This is Hell

Reading coverage of Alan Greenspan's book, wherein he pulls an Eisenhower as he heads out the door, alerting his countrymen to the duplicity of US foreign policy, I add Greenspan's name to the list of learned, sophisticated, ambitious men and women who will end their careers, in some form, tarnished, defeated or shamed while serving in the Bush-Cheney outfit. Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Alberto Gonzales. Note that the uber White Man, Donald Rumsfeld, runs for the hills with nary an insight or comment to explain away any of it. Harriet Miers. Petreus. Even hacks like Robert Novak descend to the level of Super Hack in pursuit of a corner of Cheney's ass to bury their nose in.

Some of these are decent men and women who squandered their energies, careers and reputations, believing they were serving their country. When I studied politics at George Washington University in the late '70s, they taught us that the men who would make the best public servants were opting out of the process, post-Watergate. The people who would make the best Presidents, Congressmen and Senators want nothing to do with the process.

This country is in the worst condition I have ever seen. We are faced with problems that will destroy both this country and the world's environment if we stay the course that the GOP has piloted since 1980. A course that rapes the land, plunges our nation deeper into debt, crushes any hope of real and effective oversight of industry by government regulators, maintains a permanent underclass in our ranks and abroad, denies health care, denies education, prosecutes and imprisons the powerless, kills American men and women needlessly in a trumped-up war, allows fanatical US Christian conservatives to demand a war for oil, rebukes honest and empirically substantiated scientific discoveries and kills innocent Iraqis by the hundreds of thousands in pursuit of the Bush family's sick agenda in the Middle East.

This course must be altered, and drastically so, or we will see the twilight of our great country in my lifetime. More importantly, it can be altered in the next election if we are rational. Brave and rational. We must take risks in the name of American democracy. Risk that someone with a new idea might really be on to something. That is why this is Hell. The answers are there. But our leaders are ignoring them. At times, they are not only ignoring them, they are hiding them from us, willfully and maliciously.

Comments

[Nah]

So now I'm thinking about the apocalyptic protest song "Eve of Destruction", written in 1965, which described the world as being pretty much over.

Shouldn't Bono be covering this tune to raise awareness and urgency? Why didn't anyone sing it at LiveEarth?

[Nah]

So now I'm thinking about the apocalyptic protest song "Eve of Destruction", written in 1965, which described the world as being pretty much over.

Shouldn't Bono be covering this tune to raise awareness and urgency? Why didn't anyone sing it at LiveEarth?

[tyla]

Welcome Back Alec....It's great to see that your spirited wisdom has returned and that you are blogging once again. I am curious however as to why you limit your platform to blogging when you could run for political office and actually "Effect Change"?

[Danny]

The sliming of Alex Baldwin smacks of McCarthyism. Joe McCarthy from the 1950s. Young 'uns, look it up.

[PADDYWHACK]

I often found that Europeans were better at analyzing America than we were,from a post war diet of American culture and exports,it was only their politicians who would sound an occasional negative note for obvious reasons.They were spot on with their take on our current crew,who vilified them for speaking the truth.I get nightmares thinking of what Cheney will tell shrub to do before leaving office,what further malice will spew from his rotten little heart.

[miamirat]

friends, this all changed during and after WW2. We're not supposed to trust our govenment, EVER! All governments are evil ! Long since stated. I grew up with depression survivors and they sure as hell knew the lies and propaganda of the 20's, 30's and 40's. With the mass movement of the population during the war and the exodus of draft age blacks to escape the bullet catcher role assigned by the local draft boards from the south. A lot of history of the evil liars that our government has always been got lost. Been more than 2 generations of history lost and a flim-flam psudo-capitalist false democracy interchangble with the republic we are. These guys don't believe in democacy here or anywhere. They all want to be the dictator. So do I. I'm too lazy and to squimish to kill like the hogs we did in on the farm for foods.

The only, ONLY way to fix this is a state by state popular demand with correct constitutional means to call a constitutional convention that does not include any of the currently veted corrupt politial elite that runs both sides and the middle today. Go read your constitution ... and see how many parts of it have simply been violated in the name of War time needs. NO standing army. No Income tax to fund the corruption. No corporations with the rights and privleges of a person. Take it back to ground zero and add only those things that discourage criminal minds from wanting to risk their lives by partipating in the tratorous activities that our leadership currently doesn't even necessasrily know is just that. YOU CANNOT FIX THIS AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL. IT MUST BE DONE WITH THIS MECHANISM TO HAVE ANY HOPE OF SUCCESS.

[krissymax]

Excellent Comment - Considering the anger and outrage that we all felt after 9/11 when we felt that 3,000 innocent Americans were killed by Bin Laden, how much greater must the anger of all the Islamic countries toward the U.S. be? Didn't we do nearly the same thing? We went into Iraq, a country that DID NOT attack us and calously killed innocent civilians in shock and awe. Our leader George W. has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and George Bush continually connected Iraq to 9/11 and tried to make Iraq "pay back" for 9/11. Bringing war to the Taliban, Afganistan, and Bin Laden, was justified. But, how different was it for us to attack Iraq and destroy the lives of millions of people (between the deaths, refugees, etc.) The flame of hatred that George W. Bush has sparked in the Islamic world against us, has created an endless war of hatred. We can never afford to have another leader like this incompetent, greedy, and dare I say insane fool. (See George W's press conference of last week - I was stunned, he looked drunk, on drugs, or literally insane).

[bablyonuc]

alec what you say is scary BUT TRUE...from your mouth to GODS ears....

[Nah]

I'm confused when you say its the US will destroy the earth's environment.

Twas American Al Gore just recently staged LiveEarth concerts and planted some trees to offset their burden. What did this noble world at large do?
The rest of the world doesn't answer to our GOP. Europe is the best, most progressive place (remember you wanted to move there once) with free everything. Where's their free alternative fuel solutions already?

[Itzvicki]

Greenspan is another quid pro quo opportunist
just like a Tenet, Franks, or Fleischer- the stinking detritus of this rotted Ship of Bush, who feasted in its
galley and then bailed out to cash out with a tell-all book before their reputations were finally buried in Davey Jones' locker. Any of these scum pond denizens would gladly sell out their mothers. And we the galley slaves keep rowing, buying, and paying attention.

[Nonamnesiac]

Alec may have scratched the surface of the real problem -- no one is willing to do what is scientifically necessary in order to save the planet. Rather than use the current technology to at least figure out how to provide all humanity with a reasonable standard of living without depleting limited resources and destroying the environment, popular "feel-good" solutions are proposed, many times by corporations or individuals who will profit from those "feel good" solution. So we choose "pseudo solutions", such as hybrid autos will fix the problem when the facts are that Earth simply cannot supply the resources to provide humanity with even hybrid autos for everyone without eliminating resources critical to continued human advancement, or if we use the hybrid "pseudo solution" we ignore the plunder of resources necessary to provide everyone with a hybrid means billions of others will not be provided with the resources necessary in order to lead anything other than the most marginal material lives. Just think of the radical changes in the Western life style that would be required in order to reverse the fact that 6% of the world's population consumes 60% of the world's resources -- and making that correction doesn't even deal with limitations on resources necessary in order that Earth's resources are not depleted.

Many would argue the problem is overpopulation. But it really is disingenuous to tell those in the portions of the world prone to overpopulation that they must take draconian measures to cut population growth when we are consuming the bulk of the resources of the Planet.

Without the honesty to objectively determine what the Earth can safely provide everyone without depleting limited resources or destroying the environment or both, we end up having research done from the perspective of those who want to keep what they have and solutions are proposed on that basis. This means unimageable horrors to vast majority of the populations of the world, ultimately leading to war, pandemics, global warming and an ever more hostile environment (from humanity's perspective anyway).

[provgrays]

Even if the best kind of candidates were running for public office now, they would get nowhere without selling out, body and soul, to the special interests that run this country. The process is sick with money.

Even the Supreme Court has ruled that money is a form of speech. The old saying really is true. MONEY TALKS.

Don't forget the two stolen elections which allowed Bush to slink into office. The electoral process is not fair, honest or accountable. We are a Democratic republic in name only.

Your concern is well justified.

[init]

Very well put, Alec. From what I have read of yours, this says it all. Thank you.

[Charlene]

Alec is right on---except for his belief that voting will save us.
These electronic vote machines are able to be rigged & have already been rigged by both Republicans & Democrats. So, it no longer matters who we vote for or even if we vote at all--because the powers that be can & will change it to suit themselves.
That's why no matter how many letters & calls we make--our elected officials do not listen.
The only good news out of all this is that none of the voting matters anyway because every candidate is under the thumb of the bankers/co­rporations that run both our country & the world. Even if they start out honest--they won't end up that way unless they don't like living.

[ProgPitBull]

Then it's time to support HR 811 - the Rush Holt verified voting bill - that will create verified paper records for voting machines in 2008, and also create uniform national standards for counting, recounting, and auditing those votes.