Bleak House

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.
Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole
what it concedes to the butterflies
--Bleak House, Charles Dickens

Ain't got no place to lay your head
Somebody came and took your bed
Don't worry, be happy
Don't Worry, Be Happy, Bobby McFerrin

The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
--The Walrus and the Carpenter, Lewis Carroll
_____________

America is becoming a strange place and our leaders even stranger. At least, Ranger feels like a stranger in a strange land.

While jobs disappear and every economic indicator is bleak to bleaker, our leaders -- both Dems and Repubs -- try to sell us on confidence and hope. Whether it is the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) or the economy, we are told to swallow a huge confidence pill and all will be well.

Add to that attempts to stoke up the old Yankee can-do while preying on the new culture of fear to just-do-something about the economy, and you have what feels like a Keystone Cops scenario. Obama Warns of "Lost Decade," and the Representatives all say "We must do something." What? Well, what we've always done -- throw money at it and cut taxes.

Confidence and hope are feelings disguised as policy. Confidence will not pay the rent, health care premiums or tuition to a private school. Ranger only mentions these because all of our elected leaders have these things, so they must be part of the democratic ideal.

Confidence and hope will not take an enemy position unless the plan is sound and understood by the troops. In addition, support and reserve forces are necessary. Confidence stems from realistic operational planning. Confidence and desperation are not compatible.

Lacking realistic planning, desperation easily infects the troops. Hopeful and confident words are just that -- words. As Steven Colbert said tonight, we need a "Word Czar."

President Obama is right -- we need action, but not action for action's sake alone. As the WaPo opined on the rush to economic judgment, Stimulus Spending Could Lead to Billions in Waste, Abuse. Action on the battlefield is meaningless unless a verifiable objective is possible form the expenditure of resources.

The U.S. public deserves considered action. We do need change, which implies scrapping the beliefs and plans of former generations. All that we believe may no longer be relevant to the facts of our new national life.

Unbridled free market capitalism has brought the country to the abyss. Keynesian economics worked once, may not apply this time. The financial wizards who concocted this mess cannot effectively regulate the banking and financial sectors which produced them.

The Treasury Secretaries are foxes guarding the hen house. They are following the deficient old routines that led to current problems and are expecting a different outcome this time; this is one definition of insanity.

What is really happening in the heads of our elected, appointed and militarily anointed demigods? Our house is in total disarray, and we are flinging our legions to the outposts of Afghanistan. What gives?

We cannot afford the bailouts, and we gain nothing from our far-flung wars, yet nobody is suggesting we pull in our perimeter, assume the strategic defensive and husband our resources. What is our concern with Afghanistan or Iraq when we are rapidly approaching an implosion?

Either we believe in America or we don't. The PWOT © stretched this belief to the fracture point. Now that our economy is the focus, both Right and Left are fronting Socialistic and Communistic fixes as a curative. However, they are at very best, palliatives.

We are either a free market democracy based on capitalism, or we are not. The time has come to define words in ways that go beyond emotional religious zealotry and to restore faith and hope to their proper domain. The halls of Congress should be dominated by emotionless facts.

The Bush administration sold the PWOT © by fear and plying an emotional overreaction. Obama, while served an unenviable platter upon hitting office, seems to be piggybacking on the robust fear instilled by 43, trading hope chips for fear, but trading on it nonetheless.

Somewhere between these two extremes there must be something that resembles reality.