Dawn has presented me with a doozy right off the bat. She has a narrow foundation bed that sounds like it’s mostly shade and quite dry. Well, good luck, Dawn…good luck.

The general issue here is that most plants that like the shade also like moist soil. Amending with rich humus will help, as will heavy mulching (a great use for the municipal compost, which is mostly woody material, that’s often free for the taking). Unfortunately, this will probably be a case for applying water when needed. Since the bed is narrow, it would be a great candidate for burying soaker hose 3-4″ deep. It will be the most effective, easiest (as in least frequent) and the most water efficient way to get the plants moisture until they’re established and/or when they really need it.

A few possibilities for the bed include: Greater Wood Rush (Luzula sylvatica), which looks strong for the situation. Euonymus fortunei, which has umpteen varieties and common names like “Moonshadow” and “Emerald Gaiety”. It’s a small shrub, evergreen in the PNW and is one of those plants that will heaping abuse once established. The gold variegation really stands out in a shady bed.

If you’re willing to water, even just spot watering a few things by hand, heucheras like the shade just fine and can bring some amazing splashes of color. The burgundy varieties will pair nicely with the gold-variegated euonymus.

How about Horny Goat Weed? (or maybe you prefer the Chinese Yin Yang Huo) Bishop’s Hat, Epimedium youngainum ‘Niveum” could be just the thing.

If you’re happy with a simple ground cover, this might be a fine place to plant Liriope as the shade and nearby trees should keep it from getting away from you.

Dawn tested the soil pH, and it’s a happy 6.0. That isn’t the problem with getting things to take here, but it’s a good lesson. Soil testing, at least for pH, is one of the easiest and best things a gardener can do. Fixing it is easy, but growing with the pH out of whack is very difficult.

I think that there is probably enough sun in the south portion of the bed for poppies, but probably not the north Try one towards the south and see. Beauty of Livermore (Papavar orientale) is the classic, red poppy.

Sam

Sam doesn’t have much space, but does have plenty of light. All that sun bouncing off brick and concrete can cause some heat problems. The good news here is that most of the kitchen garden favorites that fruit love the heat and the sun; the trick is to keep them from drying out.

Do you like grapes? Because if there’s a structure or you provide some, grapes love the environment you can provide. If you plant a few vines next to the wall, they’ll not only cut down on the heat radiation bouncing back onto the patio, but they’ll do a little to keep the house cooler too. And they’ll look cool and taste great. You could also work this trick with hops if you’ve ever thought of home brewing. (the hops will do the trick, much much faster)

If you’re growing in containers, amend the potting soil with a little compost and/or vermiculite (which can be found at any garden center). Don’t over do it, but both will help with water retention. Mulch the surface to keep it from losing water. Set the containers up on something an inch off the ground or so to keep from cooking the soil. And there’s a product called SoilMoist that would be worth picking up. It’s just inert polymer crystals that absorb water and then release it when the surrounding soil dries out. They’ll save you from worrying about watering twice a day for mature plants in hot weather, and they’ll help keep fruit from cracking due to extreme wet-dry cycles.

I’m currently trying to find a way to make a horticultural grade silica solution for cheap at home, but haven’t found it yet. Buying the bottled stuff isn’t cheap, but watering with it (especially when plants are young) will strengthen cell walls greatly and help the plant battle heat/drought stresses. Vermiculite is high in silica, so adding that will help.

If you’ve got something to hang it from, and unfortunately the standard metal shepherd’s hook won’t cut it, the topsyturvy planter is a great way to get a lot of tomatoes from a small space without staking. You’ll definitely want to add SoilMoist to a topsyturvy as the soil volume is small for a full sized tomato plant full of fruit.

You can also do things like plant a ring of carrots around the outside of a container and a tomato in the middle.

Lettuces, cabbage, broccoli, etc. are cool season plants. Heat will make them bolt and get bitter. Put them out as early as possible (different varieties have different planting dates). And then plant some again in the late summer. I’ve known people who use a big pot, plant lettuce around the edge and then plant a tomato in the middle when it gets warm enough. You’ll harvest the lettuce long before the tomato gets big and may even be able to plant the carrots around the edge after that.

For head cabbages, i’d wait and plant them as a fall crop because they take up a lot of space. You can plant them under/with something else like peppers when the other plant is nearly towards the end of its productivity. Asian cabbages like Bok Choy can be treated like lettuce for spring planting.

The basics of small space and container gardening probably deserve their own post. I’ll see what i can do about that.

We here at Scholars and Rogues would like to know what plans you have, and we are offering a new service. Send us gardening questions and we’ll answer them.

I don’t know what i’ll do with the beds around the house yet. Some larger questions need to be answered before finalizing those plans. Last year i was given access to a plot of bottom land next to Badger Creek. This year it will be bigger and better…mostly because Wright St. won’t be undergoing massive reconstruction all summer so the plot will be easier to access. I also did significant clearing on the steep, west bank of the creek this winter so it will have even more sun. With a little weather-related luck, i’ll get lots of production from the 20′ x 20′ plot i plan to cultivate.

Since i have easy access to lots of used greenhouse plastic and 3/4″ electrical conduit isn’t very expensive, i’ll be constructing some low tunnels to get an early start on tomatoes and plan to devise a way to protect a few cantaloupe vines into the fall.

This year we’ll only take a half-share in Farmer Bunce’s CSA. I realize that buying a CSA share isn’t “gardening”, but it is…vicariously. It’s also the cheapest, easiest and best solution for those of you with limited space to enjoy garden fresh produce and extricate yourselves somewhat from the industrial agriculture grid.

I’ll try to avoid taking side jobs, but i’ve agreed to become a “paid volunteer” with US Forest Service on the native plant and conservation program. Add that to my 40+ hours per week and personal gardening and my life will be definable in three words: eat, sleep, garden.

But i’ll make some time for your questions. Food gardening, lawn care, ornamentals (annual or perennial), trees, pests and disease, whatever. I tend towards organic solutions, but i’m a realist and a pragmatist. I’m also particularly interested in solutions for people with limited space.

I do this for a living because i love doing it, so fire away. Send an email to scholarsandroguesasks@gmail.com (we won’t share or publish your address under any circumstances) or hit the contact button.

The claims of some of his advocates in 2008 that no one could spend 12 years at the University of Chicago without absorbing some sense of the benefits of markets, the limits of government and the hard lessons of the 20th century now seem as off-base as Ben Stein’s buy recommendation on Merrill Lynch in late 2007. ~Boaz

Oh no, he obviously absorbed them real good. I’m not sure what “hard lessons” of the 20th century Boaz is talking about, but Chicago School neo-liberalism ain’t the answer to any of them. That’s not opinion, it’s fact because i’ve yet to be shown an example where it actually works and does anything except benefit a few soft-handed grafters at the top. (Though i’ll say that it is not the only way to have free markets, and the problem isn’t with markets but with Chicago school interpretations of how they work and what they mean.)

Seriously, where do these people get off suggesting that Obama’s some sort of evil socialist. He’s done nothing to warrant it and has proven his fealty to markets, corporations and the dementia of Milton Friedman every step of the way.

Kamarck’s just as bad. She puts together a laundry lists of hopes and dreams that she assumes Obama shares. Maybe she’ll reconsider after reading Boaz’s opening statement and realize that he really is just another Chicago Boy like the president before him and at least the president before that…and realistically the two presidents before that. We’re all Chileans now, somebody clue Ms. Kamarck in before she gets too high on unicorn farts.

So, my two cents. Obama’s a failure because he’ll keep on keepin on with the taking pieces of the foundation to build a new penthouse on top for his rich-fuck “friends”. And when the whole thing falls down he’ll be among the madding crowd bemoaning our poor fate and attempting to express disbelief that it all came to this. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on his intellectual ability and assume that he’ll be lying through his teeth. He knows, they all know. They just don’t fucking care because they assume that they’ll be spared. Hell, they probably will be. You won’t be, but that isn’t their problem…it’s yours.

In all actuality, “Conservatives” in America — especially as represented by the Republican Party — are neo-liberals to the core. Ignore the morality play talk about God and the rhetoric used to move the masses. Look at what they do. Neo-liberalism from front to back and top to bottom. Funny that they spend most of there time employing Alinsky techniques on their political enemies and branding them as the dreaded “Liberal”. Takes one to know one i suppose. The people who bare the brunt of “Conservative” attacks, at least the ones represented by the Democratic Party, probably deserve it…not the moniker, the attacks. They’re mostly neo-liberals too.

Heads i lose, tails you win

Since we’re only allowed to vote for two parties in the Land of Pleasant Living, the power centers are quite happy with the present political arrangement. We’re all neo-liberals, whether we want to be or not. Those of us who don’t want to be (and don’t want anyone else on the planet to be subjected to that maliciously steaming pile of bubonic plague infected feces) aren’t left with a whole hell of a lot of choices.

The best one we have is also the most maligned. It somehow gets directly associated with fascism and its attendant mustache styles. Or turns into a clubfooted, paranoid dictator forcing people into slave labor and keeping them from the latest in refrigerator technology. Try saying “socialism” in polite company; then try explaining how the USSR wasn’t really socialism in action at all. (See; clubfooted, paranoid dictator) Attempt to show how there’s a whole continent that practices varying degrees of socialism while remaining home to profitable companies, flat screen TV’s and even democracy.

You’ll get blank stares; strange, historically inaccurate ramblings that will descend into contradiction and incoherence; and if you’re really unlucky, the threat of patriot blood being spilled to water the tree of liberty. I’d say that offering the example of labor unions is a good counter-punch, but now that we have our weekends and would rather work anyhow because we really need the latest in refrigerator technology (or we have to because we fell for the neo-liberal shuck and jive), we feel that unions are unnecessary. Or worse, they’re rending the very fabric of America and what made her great with their blood sucking. Work isn’t something that should command respect and a living wage; it’s a god-damned right.

But what do i know. I’m just a guy raised in a UAW town who was able to enjoy the blessings of an education and chose to keep my neck red and my collar blue. I do, however, know of another redneck who gets it and he publishes books. So i’ll let Joe Bageant take it from here and explain socialism:

To my mind, socialism is this:

A community and national philosophy, a commonly shared and not necessarily politicized way of life wherein the first priority is the fundamental well-being of the people (also known as “the masses,” a term you have probably been programmed to wrinkle your brow in ominous suspicion of.) “Fundamental well-being” means that everyone eats well, enjoys safe and adequate homes and a common standard of good health. It means that children are educated to do more than just the rote tasks that serve corporate empires. It means the man actually doing the work man negotiates the value of his labor. It means that somewhere in the last third or quarter of his life, that working man, after enjoying his freedom, bacon and common work, and diligently sustaining his fellow men, is released from his toil. Released into security and peace and modest but guaranteed sustenance. He is free to nurse his aches, chase old women or take up Bourbon or Buddhism. Or both, as I have. Whatever he chooses as a free man in a free and benevolent socialist society.

Don’t let the ideologues, demagogues and half-assed spoiled little middle class jerks who call themselves socialists in this country fool you. Socialism has to do with man’s innate longing for justice, the undying heart within us, and all that is generous and good in that heart. That’s why so many have so willingly died for it, and will continue to do so in corners of the world we will never see or hear about because we are not allowed to, but which are never the less part of this world, and therefore affective of this world.

And then there’s this:

“No Obama, no miracle of ‘green science,’ no national genius will emerge to lead us. We have only the simple, direct, undeceived intelligence of ordinary men and women to rely upon. We must regain respect for the seemingly meager and often lonely powers an individual does have, and choose work and a way of living upon which we can all rely.”[my emphasis]

Maybe i’m crazy but that sounds pretty god-damned conservative to me. Not that shit that pretends at being conservative while being worse than regular liberal, but the kind of conservative that comes from holding the fruit of your labor in your hands…that is, having something to conserve. The kind of conservative that you might hear an old farmer express when he says that his first job is to leave the land a little better than he received it for the benefit of those who work it after him. The kind of conservative that comes from looking around your neighborhood, town, city or nation and finding common cause with all the other poor fucks trying to get by, and wanting to keep the neighborhood instead of sell it to some slick asshole in an expensive suit for a new refrigerator.

Read the rest of Joe’s thoughts

Not only were we treated to the historically inaccurate (and frankly bat-shit insane) sweet nothings that Pat Robertson’s Warrior Jesus whispers in his ear. We’ve also had the good, Dr. Wesley Stafford – CEO and President of an organization called Compassion International – agree with Pat’s thesis. Theoretically, Dr. Stafford knows of what he speaks; his organization is very active in Haiti. It pairs tens of thousands of Haitian children with direct sponsors in the U.S. and is active throughout the nation.* On a recent Focus on the Family appearance, Dr. Stafford said, “Haiti … has been a disaster in almost every way long before this ever struck. And it is a nation, between you and me, I guess, that Satan has had absolutely free reign in that nation…”

Count me convinced, and we’ll get to David Brooks a little later on.

Indeed, Satan has had free reign in that nation. Some might go so far as to say that the Great Satan had free reign in Haiti. It has been a disaster since long before the earthquake struck. Of course, we weren’t getting live feeds of a nation that’s been kicked around since its citizens stood up for themselves and threw off the yoke of chattel slavery. Never mind that they were forced to pay for themselves, with interest until the mid-twentieth century. It was a relatively short U.S. occupation. The coups and support for military dictators who stole from the people and the coups, those were all acts of compassion. Maybe i missed the massive fund drives for the Haitian farmers dispossessed by Clinton’s simultaneous subsidizing of American rice growers and forcing Haiti to open its market. Those people ended up crowded into Port-au-Prince looking for sweatshop work, and they’re now buried under the rubble left from all these years of Satanic presence in their nation.

But if you’re David Brooks** you understand the big picture.

This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. It’s a story about poorly constructed buildings, bad infrastructure and terrible public services. On Thursday, President Obama told the people of Haiti: “You will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten.” If he is going to remain faithful to that vow then he is going to have to use this tragedy as an occasion to rethink our approach to global poverty. He’s going to have to acknowledge a few difficult truths.

The first of those truths is that we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not.

Of course he misses the point, that’s what he gets paid to do. The countries that have fared so poorly despite massive amounts of aid to “reduce poverty” are different from the development success stories in that the success stories have not subscribed to neo-liberal “development” schemes. Haiti said “yes” to “free trade”, got sweat shops and lost its agricultural production. China chose mercantilism and now holds knee-capping power over David Brooks’ American Dream.

Neo-liberal, Satan…what’s the difference? No seriously, what’s the difference? And that’s my point: there isn’t a difference. And when we’re not all crowing about our own generosity and feeling pity for those poor fucks ravaged by a natural disaster, we look the other way and let Satan do his thing. He already has a plan for rebuilding Haiti. It will start with deploying Marines trained in Afghan language and culture, move to more sweatshops and end with balloon interest payments that will force whatever puppet we like best to further cut miserly investments in social safety nets, infrastructure and all the other stuff David Brooks blames on Haitians being black and lazy. Pat will simply continue in his dangerously silly fantasies. And Satan will still be evil.

*Yeah, i’m hoping that this ends with a missionary – aid organization space race and the Haitians get to live somewhere cool in the end too, Marklar, but i think we’ll be disappointed.

**I didn’t link to Brooks’ piece, i linked to Taibbi tearing him apart and suggesting that his penis is no more than four and a third inches long.

Props to Neil Fallon for the title: “What comes around goes around three-fold or more. Now you can’t get off of that killing floor.”

On Considering Compassion

Well, as one who can dish out vitriol with the best of them, i can feel a finger pointed at me. I also know better…which obviously doesn’t mean that i act better.

I’m familiar with the Bodhisattva’s vow: self-sacrifice for the sake of compassion towards all living things, to practice until every blade of grass attains enlightenment. (i differ with it there, the grass is already enlightened)

The fear-anger-hatred continuum is the strongest metaphysical force in the universe because it is easy; it does not take self control. It’s dangerous because it is easy and because it is self replicating and communicable.

On the other hand, there are times when it’s needed…or at least when the action it is likely to produce is needed. Maybe it is more that there are times when its abundance needs to be turned from its current ends to more productive ends.

As i look around, i can’t help but see it everywhere in my country. It’s used to control us (War on Terror) and to divide us (politics). I can no longer rationalize the answer that the top of the social scale is simply callous in its disregard for the lower rungs. It displays hatred towards them. What else can explain our current state of affairs and the treatment of the majority of Americans?

But i can think of two examples where anger and compassion were married to produce positive action. The early labor movement in America was militant against its oppressors, yet displayed compassion towards the oppressed. Compassion being necessary for solidarity. The Civil Rights movement, motivated equally by compassion for one’s fellow man regardless of skin color and anger at injustices suffered by people because of that skin color.

Both examples produced profound change for the better, and in light of Dawn’s post i have to wonder if they were successful because they managed to harness anger that grew out of compassion.

That’s the important part: compassion needs to come first, because only it can control anger. Only it has any hope of channeling vitriol into anything except destruction. More precisely, it is compassion that can turn destruction into the creation of something better, rather than destroying to create from hatred. Creation from hatred can only be malformed and ignoble.

Our nation is terribly lacking in compassion. The myth of rugged independence has run amok. There is no such thing as independence, either in origination or action. Existence is in relation. We cannot live without death, nor can we grow rich without creating poverty. The fallacy of independence only allows us to believe that we exist outside of relation. But we can be prosperous without creating poverty. When prosperity is based on compassion it becomes a matter of the common wealth.

That’s not Communism, because the state is unnecessary for – and probably counterproductive to – true compassion. It has nothing to do with taking from one and giving to another. It is not “charity” as commonly defined, where some portion of individual wealth is handed out to the less fortunate. It is the simple recognition that existence is in relation and that harm to one is harm to all. Conversely, compassion for one is compassion for all.

And if all this sounds too Eastern and esoteric, try Luke 6:27-31 (and onto 36 if you’re so inclined):

“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Anger is understandable when others do terrible things unto you, it can, and should, motivate action against injustice. It leads men to turn over the tables of money changers in the temple, strike for a living wage and face loaded guns for peace and equality. But it cannot be forgotten that the opposite of injustice is justice, and justice is not possible without compassion.

I think that i’m supposed to be comforted by his “surge” of federal air marshals. What is it with this guy and surges? See that problem, a surge will fix it. Hell, only a surge will fix it. I feel the same way about hammers, but i don’t act on it.

There’s also a time for duck tape and plumber’s strap. And as fun and challenging as doing a job with the wrong tools is, if money’s no object it’s stupid. Buy a router, a set of fine chisels or even one of those 1000-tool Dremel sets.

Nope, hammer it is. We don’t have time for anything but a hammer – fuck, man, we’re in a “race against time” itself. Do you know how many billions live in hovels on this planet? Every one of them is a possible suicide bomber heading into the pipeline. They’re coming to get us, those damned tired and poor huddled masses are after us…yearning to make us eat halal!

Our only hope is to covertly militarize civilian air travel.

This is the “judgment” we got. Just what are these air marshals going to do in the event that another underwear bomber strikes, or there’s an irritated man of Middle-Eastern descent complaining in row 27? Start shooting in crowded airplane? Go all Chuck Norris on some bitches? Wait, i’ve got it. They’ll be armed with box cutters. Everybody knows that a few hundred people in an airplane are no match for a couple of guys with razor blades.

Let’s take stock of Obama’s first big test in the War on Terror^®:

Hapless, depressed Nigerian attempts to blow off his own legs in the hopes that it will kill the few people around him and maybe pop a hole in the side of a plane. Media and power players have a collective freak out. President plays it cool. Media and power players throw a collective tantrum. President freaks out. We must have new regulations to prevent another “systemic failure.” We must black-list certain nationals. We need undercover gunslingers.

Christ, what would happen if al Qaeda actually scored a hit? Oh yeah, they did. They killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan. Double crossed the masters of deception, walked right up to ‘em and and boom. Maybe the President needs to send a surge of air marshals to protect American lives in Afghanistan. Frankly, the Afghan event looks far more dangerous to our prospects in the War on Terror^® than the burnt weeny terror plot.

In that we have a double agent who had built his credibility with several pieces of actionable intelligence. Drone targets. Theoretically, this guy gave up al Qaeda baddies, which probably amounts to settling Afghan scores on the CIA’s dime. I wonder if he ever sent the drones to a wedding party? From the sound of it — though it might just be institutional pit fighting — the CIA doesn’t really know what’s going on in Afghanistan; ergo the agency probably relies on local sources. Exactly how reliable are these local sources and “allies”?

I’m trying not to worry, because our man of sound judgment has a surge for that, too.

Maybe we’ll have better luck in Yemen, but until then we need to do everything we can to stop another near-tragedy. There are innocent lives at stake that can only be protected by agents of the Commander-in-Chief (who reserves the right to indefinitely detain and torture whomsoever he pleases). Thank god we’ve got a guy with good judgment keeping us safe. Yessir, a steady hand at the wheel…at least until a bunch of cowardly Republican pundits and politicians start yelling. Then he screams and runs like a little girl.

Why doesn’t the Big Mac drop a surge on the Republicans?

Having never heard of Harold Camping before seeing this article, i had to do a little research. My suspicions were confirmed.

Mr. Camping isn’t a “Biblical scholar”. I’ve seen no indication that Mr. Camping reads and works with texts in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic** or even Latin. What i have seen is that Mr. Camping uses a concordance to check questions of language.

Mr. Camping is entitled to believe that the world will end whenever he believes it will end. Fools are welcome to believe that he’s right. But Mr. Camping is not a “Biblical scholar” in any sense of the word. He spends at least two hours every day reading a translation of a translation (and in many cases) of a translation. In all these years he’s never even bothered to learn Greek. On the other hand, i guess i can now call myself a “Biblical scholar” since i actually have more formal training than Mr. Camping.

“Crazy old man thinks the world will end: May 21, 2011″. There, i fixed it. Not only am i a Biblical scholar, i’m a headline writer too.

*The link does not go to the HuffPo. Click it, it goes to an article about that “Internet Newspaper”.

**I realize that Aramaic is not necessary to read the Bible as a scholar because none of the Bible was written in Aramaic. But if we’re discussing what Jesus said, then it’s an important language since Jesus was saying whatever he said in Aramaic. But i will cut Mr. Camping (the engineer) a break on this one because he’s more concerned with reading the Jewish parts of the Bible than the Jesus parts to get his end times scenario, so no harm no foul on the lack of Aramaic, Mr. Camping.

I asked my representative, “What’s the agenda when you return to Washington?”

I did not get any “inside information”. He told me that the newly enlarged Democratic majority led by the newly elected Democratic President would first work to stabilize the financial crisis and then move on to tackling health care reform. If i remember correctly, the goal after that was Iraq…but i can’t be sure. It was a long time ago now and i’m not always the best listener.

We’ll skip over the Democratic Party’s idea of stabilization and financial industry reform. To some degree that situation was forced upon them, and while they continue to do a shitty job from a Main Street perspective, that should come as no surprise. Look at who filled their campaign coffers.

Health care was the battle that the Democrats chose. Many (if not most) of us who voted for them wanted that battle. It’s a good battle, because the US needs health care reform badly. Too many hard-working Americans fall victim to the lack of decent health care, and far too many have their financial future ruined by our current system designed to produce ever-increasing quarterly profits rather than providing health care.

I’ve yet to read anyone who says that either of the bills we’re looking at are good. There are plenty of people who want the reform badly, but see a process so botched that they’d rather kill the bills than accept table scraps from the insurance industry. Of course, there is a chorus of professional and amateur pundits telling us to be satisfied with incremental improvements and that what we see is the very best that we can hope to get right now.

Bullshit. If there’s one thing that’s perfectly clear, it’s that from the perspective of Democratic leadership the most important thing is not health care reform itself. The important thing is to be able to say that the Democratic Party achieved “health care reform”. When the President says that he’s 95% satisfied he’s not necessarily saying that he likes 95% of the bill (though he might be saying that). He’s saying that he’s satisfied by any bill reaching his desk for signature.

He’s already comparing himself to FDR and making statements about how no other Democratic President has achieved what he’s about to achieve. See, this isn’t about the reform, it’s about electoral politics.

Making the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies happy means campaign contributions; that much is clear and understandable…if sleazy. The problem is that there’s some sort of alternate reality generator running in Washington D.C. that completely disconnects politicians from their constituents. The GOP is salivating at the passage of “Obamacare”, because it will be the political equivalent of a two by four with framing spikes pounded through. Not only have the Republicans got the kind of change they can believe in, they’re going to bash Democrats over the head with it for years to come.

LBJ famously gave up the South for a generation to do the right thing. Mr. Obama can make no such claim, because he’s not doing the right thing. He’s setting the stage for a grand screwing over of the American people that will cost his party at the polls for at least as long as LBJ’s civil rights actions. But that is apparently okay by him so long as he can say, “I signed a health care reform bill.”

The apologists cry that something is better than nothing reeks of hollow, political expediency. Do any of them really think that either of these bills (or the reconciled version of both) will be significantly improved upon in the near future? I know that it’s the popular meme to throw at the discontented, but really…how about showing us some examples of that process that are less than four decades old.

I want health care reform, and while i fully understand that politics is the art of the possible, i do not accept that trope as an excuse for doing a thoroughly shitty job. Negotiations are always about the possible, but only a fool starts them by offering less than what he’s willing to accept in the end.

Then again, “Democrats on Crack” explains a lot in very few words, doesn’t it?

Let’s be honest, the TSA personnel who deal with passengers are pretty much the same just-enough-above-minimum-wage-to-justify-wearing-the-uniform rent-a-cops that the airlines used to hire before “the day that everything changed.” The only difference is that now they have the full weight of federal law enforcement behind their badges and some sort of conviction that they’re keeping the world safe from evil. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some of them can barely read; no protocol is going to be effective when implemented by the incompetent.

But that’s just my disgruntled, i now hate airports, self bitching. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing anyone…not even super-genius, secret government agents with perfect teeth and a lovely December tan…can do to make us perfectly secure. So it really doesn’t matter who’s manning the TSA checkpoints; at least those folks have a semi-decent, if rotten, job. Hopefully they can pay the bills.

What i don’t understand is the idea that Americans are entitled to perfect security. Here we are (and for the record, all the troops stationed everywhere in the world are you and i) crashing around the globe and blowing shit up, yet those of us in God’s country should face no threat. And for the most part, we don’t face any threat. Nobody’s bombed any of the weddings i’ve been to over the last few years. I’ve never thought, “I don’t think i should go downtown, because somebody might suicide bomb where i shop.” I’m convinced that the Canadians will launch their plan for world domination any day, by invading the social and evolutionary cul-de-sac of America where i live. But as of yet i have not had to contend with RCAF close air support in the neighborhood.

Still here we are, gripped by fear and willing to submit to whatever the organs say is necessary to protect us. Hunter Thompson used to say that we’re a nation of pigs. I disagree. (Unless he was being Orwellian.) The comparison is unfair to that noble and intelligent, barnyard beast. We’re a nation of five year-olds whose parents don’t say, “No, no, there’s no bogeyman in the closet because there’s no such thing as the bogeyman.” Our parents keep telling us that the bogeyman is real and he’s out to get us. He could be in any, or every, closet. In fact, he probably is in every closet!

True, it is a good way to keep us out of the porn collection and drug paraphernalia.

I’m not being glib nor am i underplaying all those “very real dangers” that we face in the post-9/11 world. I’m saying that if we don’t want to live with the dangers then we might want to stop provoking them. I’m saying that there is no such thing as perfect safety and security; you are going to die someday and you probably won’t go to heaven. And i’m saying that our government consistently overplays any actual threats (and their probability) in order to control us through fear.

I know i’m right because any terrorist organization worth its holy book would have stopped trying to blow up airplanes in flight. They would have started walking into the ticketing areas of American airports and blowing themselves up right there. There’s no fancy security to get to check-in. There are plenty of people to kill, dramatically so. And such an act would be more effective at terrorizing the American people than some guy lighting himself on fire above Detroit.

I don’t particularly like Grover Norquist. Then again, i don’t pay particular attention to Grover, either. I’d be interested to know whether he considers the DoD part of “big government.” If he does, i might be willing to shop for bathroom fixtures with him.

In her defense against cries that she is sullying herself and progressivism, Ms. Hamsher pointed out that she a) did not contact Mr. Norquist directly; rather, he signed her letter; and b) that Mr. Norquist has a pretty decent track record of allying with pinko-liberal institutions like the ACLU. I don’t remember Messrs. Obama, Biden, Emanuel and Ms. Clinton taking principled stands against heinous bouts of anti-Americanism like the god damned PATRIOT Act. Do you?

So maybe Ms. Hamsher is going to come away from this with cooties, but you know — if you really stop to think about it — that the fundamental problem facing this nation is that two corrupt institutions manage to keep the American people divided against each other. There will always be real differences, and i seriously doubt that Jane Hamsher is going to start calling for bathtub violence against the government. I’d be greatly surprised if she started writing on the benefits of conservative neo-liberal economic policy. She’s no traitor to anyone or anything. Freedom, as you well know by now, is not free; the price is eternal vigilance and the willingness to do what’s right, even when it isn’t the easy thing or the politically expedient thing.

As far as i’m concerned, Ms. Hamsher was doing her patriotic duty and Mr. Norquist saw the same duty to fulfill.

All the rest is just people letting their bumper stickers define them and ending up as hollow as those vinyl platitudes. Barack Obama was right: it’s well past time to move past partisanship if we want to save this country. We missed the part where he explained that what he meant was the two thoroughly corrupt institutions that call themselves political parties would work more closely together to screw the average American, but we don’t need him for post-partisanship.

We need more people doing what Hamsher and Norquist did. Partly so that it isn’t gasp inducing, but mostly because we’ll be fucked without it.

Wow, that’s a lot of bullshit for one sentence.

The writer makes the statement based on six months in Afghanistan in the early 1970’s, and the statement undermines the meme of the drugged — and hence ineffective — ANA.

If all Afghan men are stoned all day every day, then all the Talibs are also stoned all day every day. They appear to be able to fight fairly well, no? So as i’ve said before, the problem isn’t the hash smoking.

But let’s get something out of the way right up front. DownWithTyranny is talking about things s/he knows nothing about when s/he makes the claim about Afghanistan having the best hash in the world. I’ve never been there (which is about the same as having been there almost 40 years ago), but i’ve smoked Afghan hash in Amsterdam. It isn’t. Try Arcadia, California or any of the Dutch growers.

More importantly, i’d like to see some evidence that getting high makes someone a terrible soldier. Historically, marijuana (and even opium) are most often used by people who do hard labor and live hard lives. Chinese coolies did some of the most back breaking work this side of chattel slavery, and the majority of them were full blown opium addicts. Marijuana arrived in Jamaica with Indian contract laborers who taught the island’s former slaves how to cultivate and use cannabis; the word “ganja” comes from India. And there’s still the Vietnam example wherein plenty of guys with M-16’s smoked dope of a far higher quality than anything the hippies back home had (unless they had friends in Nam), and they managed to do a fair share of killing under the influence.

I’m against the escalation too, and i don’t see the ANA being built to anything resembling what Obama or the General’s describe. But if the anti-war left is going to latch on to this “the ANA are a bunch of worthless high-ons and won’t be able to get it together because they’re worthless high-ons” argument, then the anti-war left can kiss my ass. What do i care if all Afghan men want to get high all day every day? What business of mine is that? More importantly, look at the hell their country’s been dragged through for the sake of Great Power Games. Can you blame them?

I guess that some people can, because it’s easier than putting the blame where it belongs. The grand plan of the D.C. mandarins isn’t going to fail because Afghans get high; it’s going to fail because it’s a stupid plan.

Fuck, why is it always the brown people’s fault? And why do old hippies feel compelled to pretend that they still know what they’re talking about?

That is, Mr. Obama will produce grand words that will, hopefully, mask the taste of bullshit. There’s a video going around the internet that you should watch so that you have the right visual for the moment our President tells you about developing the Afghan Army.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I don’t know about you, but i laughed and laughed. The attitude towards all that spliff smoking by the US servicemen was the funniest bit. Close to thirty years ago, the Americans almost certainly would have been happy to smoke with the Afghans. Of course, the US lost that time didn’t we? We’ll lose this one too, so as those soldiers might have said, “It don’t mean a fuckin’ thing.” I’d also imagine that plenty of Vietnam vets might say that they could dispatch their soldierly duties just fine while blazed. The problem probably isn’t the hash.

The problem might be what the Afghan commander hinted at, the Afghan army is getting the bottom of the barrel…which happens to be filled with high-on’s.

The young Afghans who want to be a warrior have plenty of other opportunities, opportunities that don’t require being screamed at by some cracker. There are private armies, with the possibility of making some money on the side in all the activities that private armies do for funding. These guys are bringing down $120 per month for doing America’s dirty work.

We’ve heard about the $10 a day Taliban, by my math that works out to around $300 per month. If everyone is shooting at pretty much everyone else, which outfit would you join? Who do you think is going to be around the longest? These guys have joined the lowest paid militia in the country; don’t be surprised that they’d rather be getting high.

I see another problem. While i understand that Afghanistan’s multi-ethnic character means multiple languages, there’s no reason that the American trainers couldn’t give simple commands in at least one of them…after eight years. Not only is the ANA expected to defeat the Taliban on half Taliban pay, but they get to do it while taking EFL classes.

We’re spending billions to “win” in Afghanistan and rebuild it like some shining city on a South Asian hill but we don’t bother teaching the trainers to speak any of the Afghan languages? Ya wanna know why we’ll never achieve our stated goals in Afghanistan? Because learning Pashto, Urdu or Dari (even Arabic) is not required of every US soldier deployed to Afghanistan.

There are finer examples — at least a few prepared for public consumption — of cooperation between US forces and the ANA. Relations between the two appear to be much better, but the American interviewee’s also seem like they’re trying to remember their lines. We can safely assume that there are units, officers and soldiers in the ANA who know what they’re doing and do it well. There are not, however, 90,000 of them. There will not be 260,000 of them any time soon.

Besides Someone cooked the books documenting Afghan National Army strength. and, high turnover continues to climb. There is very little chance that the ANA will be ready to take over the role of thrashing the Taliban and keeping al Qaeda on the other side of the mountains. 34,000 more US troops are unlikely to change the prognosis much…especially if they have to teach 28,000,000 people English first.

I really hope that i’m wrong. I really hope that Mr. Obama will not give the speech he’s hinting at, but… Don’t be surprised by, “So that the Afghan army can step up, and we can stand down.” Don’t be surprised when the Afghan army doesn’t step up. Feign shock when the generals keep coming back for more troops, right up until the day we scurry off with our tail between our legs. Unless the President comes through with a shocker (or he has yet another strategy review), we’re in this goat rodeo for the long haul.

Well, i have an idea. Call it the Nelson Muntz Initiative…

It’s not exactly mine; many people have proposed it half-jokingly. Why just joke about it and let the grimy politicians have the last laugh when we have the power to make the joke on them?

If the quest for decriminalizing marijuana has taught us anything, it’s that the surest means to political victory is to take the process out of the hands of politicians. State referendums on that issue have spat in the face of Washington D.C. thirteen times so far, and there are more on the way.

Assuming that i’ve got my Constitution understood correctly, if two thirds of states pass a law it becomes federal law whether Congress likes it or not.

I’m shooting for “or not”.

I’d like to see Americans get together and make sure that every state in the union has a referendum by 2012 that forces federal politicians to display their sponsorships. It’ll be just like NASCAR…except, apparently, clockwise. The corporation or lobbyist or PAC that contributes the most to a politician is forced to put the biggest logo on the politician’s uniform. The smaller the contribution, the smaller the logo.

The politicians will be forced to wear the new uniforms whenever they’re are acting in an official capacity. So, they’d wear the uniforms on the floor of the Senate, House and inside the West Wing. They’d wear the uniform when appearing on television, on the campaign trail, at fund raising events and even state visits.

I want to see all the Senators who rail against health care reform do so with insurance company logos all over their expensive suits. I want to see the damned-near-monocled politicians who make the decisions about banking regulations do so with Goldman Sachs embroidered across their backs. And i damned sure want to see the names of the defense contractors on the wardrobes of all the soft-handed sons-of-bitches who send good men off to die without a damned good reason.

Dress them all up like the clowns that they’ve proven themselves — over and over — to be.

As J.S. O’Brien commented on Dr. Denny’s piece, the more mature manner of solving this problem — public financing — has more than a few devils in the details. Not the least of which is that the politicians aren’t going to give up their gravy train willingly, and the fact that rational and mature is the quickest way to political defeat in the USofA. So, fuck ‘em. They can keep the contributions and the shady relationships; we’ll at least get to laugh at them.

About the only thing most of them have is obscene levels of vanity, we might as well hit ‘em where it hurts, eh? And they wouldn’t be able to fool so many of the uniformed if their wardrobe did the media’s job.

I might be crazy, but would you be surprised if my plan worked? This isn’t a Left or Right issue. My guess is that the majority of Americans would be on board and would vote “yes” on Nelson Muntz…if for no other reason than our national love for enjoying the misfortunes of others. And who really likes politicians? Allow Americans a real chance to give the politicians a swift kick to the taint and they’ll take it.

Who’s with me? We need some lawyers to write the referendums and cadres of cynics in all fifty states to collect the petition signatures. After that we’ll let democracy decide. It may suck only marginally less than other forms of government, but i believe that it would come through for us on this.

Mikhail Sergeyevich applies the idiomatic phrase “…… vydelyvnet Krendelya” to Karmal. We could use it do describe Karzai, Obama, Clinton, McChrystal, et. al.. It translates literally as “….. is walking like a pretzel.” The figurative meaning is that someone is staggering and weaving like a drunk; that is, not being straight-forward.

The Soviets had the exact same problem with Afghan government legitimacy that the US is having now. They had the same problem with the Pakistan-Afghan border land that we have now. They had a better Afghan Army to work with and still had the problems we’re having. History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes and in this case we’re merely looking at history translated from Russian to English.

Early in the proceedings on 13 November 1986, Gorbachev says to the Politburo:

“We have been fighting in Afghanistan for already six years. If the approach is not changed, we will continue to fight for another 20-30 years. This would cast a shadow on our abilities to affect the evolution of the situation. Our military should be told that they are learning badly from this war. … In general we have not selected the keys to resolving this problem. What, are we going to fight endlessly, as a testimony that our troops are not able to deal with the situation? We need to finish this as soon as possible.”

President Obama is, of course, dealing with the most insubordinate cadre of generals since MacArthur went and lost the Korean War. They are hoping for another 20-30 years to continue learning badly–and attempting to wash out the stain of Vietnam by repeating the same mistakes. Obama could fire the lot of them, but he won’t. The question remains to what extent they will influence the decision making process towards their own, institutional ends. That is the operative process for the DoD here; fighting terrorism or stabilizing Afghanistan is of no concern to Petraeus, McChrystal, etc., they’re concerned with their budgets and their glory. The fate of the nation comes in somewhere well below personal and institutional ambition.

A.A. Gromyko points out, “Too long ago we spoke on the fact that it is necessary to close off the border of Afghanistan with Pakistan and Iran. Experience has shown that we are unable to do this in view of the difficult terrain of the area and the existence of hundreds of passes in the mountains.” My goodness does that sound familiar. The Soviets, of course, could not pressure Pakistan to apply military force to its side of the Durand Line, but it makes little difference. The last eight years have shown the situation to be like applying pressure to a water balloon: press the Afghan side and the insurgents squirt to Pakistan, press the Pakistan side and the insurgents move back to Afghanistan. It is, in effect, the same problem with different uniforms involved.

Gorbachev is clearly thinking about ending the war by this politburo session (in a maximum of two years), much like the D.C. leak-fest is suggesting that Obama wants exit strategies. But the Soviets spend a fair amount of time discussing the problems they have with domestic politics in Afghanistan. Gromyko says, “In the Afghan Army the number of conscripts equals the number of deserters.” And the politburo must contend with distancing itself from Karmal without completely undermining the relationship. “It is also necessary to keep him [Karmal] on the general track; to cut him off would not be the best scenario. It is more expedient to preserve [his relations] with us.”

Domestic politics in Afghanistan are clearly bleeding into wider political questions. “Concerning the Americans, they are not interested in the settlement of the situation in Afghanistan. On the contrary, it is to their advantage for the war to drag out.” If the reader would like to question American motives, he should refer to the statement of Ishmael Khan [a familiar name in current events], “The Americans want us to continue fighting but not to win, just to bleed the Russians.” Today there is no clear cut support for the Afghan insurgency against the US, but that doesn’t mean that regional players are not happy to see the insurgency bleed the United States as the mujaheddin bled the Soviets.

At this point, the politburo discusses involving regional players like India and puts a political settlement to the Afghan conflict at the top of its list. “In one word, it is necessary to more actively pursue a political settlement. Our people will breathe a deep sigh if we undertake steps in that direction.” My best guess is that there was hope in the administration that the Afghan elections would open the door for such a political settlement; to the same end we hear rumors of talks with the Taliban.

Shevardnadze, “Right now we are reaping the fruit of our un-thought-out decisions of the past.” And indeed, history does sometimes repeat itself with alarming precision. The Soviets were in a damned if we do/damned if we don’t situation by the middle of November 1986. We find ourselves in the same situation. Shevardnadze continues, “It is necessary to state precisely the period of withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. You, Mikhail Serge’evich, said it correctly – two years. But neither our, nor Afghan comrades have mastered the questions of the functioning of the government without our troops.”

Akhromeyev (deputy minister of defense):

Military action in Afghanistan will soon be seven years old. There is no single piece of land in this country that has not been occupied by a Soviet soldier. Nevertheless, the majority of the territory remains in the hands of rebels. … There is no single military problem that has arisen and that has not been solved, and yet there is still no result. The whole problem is the fact that military results are not followed up by political [actions]. At the center is authority; in the provinces there is not. We control Kabul and the provincial centers, but on occupied territory we cannot establish authority. The government is supported by a minority of the population. Our army has fought for five years. It is now in a position to maintain the situation on the level that it exists now. But under such conditions the war will continue for a long time.

If the similarities between then and now, the USSR and the USA, weren’t frightening enough already, they get worse. The Politburo continues its discussion and moves into the situation of the Afghans as a population. Vorontsov, “Afghanistan is a peasant country (80 percent of the population are peasants). But it is exactly they who have least benefited from the revolution. Over eight years of the revolution agricultural production has increased by only 7 percent, and the standard of living peasants remains at pre-revolutionary levels.” He then quotes comrade Zeray, “because of various reasons, the status of the peasants in the government zone is in certain ways worse than in regions of counter-revolutionary activity.”

That’s how a large power loses a counter-insurgency in an undeveloped nation, and that’s how the US is losing the counter-insurgency in Afghanistan. Being under the control of the occupier has little or no benefit to the population. Being under the control of the established central government is often worse than being under the control of the insurgency.

Gorbachev sums up the meeting:

“In October of last year [1985] in a Politburo meeting we determined upon a course of settling the Afghan question. The goal which we raised was to expedite the withdrawal of our forces from Afghanistan and simultaneously ensure a friendly Afghanistan for us. It was projected that this should be realized through a combination of military and political measures. But there is no movement in either of these directions. The strengthening of the military position of the Afghan government has not taken place. National consolidation has not been ensured mainly because comrade Karmal continued to hope to sit in Kabul under our assistance. It has also been said that we fettered the actions of the Afghan government.”

It seems that Obama’s first strategic review of Afghanistan took a similar shape to the Politburo’s 1985 decision, and roughly one year later the Obama administration finds itself in the same position as the Politburo’s 13 November 1986 meeting details. If there is any hope for the nation and the Obama administration, someone is brandishing the sheets of paper quoted above. The American experience in Afghanistan will be as fruitless and, ultimately, the same sort of failure as the Soviets experienced…for exactly the same reasons.

Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and it is not hyperbole to suggest that the long-term fate of the United States will mirror that of the Soviet Union if our leadership does not head the lessons available. The USSR expended money and energy badly needed at home in Afghanistan; Afghanistan alone did not destroy that nation, but it was certainly one straw too many. The United States is not unbreakable, and the time for basing decisions on national myths is long passed.

Choose well, Mr. President. The fate of your nation may well rest with the decisions made today.

PDF of the Politburo meeting minutes

Further archival material here and here

According to the paper of sure we’ll lie to help you invade Iraq record, Mr. Karzai was paid for “a variety of services” that included raising a paramilitary force. You don’t say…

I’ll just go ahead, break with writing convention and give you the money shot way ahead of schedule:

“The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.”

Raise your hand if you’re surprised by that sentence.

Is your hand up? If it is, you’re an idiot.

The rest of the piece is pure, unadulterated agitprop…not that the majority of Homo americanus is quick enough on the uptake  to see through it. Oh, the Obama administration’s consternation and hand wringing that the brother Karzai might be a “malevolent force”. Lord, who could have guessed that throwing Benjamins at whoever made the best promises for the short term would blow up in our face?

Anyone who bothered to read anything deeper than the paper of evil Russia invades Georgia, the bastion of democracy, unprovoked record could have told this story anywhere between last week and eight years ago. Many of us did.

And none of you listened.

Congratulations, Mr. Obama, you’ve managed to push the Karzais into a corner. Got ‘em real flustered too. “I help, definitely,” Ahmed Karzai said, “I help other Americans wherever I can. That is my duty as an Afghan.” The poor guy doesn’t even know if he’s Afghan or American anymore.

But he’s not the only one’s who’s confused. We’ve got a Gen. Flynn who thinks that “the only way to clean up Chicago is to get rid of Capone.” (Whew, i’m sure glad there hasn’t been any mafia activity in Chicago since 1931.) And then the proverbial “unnamed CIA officer” who says, “Virtually every significant Afghan figure has had brushes with the drug trade. If you’re looking for Mother Teresa, she doesn’t live in Afghanistan.”

Again, show of hands if you’re surprised by the anonymous CIA officer’s statement. Yes, you’re an idiot.

The question, the big fucking question, is how Mr. Obama plans to establish a squeaky-clean slate of hope in Afghanistan under these circumstances. It’s one thing to make your few “friends” walk the plank for your benefit; it’s a whole other thing to not open yourself up to accusations that you’re doing the same thing that the last jackass-in-chief did. I’m talking about the US government’s tangential–at the very least–involvement in the opium trade; i’m also talking about the blatantly timed leaks and obvious media manipulation.

We get it, Karzai is the scapegoat for all the horrendous bullshit that’s happened in Afghanistan and all the blood on the hands of Republicans, Democrats, Homo americanus ignoramus and the rest of us. So what? All it proves is that being an ally of the United States is at least as dangerous as being its enemy. Now show us the lily white savior of freedom and democracy in Afghanistan.

Look, i’m not a fan of big time drug dealers like the CIA Ahmed Wali Karzai or their abettors like the paper of record the CIA. But this is just asinine.

Hunter was right, “We’re a nation of pigs and we’ll get what we deserve.”