Bobotheclown's Comments (181)

“Yes, that seems to be the path we are on. The Afghans and the military can control what happens on the ground in 2011, whether it is quiet or bloody, and the result will effect the election. Obama will run no matter what because as the first black President he cannot accept such a voluntary disgrace as resignation. So the Republican contender in 2012 will probably win. Since it is a mid administration election the strongest Republicans will refuse to run thinking they have no chance. A dark horse will be chosen and suddenly we will find ourselves further to the right than W was, on a downhill race with disaster. Or who knows, maybe everything will turn out fine.”

“Something that never seems to be mentioned is the fact that this kind of incursion has never worked before. Incursions widen wars and that is their real purpose. (The 'success" of the Iraq incursion is an illusion based on the fact that we PAID the enemy to stop fighting us! When the money stops, the war will start.) Moreover, every value that is being talked about, from nation building, to our own national security, will be negatively impacted when we anger another entire country with a cruel and corrupt occupation. Actions have repercussions and when we do wrong we are going to pay. 9/11 itself was payback for previous insults to a culture that we do not understand. Bin Laden has made his reasons for attacking us perfectly clear and has also described what he wants to see before he calls off his Al Queda. The pullout that he requests would not effect our national security in anyway, but it would effect the profits of oil companies. And that, I guess, is Bin Ladens point. He has more control of our military than the President has, and that, I guess, is another of his points. There are ways out of this that advantage the American people but we do not seem to have a representative at the table to present them for us. But Bin Laden and his followers are in this for life. They will continue to make their points until eventually they are heard.”

“You imply that he was poor. From that I assume that he joined the military because that was the only decent paying job he could get. (That's what survey's find is the reason that most people are in the enlisted ranks of today's all volunteer military.) So he was fighting to keep his paycheck. That's what he was fighting for.”

“Don't be so cynical. Cynicism is the refuge of the weak. The fact is that all countries, including ours, have a wealth and power structure that attempts to pull the strings in their favor. This is human nature and it is normal. And it was taken into consideration by our founders when they set up our government of "checks and balances". In fact the control of our government has always been a struggle between the forces of wealth and concentrated interest and the forces of populism and equality. And as powerful as the trusts have been they have also been busted in the past. The power equaltion moves back and forth between these centers as it was meant to do. And this trading of influence centers has happened often since the 1800's (example: the Civil War) and up to our present time. What is different lately is the influence of affiliated power groups that have assumed a kind of "secret government' control that strongly influences elections and policy. These are the same old groups (oil, finance, military contracting) that have joined with more modern groups (intelligence agencies, media conglomerates) to produce a kind of one party (or ideology) control of government that we all instinctively feel but have a hard time describing. So"we the people" have been in the game all along, until recently, and "we the people" will make a come back when enough light has been thrown on these pernicious new developments.”

“Thank you Michael Moore for saying, ahead of time, what must be said. Your comments were prescient and heart felt and will most likely be prophetic. I am struck by how few other people who have a "bully pulpit" tried in any way to influence this terrible decision before it happened. It seems that most commentators, most pundits and readers of the huffington post are bystanders in the story of their own lives. This decision to go down the road to an almost certain third Vietnam has been almost invisible in the news for the last 10 months. Recently it has appeared only as a reality show teaser "don't forget to tune in to see what Obama will do! And now a word from our sponsor, Halliburto­n." In the final analysis, war is the single most dramatic and important decision any President will make and war ALWAYS defines a President. It is instructive that we have lost every war we have fought since WWII (Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Iran, Nicaraguia, Iraq) while at the same time each war has become more expensive than the last. Our military cannot be stopped by our government and yet cannot win without the support of the people. Wars are backed with money and finally the Treasury is empty as well. We enter Afghanistan weak, bankrupt and divided and no one says anything. Except for a few people like you. Thank you. Your words don't make a difference but thank you for saying them anyway.”

“No, many people care but the political process is compromised and no longer represents the will of the people. In the last election the people had the choice between the ring wing ravings of McCain who was obviously compromising every ideal he held sacred for his life long goal of running for President, and Obama, a person beholding to conservative military interests who was not obviously compromised and who had a way with words. A way of lying that was convincing. Each took money from and were the representatives of the existing oil, finance, and military industrial establishments. Wealth and power are not necessarily bad things since any society must be managed by someone. But the problem today is the scale of these power centers. We have succumbed to the "trusts" of Teddy Rosevelt and the military-industrial complex of Eisenhower. They are too big and too powerful to stop without a President with the will to fight a very dangerous battle. We have found our greatest enemy since WWII and it is not Bin Laden, it is us. As Ben Franklin said after the first Constitutional convention "we have given you a Republic, if you can keep it."”

“Correct. The hidden power structure in America is no different than that of any large industrialized country. The wealth centers have always been concentrated in the oil, finance and military contracting industries. (It is not really that hidden since investigative journalists have been writing books about it for 40 years.) The thing that has happen recently (after WWII) is that the new intelligence industry (CIA after 1947) made alliances with the oil interests in particular and with the wealthy elite (Skull and Bones at Yale for instance) in general. The wealthy have always had their own intelligence networks. With the addition of the CIA they aquired a free hand with almost the power of a secret government. This free hand has allowed them to distort our political process and place "ringers" into high offices everywhere. Cheney and the Bush family have oil and intelligence ties that go back into the 50's and have both have benefited from powerful ancestors in politics. We have a ruling class now and they force all candidates to make deals. Obama is as compromised and as any politician before him and only personal courage can get him out of that trap. JFK had that courage. Obama does not.”

“"I don't think he has a choice here, I really don't."
In what sense does the Commander-in-Chief not have a choice about war? Not in the legal sense, he has the power to to ANYTHING he pleases. Not in the financial sense, he can hide budgets, and push costs into the future just like all the Presidents before him. Not in the political sense, he has the bully pulpit which can raise a strong coalition on any issue that he cares about. What then could restrain his choices? A couple of things. A a person not born into wealth and power must make deals with money and power, and in America those deals relate to oil interests and military contracting. Those interests now require their payback or his Presidency will falter and die and he will not be able to squeeze out the legislation that he wants, such as healthcare. Obama the practical is a compromise man. Born into a half and half world, he has learned how to play both sides against the middle, but not how to be his own man. The tradegy of Obama has already been written and it is called the tradgey of LBJ, another President who thought he could buy off the military industrial complex with a little war while he pushed through his Great Society. We all know how this will work out, the only thing different this time is that this time it will be so much sadder.”

“I would not defend either Washington or Jefferson as being "pure as the driven snow". They both had their share of faults as history has clearly described. But they stand as the irreducible authors of American exceptionalism that put this country on its footing to become a country based on unusual principles. Washington, a war leader who defeated the reigning superpower of the day and who was considered justifyable an "emperor" at the time, handed over his sword to civilian leadership and retired to his farm. This put down a political marker that has effected world history to this day. Jefferson took a normal revolution based on economic conflicts of the wealthy and turned it into a manifesto of enlightenment ideals. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, a document that has changed human history. These are facts that are not pink and fuzzy. They are facts more powerful than any that have happened in our lifetime. Vietnam was the first televised war because the 60's was the first televised revolution and the "revolutionaries" were those kids in the street who ended up drafted into rice paddies. They didn't have money or cameras, but the reporters did, and the story was always the anti-war movement.”

“There was a saying back then: "no one died in Vietnam, they were all wasted." Vietnam did turn out to be a sign of things to come as we transitioned from defensive wars with a national defense purpose to elective wars based on economic interests. Soldiers who are caught up in these things have no choice but to be effected. As they endure life and death struggles they have no firm moral footing to fall back on. The mind reels when one considers where they must end up if they allow themselves to think about who is in the right and who is in the wrong when one invades a country that never threatened us. I suppose a soldier just has to shut down thinking altogether. And when that happens the soldier is not a soldier anymore but rather part of a mob. A representative of a barbarian impulse that goes back to the dawn of time, killing for the sake of the king, killing as a way of life. We now see that Vietnam was not a war at all, it was a breakdown of our humanity from which this country has never recovered. The poison of Vietnam has entered politics, the military, the press, the schools, everywhere. America changed from the old country of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson into the brave new country that we inhabit today. Our founders would not know what to make of us. They would handle us with a chain.”

“A brave man, he had to turn his own guns toward his own people to make them stop. There are other hero's like him that are unsung in Vietnam. Brave men who stood up to the military when the chips were down. There was an undocumented war within the wider army at that time with soldiers widely disobeying illegal orders, killing officers, forging reports. There is no way to know at this point what really happened. Ultimately the chain of command broke down all over Vietnam and the American military disintegrated as a fighting unit. This story is never told. There are many people who are still afraid and are still hiding knowledge of what happened back then.”

“We have a two party system and no matter how unqualified these contenders may be one of them will be the President. Our electorate is usually in a "vote for the least bad candidate" mood which means that as a campaign drives on the contenders tend to be perceived as "equal" and the race goes to the person who makes the least political mistakes. It is clear that Palin has as good a chance as any of the other five leading GOP candidates of being nominated in 2012 so no matter what her actual worthiness might be, she could capture the "permission to run" as an emotional favorite of the neo-confederate rascals who have resorted to desperate measures before. All she will need is for the Democratic coalition to distintegrate into factions as it has done so often in the last 30 years and voila! Palin could be President. America has survived incompetent Presidents before (Buchanan, Harding, Bush) and it will again. The issue goes deeper to the viablility of our system itself. To survive, our electoral process needs to be a learning and self-corrective system that tends toward rationality and long term success. What we now see is a strange volatile system that is more and more picking eccentrics and allowing narrow interests to distort our laws, the very thing our system of checks and balances was set up to prevent. Is the turmoil in the world today natures way of moving to the next political idea?”

“As a scientist, how do you know what the pay is for all the people in your profession? As a scientist, how do you compensate for the different backgrounds and skills that various workers bring to their jobs? And as a scientist, how do you define the job requirements amoung the many different positions in any fields as being "the exact same position"?”

“With just a little study you will find that this is not a myth. Consult the IEEE website and you will find that the jobless rate for Electrical Engineers has doubled in the last year, is still climbing, and is the highest in 9 years. The unemployment rate for older engineers (over 50) of all disciplines is the highest in recorded history. Software engineers are regularly put out of work with the disgraceful H-1B program that allows low cost foreign workers to take the jobs of US born engineers.
As I pointed out, I am not talking about engineers in the defense industry where there are legal requirements that mandate US citizenship and where proprietary CAD systems are still tolerated. As far as CAD programs are concerned there are systems in China that are not available here. They will be increasingly required as manufacturing continues to move to China.
The point was that there is a role for engineering outside of the defense industries but those jobs are increasingly not available to American engineering students.”

“You're welcome. But no, I was one of those engineering students in college.”

“True, Engineering ended as a significant career field in the US (outside of defense industries) long ago. The few advanced degrees still available in the US are pursued largely by foreign workers who are going to seek employment in other countries. Engineering, being technology itself, has become completely portable through technology. Iconic products such as the Windows operating system are actually designed by programmers in Russia and India using satellite hookups for realtime development coordination. But inside of engineering the gender pay scales are mostly equal since many employers do not know the gender of their workers to begin with.

Why are HR and social worhers paid differently? Because HR workers are employed by large corporations that have higher pay scales. Social workers are employed by state and local governments that are strapped for cash.
What is more important here is that career fields that are important to human survival offer no protection or reward for the people who do them commensurate with their importance. The economic system encourages us all to become lawyers, executives, politicians, and criminals. Eventually our system will stop running when we run out of the selfless people who do important work for low pay and enable our entire civilization to exist.”

“The Libertarians are an interesting case. Much more comfortable in the Republican party than the Democratic they hue to an abstract vision of politics that is almost "Ayn Randian" in its theoretical power and yet naive in its belief that its vision is sharable by anyone else. The Libertarians do not want to get down and dirty but the Christian Nationalists do. They have targeted powerful people and have pursued secret deals to advance their cause. They feel no compulsion against lying to "outsiders" whenever it is convenient. And they have made common cause with others who will vote their way. But they have been clear that when they take power they will purge themselves of the impure. The Libertarians will be surprised I am sure when they are ejected from the halls of power once the Christian Nationalists take over. The Libertarians will find themselves in the same spot as the liberals that they now rail against. Marginalized, persecuted, and turned into "evil doers" as the movement they helped into power destroys everything that they hold dear.”

“True. I did not use the word "Taliban" but the new Christian Nationalists are exactly that in our society. They are not simply the far right or Libertarians or anything that we have seen before. They have already made common cause with fundamentalists in Turkey, Iraq, and Afghanistan and have menbers in the UN who are working with these groups aganist US foreign policy. They are part of what can now be seen as a worldwide movement against a broad range of western ideas that go far beyond what we normally think of as a political party. This is not a "religion" in the common use of that word, it is a political/­cultural/m­ilitarist movement that correctly describes itself as "revolutionary". These are the forces that will tear up the new century just as the communist revolutionary movements tore up the last. Civil War? Possibly, but world war definatey. These are the people who could actually drop the next bomb and bring to fruition the fears of a generation.”

“Modern medicine has a place. It is the most powerful tool that we have to treat individuals who are in extreme health difficulty and I am glad that it is available. That said, health and its power to resist many diseases is another subject, and one that is seldom taken as seriously as medicine. Most other countries that have been around longer than we have, have developed a local diet that is relatively healthy. (Chinese, Italian, etc.) In America we have developed fast food, cheeseburgers, and food on a stick. We are going in another direction and our statistical measures show a degrading of national health over time. It's true that pharmaceutical companies make a profit selling chemical cures for our various diseases, but it is not their place to devise nationwide health standards and practices. It is the medical professions and they don't seem to be doing a good job of it. It is also a natural function of government to mandate policies that move the population toward improved health. But strong central government is out of style and these concerns have been abolished from Washington. What to do? The only answer is to turn health (not healthcare) into a primary political issue by connecting it with the priorities of national security. Only then can we develop the will to move the whole country in a healthy direction.”

“Yes, but. The American political system is strongly biased toward a two party system due to the effects of the "winner take all" policies of the electoral college. Third parties can be formed but it is nearly impossible for them to win. Knowing this, viable third party movements will not form a third party. They will attempt to take over one of the two established parties and use it's priviledged position to win electoral votes. What we are seeing in the Republican party today is exactly this: a viable third party has formed (Christian Nationalists) and they are fighting the traditional conservatives of the Republican party for control. The election of W gave the evangelicals the upper hand and now they are purging the Republican party of it's "Republican" members. The final result will be a party called "Republican" but that will be the "Christian Nationalist" party functionally. Once this rebranding is accomplished the Republican party base will consist of its traditional automatic 30% of the electorate plus 100% of evangelicals all of whom will be motivated voters. This new base could produce a reliable majority to win elections without needing the traditional business vote of the present Republican party. The result will be a religious and a secular political party system similar to middle eastern countries. And like those countries, it will signal an increased intolerance and violence in American life.”

“True, The CIA and NSA have "black" budgets for security reasons but when they were created there was legislation that required Congressional oversight to those budgets. What we see happening is that these agencies stonewall or mislead Congress which has no way to independently check the facts. These agencies have often worked AGAINST the stated policies of the civilian leadership because they think that they know better how to conduct policy. History has also shown that these agencies tend to hue to a conservative and sometimes paranoid worldview. In the "competition to govern" these agencies have a tremendous advantage. Their actions are secret even from Congress. Their personnel are permanent as opposed to the constantly changing leadership of the elected branches of government. These advantages have not been lost on the Pentagon which has been increasing the size of its own "black" budgets. In the end the only people who lose are those who are NOT conservative or paranoid, those who want to pursue a policy of peaceful democratic reform that is not based on an imperialistic worlview that uses fear as a political device. The only way to guarantee the survival of the human race is to pursue peace and the only way to do that is to re-establish civilian control over the renagade and anachronistic cold war agencies that have spun out of control and that are running our government.”

“The tradgedy that has befallen the American military is profound. These brave volunteers join not because they want to "fight" but because they want to defend the American values described in the oath they swore. Those words among others are "the Constituti­on...". Missing from that oath are mentions of the Republican Party, Christian doctrine, war profiteering, and imperialist dreams of New World orders. These soldiers are then sent to fight immoral wars such as Iraq. (Immoral because it was a war of choice and not necessity. Immoral becasue it was based on a lie told to the American people. Immoral because it weakens the respect of America around the world and makes further war and suffering more likely.) Soldiers caught up in an immoral war have no chance. Soldiers have always been treated as "expendable" but when there is a shared and righteous goal their sacrifice has been easier to bear. But now the disgust that is associated with their war will filter down and effect every one of them. Eventually all immoral wars are lost because the weight of shame become too great for the voting public and they are ended politically. Vietnam used to be the lesson that everyone knew. But it seems that we have forgotten history. Now we will repeat it.”

“Thank you. I would only add that Eisenhower had originally intended the phrase to be "military-corporate complex" which went along with his earlier warnings about the growth of influence of corporations in general. His speech writers talked him into changing it to the less encompassing "military-­industrial complex" in his final speech. Eisenhower had seen the results of corporate-­government partnerships (fascism) up close in WWII and did not want to see that repeated here. And in a sense it has not been. What we have developed is more a "national security" state that keeps large parts of the functions of government secret from the people under the rubric of national security. Both political parties went along with the establishment of this system during the cold war. Now that we are "post everything" this behemouth of a secret national security based military industrial complex is beyond the reach of voters or Congressman. Why? First, It is first secret. Second, it is spread out over all the states and represents jobs at the local level to almost everyone in Congress. They do not have the freedom to end these programs. (Although the F22 was recently killed. But it was opposed by the Pentagon which wanted that money for different weapons. Had the Pentagon still supported it it would still be on the books.)”

“Irregardless of their oaths, military leaders have a long history of opposing Democratic Presidents. Whether the Army is integrated or not does not change the fact that the military sees itself as a conservative and recently religious organization that does not regard Democratic Presidents as legitimate leaders. Think Truman and MacArther, JFK and Walker, JFK and LeMay, Carter and Singlaub, Clinton and all the general staff after the gays in the military decision. There is a long line of recalled Generals who have violated their oaths when dealing with Democratic Presidents. It is not hard to find cases of outright mutiny in the ranks on the order of MacArthers disobediance to direct orders. The Army's odd decision not to provide security for JFK while in Dallas is another key case in point. We have recently been subjected to numerous instances of uniformed officers speaking at political rallies opposing the policies of the commander-in-chief to which they have sworn an oath. That is all that is needed to know what a modern military commander's oath is worth.
By the way, officer's commisions and promotions are largely rubber stamped by the Congress who grant them as favors to political friends. One can regularly ignore Congress as long as you kiss up to the chain of command.”

“Government has a defacto structure and all decision makers inside the government work within that structure. The Pentagon situation is not unique, there are other departments which display the same behavior that you call an "error". The CIA has never been audited as well and there is no hue and cry. The core situation is this: since WWII our government has been reorganized into a national security state. Agencies such as the CIA and the Pentagon are now branches of government which are legally independent of Congress and the White House. They are not elected branches of government so you might say that they are dictatorships and you would be right. They represent the largest budgets in the government but that is, as you say, an estimate. In reality they ARE the government and they allow a certain percentage of revenues to flow to public uses that are controlled by Congress. It is naive to complain about accountability from the Pentagon when they have no obligation to provide accountability. The Congress exists at the pleasure of the Pentagon and our leaders are well aware of that. Measures such as the CFO act of 1990 are not "eyewash", they are window dressing to placate constituants such as yourself who do not understand who is really in charge of Washington.”