Blog the ZenDogBlog

July 6, 2011

The United States government, today, stands mired in political theater and brinkmanship, and as it does so the nation’s economy hangs in the balance, wavering before the precipice of default upon our national debt. Whatever the outcome of this current debate, one thing must be abundantly clear, and that is that no one can, with reason and good faith, cast aspersions upon the President in this matter.  The President has, throughout the entire course of his tenure, insisted on bipartisanship and cooperation from members of both parties.  All can plainly see, and recent polls irrefutably demonstrate, that it is Congress that must bear responsibility on this issue. Congress, and Congress alone, will take the blame.

One party has most recently begun to suggest that come August second the United states government will simply pick and choose which of its obligations it will meet, while the other remains curiously silent, seemingly content with the President’s insistence of shared sacrifice and their own previous demand that certain tax loopholes be closed. While much of the economic future of the nation remains uncertain, there can be no doubt: this cloud looms over the market and dampens investment optimism amid the certainty of the increased cost to borrow should default occur – and we have all seen quite clearly during the last two years how fundamental the need to borrow has become in the maintenance of our daily commerce. Vast segments of our economy depend on the ability to borrow to meet certain portions of monthly expense. An inability to borrow has predictable and almost immediate consequence: goods cease to flow, services dry up, and our economy as a whole contracts. It shrinks while Congress seemingly debates matters of economic philosophy.

If there is a silver lining to be found among all of this uncertainty it may perhaps be found among certain and various lenders who, though they may lend less, they will certainly charge more, and therefore think to themselves that they will have come out even in the end. I refer of course to those same individuals who brought our economy to the brink of collapse in the first place; who through bribery and fraud managed to accumulate an abundance of bad debt that they easily and gleefully bundled for sale on the international market and yet insist that any predatory practices not be curbed. Certainly the realtors of this nation will find no benefit, realtors who have through national advertisements implored this Congress to act on the issue of banking regulation. They will find no benefit because if it costs more to borrow, and yet property value has not at the least stabilized, there will be no incentive to buy. Nor will there be incentive to buy if unemployment numbers do not recede in a consistent manner.

This then, becomes a burden for every property owner in America, regardless of means or political affiliation. Alas, I do not own property. Nor, as it happens, do I claim political affiliation.

That is not to suggest that there is anything inherently wrong with property ownership any more than there is with amassing the means with which to own and to maintain it. Rather it is the method by which that means is obtained with which I take issue. I am tempted to suggest that any man who would choose to pick the pocket of the general citizenry as the preferred method to amass the means with which to own and to maintain property does so at his own peril, and yet, it must be recognized that today greater market efficiency does indeed extend to the practice of picking pockets. It is often a practice that parades beneath the banner of deregulation.

There is one party so consumed with a deregulatory fever that it is without comprehension. There is one party delirious with the malignant notion that smaller government, by whatever means, is better government, and that this is to include handing over Social Security to the private sector. Without hesitation or even the common decency to blush bright crimson such suggestion has been made, and this despite the hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars that have most recently been lost through hedge fund speculation and other similar practices; practices that researchers have indeed conclusively determined to be physiologically identical to the practice of compulsive gambling even while they are attended by far more deleterious and detrimental, even world wide, effects.

There is one party so enthralled with the malignant notion that smaller government, by whatever means, is better government, that this must include the entire dismantling of FEMA.  There is no small irony here. While the FEMA of today functions like a well oiled machine, bringing disaster relief in an efficient and timely manner simultaneously to multiple natural disasters around the nation, yet we must confess, it has not always been so. At the hands of the previous administration FEMA labored beneath the hands of incompetence and complacency, having indifference forced as its head, and so became demoralized, inefficient, and ineffective.  In consequence tractor trailer loads of ice traveled the entire breadth of this nation without ever once reaching the hands of need at time of disaster. This then, came in consequence of a political, and a politically motivated ideological mindset, one that is poison to the body politic. One that has, without doubt, in this event and on this occasion, cost American lives. Yet, despite the lessons learned from what we call Katrina, despite the obvious failure of one President and his adherence to ideological dogma, despite the utter humiliation of this complete failure of ideologically driven policy implementation, and despite the suffering this did engender, another man, a member of Congress, one with aspirations to that same high office and who even hails from the same home state, has been seen proclaiming before the cameras of CNN that he would indeed abolish FEMA. Without hesitation, without blush, and with no apparent concern for his own political future what so ever, such proclamation was seen to be made. Such irony would indeed be an occasion of tremendous hilarity were it not attended by the suffering of so many of our fellow citizens. It seems that in Texas there is no shortage of fools, so much so that in fact they are elected to office as a matter of course.

This fever of deregulation must be acknowledged to have been at play when the American people were handed water boarding as a response to terrorism. While the men and women of the CIA most certainly should have known better, most certainly do just as they did then, know better, never the less it must be presumed they acted in good faith and upon the principle that the executive body charged with civilian oversight of this agency, namely that of the Presidency of the United States, did seek and so did find justification for this practice through the rule of law.  And this was done despite international commitment and even our own Constitution.

This party, so consumed with the fever of deregulation, is the self same party that continues its steadfast insistence that it is right and proper, when the public mood can be so suited, to bend the law by fiat, rather than follow the guidance of reason and justice.  This is the same set of legislators who insist that tax breaks and loopholes will provide more jobs than the economic stagnation their procrastination does currently promise, and this despite several consecutive years evidence to the contrary. This despite the fact that while corporate profits are up, and while corporate executive compensation in the form of bonuses and golden parachutes reaches such unprecedented heights that some respected national commentators have termed it an embarrassment before the international community, jobs growth remains stagnant.

And it is this same party that today derives the chief benefit of media deregulation, for while the charge of insolence before the public is leveled by the media in equal measure before the feet of both parties, that subject which might lend credence to such fallacious claims remains unaddressed, and that subject in particular is the bald and barren fact that at this time of budgetary necessity neither party is sufficiently possessed of the intestinal fortitude required to broach the topic: Congressional Entitlement;  oft referred to as ‘earmarks,’ or ‘pork barrel politics.’  On this topic, today, both parties are silent, and this fact is conveniently overlooked by the national media. Yet it must be remembered that one and only one party lays claim to fiscal responsibility of any kind and have indeed been known to hold forth the very topic of Congressional Entitlement with vociferous derision, to the vilification of their opponents amid the jeers of their faithful.

This is the self same party of men like Richard Nixon.

This is the self same party that brought us trickle down economics – as if the flow of our economy were governed by none other than a withered old man with an inflamed prostate, one whom we now refer to as ‘elder statesman.’

This is the self same party that turned the national focus into frenzied obsession over the issue upon a single blue dress. While the blasts of embassy bombings and a suicide attack upon a U.S. military vessel far from our shores did reverberate around the whole world, members of this party did publicly insist that any response to acts of terror by the President of the United States of America at that time were nothing more than political theater designed to distract the public from their party obsession: that of ejaculate upon a single blue dress. Let us be very clear on this matter. For the sole cause of political expedience this party did insist that this one blue dress represented an issue that far outweighed matters of national security, and in direct consequence two thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven citizens of over seventy nationalities were later slain on United States soil by terrorists in one single day.

This then, was far more than calumny against the people or an abrogation of sworn duty – this was a treason, one conducted by certain members of the United States Congress, committed against the whole of this nation.

This was done for no other cause than that of political advantage.

It is no wonder that this same party today holds our entire economy hostage and does so for the self same reason: political expedience. This party finds it expedient to insist that we cannot in any way, shape, or form raise revenue to address our deficit. We cannot bring an end to unneeded tax breaks nor can we close loop holes. This despite ten years of war on two fronts and a defense budget that is nearly a trillion dollars every year.

This is the same party whose supporters have repeatedly assured the American public that our current President is either a Moslem or a monkey, depending on the occasion. This is the party that we must assume holds the entire electorate in such high esteem that in their eyes we are no more than buffoons, no brighter than a forty watt bulb with no filament nor smarter than the average Texas ranch hand content with censorship within the Texas school system of various founding fathers whose words of 200 years ago remarkably fail to toe the current party line.

This is the self same political entity that five years hence will fade into utter obscurity, and do so not solely in cause of this present offense so plainly put forth before the people of this nation. It will not be for this grand display of hubris our present national circumstance does occasion. Not for this willful, obstinate, and even malicious curb to our economic recovery their stubborn and unreasoned adherence to broken party dogma does admit.

Rather it will be seen that this party is so consumed by a complete inability to commerce with truth, so inept in the face of fact, and so unfamiliar with the process of reason, that their only recourse in the face of ever more disastrous weather events presaged by the reality of a warming earth can and must be the manufacture of ever greater lies and ever new crises. Thus will their great and heinous abuse of the public be made manifest and thus will their fortunes cease. It will be as it is with any crass and common, chronic and compulsive liar who finds that in the natural course of time even the most gullible among us do cease, finally, to pay any heed.

D. Winter

http://zendogblog.net

To: You. Yes, YOU.

Yeah-ya, I was. Can you imagine? I’m not a resident of Burlington, but I was in town having coffee, enjoying the sunshine, you know, and it was a bit chilly out, not much was happening and that gave me time to consider carefully a movement underway in the State Legislature. It seems the former president of Middlebury College wants to change the drinking age in the state from 21 to 18. I don’t like that idea. I think it’s a bad idea. In fact, I think it’s such a bad idea that I’d really like to punch John McCardell in the nose just to watch it bleed. It seems he is not only former president of Middlebury College, he is also founder of a group called Choose Responsibility.

Sounds repelican doesn’t it.

Too bad they can’t adhere to their own goddamned advice.

Why would such an issue bring me to the Burlington Mayor’s office? The explanation is really quite simple. Burlington as a community will be the first affected by such a change in policy. There is a certain, what they call “Town / Gown” friction that exists between the residents of Burlington and the high concentration of college students in the area; students of such prestigious institutions as UVM and St. Mikes, along with several other lesser known monoliths of ivory. Much of that tension has a direct relationship with alcohol consumption. Both the City of Burlington and the University of Vermont have a vested interest in the maintenance of a certain level of tranquility between these two subgroups of the area demographic, and it seems that should make them natural allies in an effort to defeat this utter nonsense parading behind a label of responsible choice. In addition, all three representatives of the state at the federal level have both offices, and I presume some close connections, to Burlington. Our junior Senator, Bernie Sanders, began his political career in that very same Mayor’s office, and I am quite certain he is intimate with the issue of friction generated in the Burlington community by late night college binges.

So I thought I would stop by and see what the current Mayor had to say.

He wasn’t in. In fact, the office was nearly empty. Not quite, and that means that I did get to speak with an assistant to the Mayor of some kind, a gentleman whose name I have now forgotten. We did introduce ourselves, and had a pleasant chat for a few minutes. It seems he hadn’t heard of this issue, though it was announced on the evening news Thursday and in the Burlington Free Press on Friday morning that John McCardell had appeared before the State Legislature to discuss the topic.

The conversation was brief, pleasant, and he thanked me for bringing this to his attention when someone else walked in and stood some distance behind me. Perhaps I’m a bit oversensitive but it seemed to me that shortly after that he became a bit nervous, and anxious to have me out of the office, perhaps even out of the building. Seems a shame really, after all, until that point we had been having such a pleasant chat – and so naturally my imagination conjures images of the man behind me, using non-verbal communication skills, to indicate to the gentleman with whom I was conversing that I’m a whack job, coo-koo, lun-a-tic, and quite possibly armed and dangerous . . .

Well why not. After all, I am a whack job, and one need search no further for proof of that fact than this mass of verbiage before you today.

Ah well. So much for my venture to the Mayor’s Office.

One may be tempted to inquire just why it is that I find this issue so inflames my sensitivities. I would be tempted to ask the same of that nitwit McCardell. The evening news did indicate that he was a passionate advocate before the legislative body. “Are we a nation of outlaws?” he did implore his audience. This hardly seems an adequate defense of his view that we should lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. He seems to suggest that by reducing the drinking age we will eliminate altogether any form of illegal experimentation with the fruit of Bacchus. Bacchus it should be recalled is that ancient figurehead of wine, and of drama, and of orgiastic, irrational fertility.

Never mind that five of my friends were involved in a horrific accident in a VW on the eve of high school graduation many, many years ago. Never mind, for they all, by some miracle or twist of fate, did survive. It is not this that tempts me to fits of rage over this issue. Not at all. Rather, it is the utter certainty that a reduction in the drinking age from 21 to 18 will increase the availability of alcohol to the entire high school population, and not just at graduation. This cannot be without consequence.

Changing the law will not eliminate the problem, it will simply change the demographic.

Obviously, as a former head of such a prestigious university as Middlebury College, McCardell is not a complete moron, on the contrary. In fact we must presume, that after having received a salary of six figures in that occupation, the man is not only not a moron, but rather that he is a man of substance; a man of property and possessing a stock portfolio of some note. While I am most anxious to review what that portfolio might contain and whether or not any of his interests are financially entwined with the outcome of this legislation, it must be seen that any inquiry along these lines can hardly explain his apparent passion on the issue.

After all, if financial considerations alone were sufficient to arouse his emotions then surely he would not have entered the field of education at all, but rather would have become ensconced on Wall Street, where he would have no doubt learned to keep his passions to himself.

Perhaps the man’s passions lie more along the lines of drunken co-ed freshmen, but who can say? In any case, the man was astute enough to found a non-profit dedicated to the issue, and has now presented his case before the legislature at a time when tax revenue has fallen sharply, creating difficult budgetary decisions; and so while the man may be a nitwit, we cannot comfort ourselves with the thought that he is simply a dimwit. And someone, McCardell or someone else, has presented a couple of other related legislative issues before that August body. One is a measure seeking a federal exemption to states who lower the drinking age; current law allows the withholding of ten percent of the federal highway funds, and thus an exemption would permit the state to retain something like $27 million in federal funds for highway projects. The other is the consideration of a new penalty for DUI, and that is the installation in the offender’s vehicle of a breathalyzer tied into the ignition. Failure to pass the breath test results in a vehicle that won’t start.

Not a bad idea that, but it does leave me with a question, and that is: How difficult is it for the average drunk to bypass the system with a pair of wire cutters and some electrical tape? Or better still, get his eight year old to take the test for him? I digress . . .

Friday’s paper also notes that the governor’s plan for State spending on higher education is set to increase by $5.5 million, or roughly %5.8. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that investing in education is a wise choice; and yet in this case it seems to smell of pay off. It seems that neither UVM nor its president Dan Fogel are in position to advocate in their own interest on this matter, given an increase in state funding. An increase at a time when every other single area of government spending is in decline – if not simply cut altogether.

And now it seems I don’t want to punch McCardell in the nose at all. Rather I want to cut off his head with an ax, mount it on a post, and use it for target practice – with a shotgun – and then post the video on YouTube; in protest of what now appears to be a done deal.

But how? How can this be? How can a man, one who is well educated and who has dedicated his life to the cause of education; one who, it must be presumed, has had ample opportunity to witness the differences in maturity levels between 17, 19, and 21 year olds; how can such a man justify the sacrifice of a random selection of the high school aged population on the state’s highways – in the interest of increased tax revenue?

For let there be no doubt, that is what this is – human sacrifice. The statistics, I believe, make that quite clear.

Perhaps it is not the illegal consumption of alcohol behind a locked dorm room door that so concerns this former university president, but rather the inherent danger of international travel in an era of terror by co-eds during spring break seeking the pleasures of Bacchus wherever it may be lawful to do so. If by some strange chance this should prove to be the case, then let me recommend another course of advocacy. Let me suggest an examination of the growth and spread of social unrest in the face of bad government policy . . .

and public corruption.

© D. Winter
January 23, 2010

I sent the following to Vermont governor Jim Douglas this evening, in response to comments he made at the funeral of Brooke Bennett. Brooke was a 12 year old girl who disappeared about two weeks ago. Her body was found in a shallow grave not far from her uncle’s home, and her uncle stands charged with her abduction. 

Dear Sir,

I am writing in regard to comments you made today at the funeral of Brooke Bennett, which aired on WPTZ, where you said something to the effect that you want to be able to look in the eyes of the victims of cases such as this, with the knowledge and reassurance that we are and have done all that we can to eliminate this kind of conduct from our society.

You should know at the outset that the author of this note is a life long resident of the State of Vermont, one who is not affiliated with either political party and who rarely votes republican. I became a supporter of the Honorable Jim Jeffords in the 1990′s, and though I did not agree with every policy position he took during his career my support never wavered. His change in political affiliation in 2002 was an act of such great courage and integrity that it brought tremendous legitimacy to our political process. Likewise the manner of treatment he received from Vermont republicans on that momentous occasion was appalling, it was a blot upon the name and reputation of every Vermonter who upholds the republican cause.

You might also choose to consider that I will not be voting for Mr. Polina in the upcoming gubernatorial election. Rest assured, I will be voting.

And so to your statement and the purpose of this note, that you want ‘to be able to look in the eyes of the victims of cases such as this, with the knowledge and reassurance that we are and have done all that we can to eliminate this kind of conduct from our society,’ or words to that effect. Such a statement gives me pause, sir. It gives me pause because it did indeed seem sincere. Such a sincerity is of course only reasonable. Any individual possessed of a modicum of compassion must feel tremendous grief when confronted with such senseless loss, to say nothing of the cause and manner in which innocence has, in this instance, been so coldly trampled. And so I must proceed with this underlying premise as a given, that the desire to so act is indeed sincere.

But can this sincere desire translate into concrete action?

Some might suggest, as I have myself in the past, that the problem is simply one of sentencing. The act of abduction and rape speaks of such a callus indifference toward the suffering of others, and suggests such a lack of compassion and empathy for the human condition that it is difficult to envision how someone might conclude any kind of treatment could ever possibly be effective. No sir, I do not believe treatment for such individuals is ever likely to succeed. I believe such a suggestion is a fallacy, a red herring, clothed in the vestments of ‘tolerance’ and ‘understanding’ which shroud a convoluted path of reason and justification for the methodology of behavioral conditioning.

Let us have sentencing. Let us have sentencing that is appropriate. I would indeed suggest hanging, but I note the Supreme Court recently issued a decision on that matter which would seem to forestall the possibility.

If such an approach seems in your view too simplistic; if to revamp our sentencing procedures to ensure that such individuals never return to society where they may prey at will seems too medieval for this enlightened age, then let me suggest a further course of action which may help illuminate how we came to be where we are, which may in its turn suggest a way forward.

I do not believe it is sufficient to examine our ‘treatment methodology’ without also examining the entire breadth of research into human sexuality that has taken place within the last twenty or more years. Such an examination must include not only what has been learned, but how has this knowledge been gained, and to what applications has this knowledge been put.

These questions arise due to an event that I witnessed on Church Street in Burlington, Vermont, in 1997.

Three college aged women were walking toward me. I distinctly heard one of them say a single phrase, three times. Each time she said it, her pronunciation changed slightly.

“Sex experiment.”

“Shex-speriment.”

“Shakespeare-ament.”

In the days that followed I seemed to be surrounded by cameras, various ‘flags’ colored red, vague and anonymous verbal suggestions, visual stimuli sexual in nature. I also noted certain areas surrounding Church Street seemed to be papered with billboards urging women to ‘take back the night’ as if these areas were ‘hot spots’ where rape was becoming a common occurrence. Clark Street for example, which as it happens was only one block away from the location where a young woman from Barre, Vermont had her life changed completely and forever as a result of brain injury sustained in the course of a brutal sexual assault.

In the weeks and months that followed I witnessed many things, and I heard many more. But what I heard most clearly was the deafening silence surrounding behavioral conditioning and human engineering.

Were I an individual of some other character, then I would suggest the possibility of behavioral control through human engineering, and such a program would necessitate a deep understanding of human sexuality and sexual expression. Such an understanding would be fundamental to this kind of program, and for very good reason. Such a program would be anathema to a society ”dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Therefore the program itself must in so far as possible, render itself completely deniable. It is always thus in the most elegant of seductions.

I am not of some other character and so I will not make such a suggestion. Nor is there any need. I am neither a genius nor a visionary, and what I will not suggest has already been done. Those who have embarked on this course are a thing more vile, more reprehensible, more reprobate, than the sexual predator himself.

I do not suggest that Brooke Bennett was victimized by such a program, for I do not know. I only know that with any complex piece of machinery, timing is everything. I also know the Supreme Court issued a ruling very shortly before she disappeared. Sexual predators will not hang on the branch of Justice.

Perhaps these eminent scholars of law prefer the fruit of lynching.

Sincerely,

D. Winter

http://www.zendogblog.net