http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30700262/
I am so interminably grateful that we have Ms. silicone-implant,opposite sex marriage, semi-nude photograph California and an extended Donald Trump press conference to keep us away from the silly news stories about wars, torture, the Green Zone, single-payer health care, hold-ups to Presidential appointments, the Taliban, rape in the military, withheld money for Katrina victims, Texas charging women for rape kits, inflammatory "insights" from Sen. Sessions and infant mortality rates in Alabama. It leaves almost no time to consider the merits of Sen. Vitter running for re-election on family values, Newt Gingrich re-emerging as a tyranosaurus "ex" and Michael Steele as missing the whole point that he is a token black man for the RNC. Little things like that.
MSNBC spent at least 90 minutes on little miss tempest in a c-cup this morning, while no one is following the hideous immorality of US soldiers shoving Bibles at Afghanis so that they can "murder for Jesus."
Who shifted our priorities and shut off our moral compass?
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Not necessarily the news
The Good Times as We Knew it Aren't Coming Back, So Now What?
> http://www.alternet.org/workplace/139895
>
I am aware that many readers will accuse this author of being a utopian/liberal/socialist/pinko/commy, but the notion that we could actually have a government that was a facilitator, a government "of the people, by the people and for the people", instead of one that is an impediment to human progress, an overlord or a source of endles frustration, should not be a new figgin idea. .
It will keep the politicians and the bankers awake at night, but frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!
> http://www.alternet.org/workplace/139895
>
I am aware that many readers will accuse this author of being a utopian/liberal/socialist/pinko/commy, but the notion that we could actually have a government that was a facilitator, a government "of the people, by the people and for the people", instead of one that is an impediment to human progress, an overlord or a source of endles frustration, should not be a new figgin idea. .
It will keep the politicians and the bankers awake at night, but frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
A Bonfire of the Profanities
Gird yourself, brace yourself, temporarily mute your sensibilities, and read this article:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/04/soldiers-hunt-for-jesus/
"Al Jazeera report: U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan have Pashto Bibles, told to 'hunt people for Jesus.'"
Good. Now that you have done that, peel yourself down from the ceiling and read on.
I read this article twice, after which I had to pick my jaw up from the floor (it had missed the desk top completely, on the way down), subdue my feelings of rage, indignation and horror, and remind myself I was indeed living in 2009 and not in the midst of the Crusades, lopping off the heads of infidels, in search of the Holy Grail. Jeebus Asparagus! Can this be real? Is this even remotely possible I an “enlightened” age? I kept hoping that Lt. Col. Hensely was a fictional character.
As is my nature, I sent the story out and about, among my circle of friends, detractors, and critics, and my email screen lit up like (pardon the expression) a friggin Christmas tree. An infuriated Buddhist reminded me that the Dali Lama has said that “Buddhism is not for everyone”, the implication being that cramming your religion down another’s throat does not work. Even worse, using religion at cross purposes with itself is both counter-intuitive and heretical (In this case, it amounts to, “Excuse me. But I want to kill you in the name of my lord and savior”).
A Coptic Christian Arab fired back that he would tell these antagonists “Get this stuff out of my lands”.
A non-Christian, non-Jew, non-Arab “plain white American” added that he would not want this “stuff” in his lands either.
All were shocked, offended and as mortified by the gall and moral turpitude as I was.
Clearly we have a chain of idiots responsible for this bonfire: the first is the one who thought this perversion up( lit the match), in the first place. The second is the officer who approved it(put wood on the fire). The third is the procurement officer (or officers) who authorized the materials preparation(poured on the gasoline), and the fourth is the person who outlined and presented the procedural guidelines(fanned the flames). The chaplains involved (“This is general order #1”?) and who attempted to disguise the proselytizing as “gift giving”, should be summarily dismissed, disenfranchised, disgraced and de-frocked. These boys have got their Bible-learnin’ all wrong.
The nearly unthinkable and wholly inconceivable notion that a set of widely-held religious beliefs, the accompanying morals and the humanitarian foundations that accompany them, might be wrapped around the military goals of murder, death and destruction, like a putrefied pork rind, is disgusting. I do not know what else to call it. Using the misinterpreted tenets of any form of theism as a guise for hideous behavior is simply anti-theistic.
Evangelical Christians should be stunned at the audacity of it all.
Christians of any ilk should be shamed and embarrassed.
Christian leaders, east and west, religious thinkers and theological luminaries should be roiling with anger and resentment.
Any Muslim believer or practitioner should be enraged, affronted and infuriated (is it any wonder that so many are willing to take up arms or strap on a bomb?).
John the Baptist, beheaded as he was, should be acting now as the [headless] horseman of the apocolypse, railing against such despicable goings-on (we could use his waterboarding skills, now).
Even practitioners of the dreaded protestant “Jesusology” should be horrified in the manner in which their core beliefs have been maligned, misused and misrepresented.
And any Jew who smirks at this should be reprimanded and labeled as a fraud.
Indeed, the core of any serious belief in the humanity of man should be seen as marginalized and contorted beyond recognition by this action. It is heretical, profane and blasphemous.
This is a brain-dead and bone-headed activity which should be ceased immediately. It makes us barbarians at the gate.
If you claim to be Christian, you might ask yourself, now, “What would Jesus do?” Well, he sure as hell would not do THIS.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/04/soldiers-hunt-for-jesus/
"Al Jazeera report: U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan have Pashto Bibles, told to 'hunt people for Jesus.'"
Good. Now that you have done that, peel yourself down from the ceiling and read on.
I read this article twice, after which I had to pick my jaw up from the floor (it had missed the desk top completely, on the way down), subdue my feelings of rage, indignation and horror, and remind myself I was indeed living in 2009 and not in the midst of the Crusades, lopping off the heads of infidels, in search of the Holy Grail. Jeebus Asparagus! Can this be real? Is this even remotely possible I an “enlightened” age? I kept hoping that Lt. Col. Hensely was a fictional character.
As is my nature, I sent the story out and about, among my circle of friends, detractors, and critics, and my email screen lit up like (pardon the expression) a friggin Christmas tree. An infuriated Buddhist reminded me that the Dali Lama has said that “Buddhism is not for everyone”, the implication being that cramming your religion down another’s throat does not work. Even worse, using religion at cross purposes with itself is both counter-intuitive and heretical (In this case, it amounts to, “Excuse me. But I want to kill you in the name of my lord and savior”).
A Coptic Christian Arab fired back that he would tell these antagonists “Get this stuff out of my lands”.
A non-Christian, non-Jew, non-Arab “plain white American” added that he would not want this “stuff” in his lands either.
All were shocked, offended and as mortified by the gall and moral turpitude as I was.
Clearly we have a chain of idiots responsible for this bonfire: the first is the one who thought this perversion up( lit the match), in the first place. The second is the officer who approved it(put wood on the fire). The third is the procurement officer (or officers) who authorized the materials preparation(poured on the gasoline), and the fourth is the person who outlined and presented the procedural guidelines(fanned the flames). The chaplains involved (“This is general order #1”?) and who attempted to disguise the proselytizing as “gift giving”, should be summarily dismissed, disenfranchised, disgraced and de-frocked. These boys have got their Bible-learnin’ all wrong.
The nearly unthinkable and wholly inconceivable notion that a set of widely-held religious beliefs, the accompanying morals and the humanitarian foundations that accompany them, might be wrapped around the military goals of murder, death and destruction, like a putrefied pork rind, is disgusting. I do not know what else to call it. Using the misinterpreted tenets of any form of theism as a guise for hideous behavior is simply anti-theistic.
Evangelical Christians should be stunned at the audacity of it all.
Christians of any ilk should be shamed and embarrassed.
Christian leaders, east and west, religious thinkers and theological luminaries should be roiling with anger and resentment.
Any Muslim believer or practitioner should be enraged, affronted and infuriated (is it any wonder that so many are willing to take up arms or strap on a bomb?).
John the Baptist, beheaded as he was, should be acting now as the [headless] horseman of the apocolypse, railing against such despicable goings-on (we could use his waterboarding skills, now).
Even practitioners of the dreaded protestant “Jesusology” should be horrified in the manner in which their core beliefs have been maligned, misused and misrepresented.
And any Jew who smirks at this should be reprimanded and labeled as a fraud.
Indeed, the core of any serious belief in the humanity of man should be seen as marginalized and contorted beyond recognition by this action. It is heretical, profane and blasphemous.
This is a brain-dead and bone-headed activity which should be ceased immediately. It makes us barbarians at the gate.
If you claim to be Christian, you might ask yourself, now, “What would Jesus do?” Well, he sure as hell would not do THIS.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The Specter of Things.
Senator Arlen Specter has never been a conservative, nor a liberal, nor a moderate, nor an independent. He is a trimmer -- a sailor who trims his sails to meet any incoming political breeze.
-------Rabbi Arthur Waskow 6711 Lincoln Drive Philadelphia PA
This is part of a comment made almost immediately, on an article by Chris Hayes at The Nation.
I could not have said it better myself. I have been counting the days since the last election for Specter (and perhaps others like him) to change colors, post new flags and switch parties. He was, however, on the top of my list of “usual suspects” that one might expect to work out a way to make political hay from the recent demise of moderate conservatism around the country.
Although the dear Senator professes to represent the people of PA, he continues in his current role as representing only himself, his lobbyist supporters, his paychecks and his extensive numerous benefits as a congressman. He has already vowed to vote against the EFCA and will no doubt vote in favor of his generous industrial/hospital healthcare supporters to fight against any effective national health care plan. This will not, of course, impede or alter the contribution-free health care plan he receives as partial compensation for his office.
Faced with certain failure if he had attempted to get re-elected as a Republican, in a state where the red voters have been increasingly over-run by the pink and blue ones, he took the most expedient route and simply changed party affiliations.
This is Washington street theatre, a few prominent Democrats will hail this as “monumental change” and the intellectual fondlers of the new majority will linguistically soil themselves in public for a day or two. Then the stage will be cleared and the props put away, and it will be business as usual. We will still have swine flu scares, Wall Street pecuniary obscenities and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And human slavery and child pornography and massive job losses and multitudinous home foreclosures.
And as for Specter and his sudden acts of political clarity and charity? I don’t care. And in all honesty, you probably don’t either.
-------Rabbi Arthur Waskow 6711 Lincoln Drive Philadelphia PA
This is part of a comment made almost immediately, on an article by Chris Hayes at The Nation.
I could not have said it better myself. I have been counting the days since the last election for Specter (and perhaps others like him) to change colors, post new flags and switch parties. He was, however, on the top of my list of “usual suspects” that one might expect to work out a way to make political hay from the recent demise of moderate conservatism around the country.
Although the dear Senator professes to represent the people of PA, he continues in his current role as representing only himself, his lobbyist supporters, his paychecks and his extensive numerous benefits as a congressman. He has already vowed to vote against the EFCA and will no doubt vote in favor of his generous industrial/hospital healthcare supporters to fight against any effective national health care plan. This will not, of course, impede or alter the contribution-free health care plan he receives as partial compensation for his office.
Faced with certain failure if he had attempted to get re-elected as a Republican, in a state where the red voters have been increasingly over-run by the pink and blue ones, he took the most expedient route and simply changed party affiliations.
This is Washington street theatre, a few prominent Democrats will hail this as “monumental change” and the intellectual fondlers of the new majority will linguistically soil themselves in public for a day or two. Then the stage will be cleared and the props put away, and it will be business as usual. We will still have swine flu scares, Wall Street pecuniary obscenities and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And human slavery and child pornography and massive job losses and multitudinous home foreclosures.
And as for Specter and his sudden acts of political clarity and charity? I don’t care. And in all honesty, you probably don’t either.
Monday, April 13, 2009
The Three Reasons
Here is the link to the entire article,
http://www.openleft.com/diary/12800/nprs-planet-money-guys-feed-rachel-maddow-a-snow-job
And here is the opening gambit.:
NPR's "Planet Money" Guys Feed Rachel Maddow A Snow Job (+)
by: Paul Rosenberg
Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 13:45
[subscribe]
On Friday, Rachel Maddow was all set to tear further into the absurdity of GOP stimulus rejectionism, when she got sideswipped by a pair of NPR bozos, Adam Davidson and Alex, from NPR's Planet Money podcast (no link for these losers). A quick Google shows that Maddow had Blumberg as a radio show guest back on September 22, to discuss the then-three-page bailout plan, so there's at least some history there. But it's doubtful she had any idea what she was in for with these journalists, touted for explaining economics in terms "regular people" can understand--Gosh, and here I thought Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, and dozens, if not hundreds of other real economists already did that. I surely would have loved to had Krugman or Baker on with Maddow when these jokers were spouting their stupid speil, essentially laying down covering fire for SC Governor Stanfords complaint that "Going further into debt will not solve a problem that was created by too much debt."
Then there is this summary:
In a nutshell, here are the 3 big lies these guys are pushing:
(1)'The problem was caused by debt.'
(2) It's a multi-factor problem, so no one should be blamed.
(3) Deregulation in general, and repealing Glass-Spiegal in particular was not really a major factor.
If you read the whole article, and then read the comments, it is 1)curious how immediately dismissive Mr. Rosenberg is of the entire interview, and 2) how many angry commenters agree with the assessment. However….
“The problem was caused by debt” .Well, yes it was. Krugman, Reich, Galbraith and Greider all say so. It is a fact which is hard to ignore. The banks, investment banks and big guns like AIG, Goldman Sachs and Solomon Bros. et.al. kept borrowing money on borrowed money without the collateral required to bolster them. That is why the transactions were called “credit default swaps”. Everyone was betting on the fact that the credit arrangements would not go into default. But without reliable underpinnings, they were destined to crash, mostly because the billions in outstanding home mortgages were overblown, under-collateralized and sold at sub-prime to people who could not make the payments. Pile credit card debt on top of that (also without collateral backing) and then introduce unemployment, caused by a decrease in consumer demand and the debt load and obligations of big manufacturers like GM, and what follows is a big downward slump of gigantic proportions. These boys are right: in large part, this great reckoning WAS caused by debt and turning a blind eye to the monster it had become. Hell. If all else fails, borrow some more money. That of course raises the question of the wisdom of Geithner borrowing even more to solve the problem. Hmmmm…
It is a multi-factor problem so no one should be blamed. Well DUH!!!! Of course it is! But this was not expressed properly: in truth, everyone is to blame because everything is connected to everything else. Everybody piled on the bandwagon, everybody played the game and everybody made their own contribution by going deeper intodebt. The homeowners borrowed from the banks, the banks and mortgage companies borrowed from each other and the government borrowed from the rest of the world (mostly China). In the end, nobody had the cash to pay the bills and we are all suffering the consequences. As a group, Americans want to have one villain, one cause, one single source to blame, deride and hold accountable. It simply is not that simple. Everyone contributed to the stew we cooked up, and while some are more guilty than others (like the Wall St. greedy-monsters, Bernie Madoff, mortgage brokers, etc.), mom and pop with a $500,000 mortgage that they could only afford with two jobs (one of which they lost), three SUV’s and a personal debt load they could not support, and their kids in college carrying credit cards they had no business having, the Chinese bankers who loaned the money and the failure of the overseers to over see, all pitched in. Then the boat pitched over. These two guys pointed out, very clearly, that “lots of people, doing lots of thing independently, thinking they were doing the right thing at the time, taken together, added up to what we have now” (That is an approximate quote).
Deregulation…in general…was not a factor. While many people have laid much of the blame squarely at the feet of the repeal of Glass=Spiegal ( and well it should be), that one piece of legislation was only one cog in the gear of the great financial machine that got bound up when everyone’s assorted shoes got thrown into the machinery. We were already using an antiquated banking system, handed down to us by the Europeans and the Bank of London, and when we laid off or transferred regulators, followed the blind un-wisdom of trickle down economics, played games with tax formulations that saved us after the Great Depression and let the banks, finance companies and insurance companies co-mingle funds without oversight and safety nets, we were doomed to some eventual downfall. It does not take a genius to figure that one out.
This interview was not all that bad. These guys speak in relatively plain English and don’t make any attempts to spin or hype anything. They do, however, sport a genuine “transparency” that we were supposed to get from the Obama/Geithner gang, which has thus far been completely missing in action. Rachel let them go and left us to our own devices and conclusions. Would you rather listen to this discussion or to Newt Gingrich or Eric Cantor or Sarah Palin tell you what’s wrong with the economy? Here: have a tax cut. That will fix everything.
http://www.openleft.com/diary/12800/nprs-planet-money-guys-feed-rachel-maddow-a-snow-job
And here is the opening gambit.:
NPR's "Planet Money" Guys Feed Rachel Maddow A Snow Job (+)
by: Paul Rosenberg
Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 13:45
[subscribe]
On Friday, Rachel Maddow was all set to tear further into the absurdity of GOP stimulus rejectionism, when she got sideswipped by a pair of NPR bozos, Adam Davidson and Alex, from NPR's Planet Money podcast (no link for these losers). A quick Google shows that Maddow had Blumberg as a radio show guest back on September 22, to discuss the then-three-page bailout plan, so there's at least some history there. But it's doubtful she had any idea what she was in for with these journalists, touted for explaining economics in terms "regular people" can understand--Gosh, and here I thought Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, and dozens, if not hundreds of other real economists already did that. I surely would have loved to had Krugman or Baker on with Maddow when these jokers were spouting their stupid speil, essentially laying down covering fire for SC Governor Stanfords complaint that "Going further into debt will not solve a problem that was created by too much debt."
Then there is this summary:
In a nutshell, here are the 3 big lies these guys are pushing:
(1)'The problem was caused by debt.'
(2) It's a multi-factor problem, so no one should be blamed.
(3) Deregulation in general, and repealing Glass-Spiegal in particular was not really a major factor.
If you read the whole article, and then read the comments, it is 1)curious how immediately dismissive Mr. Rosenberg is of the entire interview, and 2) how many angry commenters agree with the assessment. However….
“The problem was caused by debt” .Well, yes it was. Krugman, Reich, Galbraith and Greider all say so. It is a fact which is hard to ignore. The banks, investment banks and big guns like AIG, Goldman Sachs and Solomon Bros. et.al. kept borrowing money on borrowed money without the collateral required to bolster them. That is why the transactions were called “credit default swaps”. Everyone was betting on the fact that the credit arrangements would not go into default. But without reliable underpinnings, they were destined to crash, mostly because the billions in outstanding home mortgages were overblown, under-collateralized and sold at sub-prime to people who could not make the payments. Pile credit card debt on top of that (also without collateral backing) and then introduce unemployment, caused by a decrease in consumer demand and the debt load and obligations of big manufacturers like GM, and what follows is a big downward slump of gigantic proportions. These boys are right: in large part, this great reckoning WAS caused by debt and turning a blind eye to the monster it had become. Hell. If all else fails, borrow some more money. That of course raises the question of the wisdom of Geithner borrowing even more to solve the problem. Hmmmm…
It is a multi-factor problem so no one should be blamed. Well DUH!!!! Of course it is! But this was not expressed properly: in truth, everyone is to blame because everything is connected to everything else. Everybody piled on the bandwagon, everybody played the game and everybody made their own contribution by going deeper intodebt. The homeowners borrowed from the banks, the banks and mortgage companies borrowed from each other and the government borrowed from the rest of the world (mostly China). In the end, nobody had the cash to pay the bills and we are all suffering the consequences. As a group, Americans want to have one villain, one cause, one single source to blame, deride and hold accountable. It simply is not that simple. Everyone contributed to the stew we cooked up, and while some are more guilty than others (like the Wall St. greedy-monsters, Bernie Madoff, mortgage brokers, etc.), mom and pop with a $500,000 mortgage that they could only afford with two jobs (one of which they lost), three SUV’s and a personal debt load they could not support, and their kids in college carrying credit cards they had no business having, the Chinese bankers who loaned the money and the failure of the overseers to over see, all pitched in. Then the boat pitched over. These two guys pointed out, very clearly, that “lots of people, doing lots of thing independently, thinking they were doing the right thing at the time, taken together, added up to what we have now” (That is an approximate quote).
Deregulation…in general…was not a factor. While many people have laid much of the blame squarely at the feet of the repeal of Glass=Spiegal ( and well it should be), that one piece of legislation was only one cog in the gear of the great financial machine that got bound up when everyone’s assorted shoes got thrown into the machinery. We were already using an antiquated banking system, handed down to us by the Europeans and the Bank of London, and when we laid off or transferred regulators, followed the blind un-wisdom of trickle down economics, played games with tax formulations that saved us after the Great Depression and let the banks, finance companies and insurance companies co-mingle funds without oversight and safety nets, we were doomed to some eventual downfall. It does not take a genius to figure that one out.
This interview was not all that bad. These guys speak in relatively plain English and don’t make any attempts to spin or hype anything. They do, however, sport a genuine “transparency” that we were supposed to get from the Obama/Geithner gang, which has thus far been completely missing in action. Rachel let them go and left us to our own devices and conclusions. Would you rather listen to this discussion or to Newt Gingrich or Eric Cantor or Sarah Palin tell you what’s wrong with the economy? Here: have a tax cut. That will fix everything.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Resurrection Blues
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-10/10-reasons-the-resurrection-really-happened/
Choke. Gag. Gasp. Turn Blue. Vomit. Wretch. Go into shock.
I thought that April Fool’s day and Easter were two different events.
Choke. Gag. Gasp. Turn Blue. Vomit. Wretch. Go into shock.
I thought that April Fool’s day and Easter were two different events.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
World's Largest Water Park?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/somalia/5130003/US-warship-arrives-at-site-of-pirate-kidnap.html
This on-going story has just up-ended my apple cart, or maybe dumped my canoe upside down in the river. Nuts.
For some time, now, I have been planning to write about our mis-use of “frames of reference”. That is, I was have been thinking about how we tend to plan and organize our current and future actions, based upon how we see our current situation through our visions of the past, or the “frames of reference” we commonly use to interpret where we have been and what we need to do now. This has most particularly with our military resources.
My biggest and best (I thought) example of using the wrong frame of reference was the DOD and the huge amounts of money they spend on the Navy. Consider this:
Civilizations have had navies as far back as we have had history chronologists to report them. Early on, the battling folks of Mesopotamia used the Mediterranean and the likes of the Nile as water parks to move troops around to conquer and bloody one another. This great tradition carried on most prominently with the Brits (Rule Brittania, and all that rot) , the French and the Spaniards…even the mostly landlocked Germans had grand battleships and U-boats, and today even Iran has a Navy (though I’m not sure why…will they use it to wipe Israel off the map?).
All this time, I have been thinking that we don’t really need a navy: we have aircraft to move themselves and personnel and now the drone wars are even delivering hellfire bombs without pilots. And these robots don’t even need an aircraft carrier in the neighborhood for support (aircraft carriers, to some, are just huge, floating, monstrously expensive floating city/airports that are gigantic sitting duck/missile targets on the ocean). We no longer need to float huge compliments of men and materiel from London to the Falklands, or from Madrid to Mexico, or Paris to Patagonia…well, wherever… to conquer and plunder and subdue undiscovered countries, battles at sea are no longer needed to gain territorial supremacy, the big boats (sorry, “ships”) cost unfathomable amounts of money, and their immediate value is no longer commensurate with what we spend on them. Just exactly who needs a “navy” anymore, anyway? (My apologies to Jimmy Carter).
But then comes this latest ‘water park” story: a merchant ship of the high seas is assaulted and nearly captured by an old “frame of reference”: pirates. Now I know that this is nothing new and that this has been going on for some time now, and I have been using the failure of anyone to do anything to stop these antique antics as another justification for “Why navies?”: they have not been able to help at all. But this story has a new twist. In the apparent spirit of American independence and defiance, the largely American crew overcame the pirates and took back the ship…almost. It seems like they lost the captain to a couple of pirates who made off with him in a life boat (I almost loved it: I thought for sure we maybe had made-for-TV movie in the works). And thence comes the Navy! The USS Bainbridge steams onto the scene and casts an entirely new pall on the situation. John Wayne has arrived.
For a short time I thought my entire premise about the irrelevance of the navy was ruined by the appearance of this destroyer. Perhaps suddenly a frame of reference has suddenly come back into vogue and was providing an overlooked and forgotten usefulness.
Well, almost. Maybe.
It turns out that as I write this, the escaped life boat is adrift off the hull of the merchant ship and out of fuel. Literally dead in the water. And the US Navy ship is a highly sophisticated “missile” ship. What? Something smells like overkill, here.
Perhaps the Bainbridge has a small boat or two it can put in the water to attempt to overtake, over-power and capture the life boat and its occupants, free the Captain. But at the moment, the only offensive capabilities the ship seems to have are highly sophisticated, (presumably) laser guided missiles, designed to obliterate much larger military targets and kill people many hundreds of miles away. Methinks the lifeboat is hopelessly over-matched and outgunned. Even assuming that one of the missiles from the ship could be trained and fired upon the lifeboat, the end result would not even be splinters.
It remains to be seen what might happen next. In recent Iranian or Chinese speedboat fashion, perhaps the occupants of both the lifeboat and the Bainbridge could moon one another in an act of sophomoric defiance. Or perhaps the members of the little vessel and the big vessel can have a literal pissing contest: that would seem like an American thing to do: we are good at polluting oceans.
Meanwhile, I am back to my original question: what good is a navy today, anyway, out on this giant water park, and why do we insist of upon using a frame of reference that says we need to spend so much money on one?
My dad was in the Navy. He used to repeat, “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.” Somehow that makes more sense to me, today.
This on-going story has just up-ended my apple cart, or maybe dumped my canoe upside down in the river. Nuts.
For some time, now, I have been planning to write about our mis-use of “frames of reference”. That is, I was have been thinking about how we tend to plan and organize our current and future actions, based upon how we see our current situation through our visions of the past, or the “frames of reference” we commonly use to interpret where we have been and what we need to do now. This has most particularly with our military resources.
My biggest and best (I thought) example of using the wrong frame of reference was the DOD and the huge amounts of money they spend on the Navy. Consider this:
Civilizations have had navies as far back as we have had history chronologists to report them. Early on, the battling folks of Mesopotamia used the Mediterranean and the likes of the Nile as water parks to move troops around to conquer and bloody one another. This great tradition carried on most prominently with the Brits (Rule Brittania, and all that rot) , the French and the Spaniards…even the mostly landlocked Germans had grand battleships and U-boats, and today even Iran has a Navy (though I’m not sure why…will they use it to wipe Israel off the map?).
All this time, I have been thinking that we don’t really need a navy: we have aircraft to move themselves and personnel and now the drone wars are even delivering hellfire bombs without pilots. And these robots don’t even need an aircraft carrier in the neighborhood for support (aircraft carriers, to some, are just huge, floating, monstrously expensive floating city/airports that are gigantic sitting duck/missile targets on the ocean). We no longer need to float huge compliments of men and materiel from London to the Falklands, or from Madrid to Mexico, or Paris to Patagonia…well, wherever… to conquer and plunder and subdue undiscovered countries, battles at sea are no longer needed to gain territorial supremacy, the big boats (sorry, “ships”) cost unfathomable amounts of money, and their immediate value is no longer commensurate with what we spend on them. Just exactly who needs a “navy” anymore, anyway? (My apologies to Jimmy Carter).
But then comes this latest ‘water park” story: a merchant ship of the high seas is assaulted and nearly captured by an old “frame of reference”: pirates. Now I know that this is nothing new and that this has been going on for some time now, and I have been using the failure of anyone to do anything to stop these antique antics as another justification for “Why navies?”: they have not been able to help at all. But this story has a new twist. In the apparent spirit of American independence and defiance, the largely American crew overcame the pirates and took back the ship…almost. It seems like they lost the captain to a couple of pirates who made off with him in a life boat (I almost loved it: I thought for sure we maybe had made-for-TV movie in the works). And thence comes the Navy! The USS Bainbridge steams onto the scene and casts an entirely new pall on the situation. John Wayne has arrived.
For a short time I thought my entire premise about the irrelevance of the navy was ruined by the appearance of this destroyer. Perhaps suddenly a frame of reference has suddenly come back into vogue and was providing an overlooked and forgotten usefulness.
Well, almost. Maybe.
It turns out that as I write this, the escaped life boat is adrift off the hull of the merchant ship and out of fuel. Literally dead in the water. And the US Navy ship is a highly sophisticated “missile” ship. What? Something smells like overkill, here.
Perhaps the Bainbridge has a small boat or two it can put in the water to attempt to overtake, over-power and capture the life boat and its occupants, free the Captain. But at the moment, the only offensive capabilities the ship seems to have are highly sophisticated, (presumably) laser guided missiles, designed to obliterate much larger military targets and kill people many hundreds of miles away. Methinks the lifeboat is hopelessly over-matched and outgunned. Even assuming that one of the missiles from the ship could be trained and fired upon the lifeboat, the end result would not even be splinters.
It remains to be seen what might happen next. In recent Iranian or Chinese speedboat fashion, perhaps the occupants of both the lifeboat and the Bainbridge could moon one another in an act of sophomoric defiance. Or perhaps the members of the little vessel and the big vessel can have a literal pissing contest: that would seem like an American thing to do: we are good at polluting oceans.
Meanwhile, I am back to my original question: what good is a navy today, anyway, out on this giant water park, and why do we insist of upon using a frame of reference that says we need to spend so much money on one?
My dad was in the Navy. He used to repeat, “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.” Somehow that makes more sense to me, today.
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