Dear Ranger, Redux

Gray skies are gonna clear up,
Put on a happy face;
Brush off the clouds and cheer up,
Put on a happy face
--Put on a Happy Face,
Bye, Bye Birdie

________________

[Re-post, from 18 May 2009. Ranger will soon re-visit another battle analysis, recently vindicated six years later after new "technology" was released.]

Ranger recently received a lengthy letter from a serviceman in response to recent Wanat articles, mostly echoing the institutional party line, while agreeing with Ranger on a point or two. In the name of anonymity, we will call him "Paul".

Paul specifically agreed with Ranger that he did not care about Iraq or Afghanistan, and yet he felt it was imperative that the U.S. "win the war" and go whole hog with counterinsurgency (CI).

Unfortunately, this misses the entire point of CI: You cannot say you want to win a COIN operation, because the only people who would win would be the indigenous, and you have stated you do not care about them. You then come around to my position: The war is a lie. It is not about COIN, it is about us.

The two possible missions are non-parallel -- there is the "Win" mission (for oil, or whatever it is we win), or the COIN mission. It is disingenuous to claim for both.

Though Paul seemed upset that Ranger was engaging in "armchair quarterbacking," four typed pages of letter belied his same concerns. He wrote --

"Security is high on the hierarchy of needs. These Combat Outposts (COPs) are typically co-located with local national COPs and are eventually turned over to local forces when an area is deemed secure enough. Loyalty to the government, local, provincial, or otherwise, is complex at times because of tribal and religious affiliations, but generally occurs when an area is secure enough for the government to meet and function effectively. This was proven in the “restive” Diyala Province, Iraq. "Prior to Feb 2008, no legislation could be passed because there was no quorum in the Provincial Counsel (Baqubah, the former capital of the “Islamic State of Iraq,” was not safe for the Counsel members. Since then, the counsel has executed about ½ of 3 annual budgets and they did it inside of a 9 month period. At this point, it’s probably all been committed and work, real capacity building work that improves people’s lives, is now underway. It is worth noting that we, in the US, struggle with executing 1 year’s worth of budget most years… without the threat of car bombs and assassination."

Only time will tell if this is true. Even if it does play out, what benefit has accrued to the U.S. taxpayer who shouldered this burden? Improving lives in Baghdad is not purpose or reason for the existence of the U.S. Army. This is an Iraqi concern.

If improving lives is a U.S. military mission, then let them work their magic in Cleveland or Detroit.

He said, "While the locals are no doubt not happy with a US presence in their neighborhood, they’re likely no more or less thrilled with the Taliban or Al Qaeda, either," but where is the proof of an al-Qaeda presence in Wanat?

"TOWs would be attached to deal with VBIEDs, as insurgents have been known to “Up Armor” them, dump trucks in particular, and then drive at speed into friendly formations causing a lot of damage and casualties. 50 CALs have failed to stop a fair number of these in the past. Further, many of the areas that what we would formerly have called “the Mujahedeen” occupied in the mountains during their late unpleasantness with the Soviets were fortified with concrete and construction equipment provided by none other than Osama Bin Laden and his family’s construction company (…this was a major contribution of his to the war effort…). That reason, coupled with tasks such as clearing caves, are two more possible reasons for having this capability along."

What was the maximum range for the TOW employment at Wanat? Would AT4's served defensively for this position? Couldn't the engineers crater the road for protection, if necessary? Since no overlays or topo maps are available, what were the high-speed avenues of approach into the village?

Since the mission was initially defensive, it is doubtful that the Combat Outpost would be attacked by a cave. This leaves up-armored VBIED's, which aren't exactly tactical vehicles. If a .50 cal with Ap and API will not stop them, then why not employ AT4's?

Also, what about mortars to stop vehicles? This is a standard mortar technique. Where were these vehicles parked, and were they arrayed tactically?

He mentions the 24 attached Afghan troops: Was the Afghan element under the command and control of the Platoon leader, or were they in a separate chain of command? What was the rank of the two USMC advisers, and why have we not heard any comments from these individuals?

Of the 24 Afghan paratroopers he says,

"I’d suggest one likely possibility is that they didn’t patrol. I think that this may be a function of uneasiness with their situation in terms of force protection, as you seem to indicate, but also because of a desire to keep their combat power massed together. This would have allowed them to finish their work on the foothold they were clearly seeking to establish in relative security, with operations beginning in earnest after the site was completed. I’m not saying this is what happened, I’m saying this is a possibility based on the fact that counterinsurgency is a slow growth enterprise and that leadership was probably taking a longer view of their operation… for better or for worse."

This indicates that Brigade and Battalion did not have a thorough, well thought out plan. If they did, more assets would have been assigned during the key period of establishing a perimeter defense. He is confusing COIN with conventional Platoon in the defense doctrine; the two are not the same.

Finally, Paul says, "[Y]ou seem as though you’re treating the men and women who actually fight this war like they are idiots… they are most certainly not that." Ranger thinks all the fights he has commented on were idiotic. Any Platoon Leader executing suicidal orders and losing nine men KIA is not a brain surgeon.

The upshot is, the U.S. will abandon the Aghanis and Iraqis that have fought on our side now as readily as we did our Vietnamese Montagnard allies in the Vietnam war.

Though you say, "America practically invented modern insurgency/counterinsurgency warfare," we left their hearts and minds behind when we hooked up.

Moscow Nights

--a serious Rosa Klebb 
(From Russia With Love)

And now you've given me, given me
Nothing but shattered dreams, shattered dreams
Feel like I could run away, run away
From this empty heart
--Shattered Dreams,
Johnny Hates Jazz

Anger is dangerous.
It makes people do stupid things
--Eastern Promises (2007)

Red wine with fish.
Well that should have told me something.
--From Russia with Love (1963)
_______________________

(Since Mr. Putin is in the news of late, we are taking a little caesura from the political wash-n-rinse cycle. Today: a day in the life, on the road with Ranger):

MOSCOW NIGHTS

It all began with a small dream for cabbage rolls . . .

While in Jacksonville, a Navy town, Ranger thought to seek out some new cuisine, such as a North Florida town may offer. In retrospect, Southeast Asian would have been the logical choice,

But throwing caution to the wind we dialed “Moscow Nights”. The second person with whom we spoke spoke an English patois, and he said they did have cabbage rolls. We were off.

“Did” turned out to be the operative word.

This is the pleasure of traveling with Ranger, his boundless eagerness to engage the natives, on his turf -- matters of geopolitical speculation. They rarely know what to make of it, but it is a not too-unkind amusement when traveling, and one way to suss out the humor of the locals.

After passing by the typical Florida strip mall, we found it upon circling back. Three men sat languidly at an outdoor bistro table smoking Gauloises as the sun was setting. Two looked like Russian Vory v Zakone in the film "Eastern Promises", the ones who tried to kill Viggo Mortenson in the steam room.

One had a visible ankle holster, perhaps for his linoleum knife. They were drinking hot tea out of small glass cups. We imagined they wore long sleeves in the Florida heat to cover their killer tattoos.

The third was squat and swarthy. He was the only one who seemed happy to see us, and he was the designated major domo who led us into the ersatz restaurant.

But something besides ambience was missing in this small restaurant of three tables, and that was food. Where there were apparently once cabbage rolls, there were no more. He showed us the menu on which the dish was printed, but expressed sad dismay that none remained.

In a feeble effort at good cheer, he spread his hands over a small cooler case as a proud Boulanger might have done over a showcase of sweets: “But we do have some items here.”

A humorless Rose Klebb stood guard over the refrigerated case which housed an odd selection of smoked fish, something wrapped in grape leaves, and ¾ of a sheet of stale-looking pink & white marshmallow treat in a tray, the plastic wrap half folded back. There were also two head-sized Styrofoam coolers at the bottom of the cooler, but their contents remained a mystery.

Jim said, “We came for cabbage rolls . . . but I have a question.”

“Yes, anything,” the server with no food to serve said, helpfully.

“Who do you hate?”

Perplexed, the small but stout man canted his head, always with a smile.

“Who do you hate!” Jim repeated, con brio this time, like General Orlov, raising his voice like some people do to deaf people or dogs, thinking they will hear better this time.

This time the man stepped out of his confusion and said, “No one . . . I don’t hate anyone!”

To this Jim delivered his coup de grace.

He looked at the world map on the wall and said with the surety born of one who can unravel most espionage novels by page 50, “Hate – it is what holds the world together!”

That was it, like Trotsky in the café, like Boris Spassky at check mate.

The squat swarthy man stood with an unwavering smile, I fancied thinking that a true Rasputin had just entered his shop. But he was not out of the net, yet. The master had one final card up his sleeve.

“You’re not Russian, are you!”

The man nodded and smiled.

“No, you are Bosnian or Serbian – look!”, and Jim approached the map, tracing his way down to the regions he felt this non-Russian person pretending to be a cabbage roll-maker originated.

The man put up his hands in the universal gesture for, “You win, sir,” whatever the pot was.

I nervously nudged Ranger and eyed the door, and with that, having successfully countered the slight of having driven across Jacksonville for cabbage rolls that were not, we left.

The men were still sitting at the table smoking galoises, squinting, or maybe that is the way they always looked. To me it said, “good riddance”.

The swarthy man came out. He called, cheerfully, “Next time, cabbage rolls!”

The Fourth Estate is Bankrupt

Are you for or against us
we are trying to get somewhere
--Join the Boys,
Joan Armatrading

Change is avalanching upon our heads
and most people are grotesquely unprepared
to cope with it
--Future Shock,
Alvin Toffler  

Nobody will have to leave home
 to go to work or school, 
or even stop watching television. 
Everybody will sit around all day 
punching the keys of computer terminals 
connected to everything there is, 
and sip orange drink through straws 
like the astronauts. 
--Ladies and Gentlemen of 2088,
Kurt Vonnegut
 _________________________

When did we go crazy?

The New York Times asked last week if the press should cover a duly elected presidential candidate in a disinterested way, sans commentary or prefatory disclaimers and disdain with no apparent irony in absurd non-sequitur, “Trump is Testing the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism,” (when it is THEY who are demolishing the norms.)

I am a stranger in a strange land reading this.

The press should be an institution tasked with collecting and disseminating the news in a thorough and disinterested way; only the editorial side of the house is permitted to make commentary. 

When did this outrageous fascistic press arise which arrogates to itself the power to decide what we see and how we see it? Why have we allowed this and -- moreover -- why do we fed greedily at their trough?

August 8 2016 saw the first NYT coverage of Mr. Trump as a candidate with a platform, and not simply a caricature to be derided.

Three days prior, Robert Parry and Andrew Bacevich considered in separate pieces that Trump is actually a candidate, and that the the liberal media entity has failed both us and themselves in its project to discredit the candidate. In fact, the media has succeeded only in dropping the democratic standards of a free and disinterested press by several rungs.

The shame is entirely upon the press which has fomented the hatred in the public square and erased any serious debate between the candidate’s positions. The talking heads and pens and their creative efforts to curry reader's outrage became the story the year.

Their collective egos trumped the actual story, which is beyond their hatred or disdain.

Surely our abdication of rationality and impartiality to our egoistic social media feeds are partly to blame for our isolation in our respective echo chambers. But there is something else, something more atavistic, which is being awakened in the public.

The decency imposed by exposure to a marketplace of ideas has been erased as a new Left arises which brooks no censure of itself. To be Left qua Left today implies having a lock on the progressive impulse.

Any thought they deem conservative is labeled as hopelessly reactionary and foolish. By extension, the people who hold conflicting ideas are voted off the island of sophisticates. 

But it is the Left in the United States which is missing the bus in their snarky boy-in-the-bubble deshabille. This smug dismissal is ignorance of the highest order.

Opposed to the media story is a mass of people who are chagrined by dynamic world events, and they are not reacting obediently to the Left’s unrelenting insistence upon change-as-progress (lest one be labeled a Neanderthal.)

The Left is wallowing in the madness of the riotous mob (theirs), born of fear and hatred of the unfamiliar, of that which challenges its tidy status quo. They have become bullies. They are they (and therefore, enlightened), and we are we (who are by default, not.)

The reformist and progressivist impulse is gone. I have no sympathy for them and their project to silence their opponents.

By rendering the other side of the aisle as some vague menacing enemy, they give lie to the reality of our political process which for all its variations in opinion, seeks to safeguard and enhance our republic via mediation and amalgamation of a marketplace of ideas.

What I have seen from the erstwhile legitimate liberal press resembles nothing so much as World War II agitprop, which depicted the Japs and Huns as various vermin with exaggerated and grotesque features. Such is the image rendered repeatedly, ad nauseum, of Republican candidate Trump.

Lobbing verbal mortars is so much easier than actually listening and allowing a space for understanding.  One may understand this crude impulse from the average person who lacks access to the details of a precise news feed. But one may not excuse this behavior from the press.

This derogation of the "Other Candidate" is what the liberal media has being practicing for the last year, and they have done so with our imprimatur. Slaves to our shibboleths, the press -- like liberal media wonk Nate Silver at his site FiveThirtyEight who failed so dismally in calling the Republican primary – has NO idea what time it is in our nation.

We are not a very serious people. We play Angry Birds and we are Angry Birds. We prefer to flame-out online versus to engage in rational dialog, and have bifurcated into two dismally remote factions, glowering at each other from our respective caves.

But the more shameful ire and bigotry has arisen from the Left, the corner which should be a shining beacon for liberal thought. The Left has lost any prior claim to excellence and understanding. It has become mean and shrunken.

Snarkiness and much worse rules the day. It is an ugly elitist bastard copy of liberalism with which we are bombarded. Do you present another point of view? “Lalala”, they say, “I don’t hear it”. Moreover, “You are not one of the cognoscenti, because you are with us or agin us.” And with a fillip, the possibility of  an emergent unity from difference is disallowed.

Back to The Cave.

The obituary of liberal and progressive media will say it went down a rabbit hole of begrudging anger and verbal violence born of befuddlement of their fellows, the “Other 50%”. They got lost pursuing cleverly violent bilge to stoke and corral anger against the Other Candidate and his electorate in their easy and predictable derision.

In their refusal to countenance Mr. Trump’s message, the Left shows itself biased, arrogant and dismissive fools. I am not a part of that club. My interest is for the whole of my society, and to understand the impulses behind people’s contentions, and the solutions which are forwarded.

I can’t see all of this from within Plato’s Cave, which is where my liberal fellows currently reside.

August 15 was the first time Trump was mentioned by name as-candidate on the ABC Nightly News. Unfortunately, it was simply to deride some campaign-trail rhetoric (regarding the genesis of ISIS), juxtaposed with an audio-visual of Mrs. Clinton saying something derisive in response.

Because it is her voice alone which was featured, the implication is that she is the Serious Candidate, and therefore alone is sound-byte worthy.

Later the same day, BBC America also mentioned candidate Trump in service of its agenda. Program emcee Kitty Kay asked Former former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen about Mr. Trump’s position vis-à-vis NATO.

Rasmussen predictably said, “[NATO] has worked very well since it’s inception in the Cold War.” (An era which has been, of course, OBE.)

Undeterred by the superannuated bias of her guest, Kay asks Rasmussen asks in her very American form of editorial reportage, “So do you fear for the safety and security of the West if Mr. Trump is elected President?" in what used to be called a "leading question", suggesting candidate Trump would put the entire world in mortal danger from the "bad guys" (Rasmussen's term).

“Indeed,” replied the agreeable-to-being-led Rasmussen (a sina qua non of being Secretary General.)

This abdication of pure reportage -- more pointedly, its devolution into cartoonish verbal partisan violence – is shocking and sad.

We the People do not need to receive this hate and nearsightedness. What fools we are to accept this bludgeoning to our psyches on a daily basis.

We need excellent, careful, disinterested reportage, and we are not getting it.

[cross-posted @ milpub.]

Khan Game

--Political Dead Letter Box;
Gatis Sluka (Latvia)

This is what he truly envies of these people,
the luxury of terror as a talking point
 --Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk,
 Ben Fountain
 
Since Persia fell at Marathon,
The yellow years have gathered fast:
Long centuries have come and gone.

And yet (they say) the place will don
A phantom fury of the past,
Since Persia fell at Marathon
 --Villanelle Of Change,
Edwin Arlington Robinson

There is nothing fair in this world
There is nothing safe in this world
And there's nothing sure in this world
And there's nothing pure in this world
--White Wedding,
Billy Idol
_____________

Subtitles: "Khan Men"; "The Greatest Khan of All", and "Pro or Khan". [Sometimes it is hard to choose correctly.]

This past weekend Ranger attended his local Military Order of the Purple Heart [MOPH] banquet (August 7 is Florida's official Florida Purple Heart Day.) Gold Star families were also in attendance as special guests.

Gold Star families have lost a family member in an overseas conflict. They were invited to show sensitivity to the harsh sacrifice which they have also rendered our nation. It is a quiet and somber recognition the nation renders them, and these families are never to be exploited.

But while the privacy of these parents is sacrosanct, this rule was superseded the moment Hillary Clinton and the Khan family gathered on the stage and politicized the death of their son, parlaying their loss into a campaign coup. They fired the first salvo and no one should be surprised that they received return fire. While Mr.Trump may have been ill-advised to have shot back, he was well within the rules of engagement. 

While my sympathy abounds, the family voluntarily surrendered their attack-exempt status when they stepped up to the microphone.

The Khan's son died for their country, not for Mrs. Clinton's aggrandizement or gain, or to provoke Mr. Trump's reaction. Captain Khan did not die to be used in the partisan political arena.

To have done so was gauche, gross and a disrespect of the dead soldier. Mrs. Clinton showed herself to be as tone deaf as fictional senator Ray Wheatus in the series "BrainDead", when he propped up a dying soldier in his hospital bed for some publicity photos.

The Khan's were portrayed as raw and grieving parents, but their son was in fact killed in 2004 (12 years ago.) If one were cynical, one might imagine this was the only Gold Star family willing to shill for Mrs.Clinton.

Even death has a shelf life.

It is especially difficult to understand the cynical nature of putting Gold Star parents on a political convention podium as attack dogs when candidate Clinton has never attended an MOPH or Gold Star event in her entire political career.

We veterans and surviving families are not set pieces to be trotted out to entertain the nation in political elections. If this is how Mrs Clinton views the purpose of dead soldiers,, how will she treat live soldiers if elected?

It is a sad politician that would exploit a soldier's death as blatantly as did the Democrats in Philadelphia.

[cross-posted @Milpub.]

They Shot Their Trump Card

Shut up Kyle!
Shut your Goddamn Jew mouth.
You’re the reason that there's war
in the Middle East
 --South Park

That's just the way it is
Some things will never change
--The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby

And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go to?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? Am I wrong?
--Once in a Lifetime, Talking Heads

____________________

It was recently revealed that the Democratic Party (i.e., the Clinton campaign) attempted to discredit Mrs. Clinton's sole opponent, Mr. Sanders, by disseminating the word that he was an atheist, instead of Jewish (which he in fact, is.)

Are we to believe that dismissed Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was to blame for the dirty doings in order that Mrs. Clinton may not have still more smut attached to her already tetchy image?

As the first Jewish congresswoman elected from Florida and a hard-working graduate of a Florida state school, it strains credulity to believe that Mrs. Wasserman Schultz would sink so low against one of her fellows.

Unless she was a pathologically self-loathing Jew, she alone did not hatch this plan but was directed to do so by higher ups. Remember, Mrs. Wasserman Schultz was Mrs. Clinton's campaign co-chair in Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid. Old loyalties die hard.

I did not know Mr. Sanders was Jewish, but it is now obvious: his campaign was doomed to failure out of the gate. Anyone in his right mind knows that a Jewish quasi-Socialist will not win election to the presidency of the United States. Whether atheist or Jew, does it really matter as far as unelectability for the Presidency in the U.S.?

Vermont is another country; a Jewish -Socialist can be Senator there but in few other places. What were they thinking? Fronting Sanders seems a put up, to make it APPEAR that we have a viable democracy in the United States. After all, it would be unseemly for Mrs. Clinton to run opposed. Too Banana Republic; too Soviet.

But  Mr. Sanders was never a viable candidate, and that he won as many votes as he did is a measure of the dissatisfaction of the electorate. A vote for Sanders was a no-confidence vote against Mrs. Clinton (who was the presumptive nominee from the start.) Sanders was the Democrat's Trump, and now they have none.

Who would be Mr. Sanders' constituents, he, an older white, Jewish man? He does not command the black vote nor the meso-feminist vote, which goes to the establishment Mrs. Clinton. He would not even corner the small Jewish vote.

Bernie got as far as he did on the disaffected lower-middle class white male and female vote -- precisely those who chose the non-establishment Trump on the Republican side.

You who voted for Sanders may think that spending their time also disdaining Trump was time well spent, but you have no candidate now. You drank the cherry Kool Ade Mrs. Clinton mixed for you, and now you have nothing. For the liberal True Believers, the best they can say now is, weakly, "We must not have a Republican".

It is a measure of the yearning of the Democratic base for something other than the Clinton dynasty that Mr. Sanders was able to garner such a following, and a damning reveal of the desperation of the Clinton group to even attempt the smear of Mr. Sanders.

Jews in the U.S. may hold positions of authority which exploit their humor, intelligence, wit and capabilities. You may have your Rahm Emanuels, Judah Benjamins and Admiral Hyman Rickovers. Jews have won many Nobel and Pultizer Prizes, served as Supreme Court justices and served admirably in the armed forces (though after World War II they often could not be hired in the peacetime industries in which they had distinguished themselves during war because of anti-Semitism.) Hillary Clinton's daughter is married to a Jew. They may be doctors and lawyers, but not Indian chiefs.

Anti-semitism is the last great unbreeched bigotry in this nation, but we do not recognize it because Jews' successes are so outsized to their small numbers.

The boundaries to holding the office of Presidency will be breached in the order in which they were laid: First, a black man (15th Amendment), then a woman (19th Amendment). But before a Jew will be every other minority. Today, an Arab-descended Muslim man would be a good choice, a sort of holding out of the olive branch ("Sorry about that whole war thing.") Following Barack Hussein Obama, it is not far-fetched.

However, he will have to be Muslim in the way that Louisiana Governor Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is Indian: fully Anglicized, Hart Schaffner Marx, hair waxed and parted on the side. This will demonstrate the movement toward homogenization which is a necessary good today.

So it will be a woman after the first black President (who was quick to assure voters that he was Christian, and not Muslim, like his father and stepfather.) But should it be this woman, so freighted with problems of her own making, done in the name of clawing her way to the top?

In light of the recent revelations, Mrs. Clinton shows herself to be despotic and tyrannical, moreso than her Republican opponent has ever had the opportunity to be. She should be held to account, versus making her lady in waiting take the fall.

But this, the press will not allow. They have made our choice for us.

[cross-posted @ milpub.]

The Problem is The Problem

 --Leader Goldstein in the film 1984

I believe the children are our future.
Unless we stop them now
--Homer Simpson

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think
there is no place for the edgy and fucked up Rihanna
or Prostitute Barbie, Nicki Minaj.
I just fear, that’s all we ever get anymore
--Conversate is Not a Word

I feel good not understanding
--There Are No Children Here,
Alex Kotlowitz

__________________________

Let us deconstruct another Clinton campaign commercial, using the same image as we discussed in our  2 AUG post ("Dirty Bad Words"). It is in the vein of past favorites like Willie Horton, Howard Dean's too-enthusiastic yawp, and McCain's dismissal as a war-damaged loose canon.

The American loves drama and scare-mongering; rationality is not his strong point.

The piece again shows Mr. Trump declaiming about some gruesome bloody scene. Whatever it is that has Mr. Trump so agitated, we can assume he is not happy with the scene he is describing and is not celebrating the gore. 

Could Mr. Trump be talking about the victim of gang violence, or police brutality? Of a drone strike? Or a random shooting, stabbing or bombing by a disaffected member of the Islamic faith?

Perhaps, the perpetrator of the violence was neither disaffected nor Islamic, but in fact well integrated into his culture. Perhaps the violence was perpetrated by a respected state actor, like the United States. 

If the bleeding woman came to be such by the latter scenario, one may say that President Obama and Mrs. Clinton have her blood on their hands, not Mr. Trump. If so, this advert is a grand, nonsensical display of projection.

However, not knowing the context for Trump's words, one could presume that it is a good thing that he is upset by the violent scene he describes, and that he would not want that to be the future for any child.

A blood red filter then saturates Trump's visage a la Orwell's 1984, and we have a camera cut to a young black girl sitting alone in a dark room facing the t.v. glow, presumably staring at this scary man. The implicit message is, Grandma Clinton wants to keep your children safe from this wild white man, who obviously wants to scare young black children.

What the ad does not state, however, is how Mrs. Clinton would solve whatever problem is being depicted (an unknown.) Because of the ambiguity, the ad is a fail. 

First, if the young girl is alone in a dark and barren room watching t.v. during an hour when campaign debates air, she is already lost. The television will bring multitudinous vicious and violent images within any given hour to scare anyone. Start with real images like war, bloody cafe scenes, and then move on to the ubiquitous ersatz ones which are so highly produced as to out-gore any reality.

As Alex Kotlowitz wrote in his seminal study, There are No Children Here, children like this girl  have seen a lifetime of violence by the time they are teenagers. If this young girl is sitting in a dark and barren room alone, where are her parents or guardians?

Books like Ghettoland and films like "The Interrupters" give a fair representation of the dire situations in which so many children live. (The blog HotGhettoMess written by a Washington, D.C. attorney also gives a good feel for the reality.)

This girl has probably also been exposed to violence and misogyny in music, say, something by the rapper Jay-Z, which occupies a place on our President's playlist. The rappers explain that they are not celebrating violence, but merely documenting its reality. If so, then Mrs. Clinton would do well to listen to THAT reality. 

In stark contrast to that partiular hell, Mrs. Clinton's daughter Chelsea and President Oama's daughters have attended the prestigious Sidwell Friends School in Bethesda, where presumably they are taught to analyze media messages.

Contrast this to the little black girl in Mrs. Clinton's ad who may have been the recipient of various government initiatives like Head Start, but who presumably will be like the much too many who spend countless hours every day staring at the screen, any screen, growing ever more estranged from, indifferent to or radicalized toward their fellows, depending upon the source of the feed.

No one is shielding the girl in the ad from the ugly violence of the world, violence about which it is appropriate for adults to discuss. What the ad does not discuss is the ACTUAL issue: child abandonment.  But that issue cannot be so easily dispensed with by a brief and massively expensive campaign ad.

Mrs. Clinton lacks the cachet of her husband, and cannot claim to feel this child's pain with any sincerity. The isolated child is merely a prop for Mrs. Clinton's set piece.

The upshot: Mr. Trump's discussion of the violence is not the problem -- the problem (violence) is the problem. A young girl alone in the dark watching adult subject matter is the problem.

50+ years after Civil Rights movement, race relations continue to fray. Mrs. Clinton could do us all a service by addressing this girl's needs. One in five black men are in prison at any given time, and race relations have grown only more tense during President Obama's administration.

Representative Robert Dole -- himself once the target of ugly smears based on his stiff demeanor (which none of his detractors said was due to his dire war injuries resulting in an immobile arm) -- has advised Trump to tone down his rhetoric.

Actually, that is the last thing Mr. Trump should do. The people have spoken. They are tired of being pandered to with bromides that change with the audience and the days of the week.

At long last, Madam, have you no shame?

Dirty Bad Words

--Candidate Clinton removes her RBF

You think that you're such a smart girl
And I'll believe what you say 
But who do you think you are, girl
To lead me on this way hey? 
--Lies, The Knickerbockers

  And on a clear day
On that clear day
You can see forever, and ever, and ever
And ever more 
--On a Clear Day,
Barbra Streisand  

She drives me crazy like no one else.
She drive me crazy,
and I can't help myself 
--She Drives Me Crazy,
Fine Young Cannibals
 ____________________  

It is not good for me to read or watch any Democratic propaganda this campaign season. Every single thing I witness is an absurd non-argument for candidate Clinton.

The above image from the news digest The Week magazine shows an apple-cheeked open sincerity behind the usual dour and shrill Hillary of the last 25+ years. But the juxtaposition of the toothy grin against the Mao-like blue tunic reveals the gryphon-like nature of this construction.

She and her handlers are dancing as fast as they can to get The People to ignore what they already know. The grasping RBF is the actuality of her being.

The campaign and the so-called liberal press's tack for the last year has been relentless outrage and derision toward Republican nominee Mr. Trump, but the latest publicity move is an attempt to shift into revealing a kinder, gentler Hillary Clinton, one which never was.

The New York Times ran the predictable condemnatory piece against Trump today regarding a Muslim soldier's parents appearance at the Democratic National Convention, but never spelled out what Mr. Trump had done that was outre.

The attempt was apparently to condemn Mr. Trump for his lack of military service. If this is the case, why are the non-serving Clintons also condemned?

In fact, considering Mrs. Clinton's participation in the current wars, why is she not singled out for particular redress to the Khan family? Mr. Trump had no hand in the war death of their son, did he?

A Clinton t.v. commercial attempts to access the grandmotherly Clinton by showing an impassioned Mr Trump talking about some terrible scene involving blood; we are not given the context, but a benign head shot of Clinton rises on the screen over words which ask the viewer if they want their children exposed to such dirty, bad words. Always good to tug on the heartstrings regarding the innocents. 

Sorry, Mrs. Clinton, but the violence is a fact of life today. It is on the evening news, it is in video games, it is playing out in your city today (though perhaps not in your neighborhood.) The advert of playing an ostrich with your head in the sand about the fact is not only unhelpful, it is revoltingly disingenuous.

In fact, the implication behind the words is a reactionary one -- the very thing Mr. Trump has been condemned for. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. 

In truth, brutal violence on a massive scale is a fact which you have helped shepherd into being. You have been a party to the Long Wars and pronounce your position as a war hawk. You will do naught but continue the swanning about the Middle East policy of President Obama.

Mrs. Clinton's ugliness of soul was on fine display when she made her off-the-cuff reply to being told Muammer Gaddafy had been killed by a murderous mob of his people.

CBS News reported:

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shared a laugh with a television news reporter moments after hearing deposed Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi had been killed. 'We came, we saw, he died,' she joked when told of news reports of Qaddafi's death by an aide in between formal interviews."

Further, she said she had hoped that her recent visit to Libya as Secretary of State had inspired the murder, assuming the posture of  a caesar, with a glint in her eye. And of course, Libya is so much better off today, no?

Funny stuff, that murder.

[I will soon write one final piece on my observations of a year of violence and partisanship in the press. Like Tracy Chapman sang, there ain't no more to say.]