LOOKS LIKE CHERTOFF, WOTTA SURPRISE...HE'S ALL THAT AND A BOWL OF GRITS, AND...
...speaking of which we're going to take a run at a few of D-CUP's rhetorical questions posed today on her site: http://politits.blogspot.com/

Monday, August 27, 2007
Where the Fuck Do We Get Off?
Where do we get off?

Where do we get off tromping around the globe, shouting we’re number one, waving our big foam fingers?

Where do we get off having the arrogance to proclaim that this “Christian Nation” is morally superior to other nations that have laws based on different faiths or no faith at all?

Where do we get off presuming it's our job to spread democracy when our representative republic has politically decayed?

Where do we get off spouting slogans such as land of the free and home of the brave when we've behaved like cowards by allowing our elected leaders to scare us enough that many of us are willing to trade liberty for security?

Where do we get off calling other countries third world when we have our own crumbling infrastructure, dead inner cities, and a city still moldering from a Hurricane that nearly destroyed it two years ago?

Forget baseball. Being big fucking assholes is our national past time.

Kelso's already had his rant today because someone whose actions had a direct effect on Kelso's life has resigned in disgrace. Kelso's not quite ready to write off a whole country yet. Wait a second. He already did. Never mind. Kelso's going to try to UNDERSTAND this time with the knowledge that D-CUP's probably right and Americans are really only good at being fucking assholes. The problem for Kelso with that is while it's satisfying and Kelso certainly participates in "catapulting the propaganda" down here because of his lucky situation as an American who neither looks nor sounds like one. Bottom line is that W's nightmare is taking place nightly in Panama City. Wiseass Jews and Arabs are having fun playing big stakes poker and partying and criticizing America and Americans. We call them stupid and innocent and easy to take apart at poker and shitty at the one thing they are most proud of -- business. It's fun. But it's kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. UNDERSTANDING is a little harder.

On Sam Seder's radio show this past Sunday he interviewed an author who wrote about the current Middle East adventurism with the theory that there are three major stakeholding cohorts: the corporations who have the opportunity to profit from war and do a little stealing besides, the Jewish Neo-Cons who see everything through the lens of "good for Israel, yes or no?", and the Christian Rapturists who see these wars as bringing them the same kinds of deliverance Osama bin Laden's 19 terrorists were apparently looking for.

Fair enough. That covers the power players, but D-CUP is pissed-off about the American public's response. One may argue this two ways: (1) She really shouldn't be pissed-off because the public has already figured out it was duped and is now ready for change as has been show in any number of polls (2) The only way the Bush Administration really can continue on its mad course is because they believe the public is still with them and/or can always be fooled again with terror-talk and swagger. Choice (1), while a valid interpretation, kind of ends the exercise so it doesn't do us much good. Let's have a look at (2). D-CUP has a pretty good point that the USA is kind of like a third world nation or at least a plutocracy. Kelso sees the USA as somewhat like a pre-DeKlerk South Africa, with an implicit apartheid system guaranteeing endemic Black poverty but with a whole hell of a lot more poor "Boers" (rednecks, office-park dads, and so on), a moneyed class of Boers who favor the system (Cheney and Company) and a moneyed class of Anglos who split 50/50 on it (F.I.R.E. industrialists and entertainment folks).

America's black population has consistently made its opposition known, Powell, Rice, Thomas, Reverend Jakes, notwithstanding. So, what to make of Whites of limited means. Thomas Franks' WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? gets at this better than Kelso ever could. And Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has touched on it as well. If your life sucks and you don't have enough money and everything's depressing and you're slaving away at a job you hate, sure rooting for your favorite teams is a diversion, but a pretty hollow one, because as we've seen time and again, it just produces hatred for and envy of the players and that make the poor schmuck feel worse still. It doesn't fill the existential void. War does. Your office-park Dad gets to root for people just like him but a little younger to roast as many dark-skinned Arabs as possible. Now, that satisfies. It always has and always will. The USA versus Arabs to the death is a game they like. It does lift some of the weight. Put natioanlism together with alcohol and you've got a nice chickenhawk Republican average dude. Life has some meaning beyone a life-style that throws off mostly anhedonia and anomie.

Kelso gets why war profiteers like it. He gets why Christian Rapturists like it. Both are looking at hitting two different kinds of jackpots. What baffles Kelso is what sort of stake the Jewish Neo-Cons have in it. Generally speaking they have enough money that they don't need Crusades for entertainment. So, it's love of Israel then, one guesses. But why? What's the connection beyond being Jewish? Israel is not the 51st (Jewish) state. Hardly. It's a hybrid of a Western European and Middle-Eastern state. It's a social democracy. It has single-payer health insurance. There is no death penalty. The criminal code is far less severe than the one taken as an article of faith by all Americans. Israel prizes scholarship and science. The people know how to party, fuck have a good time in general and can fight with the best. And make no mistake about it, Israelis think Americans are fools. Kelso hears it every night around the poker table. That doesn't sound like a country William Kristol, David Brooks or Thomas Friedman or the worst one, Joe Lieberman, would want anything to do with. That sounds like a slightly tougher France.

So someone please tell Kelso what gives? The Neo-Cons seem to think that Israel with US resources is going to conquer the Middle East, nevermind that such ambitions are the last things any Israeli is thinking of. They have a vibrant, productive economy, a well-educated populace, and the sky's the limit just as is. The wars of the late 60s certainly proved Israel is fully capable of taking care itself whether through diplomatic or military channels. A lasting peace with Saudi Arabia and Syria is within reach if they want it. We've certainly heard Holy Joe Lieberman go on about morality (pleasures of the flesh no good) and war (pain of the flesh real, real good). Does he actually know any Israelis? Kelso can't believe he does because the ones Kelso knows are generally thinking about fucking and getting lit up. Or about gambling. Or about thinking up ways to make money. Or are scientists who don't for a second believe in Creationism.

One sure would think that given all that, Israel would be a country Holy Joe Lieberman would like to destroy not save. Wait a second. Maybe that's what the Neo-Cons really DO want. That's why they want multiple wars in the Middle East and perhaps some kind of nuclear thing with Iran. It would guarantee massive problems for Israel going forward and could mean destruction. Nah, probably not. They've all just seen MOSES, THE LAW-GIVER too many times and are too innocent to get what's going on. What sad pathetic putzes these Neo-Cons are. Someday they'll wake up to the fact that some Arab nations are Israel's opponents, but the American Christian Right, and by extension America itself, is its enemy.

Oh no? Kelso's wrong? Maybe. But we'll see what Israel does when the US hits Iran. It's not going to be following suit but it may be something Kristol, Brooks, Lieberman, etc., might not like.

Kelso's Nuts love you