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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Saturday, June 04, 2005

HOW ABOUT SAYING "THAT'S AN ORDER"?

...I confess I don't have a military background. I came of recruitment age at the end of the Viet Nam war, when enlistment in the military wasn't necessarily considered a smart move and the end of the draft (and I mean just in the nick of time) removed the pressure of considering other options. I don't feel bad about this because I've spent the last 31 years in federal service; I've fought forest fires, battled floods, dealt with erupting volcanoes, searched for lost hunters, hikers, and Boy Scouts, and assisted any number of citizens who found themselves in dire straits out there beyond the end of the pavement in our nation's wildlands. But as a result of my lack of military service, I simple don't understand some of the things I see, even though I have spent some time now and again working directly with military (usually Army) units. For example, I don't understand why the superintendent of the Air Force Academy would acknowledge at a meeting of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League that he has a religious intolerance problem amongst his staff and faculty that he is having trouble dealing with...

...isn't Lt. General John Rosa kinda sorta like the guy in charge? Isn't the Air Force Academy..like..kinda sorta a military installation? Somehow I just don't see Patton dealing with this sort of problem the same way. I mean, come on; the sorts of evangelical extremism being reported out of the Air Force Academy wouldn't be tolerated by the relatively low-ranking leader of a fire crew in my agency; vacancies would result. Wallowing as I am in my lack of understanding of how military systems work, I keep wondering why the General in charge of the Academy can't simply create a climate where anyone from the most lowly first-year student to second-in-command Brig. General Johnny Weida can't be encouraged to give calm contemplative consideration to the path that his or her career might careen off onto if a direct order to knock off the evangelical harassment doesn't stop. If the superior officer in charge of the Air Force Academy can't simply through the force of his leadership and a direct order stop the nonsense that has been going on at the Academy, we are in more trouble with regard to our military that we ever actually understood...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:24 PM 0 comments

Friday, June 03, 2005

THE TRIBULATION OF MODERATION

...a few weeks ago, the wingnut crowd in Central Oregon (and they are legion, my friend) was up in arms over State Senator Ben Westlund's sponsorship of a Civil Union bill in the legislature. The Deschutes County Republican committee wanted to hold a Star Chamber featuring Westlund, his office phone was ringing off the hook, and the dissembling bigots of the Oregon Family Council (that's 'dissembling', Mr. President; that means lying) were sending fliers to his constituents in an effort to stir up the troops. One could easily imagine a primary challenge for Westlund coming from the right in his next election. One would have found it rather difficult, on the other hand, to imagine that they would actually consider mounting a recall against him; one could very possibly have been wrong...

...according to yesterday's Bend Bulletin, there is a lot of talk flying around conservative circles in Central Oregon about running a recall campaign against Westlund. There seems to be the impression that Westlund has become far too liberal in his actions, but that probably says more about the polarization of party faithful than it does about Westlund himself. It's probably doubtful that a Mark Hatfield or Bob Packwood could even make it through a Republican primary these days, and that shift to the right by core elements of the Republican party are what's playing out in this case. It almost seems only right, given the rather anti-democratic nature of the Republican party as a whole, that this socially conservative core would over-reach by trying to foment a recall solely because they don't believe the incumbent represents their interests. Most clear-headed people understand that this is what the normal election cycle is for (imagine the outrage if the local Democratic committee decided to sponsor a recall against the Republican incumbent over policy differences), but the path to recall over policy differences is where the corrupting influence of power apparently leads us...

...this "final straw" is partly Westlund's fault; he should have understood the risks of taking the Measure 36 (anti-gay marriage) backers at their word when they claimed they had no interest in civil unions but were only concerned about preserving the sanctity of marriage. It may, however, be time to play B'rer Rabbit and the briar patch with these folks; maybe they should run a recall against Westlund. They may very well be shocked to discover that Ben Westlund as a moderate actually does represent the people of Central Oregon. I know if it came to a recall, I'd vote for him...
Posted by: Jack K. / 2:55 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

IDIOTS LOOSE ON THE STREETS

...Thank God I sit down with I read news on the internets. I would otherwise have long ago fallen down and injured myself. Today's case in point is all of Richard Nixon's fixers, thugs, and henchmen coming out of the closet to hurl vile names and accusations at Mark Felt, now that he has apparently been confirmed as Deep Throat to the satisfaction of everybody except John Dean, who sees an entire full-length book blown all to hell because he was...well, wrong in his particular scholarship on that question. The comments range from the breathtaking to the idiotic, with a few classic Republican-quality deceptions thrown in for good measure...

...Gordon Liddy covers most of these bases all by himself, first calling Felt's behavior unethical, which is apparently a more severe offense than the unethical and criminal behavior that Mr. Liddy dabbled in on behalf of the Committee to Reelect the President (breaking and entering to steal Democratic campaign secrets, anyone?) Liddy manages to also slide in one of those time-honored Republican red herrings, relying on the fact that over half the country (but not me, sport) have no direct memory of the whole Watergate saga, by saying that Felt was duty bound to bring his information to a grand jury for an indictment. What grand jury, Rambo-boy? Felt worked for the FBI, and they don't empanel grand juries; the Justice Department, which worked for the President and was profoundly uninterested in pursuing anything more than absolutely necessary, would have to crank up the grand jury, at which point Felt's boss - who had been directed by Nixon's people to stay out of the whole thing - would have been able to shut down any effort by Felt to do the honorable thing. Chuck Colsen, in suggesting that Felt could have stopped the whole thing by having done the right, also provides fascinating insight into the mindset of the Nixon minions. Lots of people could have stopped the whole thing by doing the right thing, Chuck, including you, but nobody did until John Dean went live on national television during the Watergate hearings and flung himself clear over the edge by telling everything he knew. It's a stark case of deflection, of asking somebody else "why didn't you stop me from doing what I was doing?" In some respects it captures in finely drawn detail the peculiar madness that strikes the powerful when their power is under threat: the crimes that mattered were committed on behalf of and by the sitting President. Any questions about Mark Felt's actions are cast into a deep shade by the massive profile of what these people tried to do to the people and government of the United States to gain reelection and then protect their man from the stink of the crimes committed to get him there...

...and then, of course, there's Pat Buchanan, who still maintains that small secret room in a part of the townhouse where nobody else is allowed to go, filled with icons, busts, and portraits of his hero dimly lit by those small guttering candles where he can worship alone. Mark Felt is a Traitor, bellows Buchanan, who apparently feels that the commission of crimes to steal an election and the subsequent obstruction of the function of the government in investigating those crimes is all that big a deal. It's almost as if he doesn't think that they really did anything really wrong back there in the good old days except perhaps overlooking opportunities to nail a couple of eager young Washington Post reporters on trumped up drug charges to get them out of the way. Yeah, that was really the one big screw up; otherwise a turncoat like Mark Felt wouldn't have had an outlet for his traitorous passions...

...these people are nuts. Back in my youth, they were dangerous, un-American nuts, but braver hearts prevailed and they are now just simply nuts clinging to the fringe. It's way past time to turn the channel and get back to focusing on the service that Mark Felt gave to his country in making them less dangerous...
Posted by: Jack K. / 10:23 AM 0 comments

Monday, May 30, 2005

PROTEST? WHAT PROTEST?

...according to KOIN TV in Portland, Twentyfour-year-old Anthony Villagomez has decided to make a bold, provocative statement in opposition to Bush's forest management policies by taking up a long-term perch in a towering Douglas fir in scenic downtown Hood River, Oregon. Unfortunately, there's a hitch. It appears that nobody really cares, and in particular the city police of Hood River don't particularly care...

...now, there's a problem. Protest needs an emotional hook, complete with good camera angles for the ubiquitous scenes of angry desperate law enforcement personnel grappling with the direct face-to-face conflict and trying to bring the public disruption of the protest to an end. Only in this way can the issues that the protesters are trying to bring to the public's consciousness be fully brought to light, by showing the determination of the brave activists to sacrifice their very well-being in opposition to whatever it is they oppose. The refusal of the Hood River police to come out and play, saying in effect that young Mr. Villagomez can hunker down in the majestic limbs of that towering downtown tree and crunch away on granola to his heart's content, robs him of that powerful emotional moment where he has to lay his beliefs on the line in the face of grasping police hands trying to deny him his particular podium. No risk of police action, no media, unless maybe the city reporter for the local newspaper elects to swing by once in a while to see if he's still up there...

...it's a twisted take on the old puzzler about falling trees: if a protester crawls up into a tree in protest and nobody is there to hear it, did he really protest anything? The next few days could be an interesting time for the good citizenry of Hood River (perhaps invoking the ancient Chinese curse). The failure to make an impact might lead young Mr. Villagomez and his ground crew to escalate the protest in order to create the sorts of nuisance that would compel the police to respond. This won't necessarily endear Mr. Villagomez to the local populace or sell them on his point of view - especially given the historic roll that timber harvesting played in the area - but it certainly could make for some exciting video...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:25 PM 0 comments

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