling their sabres at each other. Seriously, just roll those guys a joint and play some Pink Floyd (Music would improve too: My parents got the Stones, the Doors, the Beatles and Pink Floyd. We got Michael Jackson followed by Britney Spears. We wuz gypped). By the time they've finished the bowl, Ahmedinajad's offering to share the oil and Georgie's wondering why he spent so much money on coke.

That's the solution: Not less pot, more pot. Of course, having seen my parent's teenage photos, fashion might be a problem.

Bush, Comics And Iran

Reading the news is a depressing business these days. Between the latest accounts of Iraq (which has now passed tragedy and become farce), the endless parade of scandals, abuses and corruption, it's difficult to get worked up about any one incident. I live in a kind of permanent weariness these days, as I suspect, do many of you. It's easy to be outraged once in a while but rage is a powerful emotion, it takes energy and there's only so long a body can keep that up for. There's been a few reasons to be cheerful lately: The exit of Alberto Gonzalez is a minor point to cheer but he was only ever an incompetent water-carrier really. Let's have three rousing cheers for the resignation (temporary, I'm sure) of Karl Rove though. Ding, dong, the witch is dead or, at least, disappeared. Darth Maul has exited stage left.

Vader is still around though. I'm referring to Cheney, of course although that may be a false analogy. In the last few moments of his life, Vader showed just a trace of humanity. Cheney still shows none and it appears that Cheney, always the most pressing voice to invade Iran, is now in the driver's seat. President Dimbulb gave a speech a couple of days ago accusing Iran of arming Iraqi insurgents (can we just call them the Resistence yet?). He pointed to a bunch of 240mm rockets seized from Iraqis which he claimed were manufactured in Iran (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_ea... bottom of the article). I'm sure they were. Of course, that doesn't mean the Iranian government had anything to do with handing them over. I dread to think how many weapons manufactured in the USA end up in terrorist hands. Bush claims that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. Iran says they are seeking nuclear power. Now, I'm sceptical about why Iran would want nuclear power when they're sitting on a massive pile of natural resources but I suspect the answer has more to do with international power companies and the usual corruption than to do with nukes. What's alarming here is W's (by now, quite normal) bull-in-a-china-shop approach to diplomacy.

By designating part of Iran's army as a terrorist organisation, by trotting out the same tired cliches he used to justify the invasion of Iraq (WMDs, terrorists), the president is making it very clear that he is preparing for a strike on Iran. His phrase "We will confront this danger before it is too late" (same article) echoes his words about a "smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud". Whether Iran is arming Iraqi insurgents, I don't know, I doubt it. Even if they were, one has to wonder how that would be so very different from the US arming of Iraq's Northern Alliance during the years between the wars. The US has illegally and immorally invaded Iraq. Not because Hussein (and don't misunderstand me, Hussein was a monster) posed any threat to the US or because there was any evidence that he had acquired or was even making serious efforts to acquire WMDs (the Down Street Memo makes it clear that the Bush admin knew this was bullshit from the start) or even to free the Iraqi people (the US has long supported dictators if they play ball with Washington, see Pinochet and far too many others) but to manipulate the international oil market. Currently, the US occupies Iraq as a hostile, conquering power, ruling through a near-puppet government. Outside those areas under tight military control, Iraq is either in or on the verge of civil war (depending on how you define the term). In those circumstances, Iran MAY be arming the side they think will be most friendly to themselves. The USA would and has done the same. I'm no great fan of the current Iranian president but he seems a damn sight less isolated from reality than Bush (the holocaust denial aside).

The war talk is far too familiar by now. Let's not go over it again. Rather, let's talk to those unconvinced that Bush (and more so, Cheney) are seeking such an attack. What's stopping him? Public opinion didn't stop the Iraq war and still hasn't ended it. Bush has made it very clear that he feels nothing but contempt for the UN as does any true-red Republican. Not because of any perceived corruption (although I'm sure the UN is as corrupt as any large body) but simply because it stands against US global domination. Lack of troops? True, the US troops are currently exhausted but W would think nothing of extending their deployment to be indefinate, it's not him or his loved ones in the line of fire. If that doesn't suffice then he has three options: Merceneries, a draft or an air war. Merceneries seem unlikely because the US can't afford them right now (I'll get to the money in a second). An air war is possible but wouldn't allow Bush the chance to play at being the character from a Tom Clancy novel he so often seems to fantasise he is. So a draft seems likely. Oh, you don't think Bush would dare, in the face of certain opposition from the people and the Congress? Haven't you been paying attention? The will of the people is important only in so far as it agrees with Bush. When it doesn't, it's ignored. Congress, he treats with barely disguised loathing and until impeachment is put back on the table, anything Congress might do can be circumvented by vetos and signing statements. The money? Yes, a strike on Iran would certainly wreck the US economy even more. Via a complex series of international understandings, it could very well bankrupt the US economy. Do you think Bush understands that? Or cares? His money could easily be moved into something less volatile (and possibly already has been), what does he care about the rest of you?

Too many Americans, even Democrats, still seem to be labouring under the delusion that Bush is doing his best, that he's trying or that he has some shred of human decency. He does not. He is now, and has been for a while, an elected (let's leave that one aside for the moment) dictator. He considers himself above the law, above the people. The suffering of the "little people" is simply not a factor in his thought processes, they exist purely to vote Republican and prop up his crown. Comic-book analogies may be awkward here but the Cheney/Bush combo are Dr. Doom and Lex Luthor rolled together. They see ruling the world not just as an American opportunity but an American right, destiny and duty. Yes, "duty". It is the USA's duty to rule the world, the same way it was an American duty to "educate" the Native Americans; the same way it was a British "duty" to "treat the black as a child and deny him the vote"; the same way every nation in history that has had sufficient power to make it stick has considered themselves the moral superior of the rest and therefore, duty-bound to force them to "do it our way". Yes, I'm probably simplifying a little but the desire is the same. It is, and always has been, "global domination, same old dream" as James Bond said. The desire is simply that the US rule the world and the interim step in that is ruling the Mid-East with it's strategically important stockpiles of oil. Latin America is on the list too (hence the demonising of Hugo Chavez) but the mid-east is the first step.

That's why at attack on Iran is inevitible if Bush remains in office. Oil, power, the opportunity to do the "war president" thing. Molly Ivins repeatedly insisted that Bush is not stupid. She was probably right, he's not stupid but he has the emotional range of a pre-teen. His actions, his constant talk of "evil" and "evil-doers", his approach to his faith, his well-established loyalty fetish, all of this speaks of a man who sees the world around him in the simplistic form of the comic-book. Now, I'm a comic-book reader and yes, some comics rise to the level of true art. Some of them have genuine philosophical lessons to impart but Bush's inner child isn't reading the complex (and often misunderstood) morality tale of V For Vendetta or the extended philosophy seminar of the Sandman series or even the moral complexity of modern superhero titles. Bush's inner child is reading the Siegal/Shuster Superman, simplistic tales where the good guy is always right because he's the good guy and those counselling caution are always wrong and often enemies themselves. Bush isn't imaging himself as the conflicted Professor Xavier, every bit as fanatical as those he opposes; he's not imagining himself in the costume of a traumatised and near-psychopathic Bruce Wayne. He's imagining himself as Captain America, square-jawed, always moral, always right.

It's said that pride goeth before the fall. Often, that's wrong. Often, monsters never understand what makes them monsters. They believe themselves to be in the right until death (and after, if certain theologies are to be believed). Bush will never lose his pride, he will never believe himself to have made a mistake because his ego (fragile, as the adolescent's usually is) will not allow it. In order to preserve his sense of self, Bush must continue to belive that he is always right, never wrong, never mistaken, never deluded. Even should he be impeached and/or removed from office (as he surely must be somehow), he will always blame others, it will always be the fault of partisan Democrats or cowardly Republicans or the biased media. Nothing will ever be his fault.When he is replaced in a little under a year and a half (assuming the transfer of power goes ahead which is no longer a certainty), he will leave office believing he has done a "heck of a job" and he will believe that to his dying day. Perhaps, when this Long Night is over, he can be counselled and treated but for now, you have a mean-spritied, bullying adolescent in the Oval Office and his Vice-President (and presumably, closest adviser) appears to be a clincal psychopath. Removal of these two, somehow, anyhow, must be imperative. Your nation cannot afford to wait the year and a bit because as a nation, you may not survive that long.

Letters To America - I'm Anti-American, dammit!

I must stop reading the Beeb's "Have Your Say" page, it has an awful effect on my (already high) blood pressure.

Today, we had the question of what fuels anti-Americanism? Now, what pissed me off and still does is that the answer from Americans was universally a variation on "jealousy". Often they'd throw in comments about "you're no better". Apparently, the USA is glorious, free, successful, etc and the rest of the world hates you because we're jealous.

What utter bullshit. In psychology, this is known as "deflection". It's a way of avoiding having to ask why people hate you by pretending they're jealous of your perfection. When someone tells you you're being a jerk, it doesn't necessarily mean they're jealous of you. It can just mean you're being a jerk. This is what we describe as "American arrogance" and it's a very big part of why the USA is hated. In the run-up to the Iraq war, the Defence department hired a PR expert to market the US in Arabic nations (I'm told this is now very common). Her approach was emblematic of American arrogance and also contained the key for it's own failure within itself because her approach (or the approach forced on her) was not to listen to what the Arabic world was saying and why it disliked the US, it was to tell the Arabic world how wonderful the USA is. If you want another example of American arrogance, witness how every US president uses "America" to refer to the USA. America is a continent, not a country. Another example is in the question itself. Asking why someone is anti-USA means not having to ask why they should be pro-USA.

Then come the chants of "you're no better". Now, in some sense, that's true. However, the USA currently and for the last thirty or so years has held itself up as the moral standard of the world. If you tell the entire world that you're better than the rest of us on a daily basis (which, through the mass media, you do), don't be too surprised when the defence that we were as bad as you're being doesn't wash. If you hold yourself out as a higher standard then you don't get to defend yourself by saying you're no worse than us.

A lot of the comments made some variation of the "we saved you in WW2" so lets talk about that. First off, yes, you saved us, no argument there. However, the rest of the world had been at war for three years before the US joined in and even then, it's doubtful you would have joined in has Japan not declared war on you at Pearl harbour. Effectively, you were forced into the war, you didn't decide to bail us out of your own kindness. Secondly, that assistance didn't come free. Britain has just finished paying off what it owed the US for American assistance during WW2 (oh, you didn't know that? I'll get to the media later). Thirdly, there is a saying here "the Yanks saved us in WW2 and we've been repaying them ever since". WW2 was sixty years ago and we've backed you up on almost everything ever since. Believe it or not, our gratitude for that one has pretty much run dry after sixty years, several wars (including the current disaster) and any amount of suffering through your cultural domination.

Then there was the argument that anti-Americanism is fueled by a left-wing media that has never forgiven the US for "winning the Cold War". Let's take this one in reverse order: Firstly, you didn't win the Cold War, the USSR lost it. The USSR didn't collapse because of Reagan putting Pershing II missiles into Europe (about the only thing he did, contrary to the right-wing cry that Reagan won the Cold War), it collapsed because the Russian people gave up trying to starve themselves with a system that simply wasn't working. If anyone deserves credit for "winning" the Cold War, it's Mikhail Gorbachev. He was the one that was actually risking his life, he was the one who could well have been killed in a coup (as very nearly happened). Then there's the left-wing media stuff. Now, asking whether the media has a conservative or liberal bias is, as Al Franken put it, like asking if al Queda uses too much oil in their hummous. The problem with al Queda is that they're trying to kill us. The problem with the media isn't that it has a conservative or liberal bias, the problem is that it is corporate. Always somebody will trot out that bloody study that shows reporters tend to have a more liberal position on social issues than most. Fine but that doesn't prove that reporters also slant the news the way they want to present it. It also discounts the other side of the study which proves that reporters, while to the left on social issues, tend to be massively to the right on economic issues. I know it's fashionable in Washington to ignore economic issues but the rest of us don't. The vast majority of American media is owned by just six corporations and the bias follows that. The media is not biased in favour of or against the left or the right, it is heavily biased in favour of corporations and, in recent times, that means in favour of Republicans.

Finally came the cries that the US gives more in humanitarian aid. Now, in terms of raw numbers that might be true (although last I checked, Japan was slightly more) but on a per capita basis, the USA gives the least amount of foreign aid in the civilised world (through it's government anyway, the American people are often very generous as private citizens).

Most of us here in Europe don't hate the USA. We do hate American policies. The strategy of the US has, for about the last fifty years, been not just to benefit itself but to prevent any other nation from getting anywhere close. Castro might have been able to create a socialist paradise in Cuba (I doubt it but it's possible) but we'll never know because the USA, determined to prevent any other social system from achieving equality in the public perception, has spent the entirety of Castro's reign running interference against him. And here is the very heart of the problem: The USA has, for some time now, been attempting to run the world. Recently, with PNAC and Bush this has been militarily but the general attitude has been going on for some time. Prior to the massive rebellion before the Iraq War, the US, via economics, selective use of it's veto and merciless PR had gained near control of the UN (read Kofi Annan's memoirs). The US controls the major economic forums like the World Bank and ITC. Through exporting it's media (and especially, the practice of dumping media into the developing world as vastly below the cost of production), the USA ensures that the rest of the world hears their views of things but strangely, your own media (with the exception of the wonderful Colbert, Stewart and Olberman) barely touches on that outside world. You seem to believe you can be a world leader but not be a part of that world and ignore it's opinions. The USA constantly lectures the rest of the world on the glories of free trade but that glory seems to end once it reaches Ellis Island. Your trade agreements with various African nations demand that they set no tariffs on US imports but sets tariffs on items which Africa can produce cheaply (such as groundnuts, sugar and textiles) which mean African products are unable to compete when imported into the USA. Bush very public ally flip-flopped on steel tariffs and still sees fit to ex toll the virtues of free trade. While the USA-dominated international financial institutions feel free to demand that anyone they help follow their free market capitalism model, that model has failed in virtually every nation it has been tried (most glaringly, modern Iraq) while the third-world nations which have managed to pull themselves out of poverty have usually done so by telling those financial institutions where to stick their advice. The jury is still out on the free market as a principle but the rest of the world has learned that when the US talks about the "free market", it means for US products only.

So, most of us don't hate the USA, we just hate American policies. But as a people, you worry us. We look at reports that show that a majority of your population reject evolution and we worry about a people who are so blind to science. We look at your attitude toward firearms and we worry. This is not to get into the gun control debate but we worry about the fanaticism of those who proclaim that we can have their guns only when we pry them from cold, dead hands. We worry about your massive, totally disproportionate worship of the military and we get worried about where you'll point that thing next. We worry about the "support the troops" rhetoric. To most of us in the rest of the world, troops are professionals doing a job. A dangerous job to be sure and they should be and are credited for that but the near worship of the military in the US worries us. We worry about the anti-intellectual, anti-science attitudes that seem to abound now that the South runs the country. We worry about your eagerness to use the death penalty. Again, this is not to get into the morality of the penalty itself (which I actually support in certain circumstances) but we worry that so many of your people seem eager, almost gleeful in it's use. Most of all though, we worry about the attitude seemingly so prevalent in your population that the USA has not just the ability but the right and the duty to control the entire world. We worry that so many of your population disparage international bodies like the UN and although they often claim it's because of some corruption or scandal, we take a look at the vitriol heaped on France for daring to say "no" and we know it's simply because the UN occasionally doesn't do what it's told.

To ask why people are anti-American is asking the wrong question because the question assumes that we should be pro-American and never tells us why. Why should we be pro-American? Contrary to popular American opinion, the USA [i]isn't[/i] the oldest democracy. England, Greece and several others beat you to it. The USA is the oldest continuous democracy with a universal vote (and even that only works if you ignore black people). The Bill of Rights, while a great document, didn't come into existence out of thin air. Many of it's principles were drawn from other nations and other times. The only unique thing about the BoR is bringing all of those rights together in one document and making it binding and even then, it often seems that as a people, you pay more lip service to it's principles than actual obedience. Freedom of speech is all very well on a piece of paper but when the USA has the most conformist culture in the western world, when it's media is owned almost entirely by corporations who think in corporate terms and when you can be verbally strung up or physically assaulted by the Patriotism Police for saying something unflattering about the President, do you really have freedom of speech? When calling for the deaths of public officials (Ann Coulter) is somehow seen as being on the same level as criticising the president's policies (Michael Moore), is free speech lacking or merely critical thought? You apparently have freedom of religion but try being something other than Christian in the USA and you realise that one's a bad joke. You're still liable to be fired, assaulted, denied basic services if you're not Christian (or, to a lesser extent, Jewish). You still have that incredibly hyper-Christian culture where marketing directly to fundamentalists is a viable marketing strategy in itself. Many of your outspoken high priests wanted to give Gibson's Passion the Oscar not because they felt it was a superior piece of art (and I've not seen it so I'm open to discussion on that one) but on the grounds it was a Christian film. Your government is still run by extremist Christians who feel free in invoking religion, who feel free to make laws on religious grounds (anti-gay marriage, banning stem cell research), so really, is that much vaunted freedom of religion actually worth a damn? I'm a Luciferian Satanist and I have never felt as under threat for my beliefs in England (my home so maybe that doesn't count) or Europe as I did in parts of the USA. You still have the 2nd Amendment of course, you do love your guns. Of course, the USA also has one of the highest crime rates in the western world but looking at other countries with high firearms ownership (i.e. Switzerland), I'm inclined to think that's not because you have too many guns but because you have too many loonies. Apparently, you have freedom of expression but since I gather I can still be locked up for walking around naked, that's obviously not complete freedom and since the Feds are now investigating anti-war groups and protesters, it's arguable if you still have it at all.

No, the USA doesn't behead it's criminals (it electrocutes them instead), Yes, you have nominal freedoms in some areas. No, you're not as bad as, say, Saudi Arabia. So what? America, this is a child's game. My partner is infinitely a nicer person than I am but she has her faults. Our cats are nicer than either of us but still clam the sofa. This is a not a zero-sum game, the faults of other nations do not excuse your own faults. This is called the fallacy of the excluded middle. You are taking the most extreme examples and holding them up as average. Yes, the USA is better than Saudi Arabia but that excludes all the nations who are doing things better than yourselves (much of western Europe, England sometimes) and if you held yourself as simply one nation amongst others, no better or worse than most, that would be an acceptable defense. But you don't. You hold yourself as the shining city on the hill, the beacon of democracy, freedom and hope for the world.

Sorry if this outside appraisal pisses you off, America. I could kiss your ass and tell you how wonderful you are and probably many would like me to have done that. I'll probably be accused of anti-Americanism for not doing so but honesty is a precious commodity and if you plan to lead the world, you should know what the world thinks.

Letters To America - On Awakening

"What's the time? / Seems it's already morning" ~ Roxette, Spending My Time

There seems to be something in the air, perhaps you can feel it. For the last six years, we have all suffered through the long night of Bush (and I truly believe that the eventual story of Bush's administration should be called "The Long Night") but lately, it seems there is a reason to hope once again. It seems that finally, after so long a nightmare, we are all starting to awake.

Optimism doesn't come easily to me. I am, by nature, a pessimist and a cynic and so, it takes a while for me to accept that something worthwhile is resurfacing. It seems that Bush has already become a lame duck. Even now, eighteen months ahead of time, the focus is entirely on who the Democratic candidate will be in 2008 and, while Diebold should never be counted out, it seems to be taken as read that the Democratic nominee will be the one measuring for drapes on Pensylvania Avenue after all is said and done. It's unusual for any political party to have such a bountiful crop of potential nominees but the Dem frontrunners already seem to resemble an All-Star team. Hillary Clinton is bright, eloquent and committed. I have a few problems with her policies but nothing which would make me run screaming and she would always have her husband's advice to call upon. Barrack Obama will almost certainly be president one day. I'm not sure this is his time but his time will come. Young, bright, passionate with an ethnic background that can only help him connect to the people. Sharp dresser and, of course, it helps that he's a handsome man (let's be honest, it never hurts). Dennis Kucinich would probably make the best president of all of them but will also probably never get the chance. To his credit, he has discovered a real talent for the meaningful quip.

And then there's Al Gore. The promotion of Al Gore is probably the cloest thing we've seen to a genuine grassroots movement for a long time in politics. According to a poll I read this morning, Gore ranks third amongst the Democratic candidates which doesn't sound too special until you realise he hasn't even announced yet. It would be easy to complain that Gore should have been president for the last six years. It's true too but as difficult as it has been for us, it seems the time away has been good for Gore. He seems tougher, more driven and he's actually discovered that he's allowed a personality (and frankly, not before time). The old Gore seemed timid, like a preppy schoolboy terrified of saying the wrong thing. This new Gore is likeable, even (dare I say it?) charismatic and he has discovered his cause (or, more accurately, he's more openly committed to his cause). Every great president should have a cause. FDR had the Nazis, Lincoln had slavery. It's difficult to say what Clinton's was since he spent most of his second term being treated like a chew-toy but Gore now has his cause: Saving the planet. That's one hell of a cause.

Amongst this, the Chimp In Chief seems somewhat lost. Like a petulant child, he pops up to announce some grandiose new lunacy, fiddling while Washington burns but shortly thereafter, he is forgotten again. His great ally, Tony Blair, can't afford to back him anymore since the feeling in England is that if Blair keeps quiet for the next seven months, he can have a dignified exit and retirement but if he tries anything radical, he'll be out on his ear. The increasingly megalomanical VP appears every so often amidst a cloud of brimstone but even he no longer intimidates as he once did. Even the general public are starting to look at Cheney and realise that the man is simply out of control. In a way, I almost feel sorry for the conservatives. Because we need the genuinely conservative. I'm about as liberal as they come but we need the opposite number to hold us down, reign in our excesses and force us to refine our ideas but Bush has taken the conservative ideas to such extremes and made such a mess of them, that the entire conservative philosophy is likely to be discredited with him.

You're not out of the woods yet, America, there's still some dark days ahead of you. Between Cheney's madness and Bush's pathological need to prove he still matters, you may yet be dragged into a doomed war on Iran. It's a war that the US would inevitibly lose but then, winning was never the point. The point was simply to tie up the oil reserves, pushing the price of crude to stratospheric levels. In Iraq, that strategy has worked beyond every hope. Iraq would struggle to pump a million barrels of crude a year these days and we've all seen what that's done to the price of oil. How much further would that price climb if Iran were subjected to a similar fiasco? Oh yes, lot's of people would die in the process but not Bush or Cheney or any of their loved ones so it makes no odds to them. When you consider that Bush's entire administration has been a mission to aid a very narrow, very wealthy elite that he once described as his "base", his administration has been wildly successful, judged purely on those grounds. Oil prices at record highs, billions disappearing into the pockets of Halliburton, Bechtel, Custer Battles and similar contractors, much of it unaccountable and unaccounted. At home, civil rights have been stripped back to, and in some cases, beyond the bare minimum and the great neoconservative dream of destroying the welfare state entirely? Well, there were some hiccups in that such as the embaressing collapse of teh Social Security sabotage but otherwise, things are ticking along nicely. So you still have a ways to go, America, you're not safe yet.

Why then, do I feel so chipper? Because the country is finally seeing Bush for what he is. A none-too-bright frat boy who coasted through life on his family name. A family name that was essentially a trust fund that should never have run dry but now, it seems the cheques are beginning to bounce. His adventurism is coming back to bite him, the base he once relied upon are becoming uncomfortable with him and even his father, phonomenal manners and all, couldn't save him (the late and sorely missed Ann Richards once described Bush Sr. as "born with a silver foot in his mouth". He promptly had a silver brooch made up in the shape of a foot and sent it to her as a gift. There's a man who takes a little mockery with good grace). Finally, a mainstream media figure (the wonderful Keith Olberman) is saying what we've all been thinking and saying it with more passion and eloquence than most of us could muster. Liberals are starting to come out of the woodwork. The long night is not yet over and things may well be darkest still to come but perhaps, finally, dawn is starting to break.

"How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow" ~ Rage Against The Machine, Wake Up!

Letters To America - Where Do We Go From Here?

Originally written 22/01/07

I've never trusted beginnings, tricksy little things. Give me an ending, you know where you are with a good ending ~ The Kindly Ones, The Sandman

It's always tricky, writing commentry at this time of year. As the new year is born, the old year is dying. The Romans knew this, that's why Janus had two faces. It's tempting to say "happy new year" and wish everyone well except that I doubt this new year will be any happier than the last. People have called me a pessimist often. I always respond that I am a realist and if the two seem so similar, it is because reality so often conforms to my worst expectations. Perhaps echoing the season, the year ended with a trifecta of deaths...

In any normal year, it would be folly to describe James Brown as the least important death. The man's gifts to music are well known, his charisma and energy are legendary and yet, this year, his death is the least noteworthy. An old man shuffles off this mortal coil and departs for the wild blue yonder and what is so surprising about that? I have heard that James Brown was not so pleasent a person in his personal life, I have heard he was a wifebeater. Perhaps he was. Perhaps he was like the rest of us, no better or worse except for his remarkable talent, a flawed person with many failings. Most legends are when you look closely enough.

So, the corpse of the brutal tyrant has had him moment swinging in the wind. Now what? Yes, Hussein was a monster, perhaps he was even deserving of the death penalty (I am a supporter of the death penalty in certain circumstances) but really, what difference is it going to make? Are those opposing the occupation likely to now give up and go home? Probably not. They may even fight all the harder. It's difficult to say what should have been done with Hussein. He was too dangerous to allow him to live but in death, he may have become a martyr. Realistically though, his living or dying will probably make little difference. We're still stuck in an intractable occupation which shows no signs of ever ending; Iraq is either in or close to a civil war (depending on how you define the term) and is a collosal disaster regardless. The irony is that, in removing Hussein, we may well have destroyed the country. The Sunnis, Shias and Kurds might have been able to agree that they hated Saddam more than they hated each other. Now that he's gone... It's difficult to see how Iraq can survive as a nation now and let us not forget that Hussein took information we needed to the gallows with him. What was disturbing about Hussein's death was the degree of celebration that accompanied it. Even I, as a supporter of the death penalty, was taken horrified by it, by the degree of glee in evidence. Even when we are forced to execute someone, we must never forget that this was, in the end, a fellow human being. A man who had parents and children who, presumably, loved him. Do you think they were watching as the floor dropped out from under him and the rope snapped taut? I hope not. It is a terrible thing to put another human being to death, a monsterous thing which makes monsters of us all and yet, on occasion and very rarely, we must become monsters for a time because some are simply too dangerous to be allowed to live. Still, if we must be monsters for a time, we must be careful that we don't forget how to be something else. If we are forced to kill a man, it must be with sadness, solemnity and respect for the momentous wrong we commit, it must never be a joy to behold for that way lies madness.

And then, finally, we come to Gerald Ford and what can be said of him? Perhaps the kindest thing that can be said of Ford was that he did nothing and in politics, that's sometimes the hardest trick to master. He was a C-grade President, neither especially good nor especially bad. A nation cannot always be led by great men and between the great men and the fools, there will always be the great ruck-and-run. The middling people, the one's who were "not bad". Compared to Georgie, he looks like a MENSA member. Yes, we could always say that "Ford was brighter than GW" but the statement would always by flawed by the unspoken addition: "yeah, but so's yeast".

And what of Georgie boy? How has he finished up the year? Not in the best of shape. His ratings hold steady at somewhere between "low" and "dear lord"; indictments and possible impeachment tick ever closer and shortly, he will probably (assuming he doesn't find some way to stop it) have to contend with a Democratic Congress. Still, I have a horrible suspician that it won't make any difference. I have a horrible suspician that Bush will treat the Democratic Congress the same way he treats the UN, as something to rubber-stamp his ideas or be ignored if they won't play along. During the dying days of the Nixon administration, someone quietly pointed out to Nixon that he still had the military, he could always resist his removal. Perhaps the best thing that can be said of Nixon is that at the tipping point, he stepped back from that. As bad as he was, he wasn't willing to be quite that bad. It is a disquieting realisation that, in the same circumstances, Bush might very well go with the military option. Truthfully, that's probably what it would take to force the masses to awaken from their opium (of the people) dreams. Some will tell you that the Midterm results are an indication of a great landslide, that the people have finally awakened and will hold Bush's feet to the fire. I wish I had it in me to be so optimistic. More likely, having done their duty and registered their dislike, the people will go back to sleep, lulling themselves to bed with American Idol and ABC News because the great masses of the people aren't necessarily evil but they do have a very short attention span. And if the right-wing pulls every dirty trck there is, blocking inquiry, ignoring Congress, obstructing every step of the way, would the great mass of people notice or care? Probably not because their TV won't tell them anything about it. There's the problem with allowing a dumbed-down mass media, you end up with a lot of dummies. The Democrats won't fight as hard, they won't throw as much mud because, unlike the Republicans, they still haven't learned to go for the jugular. They still haven't learned that modern politics is not about policy or positions or even results; it's a popularity contest about perception. That was John Kerry's great failing: He couldn't speak in soundbites and a serious, thoughtful man, a man whose thoughts took more than five seconds to explain, he was a sitting duck in the modern climate.

Because perception is everything you see. George W. Bush is rapidly solving the question of whether he's evil or just insane by replying "both" but he can still count on about a third of the electorate because that third still percieve him as a good old boy, one of them. Politics no longer selects for the great and good, it no longer selects for the genius or the unconventional thinker or even the iconoclast, it selects the people who look like the electorate. The people vote for the politicians who look like them and if you have a similar opinion of humanity as I do, that means that what you end up with is someone not too bright, self-serving, petty and vindictive but just bright enough to surround himself with clever men. Like a corporation, the true power lies not with the CEO but with the Board. And that's why the right is so insistent on rehabilitating the memory of Reagan and Vietnam.

So, where do we go from here? I have bad news for you. It will get worse before it gets better. It's possible that the Bush junta will find a way to prevent the new Congress taking office but it's more likely that they will simply find a way to make Congress irrelevant. People will continue to disappear for all legal purposes, people will still be tortured, Bush will still do exactly what he likes when he likes. Yes, you have a chance now, a very small chance, to pull your country back from the brink but I'll be honest, the odds are against you. The long night of the last six years has had plenty of time to bed in deeply and get comfortable and it's going to take a lot of sweat, tears and blood to shift it. Feel like getting drunk now? Think I'll join you.

And if I cannot sleep for the secrets I keep / it's a price I'm willing to steal / the end of the night never comes too quickly for me ~ Catatonia, Strange Glue

Letters To America - The End Of The Line

Originally written: 31/12/06

This is it, folks. This is where it all comes tumbling down. Usually, when I rant and rave about the death of America, I do that for a lot of reasons. One is because I'm paranoid as fuck but another is because, like the man said, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Well, three stories hit me pretty hard today. The legalising of torture, you all know about by now. Then I hear that the SCOTUS is going to "revisit" (i.e. reverse) Doe V. Bolton ( link ), then I hear the House has approved the "Iran Freedom Support Act" ( link NOW UNAVAILABLE ). Yeah, sounds harmless but you might as well call it the "Pretext For Invading Iran" Act 'cos that's what it is. It's the neocons victory party, man. Legalise torture, invade half the Middle-East, outlaw abortion. Hey George, what shall we do next? I know, let's build internment camps for liberals! Ooops, I mean "terrorists".

Nothing left now. Wasn't so bad all that long ago. Seven years ago, your biggest problem was where the president kept his cigars. Today, torture. Damn, let's just move 1984 out of the fiction section 'cos Orwell was a frigging prophet. All the party wants is power, power for it's own sake and they never have enough power. And there are still people supporting this administration! For whoever's sake, guys, LOOK AT YOURSELVES!. Your Constitution has been shredded like so much rodent bedding and your monster of a president is legalising torture and no, I'm not going to fuck around arguing about whether it's torture or abuse or whether 9/11 makes it ok or whether Bush has the power to order it because I really couldn't give a fuck. He's legalising torture, ergo, he's a monster. I couldn't give a shit what kind of pretty language you call it or how many different euphemisms you can come up with, it's still torture.

You no longer have the right to freedom from fucking anything, your country no longer has the right to the moral high ground on anything ever because this is worse than 9/11. That was a bunch of murderous savages committing an atrocity, this is the fucking government of the most powerful nation on earth, coldly and rationally, legalising torture. They're savages, you weren't supposed to be.

Tommorrow, I might have enough passion to rant and rave about this monstrocity of an administration again. Right now, it's just too fucking depressing.

Letters To America - On Abortion

Dear America,

Abortion. There, I said it. The dreaded word that divides your political landscape more than anything else. You could add it to the fabled list of things one doesn't discuss in polite company: Religion, politics and abortion but then, I've never been all that polite.

In general, you can boil the responses to the abortion question down to two schools of thought: The pro-life side holds that human life begins at conception, that abortion is therefore the termination of a life (often, they hold the fundamentally wrong view that "abortion is murder") and that access to abortion should be either banned entirely or limited to specific circumstances. Very often, they will also talk of things like "Post-Abortion Syndrome", a supposed link between abortion and breast cancer and often argue that the legality of abortion has led to a climate where children are not valued and therefore, led to an increased incidence of child abuse and/or neglect. They are generally religious but not always and are generally decent people arguing for what they see as the right thing. Conversely, the Pro-Choice side holds that a woman's body must be her own dominion, that while a foetus is alive, it is not human in any significant way; that there is no such thing as "Post-Abortion Syndrome", that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer (the facts are with them there, the BMA has comprehensively disproved such a link) and that any child born should be a wanted child. They can be religious but are generally of a more liberal school of religion if they are and are also generally decent people arguing for what they think is right. You might have noticed that I went out of my way there to make the point that both sides are composed, in the main, of generally decent people. There are probably a few pro-lifers who genuinely want total control of all women and their reproductive capacity. Although I've never met them, there are almost certainly pro-choicers who really are frenzied individuals who want every pregnancy to end in abortion but the vast majority of both sides are made up of fundamentally decent people arguing for what they believe to be right. Both sides have decent points to make and both sides have the best interests of society at heart, they just disagree on which of their views would be better for society.

But bloody hell America, you'd never know it. The division between the two sides is now so venomous that killing the other party is, in some quarters (and one must hope that they are the lunatic fringe), considered an acceptable option. Anyone advancing a pro-choice viewpoint is vilified as a fanatical baby-killer (very rarely true), anyone advancing a pro-life viewpoint is demonised as a misogynist Neanderthals (slightly more often true). It's the politics of soundbite and spin, a determination to ensure that not only does the other party not win the debate but that their points are never even heard (an attitude all too prevelant in American politics generally). All this over what amounts to a difference of opinion (of course, looked at that way, the Crusades amounted to a difference of opinion).

You might wonder where I fall in this debate so I'll tell you: I am, in very general terms, pro-choice. However, my support for that choice decreases as the foetus approaches full-term and by the time a foetus is viable (that is, capable of living outside the womb), I'm down to supporting choice only in extreme circumstances (i.e. danger to the health or life of the mother [beyond the normal dangers associated with childbirth], severe foetal abnormality and so on). I think, in very broad terms, that the pro-choice side has the right of it. That's not a fixed position, it's modified by circumstances. I do think that if the father is still involved in the mother's life, he should have a right to at least voice his opinion even if that opinion is overruled but, in very general terms, I'm pro-choice. I can however, look around and see so much bullshit flying around that the fans can't even be seen. There is a popular perception of pro-lifers as wild-eyed fanatics who blow up clinics or shoot doctors on their spare time. Generally, that's not true. The majority of pro-choicers are decent people trying to preserve life as they see it. There's a popular conception among pro-lifers that such bodies as Planned Parenthood support abortion because they make a fortune from it. A moment's thought would indicate that bodies like PP could make a great deal more from prolonged pre-natal and post-natal care than they do from a single abortion. There's a popular view that an abortion-breast cancer link is denied because... well, no pro-lifer I've ever talked to has come up with a good reason it would be denied (short of the kind of conspiracy theories that the John Birch society would balk at). The existence or not of Post-Abortion Syndrome is a little more complicated. I have no doubt that a certain number of women do suffer depression following an abortion but whether the numbers are significant enough to be described as a "syndrome", I have no idea. There's also this irredeemably stupid idea that those big posters of abortions in progress make us shudder because we know that abortion is "wrong". That's bollocks. The posters make us shudder because blood and gore from any source have a powerful effect on the human psyche. Your reaction to shots of open-heart surgery in progress would probably be much the same because blood and gore trigger something in the primal part of our psyche which doesn't care where the blood comes from, it just views blood as a scary thing (for reasons that should be obvious with a moment's thought). Abortion isn't murder, let's swiftly quash that notion. The definition of murder is quite specific, it applies only to an unlawful killing. Abortion is legal for the most part and therefore, it's not murder (for exactly the same reasons as the death penalty isn't murder).

I suppose what I'm getting at here is the tendency to view the other side in the worst possible light. Many pro-lifers would like to believe that pro-choicers are willful baby-killers who know that a foetus is a human being but are so crazed by bloodlust that they don't care. I don't doubt that there are one or two pro-choicers like that (the existence of fanatical crazies is sadly not confined to any particular political stance) but for the majority, that couldn't be further from the truth. The vast majority of pro-choicers look at the evidence and decide that a foetus doesn't qualify as human in any meaningful way. Pro-lifers feel that a foetus does qualify as "human", the medical evidence makes no claims of "human-ness" at all for the same reason that science doesn't attempt to test religion. Likewise, I don't doubt that a few pro-lifers really are crazed religious lunatics who would like to declare every woman's womb their personal property but the majority aren't. The majority of pro-lifers are reasonable people, often with a deep love of life but they also tend to be emotionally-driven and their arguments often rest on emotion (witness the use of late-term abortion pictures and the absurd playing to emotion of the "Partial-Birth Abortion" ban).

Here in England, abortion hasn't been a real political issue in years. There's been a little minor tinkering with the legislation as medical techniques have changed but for the most part, it's settled ground and partly, I think that's because abortion in the USA has become tied up both in the hatred that right and left hold for one another and with the USA's insane attitude toward sex. Pregnancy is usually the result of sex and, contrary to locker-room myth, the only outwardly visible sign. There is a worrying portion of the USA which views sex as, at best, a necessary evil which should be inflicted only on a married partner (yes, I'm aware of the "so sacred it should be saved for marriage" argument but the other comments of these people don't reveal the most positive of attitudes toward sexuality). Pregnancy is therefore visible proof that you have had sex, you've broken their view of how things should be and must therefore be punished. Of course, the train of thought is vastly more complex than that and very few people are ever aware of it but that's often what it boils down to. And then there's the morons. Now, conservatives are not necessarily stupid but stupid people do tend to be conservative so most of the people making fools of themselves over the whole area of sex and abortion tend to be conservative. People like the AFA for example (possibly the greatest collection of pure evil in one place today) want abortion banned because they fear that access to abortion is viewed as a license to have pre-marital sex. They are insane. It would be easy to point and laugh at the crazy people but they have supporters, all of whom can vote, some of whom have guns and a few of whom are not adverse to "direct action".

The real tragedy is that in amongst all this, real issues are lost in the noise. For example, there is a question over at what stage can a foetus feel pain and should therefore, be subject to anesthetic before an abortion. That's a real issue and one that should be investigated by those in the medical profession but both sides are so busy hurling insults at each other (and blame where it's due, the pro-lifers tend to be rather more ready to hurl those insults) that the question is ignored. The technology exists to measure such a thing but the pro-choicers don't want the pro-lifers to use the results as ammunition and the pro-lifers do want to use the results as ammunition so the question never breaks the public consciousness. I firmly believe that within my lifetime, technology will be developed that will enable a foetus to be extracted from the womb at a very early stage of development and brought to term outside of a woman's body. Such a development would be life-changing for those who wish to have children but cannot for medical reasons (my mother for example, cannot have any more children or her blood pressure would become life-threatening) but in the current climate, such an invention would never be deployed because the pro-lifers would try and use it to argue that abortion was now unnecessary and the pro-choicers would, well, not want to see the pro-lifers use that arguement. There are good moral and philosophical reasons for disagreeing with abortion because the current climate is all about emotion and in that climate, reason and wisdom take a holiday.

Letters To America - Onward, Christian Soldiers!

"I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel" ~ Natalie Imbruglia

Dear America,

Is that a cross on your sleeve or are you just terrified to see me? I guess, after systematically alienating those who don't share your faith, the appearance of "the other" in your quiet little world must be kind of scary. I remember sitting through the "war on Christmas" thinking "what the fuck are these guys smoking?" because it was obvious to me, even from a continent away, living in a country far more secular than yours, that Christmas was never under threat. How could it be? According to the best stats I could find, about four-fifths of your country claim Christianity in some variety and about a quarter of the whole country are Bible literalistic so how could Christmas ever be under threat?

Fear it seems, is the only truly American value. A fear that passes beyond anything rational into a kind of dream-world where the threat far exceeds reality, where saying "Happy Holidays" is a threat to Christmas. How is it a threat exactly? Does anyone honestly think that not hearing the word "Christmas" every time one goes into a store is going to shake anyone's faith? Or is this, as I suspect, another piece of the American Christian entitlement complex? Do you know what an entitlement complex is, America? It's where you believe yourself to be worthy of special treatment just for existing, where you're so convinced of your own specialness that you should be held to different standards than the rest of society. See, without that, you'd recognize that Happy Holidays was just a way of greeting people that didn't throw your choice of faith at them. But then, what fun would that be?

It seems that American Christianity is defined as much by the sense of being embattled as by any shared values. Everywhere you look, they're teaching evolution, allowing abortion, tolerating gays, abandoning their traditional morality. "Traditional morality", odd phrase isn't it? Perhaps it's the youth of your nation America but you don't seem to have realised yet that "tradition" is just the name we give to something daft we've been doing for a long time. The Scopes monkey trial is where blind following of tradition takes you. I wonder sometimes, if the entitlement complex of America the nation exists because of the entitlement complex of the Christians who make up the majority of the country. I was actually raised in a Christian household America. I was raised by a woman who tried as best she could to improve the lot of those around her. Whether that was inspired by her faith or whether her faith was inspired by her compassion I don't know but that's what I always associated with Christians. I might not have any time for their god but I could see that the effect that their faith had on many Christians was one of compassion and that was good enough for me. Even if I didn't share that faith, at least it was helpful to society.

But then I saw you America and what the hell were you playing at? You had a vast majority of your country believing in Christianity and a significant minority who believed that the Bible was literally true but that didn't seem to lead to compassion. It seemed to lead to attacking those who didn't believe as you did. A war of words raged over teaching evolution and no matter what the aggressors claimed, it wasn't because of the minor stones they managed to throw at evolution, it was because evolution didn't fit into the literal reading of the Bible. What the fuck kind of piety is this? Evolution has evidence, literal creationism has none of any kind whatsoever but because "proof denies faith", that absence of evidence is held to be evidence in itself. This was logic not so much twisted as bent.

What you have America isn't the Christianity I grew up with, it's something quite different. I grew up with a Christianity that wasn't really scared of much, that allowed God to be in charge and got on with living it's own life but the Christianity you seem to have created America is a Christianity that's terrified to it's core of anything that offers an alternative. Gay marriage can't be allowed because that would be a threat to Christianity (do not say a word about bullshit "traditional values"), like millions of Christians might take a look at gay people getting a fair break and suddenly think "I'm cured! I want the boys!". It's a belief system of fear where the existence of things we disapprove of is a threat to our existance. It's a club of exclusivity, if those Christians don't approach their faith the same way we do, they're not really Christians at all. It's kind of amusing if you're a history geek. The attitude of the Catholic church during the Inquisitions was that no rational man could possibly have philosophical differences with mother church so anyone who didn't choose it's loving embrace must be in league with demons. I see the exact same attitude from your assorted ranks of Southern Christians, if you're not with them, you're against them.

Perhaps that's where it comes from, America. You've always defined the rest of the world by allies or enemies, with you or against you, the idea of "live and let live" never seemed to occur to you so perhaps that's why so many of your Christians seemed to take the same attitude: With us or against us, either you're a believer or you're one of those evil secular liberals trying to erode our stranglehold on public morality. Whoops, accidentally slipped into honesty there. I'm not sure when being a fanatical Christian because a requirement for being an American . I imagine it started with the Puritans (people with about the same sense of fun as Hirohito). Certainly, by the time that Bush the Elected declared that atheists couldn't be patriotic, it was ingrained. The synthesis of piety and nationalism, agree with me or be labelled unpatriotic, unChristian, sieg heil and pass the jackboots. Much like nationalism, zealotry needs an enemy, someone to rail against and the fanatical Christians found it in the society that was no longer thinking of everything in terms of God and Satan. In reality, the cash register did more damage to Christmas than secularism ever did but ruthless capitalism has been the American way for the last fifty years so you couldn't campaign against that, better to go after the secularists. Better to create an enemy.

I'm not sure when it happened but somehow, the image of the American became the image of the American Christian. In your constitution, you have seperation of church and state built in but half of your country seems to be so ignorant of history that they ignore that. They insist that their view of things is the right one, the only acceptable one. A generic season's greetings isn't enough, it has to be exclusively a Christian greeting. It isn't enough that gay people aren't accepted by the church, the law of the land has to discriminate against them as well. It isn't enough for a schoolkid to be able to pray, he has to be able to pray in a moment of silence created especially for the purpose. The entitlement complex rolls on America. Your fervent Christians hold marches and rallies. Perhaps it's racial memory but the sound of marching people bellowing slogans about exclusivity puts images of swastikas in my mind's eye. But somewhere in my mind's eye, I see wild-eyed fanatics dumping Harry Potter books on bonfires and I remember that old saying "Where they begin by burning books, they will end by burning people".

"Is your God such a worldly god that He must play at politics?" ~ Sir Francis Walsingham