Yes, It's All On the Table

One of the qualifications for being a Serious, or Upper-Tier, Candidate for the U.S. presidency is talking about the "table," and what's on it, and what's off it. Mrs. Clinton, for example, is so Serious and Upper-Tier that she is the current presumptive presidential candidate of what is supposed to be the opposition party, and her table has everything on it, with the possible exception of nuclear weapons in Pakistan, depending on which time you believe her. Mr. Giuliani currently leads the pack chasing the booby prize that is the incumbent party's nomination, and it goes without saying that the table of the cross-dressing Mayor Nine-Eleven is likewise fully set.

The "table," of course, is metaphorical. It contains all the actions that the rulers -- or potential rulers -- of the United State are publicly willing to take in furthering their aims. And one option that all Serious Candidates for the presidency agree is the use of nuclear weapons to incinerate large numbers of recalcitrant foreigners. Not just any wogs, of course; the ones whose rulers have nuclear weapons of their own are pretty well immune from mass slaughter. But most of your Ay-rabs and Aferkins and other southern-hemisphere types have rulers who are not so equipped, and are thus very much subject to a good nuking.

So, in view of the "table" and all the jolly things spread out on it, what is any sane and self-respecting Third Worlder to do? It seems to me that there are several possibilities. One is that, perhaps, your land lacks any natural resources coveted by the corporations that pull the strings on United State rulers. If so, those rulers may have no reason to impose their will on you, and you might be allowed to practice water-buffalo-powered agriculture in peace. Another would be to reconcile yourself to jumping whenever you hear an American voice shout "frog!"

Or, you might hope that your rulers are acquiring nuclear weapons of their own. It's true that such weapons are even more useless than most things that rulers buy; they don't put food in any kids' bellies, nor a roof over their heads, nor serve any other positive good. But there is good evidence that they might be expected to keep the Imperial crosshairs off you and your family and your land. Should it surprise us that Iran's rulers might (or might not) be seeking these weapons? After all, we allowed our rulers to set up the incentives; and those incentives say that they'd be crazy not to do their very best to build nukes.

It becomes clearer and clearer, I think, that the incumbent rulers of the U.S. plan to attack Iran; both the volume and the tempo of their war drumming are increasing, and there is one of those all-important anniversaries coming up very soon now. There is no meaningful opposition from the "opposition" party. Most American subjects seem sufficiently preoccupied by other weighty concerns: this one, and this, and this, and that, too.

Many of us seem to suffer from some goofy need for another World War II, the "good war." If that describes you, it may be that I have both some good news and some bad for you. The good news is that perhaps the next more-or-less global war is getting ready to kick off, so you may be able to get some dub-ya dub-ya eye eye thrills. The bad news: this time, we get to be the Krauts, or the Japs, or the Eye-ties, or maybe some war-crimes-liable amalgamation of the three. Yeeee-ha!

The Gay Old Party

Alrighty, then ... here's another Values Republican that you just don't want to see in the shower room down at the YMCA when you're trying to wash the sweat off. This one seemingly cruises the airport men's rooms.

My poor ability to comment has long since been exceeded. But, as somebody wrote on a message board that I saw last night: "Does ANYONE in the GOP still have sex with women? I mean, apart from the women, that is."

Don't feel bad, pachyderms. You've still got your war, which you've demonstrated is far more precious to you than anything else. So be happy.

Living the Dream

Well, Gonzo's gone. In keeping with the prevailing ethos in the Bush regime, it's all about him:

“Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father’s best days,” Mr. Gonzales said. “I have lived the American dream.”

Yes, he's a lying buffoon, and has served as a quasi-legal mouthpiece for as stinking a group of war criminals and third-rate tyrants as can be imagined. But he seems to imagine that what I need to know is that he's been having a fine time, and that la familia Gonzales is movin' on up. Yeah, whatever. If there were any justice, there'd be a Saddam-style noose waiting for him, right beside the one for his weasel chickenhawk boss.

Opera Report

I'm back from San Antonio, and I've seen my first opera. And, uhhhhh, well ... I hate to go all philistine here, but I think all my future opera-going will involve operas in which I have relatives, or at least good friends, performing. La Boheme is, I know, an excellent work. But it did seem to me that the basic plot is one that would have been rejected by pretty much any soap opera producer. Consider: her name is Lucia, although everyone calls her Mimi, and she doesn't know why. As the final curtain falls, the audience still doesn't know why. She's got a cold. It turns into a bad cold, probably pneumonia, in fact, and she's too weak to reliably negotiate a flight of stairs, but it doesn't seem odd to her to head out with Rodolfo for an evening of hilarity at the Cafe Momus in the middle of the winter. She and Rodolfo aren't getting along, and he says that it's because she's cozying up to Count So-and-So, and we can't tell whether this is true or not ... but then they partially reconcile and seem to settle on a plan whereby they'll stay together until spring so that he can keep her icy little hand warm, but then in the spring, they plan to part, for some crackbrained reason or other. Then she takes to her deathbed and pretty much croaks off anyway, even though Musetta does go and get her a fur muff to put her icy little hands in.

But, of course, the lady in the chorus who was vending oranges from a basket that she toted around did so superbly. (And of course, I'm not saying so merely because she's my sister.) She also showed me the copy of the music that she was given from which to memorize them-there Italian lyrics. There was an English translation provided, which made the lyrics fairly comical. Most of the ladies in the chorus seemed to be tunefully chiding the children in the crowd because they weren't home in bed where they belonged ("such a tidy little beating I will give you!").

I think I'll have a chance to go back for Tosca in the spring. "Another tragedy," says my sister the diva. She thinks it may involve at least one murder. I could look it up, but maybe I'll just let it be a surprise.

See You All Next Week

I'm headed out, very early Thursday morning, for San Antonio. My big sister's singing in the opera! I'm gonna go see. Gonna get all cultured and everything.

My sister, the diva!

Never Hang 'Em ...

... until you know you're finished with 'em.

A good point by IOZ, via Arthur Silber:

Now Carl Levin, a Democrat, has become the first major politician to publicly propose an idea formerly floated by right-wing war supporters. A coup! My goodness, it's almost as if there's a certain bipartisan foreign policy consensus, grounded in American exceptionalism, committed to imperial aims, that renders any claims that Democrats constitute an opposition ridiculous on their face. The idea here is that somewhere in Iraq there is a Pharaoh who will unite the Upper and Lower Kingdoms. He would speak a language of national unity that would appeal to American domestic necessity. He would be staunchly opposed to Iranian influence. He would be willing in certain circumstances to act as an American proxy in the region. He would be able to train and equip a military that could maintain domestic order and police Iraq's borders. He would be Saddam Hussein, if we hadn't lynched him already. Whoops. Guess we really are screwed, Carl.

One of the many problems with this Empire is that its institutional memory -- at the top, at least -- seems to be no more than six months long. Did someone paint all those great big ornate buildings in Mordor, DC with some of that evil Chinese lead-based paint?