Darell Issa's Congressional "To Do" List

MeanMesa would like to take this opportunity to visit the long suffering Patriot from California who has become the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Honorable, Mr. Darrell Issa.  Of course, any MeanMesa visitor might be wondering "Why would I be interested in another dirty shirt neo-con from California?"

Simply because he is creepier than the other denizens of the freak show?

Oh, maybe.  However, Mr. Issa has meticulously set himself even above the grotesque norm when it comes to wing-nut GopCons.  Mr. Issa has been repeatedly promising his BagCon constituents that he intends "investigate the hell out of" all the favorite targets of the right wing once he has the power.  Now, of course, he has the power.

So, in the jobless aftermath of a tanked economy, Mr. Issa has begun his preliminary work on impeaching the President for "high crimes and misdemeanors" just as the process is spelled out in our Constitution.  For those of us who remember the "Kenneth Starr March to the Sea" during the Clinton Presidency, the details of this more modern rehash of the same tired story doesn't bode well for a productive Congress.

Congressman Darrell Issa, R-Ca (image source)

  Illustration by Andrew Zbihlyj, 

Source Photo: Louie Palu/Zuma Press

Now, Darrell has already been a busy little guy.  One of the very first items of business on his plate -- even before his boxes had been unpacked -- was a quick letter to every "friend" his lobbyist staff could think of who might be willing to pony up a few "campaign contribution"  bucks to get rid of some regulation or other.  Of course, this skanky little maneuver might look relatively decent to the information challenged voter, but under the relentless, microscopic eye of Short Current Essays, Mr. Issa's "feet of clay" begin to melt instantly.

As our esteemed Mullah Nassr Edin might have said, "Gadzooks!  What a crook!"

My, oh, my.  Where could such a nasty little fellow have come from in the first place?  Rather than ranting on for another six pages, let's take a look at Mr. Issa's background.  You know, his "free market" experience which has prepared him so well for this job.  It won't take much more Googling than a quick trip to Wikipedia.  (Read the entire entry here.)

Long-Suffering Republican Patriot, Darrel Issa

Following the 2010 elections, Issa sent a letter to "more than 150 trade associations, companies and think tanks," including "the oil industry, drug manufacturers and other trade groups and companies" asking them "to tell him which Obama administration regulations to target" in the upcoming Congress.^[34] Critics have charged that Issa was "embracing regulatory capture."^[35] Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Issa's letters were tantamount to “inviting businesses to tell us what they want us to do as opposed to protecting the American people.”^[36]

Issa dropped out of high school and enlisted for a three-year tour in the Army on his 17th birthday.^[3][4] He served as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician, defusing bombs, after having been shown a movie about soldiers in that specialty during World War II. He would later claim his unit had provided security for President Richard Nixon, sweeping stadiums for bombs prior to games in the 1971 World Series, and that he had always received the highest approval ratings during his service.^[5] A 1998 investigation by the San Francisco Examiner found that these claims were not true: Nixon did not attend any of that year's World Series games, and at one point Issa was transferred to a supply depot after receiving an unsatisfactory evaluation. According to Issa, the Examiner reporter had misunderstood an anecdote he had related.^[3]

A fellow soldier, Jay Bergey, claimed that Issa stole his Dodge Charger in 1971 while they were serving together and that, the day after he confronted Issa, the car was found abandoned on a nearby expressway. Asked about this charge in 2011, Issa denied it and suggested it was possible that other soldiers stole the car or that Bergey, whom he claims had a drinking problem, had abandoned it himself while intoxicated."^[3]

After receiving a hardship discharge in 1972 following his father's heart attack, Issa earned his General Educational Development (GED) certificate and began taking classes at Siena Heights University, a small Catholic college in Adrian, Michigan. He continued his military service in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC)."^[3]

Twice during that year he was arrested. In March, Issa and his brother William were charged with stealing a Maserati from a dealer's showroom in Cleveland. Issa says it was a matter of mistaken identity by the Cleveland Heights police; the case was later dismissed.^[3]

Before that had happened, in December 1972, police in Adrian pulled Issa over for going the wrong way on a one-way street and, as he was retrieving his registration, saw in the car's glove compartment what turned out to be a .25-caliber Colt automatic handgun inside an ammunition box, along with a military pouch containing 44 rounds, a tear gas gun and two rounds for that. Issa was charged with carrying a concealed weapon

He was sentenced to six months' probation and paid a small fine.^[3].^[6] At the time Issa told police that Ohio law allowed such possession of a handgun with a justification; his was the need to protect the car and himself. Years later, he said that the car and gun were his brother's, which William Issa supported. He had been unaware of the gun's presence when inadvertently driving the car the wrong way down the alley and that, to the extent of his knowledge, there had been no ammunition present. The entire incident, he had believed, had been expunged.^[3]

Issa later transferred to Kent State University, where he completed his studies. His brother William believes this period shaped Issa's conservatism, in contrast to the leftism that prevailed among much of the student body there. After graduating with a degree in business administration in 1976, he returned to active Army service as an officer.^[3]

So, after the onslaught begins and Mr. Issa and his cronies have begun their highest priority Congressional "work" of impeaching the President and indicting every other Democrat standing still long enough to be dragged into a Grand Jury, let's not be confused about the little House member at the helm of the effort.

Thanks!  All you half-wit California tea baggers!

The Neo-Con Wasteland: Life Without Honor or Trust

MeanMesa has posted before about an interesting but discouraging side of the neo-conservative psychology.  Attempts to understand the motivating principles of such, uh, unusually unhappy people leads one to some disturbing conclusions.

We have said before that neo-cons are allergic to leadership.  They cannot contenance that scintillating moment when more rational folks take the breathtaking leap of faith to trust the essential character of other humans.  Neo-cons cannot abide with the fundamental concept of trusting the character and being of another.

The problem they encounter?

They think everyone is like them.

Naturally, the predictable result of all thoughts conducted under such a dark and frightening cloud of suspicion is a modern political version of Ashieta's "Terror of the Moment."  The all-penetrating facts of reality leave no refuge for the man who foolishly demands that events meet his unexamined expectations.

The superficial insistence on such gaseous foundations of ideological purity foisted upon these otherwise reasonable people converts all accommodation of any sort to abject fear.  The AM talkers, the unchallenged Senators and the dirty shirt preachers simply continue to "harvest" their grisly political prizes from those they have reduced to a state of continual hysteria, hopelessness and depression.

We see this same tiring script emerge with all the discussions of the President's nominee for the Supreme Court.  There is little room left for considering the capability and talent to perform the job.  Instead, there arises an almost fanatical demand that the deepest character of the nominee be revealed -- and guaranteed!

The "bolt which has fallen into the gears" is firmly founded on an absolute lack of trust.  No nominee will be acceptable absent an perpetual and unchangeable oath to neo-con principles which have yet to be defined.

Oooops.  This is getting a little abstract.  Let's clarify things with an allegorical equivalent.

Let's say that instead of hiring a new Supreme Court Justice, we are faced with hiring an assembly line worker who will paint cars produced in our factory.  Of course our plant produces cars of all colors, and our salesmen insist that, whatever the color, the paint shall be applied to very high standards of quality.

Although we have several applicants for the job, one of them stands out as a car painter with obviously remarkable skill and good work habits.  However, in this applicant's interview, we ask if he has a "favorite color."

He answers that, indeed, he does have a favorite color -- say, azure blue.

In our discussion about this applicant later, we decide that we can simply not trust his honor and loyalty because some of the cars we plan to manufacture will be painted crimson.  If we are neo-cons who trust no one and, in fact, believe that there is absolutely no one who can be trusted, we have no other choice than to consider a less qualified painter -- one who answered our question by saying that, no, he had "no favorite color, at all."

In the end, we have indulged our suffocating universal cynicism and ended up with a crappy car painter.   As our quality plummets and our sales decline, we reap cold comfort from the fact that we have hired such a safe and compliant, although somewhat unskilled, employee.

It is a tale of seriously misplaced priorities.

We see a similar, desperate tactic in full play with the nomination of Elena Kagan.  No one -- including our President -- knows with absolute certainty precisely what her ideological slant might be or the degree to which she might "tilt" Supreme Court decisions to reflect such a bias.

We are asked to trust the President's judgement and the nominee's judicial objectivity.  Is this such an outrageous expectation?

As MeanMesa visitors and progressives, we have the positive optimism and confidence to take such a step.  After all, we have handed the "keys to the kingdom" over to the man in the White House, and with them, an implicit commitment to trust that the decisions and outcomes arising from his judgement will also be honorable.

The undeveloped, puerile tantrum which insists that the threat of possible deception paralyze every opportunity to move ahead with our democracy must be relegated to the whining and whimpering "Sunday School" graduates on the other side.  Their lamentations and dire predictions were already penned -- with blanks for the insertion of a name -- before this nomination was even ever made.

The neo-cons not only expect the worst and impose their paranoia on every hill billy and bigot who will listen to their drivel, they seem to be irreconcilably invested in extracting one disaster after another with their insatiable craving for reality without risk.  That philosophy is made by "dead men walking." 

Such crippling cynicism was never the underpinning of America's great history of success.  The tantrums have moved from being simply irritating to  being out rightly exhausting.  There is, now, clearly no limit to the damage the neo-cons are willing to inflict on our country to achieve their return to power.

Screw them.  MeanMesa and most other Americans are totally over their adolescent shenanigans.

And Who Shall Bear These Colors?

Join MeanMesa for a moment of waxing prose...

MeanMesa is challenged by the darkness which has descended upon our progressive cause. Massachusetts, a dead health care bill, a legion of lobbyist mercenaries gleefully preparing to defeat us again in our limp, gutless assault on the banksters and gangsters who have wrecked our homeland, wounded her more deeply than all the terrorists in the world might have.

We have an army, but we have no voice, no leader. The neo-con monkeys in the Congress humiliate us with every puerile outrage their small, tragic minds can imagine, and all the while, we stand there and take it. Our Democrats, like little girls agape as they watch the bully shove one friend after another, silent, look not one moment for anything akin to victory or honor -- only for a place to hide.

Day after day, the Republicans twist our words and our world ever further toward their tormented dream while we only retreat farther and farther from the contest. We have sent Obama, but we have left him standing alone. Without us, he applies his formidable intellect to minimize the disaster, but he cannot hold that lonely line too much longer. We have sent him no aid, no relief column -- not even a torn scrap of a flag we might have all agreed serves to show our colors, our will.

Instead, we have filled our mouths with oatmeal, hoping against hope that the fearful conservatives might, out of some unexpected altruism, reward us with less punishment than otherwise for not having spoken so loudly against them when they have fully taken the field for a victory we have not challenged.

Here and now, while defeats and insults surround us, we see them dance, singing the shallow song of foolhardy arrogance to an audience of the uninterested. These soldiers whom we fear so much are but crones, dusty mannequins acting out what seems to be a life. They have no blood for in their veins a saddened greed fills them far too full of bile to leave a space for life's red kiss. We can find them by their blinders, all aglitter with cheap dull stones of suspicious quality and unknown origin.

Meantimes, both our own bright goals and our own strong souls are tarnished by a long forsaken courage. Dreams we have must be poorly sold away. No one speaks for us. No words arise from the fires in our hearts. Only the dismal gray of defeat and gloom are proffered forth for the brave, hopeful message we once bore. Hope is shrouded in dark veils of reasons. Reasons! We are paralyzed by reasons!

Oh, we lament. Nothing can be done. Our dim tomorrow is lit only by memories of long distant days when our song might still have breathed. Now, we sit, surrendered to the wind storm, snared amid the remnant of a gossamer web long ago abandoned by a desert spider now dead for seasons. Hopeless. Our milky eyes are no longer wet by those last tears. We cannot now so much as recall those last tender drops in our forlorn, frightened memory. We know only fear and cowardice, a wretched mating organized by despair.

A soul wrenching, carefully crafted, yet, totally unfounded despair.  We remain, in fact, as we might see ourselves with clearer eyes.  We are still an army, numbered far beyond our adversary,  We stand ever ready, armed with our temporarily hidden spirit, our carelessly set aside, trustworthy decency and our indomitable conviction of our unconquerable vision.

We cry out for the last of our champions. Lead us back to the fight! We can still walk, and we can still stand! Better death in glory than by rust of spirit!  Our Captains are cowards and crooks!  We have chafed under their "leadership" long enough!  While we bleed and retreat, they only stumble, crazed by a toxic brew of fear and avarice, guarding themselves.

Yet, there are indeed champions remaining for us, brave, bold and ready to step to the line. Why, one strong, sincere word will sound the trumpet for our return to the field of battle! But, just now, that golden horn is suffocated in our reasons. Reasons for our caution. Reasons for our fright. Reasons for our despair. Reasons for our surrender. Reasons for our defeat.

Who would MeanMesa send into the fray? Who would MeanMesa follow to the edge of Hell itself? There may be more than two, but heroes we have!

In the House, Alan Grayson has shown his mettle and his bravado. He has spoken to the wretches and not apologized, stood firmly on his ground. His voice is one of intellect, but more important, one with spirit! While his fellows hide away behind their reasons, Grayson speaks for us, to us. His timeless message?

"I am not afraid. Here's how you do it."

In the Senate we have bemoaned the sickly odor of the sub-humans, but not risen to stop them. The Liebermanns, Baucuses and Nelsons -- both the timid and the corrupt -- deserve to be as frightened and discouraged as they have made us. But who will speak for us?  We have words of fire, but we have yet to find voice!

MeanMesa, its hopes founded only on intuition, says Al Franken. We all know he has a voice just as formidable now as before. We know he has an intellect more than a match for the task. But more than anything, we know he has the spirit to lead us. We have seen it.

The miscreants should shudder in despair when they think of their petty schemes enduring what these two spokesman will effortlessly discharge once the contest is joined.

MeanMesa, already inebriated by the sprite of Shelley, recalls Ozymandias. It will be cast in the same words as those solitary, ancient steles under old Assyria's desert sands.

Ozymandias

 I met a traveler from an antique land
 Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
 Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
 half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
 And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
 The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
 And on the pedestal these words appear:
 "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
 The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley 

After all that we have endured and overcome to reach this moment of our history, will we fade into the night or make real what we have dreamt? 

will we fade into the night or make real what we have dreamt?

PS:  What could be a better place than this to post a copy of a recent email from Congressman Alan Grayson?  

Coming Soon: "The Distinguished Senator from Saudi Arabia"

Dear Chad,

Thanks to so many of you for contacting Chairman Conyers Friday and thanking him for helping to save our democracy. His office was overwhelmed with calls and e-mails. One of his staffers said that it was "like working the phones at a telethon."

I've been thinking a little more about the Supreme Court's decision. This ruling gives foreign powers more rights than U.S. citizens. Imagine that! Aramco, a corporation owned by the Saudi Arabian government, will have enormously more influence in choosing your senator than you will. That's one thing that I meant when I said that "if we do nothing, you can kiss this country goodbye."

This will not stand. It cannot stand. There are too many Americans who love this country and won't allow it to happen. And you are one of them.

We are making a movement. If you have a moment, please forward this email to five of your friends, and ask them to sign our petition at www.SaveDemocracy.net. And then a mighty voice will rise up from the land.

Courage,

Alan Grayson
Member of Congress

Remember, Ozymandias.

Who Killed Single Payer?

Senator Sanders (I-Vermont) secretly inserts ACTUAL single payer provision in the health reform bill

MeanMesa notices something "just under the horizon" which might present a true nightmare for the "we hate America" neo-con crowd in 2010.


Now, granted, the GOP has "modernized" its traditional (medieval) domestic policy ideology just a smidgeon in its ongoing efforts to break free from the on going train wreck. The old paradigm was an awkward extraction from the Book of Genesis which was used to "prove" that man kind was created in the first place to lower taxes. The new adjustment? That old single track fraud is now accompanied by a new, probably also Biblical, commitment to deny health care to poor people.


After all, how else could the neo-cons "keep" all of their "hard earned money?" Among the neo-con horde, there are those who have been "fooled" into thinking that they are rich. With wages utterly stagnant amid constantly rising costs of living for decades, -- since Ronnie Rayguns exploded middle class taxes in the '80's -- the grotesquely rich have depended on a barrage of talking points (issues of ideology simplified so much that hill billies and bigots are attracted to them) to convince even the most "credit challenged" that a.) they are actually rich, and b.) that their "riches" are being purloined relentlessly by sinister socialist schemes cooked up by Democrats.


Of course, such a menu of "day-old cat food" can only be sold to the seriously uninformed. Should any of the neo-con "cannon fodder" class actually investigate what has actually been going on, they would most likely be a little less manageable. In fact, probably a lot less manageable. Should they ever become informed -- as opposed to uninformed -- these stalwart, hypnotized "grass roots" neo-cons would probably redefine themselves as something more akin to starving Bolshevik riot mobs from Moscow's 1900's.


Well, if you are a billionaire, you would have not wasted much of your "cabana martini" time worrying about this unpleasant possibility. You've done the elitist version of due diligence. You've purchased the media. You've seen to it that folks such as Rush Limbaugh -- you know, folks who can speak good old American plain English to your carefully groomed base -- recklessly reframe the daily news to reinforce you oligarchic wet dreams day after monotonous day. So what could be a problem?


Between your comb-over troop of dirty shirt preachers, Southern Senators and drug addled talk show hosts, these dumbies remain amazingly eager to stand around in "grass roots" tea parties acting stupid. ("Okay Billy Bob, jest carry thu sign an' act mad. An y'all 'member -- NO INTERVIEWS! Them liberral's gonna trah t' trick you inta' lookin' lahk yew cain't 'splain nuthin. Beers on me when we git dun!")

The Fly in the (Billionaire) Ointment

Enter Senator Sanders. Unlike far too many of the "Democratic" Senators who have toughed out the entire health care "debate" hiding under their desks in hushed cell phone calls to their PCCC's (pharmaceutical corporation campaign contributors), Senator Sanders actually threw down the gauntlet. He inserted an amendment to the otherwise agonizingly "half-inflated balloon boy" Senate bill which would direct $10 billion dollars to the construction of regional health centers all around the nation.


Now, MeanMesa visitors, this is not to be confused with the brazen Senate "buy-off's" such as , for example, the $300 million slipped to Ben Nelson ("D?" - Nebraska) so his state would never have to pay its part of Medicaid bills or the dough -- this time $100 million -- Mary Landrieu ("D?" - Louisiana) got for casting her vote in favor of the bill. Those million dollar checks were what is called "state specific." That means that all those dollars would be spent only by the states which successfully, uh, extorted them out of the national treasury.


Anyone living anywhere else besides Nebraska or Louisiana gets nothing -- except the bill to pay for these bribes, of course.


Not so with the Sanders amendment. Not so at all! His regional health centers will be just that -- regional! That means that they will be built all over the country, providing subsidized health care -- especially preventative medicine -- to literally millions of Americans who need it. That means that there might probably be a new regional health center in your neighborhood!


Naturally, the old white men in the GOP immediately tried to torpedo his idea. "Wha' this here's nothin' else but SOCIALISM! Ef us rich whaht folk gotta' pay fer somethin' lahk this, why, our chillen' gonna' be slaves to the government! This here's so 'spensive thet there's gonna' be nuthin' but debt fo mah granchillen!"

Right.

Now let's look at the money for a minute.


Sanders plan calls for 10,000 regional centers. When we divide $10 billion dollars by 10,000 regional centers we get -- ah, subtract seven from four, carry the two -- $1 million dollars per health center. Remember, these aren't hospitals! These are nice, sensible, regional health centers providing nice, sensible local health care and preventative medicine. A million dollars per copy seems pretty reasonable. (The price tag on the whole health reform bill is around $900 billion.)


So far, so good. But what about the "debt slavery" Senator McChinless is worried about for his grandchildren?


Maybe this is a good place for some MeanMesa perspective. Senator McChinless and his penny pinching conservative crime friends had no problem whatsoever pumping literally trillions of dollars into the W's oil war in Iraq.

$10 billion is 1% of a single one of those Iraqi trillions. The United States is currently spending $3 billion per week to sustain our military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, after a little higher mathematics, the question becomes quite understandable -- even for the information challenged. Would you rather have a regional health care center or another three weeks of war in Iraq and Afghanistan?

MeanMesa's compliments to Senator Sanders.

About 2009 war costs ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/07/terror/main4704018.shtml

About Ben Nelson's "vote money" ...
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/12/21/who-s-really-to-blame-for-ben-nelson-s-medicaid-buy-off.aspx

About Mary Landrieu's "vote money" ...
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/11/the-100-million-health-care-vote.html

Caution, Conflict & Cultural Codependency

Analyzing the criticism of, well, EVERYTHING!

Egad! Critics like crickets! Literally clouds of critics have emerged from the shadows, all breathlessly repeating tiresome talking points of questionable origin, all asking rhetorical questions as if there were some kernel of originality in them. The "Cloud of Crickets" includes an unsettling array of previously progressive pundits and radio hosts of the ilk of Ron Reagan, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann and others, all willy nilly and hair aflame, mysteriously eager to rehash the drivel from the GOP again and again as if it were a matter of substance.

Obama's Afghanistan Strategy

criticized by 10,000 expert civilians with no "dog in the fight"

Aside from the dismal lack of originality, this strange appetite to join the chorus of lemmings puzzles MeanMesa. Nary a word of support or encouragement, it seems, can be spared for the President or the strategies. Only puerile outrage seems to meet the test of opinions negative enough that they are fit to be held. In the case of Afghanistan, the only grumbling accessions are driveling in from war-mongering Republicans -- many of whom sport handfuls of deferments from military service.

Notwithstanding, of course, that Obama continues to deliver on his campaign promises. Arrangements for the final extraction of US forces in Iraq have been scheduled, agreed upon by all parties and initiated. Unhappily, that was a few weeks ago -- far too long to count or, apparently, to persevere in the "marble in a mayonaise jar" mentality of these erstwhile liberals. Now, the only possible position, it seems, for a respectable progressive to hold is one of outrage that the President has not immediately withdrawn all forces from Afghanistan.

Yikes! So much for "stay the course." No mind. In a few days, dare we expect that these same forward thinking liberals will be chanting "cut and run" or "they hate our freedom" or some other such nonsense? Too many of us foolishly believed that all we ever really had to do was elect someone besides George Bush, that, once that change was accomplished, the entire world would lend every assistance to responsibly reversing all of his dreadful decisions which inserted us into these calamities in the first place.

To "ice the cake," the most psycho "hate America" Republicans have seeded the discussion with their own special toxin -- that was to be expected from the likes of them, but to have otherwise rational progressives take it up, plastering those nasty, half witted slogans like cheap wall paper across all the air waves? MeanMesa has actually "tuned out" some of these whimpering ninnies, a bit of a notable event given our habitual thirst for their normally progressive opinions.

Half-Baked, Half-Witted, Half-Truths about Afghanistan

You're Supposed to Take Seriously

1. "Our military doesn't know what the mission is. They don't know what they're doing over there."

Everyone in the United States military knows what they are doing. It's called "following orders." When anyone doesn't know what they're supposed to be doing, there are always the General Orders. Included in the General Orders is "Follow Orders."

In a theater of war, everyone knows pretty much why he is there and what he is supposed to be doing.

2. "Karzai can't be trusted to be a good partner in our counter insurgency operations. He is a crook."

Probably true, but this doesn't make the US mission in Afghanistan impossible. It only makes it harder. What would these loud mouthed whiners propose? Shoot the guy and replace him with someone from the CIA? Someone from the GOP?

Wars are like that. If you're in one, lots of better choices are simply not available. Armies are like that, too. They will do what they will do. Opinions from soft couches thousands of miles away mean disappointedly little.

3. "It will be just like Viet Nam or Iraq. It will be an endless war, and we will be hopelessly quagmired in it."

Take note: The Commander in Chief of the Afghanistan operation is Barack Obama. He has a pretty good reputation of taking things seriously and not being corrupt or thoughtless. Our national leadership during Viet Nam and Iraq was so dismally bad -- spelled p-o-l-i-t-i-c-a-l -- to have made us believe that we can never win anything anywhere. ever again. All the civilians who are afraid that this will happen again should try to remember that we have one hell of a smart President in charge and that 100,000 man American military army has one hell of a lot of fire power.

Ever notice that there is almost never any news about killing any enemies? The neo-con networks are locked on US casualties exclusively. No wonder no one thinks we can win.

To repeat the W's "Church of Death," you need a W. We have an Obama.

4. "Obama promised to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Now he's sending more troops. We're screwed. We've been lied to."

The W took the "down elevator" for eight years, sponsoring every kind of corrupt scandal he could dream up with his "crime family" cronies. Now, the elevator is going back up. Even though we realize that we started at the 1,245th basement level in January 2009, who in hell expected to be in the penthouse by this time? MeanMesa thinks Obama is "delivering the goods" even faster than he promised during the campaign.

There is apparently no speed of "delivering the goods" which can satisfy the "progressives'" codependent demand for no risk, no delay and complete control. Wha-a-a-a.

Grow up and get real. Apparently, there just didn't seem to be a war which could satisfy you.

5. "The Taliban can't be beaten. They hide among civilians and play dirty, blow stuff up, behead people. The war is too expensive."

The President will secure American interests in the region. The neo-cons keep harping about winning, hoping everyone has forgotten Iraq. News networks keep trotting out people like John McCain, pretending that they know something special about making war. Huh?

The critics keep wailing about deficits and costs hoping that everyone has forgotten about the $10,000,000,000,000 (ten trillion) hole the W thrashed through like an out of control crack head. Most of the bitchiest neo-cons were sitting in the Congress, nodding "yes," while the trucks full of cash headed for Texas. Most of the draft dodging war hawks are hoping that we have forgotten the half-witted Secretary of Defense who kept sending troops to Iraq without what they needed to fight.

The real appetite which is being revealed by all this "sincere concern" for the nation, is a monument to American Cultural Codependency. These allegedly "sincere" panty-waists want guarantees about everything! They think that we can accomplish everything we set out to accomplish without any risk whatsoever. If we apply stimulus to the economy, there should be total certainty that everything will return to normal in no time, If we send troops to Afghanistan, there must be a victory parade just like the one through Paris! If we lower carbon dioxide emissions by 5%, we must be able to see a concrete benefit! If that doesn't happen, it can only mean that everything isn't sufficiently under control!

These idiots don't even care what happens to the country -- they only want to stake out some turf for their defeatist complaints. Yuck.

Zowee! After all, Obama PROMISED US! Obama is trying to TRICK US! We're being LIED TO!

Don't get sick! MeanMesa thinks this might be contagious.

Compliments to the President. Keep going. We'll follow.

A Christmas Carol for 2009

The Uninvited Ghosts of Christmas Come To Call.

No need to change the sheets in the guest room, you'll be moving outside.

For a complete public domain text, including an audio, of Charles Dickens,

A Christmas Carol

http://www.timlebon.com/A%20Christmas%20Carol%20by%20Charles%20Dickens%20-%20Scrooge.html#Complete_text_of_A_Christmas_Carol_by

November of 2008 found the grotesque wreckage of the autocracy lurching awkwardly to an unseemly ending. It had, apparently, eaten itself -- along with much of the treasure of the rest of the country. The landscape was scarred by the plunder which had raged forward, unabated under the cover of the W.

Between the election and the inauguration, three months would pass amid the collapsed economy, the missing trillions, the wounded 401K accounts, the wars staggering, unmanaged across the Middle East and the horrid, violent rumblings of terrified, desperate dictatorships in North Korea and Iran.

Admittedly, MeanMesa's idea of a good time for that moment had to do with guillotines and proletariat mobs rushing along Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street. Happily, cooler minds prevailed. Happily, cooler minds had been elected and were in charge.

Between November of 2008 and January of 2009 a single question floated about everywhere in the country. We all either knew for certain or suspected mightily that the democracy was in grave peril. Would the Junior Bush and his crime family leave office peacefully? Was there a sufficient remnant of the nation remaining in tact after the looting to spur a momentary reluctance to engage in even greater, even more ambitious, more unbelievably outrageous dreams of power for the unelected incumbent W?

With strange childhood fears still haunting the autocrat, he blinked. The nation and the democracy prevailed, perhaps even in the face of unlikely odds.

However, since the first flicker of actual daylight warmed the wounded and the dead, three unsettling faces have come to visit our table in 2009. We can say what they are right here. We can consider this entire collection of incomplete or artificial mindsets a grisly parody of Dickens' Ghosts of Christmas.

2009 -- the Ghost of Christmas Past

The gravity of those dark moments when this young country teetered on the edge of a permanent descent into oligarchy have passed too quickly. We could be discussing the descent into the purgatorial limbo of a trashed economy, but, looking back, MeanMesa sees the crisis as one with far greater breadth.

The Ghost of Christmas Past carries with it the memory -- or the dream -- or the nightmare -- of the state of the nation before the destruction began. With such a pleasant, calming wraith entreating the survivors with comforting visions of times long ago lost, the gravity of the looting and other destruction slips into a sleepy numbness. Why, in no time we deserve to be right back where we were before!

We dream that our houses will regain their value. We dream that Wall Street will be conveniently distracted by new rushes of money flowing into its bottomless coffers. We dream that our armies will win simple, understandable victories, extracting undefined success from unmanaged catastrophes. We dream that, around the world, the unsuccessfully frightened will once again quake at the mighty countenance of our unquestioned power, shelving their fetal H-Bombs and returning to a quiet subservience.

The Ghost of Christmas Past will tempt us with every delight from petticoats to V-8 Buicks, all shrouded in a pleasing narcotic sauce.

Unfortunately, that vision is not credible, and it shouldn't be. Yet, a large minority of American citizens continue to frame the entire scope of possibilities in the fleeting promises of this Ghost of Christmas Past. This "slippage from reality" is tenderly fostered by those wishing only to prevent Obama from "righting the ship."

Reckless and desperate, these voices of the Ghost of Christmas Past seem, when considered perhaps too generously, to be obsessed with completing the destruction of the country. From ex-Vice Presidents to mindless "dirty shirt preachers" to drawling Southerners in the Congress to inflammatory right wing talk show hosts, they care nothing about "righting the ship" and everything about yet one more, cheap manipulation of every hill billy and bigot who will still listen to them.

All these have a maxim, and that maxim is the chorus behind the Ghost of Christmas Past's every word and thought. The maxim?

"Nothing is real."

Everything is politics. Everything is immediate advantage -- regardless of the cost of neglecting the horrible, impending rush of national collapse. They have become infatuated with remaining the "top dogs" in the "I told you so" crowd, that is, narcotized -- infatuated with an impossible dream of a non-existent Christmas Past even when the cold ocean water pours into the sinking ship, chilling their ankles.

We can see even progressives joining the lament. There are progressives who have begun to drink the Kool-Aid of the Ghost of Christmas Past. For example, Ed Schultz, an AM radio host MeanMesa respects greatly, now voices criticism of the President for not solving the problems which face us. However, these laments of his fall on ears still seeking choices we do not have. The President is doing everything possible to increase the number of choices we have with his administration's policies, and the fact is that the choices Ed Schultz insists upon are simply not choices we actually enjoy.

One more time. The whimsical, immaterial possibilities in the song of the Ghost of Christmas Past are defined by debating choices we do not have at the present moment. Logic tells us that we can either lament the narcotic dream choices we no longer enjoy or begin in earnest to replace them with possibilities which actually exist.

Some of this criticism is "validated" by our memory of something FDR said when confronted by those wishing to remove racism from the country. "Make me do it!" What FDR was actually telling these progressives of his day was that the choice of removing racism was not a choice he had. His response to them was, "Get busy! Put this choice on the table! If you do that, I will make the choice!"

Perhaps Mr. Schultz finds himself -- and the President -- in a similar position as the civil rights proponents and FDR. The deep bite of Mr. Schultz's criticism may actually be vindicated when considered this way. Perhaps, he is only acting "to make Obama do it." MeanMesa is watching both Schultz (and, there are many others...) and the President, hoping that this is the case.

2009 -- The Ghost of Christmas Present

A new President, armed with a formidable pragmatism, finds himself embattled as he tries to sustain what is, very likely, still a sinking ship. To his right, he is standing off the crumbling pillars of an imaginary position of prosperity and strength. To his left, he is trying to frantically re-educate the American public to a minimal state where it might rationally understand its desperate circumstances and become committed to introducing violently necessary, uncomfortable new choices.

On his inauguration day, Obama could not help but see the storm advancing on the nation. As a admirable optimist and idealist, he saw that the country, in some form, really could survive the threats now facing it. However, as he reviewed "his troops," he saw a disturbing confusion, a defect so serious that, if left uncorrected, might permanently destroy the last, fleeting chance for restoring what was left to some kind of viable form which could continue to exist in the future.

It was another case of Primary and Secondary Models. The Primary Model encompassed the entire material scope of the wreckage -- the economy staggering forward denuded of its life blood, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan fumbling along in mindless carelessness, health care's potentially bankrupting gravity, the savagery of the brokers and bankers as they continued to extract far more than they deserved, the petulance of Iran and North Korea, and the list went on. The Primary Model comprised the tangible responses to all of this.

The Secondary Model was just as dismal. Setting aside all the tangible threats of the Primary Model, the Secondary Model dealt entirely with the national psychology. After all, it would be the citizens of the United States who would ultimately decide to dedicate themselves to the solutions of all these problems.

However, Obama found himself with great numbers of citizens unwilling to risk anything, unwilling to sacrifice anything. Citizens unwilling to take their turn at bailing water from the sinking ship.

Retreating to the very optimism and ideals which had made him so popular, Obama now faced the reality of the Secondary Model. All these overly selfish citizens, he insisted, were not really crazy or greedy. Once they were given a reasonable chance to understand the nature of the threats we faced, Obama remained hopeful that a new strength could be nurtured, based on a new national rationality.

However, no matter how pressing the immediacy of the threats of the Primary Model, the crippling disadvantage of the Secondary Model would have to be addressed first. A new national psychology would be required before material steps to survive the threats of the Primary Model would become possible. The citizens must be brought into a new state of awareness where their concern and willingness to participate could emerge to face the "meat grinder."

How could the scales of decades of carefully groomed blindness be removed from the faces of those who would, by stark necessity, be required to march in his army?

Obama, had he indulged the role as the Ghost of Christmas Present, might have simply launched out in one revealing diatribe after another, exposing those who perpetually placed personal gain above any national consideration. There might have been massive indictments arising from the Department of Justice, rounding up the scoundrels en mass to face their day in court.

However, the President found the country unable to reasonably "consume" such a terrific correction. The citizens who encountered this Ghost of Christmas Present still gazed through disruptive lenses, still saw all of the possible choices as the artificial ones which had been so meticulously inserted into their understanding of everything.

It is one thing to inspire a soldier to return fire in anger or self-preservation when he is on the battle ground. It is another to inspire him to face that risky uncertainty when he cannot understand or accept that he is on a battle ground. The nation Obama inherited was convinced that there was no battle ground, that bleeding would be unnecessary and that the perpetrators of this disaster were, actually, only slightly misguided in their avarice and ambition.

His first steps as he worked on the Secondary Model was to reveal the enemy. A public who remained convinced that there was no "battle ground" and no "enemy" needed to be shown the dismal reality of the situation, and, even though the President faced literal Visigoths at the Gates, he would have to delay the defense of the state until he could credibly convince the citizens that those Vandals were anything more threatening than mere innocent tourists.

Out came Obama's spot lights. The citizens needed to see for themselves the unchecked greed and corruption which had insinuated itself into the congress. The health care debate accomplished that education "in spades." The citizens needed to see for themselves the unthinkable avarice of the brokers and bankers who would take their tax dollars, pause for a moment, then catapult themselves into yet another crippling binge of greed and arrogance. The citizens needed to see for themselves the endless, nauseating temptations offered by the military to mindlessly increase war, always promising some undefined success if the military adventures were just resourced a little more.

Obama's spot lights did not reveal just a few, isolated cases where tax payers had been carefully cast as pigeons, but rather, an epidemic horde of such miscreants who had, it seemed, permanently attached themselves to the necks of the citizenry like vampire bats.

The Ghost of Christmas Present sang the calming song that everything was alright, everything was as it should be. Vast numbers of citizens remained hypnotized under that convenient and comfortable thrall. Yet, Obama bravely faced the necessity that all these sleeping citizens must awake and participate in their own survival. The spell must be broken.

The President has had some significant success at this undertaking, this illumination he must perform before he can actually face the real problems. Many of the uncommitted among us have, if not actually becoming committed, at least begun to be very suspicious about the implied "reality" of that narcotic song of the Ghost of Christmas Present. Obama patiently continues his relentless revelation of the perfidy we face at the hands of these obsessively greedy types, their cynical purchase of the representatives we have always previously trusted and relied upon, and the grave danger they now present to the survival of the nation.

2009 -- The Ghost of Christmas To Come

There are clearly two dreams for the future. One will be a soothing return to the hypnotic avoidance of "everything real" sponsored by the dream that America will, somehow, return to the state of high addiction we were convinced that we enjoyed before. The other will be a rational, clear headed appraisal of what possibilities we actually have, given the wounds which have effectively crippled us during our "period of distraction."

There are, actually, real possibilities for our future, but they are not ones which will simply arrive untended or by gleeful serendipity, the automatic and entitled result of our national "exceptionalism." As Americans we will be required to design these future dreams and commit ourselves to sacrifice and work for their accomplishment.

If the lessons of President Obama and the Ghost of Christmas Present have adequately educated us about the reality of our present moment, we will have the understanding to accomplish this design for the future. Should we, as citizens, remain intoxicated with a dreamy past which never actually existed, employing that "house of shadows" as the foundation of our hope for the future, our possibilities for a future "in reality" -- that is, a future punctuated with "real" goals, "real" work and "real" accomplishments -- fades dramatically.

The ugly fact is that we can, actually, continue along the path we have taken toward our own destruction. There remains still more wealth in the nation which can be thoughtlessly consumed for still a few more months or years until we find ourselves entirely, completely, inescapably and irretrievably bankrupt. We can "privatize" our sidewalks when everything else has been sold, sell the titles to them to the Chinese and throw one last "history bending binge" of a frenzied consumption party, but, after that, we will have to turn off the lights and stagger into the forest, naked.

On the other hand, we can cease "humming along" with the song of the Ghost of Christmas To Come, roll up our sleeves, recapture our hope, defeat those who would enslave us in our own inebriation of mindless consumption and unexamined greed and fear, and design a future for ourselves. We can forever dispatch the drunken fantasy that we will return to an imaginary past because we are entitled to it. We can learn all the moving parts about where, exactly, we are as we begin our reconstruction.

We can base our new definition of our future on choices we actually have.

MeanMesa's compliments to the President.

For more points of view about America's economic future, Ben Stein in the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/business/29every.html

and Trevor Shipp on FinancialNut, a fairly good background article:

Is Hyperinflation Looming in America’s Economic Future?

http://www.financialnut.com/is-high-inflation-looming-in-our-economys-future/

MeanMesa encourages visitors to "Google around!" We all need to be "up to speed" on this matter because it is happening RIGHT NOW!

and for MeanMesa, eating its own -- Obama's Recovery: Partners or Predators

http://meanmesa.blogspot.com/2009/04/obamas-recovery-partners-or-predators.html