We Don't Need No Stinkin' Responsibility

 Instead of truly speaking to others today,
we are all waiting merely to unload on to others
the words that have collected inside us 
--The World of Silence, Max Picard
 _______________________

Today's Diane Rehm show featured a discussion on the press's latest concatenation on race (Fallout From Freddie Gray’s Death And Underlying Causes of Urban Poverty And Racial Strife In Baltimore And Across the Country).

It provided the usual Public Radio imbalance of 4:1 uber-liberal opinions, everyone talking at cross-purposes to the other's view in the service of advancing his (or more often, her) agenda. Which was particularly amusing considering the rhetoric of the Left was to champion the position of the "Othered". Perhaps only other Others are favored (=patronized) on Rehm's platform.

The rhetoric was getting so thick that the moderator asked the panel if white people suffer from problems of oppression and mobility, too. Does anything indicate naivete and bias more than such a question?

Former Army Lt. Colonel and black State Representative Allen West (FL-R) held up his 20%, but his opening statement was too logical, and he was therefore marginalized. He laid out his and his family's history in segregated Atlanta of the 1950's, and the ways in which the black community thrived then as opposed to its dismal state today. (His opening presentation is impressive, but re-plowing through the other voices on the re-broadcast would be intolerable, so that mission is left for the staunch reader at the above link, if you so choose.)

The impossible female voices which have come to define public radio jumped in with their shrill patter of "Otherness" and how Baltimore and other cities are being "over-policed", and the problems with not being racially-diversified, when Mr. West interrupted by re-stating that the businessmen in Atlanta of his youth were not racially diversified, and that blacks walked amidst positive role models every day.

West continued with the example of Harlem's "Success Academies," public charter schools which have shown outstanding success thus far with traditionally blighted student populations, yet which NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio wants to shut down, caving to the pressure of the teacher's union. 

He used the "R" word: Responsibility, a thing outre on NPR when talking about anything, really. You may simply presume the blame lies with the U.S. government not throwing out enough money, and call it a day.

Someone asked the panelists about "black-on-black" crime in Chicago, the ensuing response eliciting my only laugh during the show. One of the apoplectic females insisted that focusing on personal responsibility was a misbegotten path. 

"We don't need to be saying, 'Mom's need to take responsibility for their babies'!" The 80% refused to even entertain ideas like the welfare state might have entrenched a fractured family unit for many in the black community, or that family cohesion is a bedrock of a sound society. But as Ranger says, "Don't breed 'em if you can't feed 'em," and this goes for all people of course.

The concluding caller, who said that he had grown up in the worst of NYC hoods and yet managed against the odds to get out and get an education, seconded the problem as expressed by West, namely, no examples and no neighborhood opportunities. The moderator gave the final word to one of the shrill panelists as to how this problem might be addressed.

Of course, she would not veer from her well-trod path. "The police should have asked Mr. Gray, 'How can I help YOU, young man?' He's part of our community, our society."

But to that Mr. West had already given a pre-emptory reply.

He said in the Atlanta of his youth, if a policeman approached you, the only possible reply was, "Is there a problem, officer?" As he said, if you're not guilty, why wouldn't that be the first response out of your mouth? Certainly, you would not run. West's brother, who joined the Atlanta police force after returning from service in Vietnam, would expect no less.

Courtesy and civility -- it works both ways.

Combat Ineffective

Don't mention the war! 
--Fawlty Towers,
Basil Fawlty 

I'm what you'd call a teleological existential atheist.
I believe there is an intelligence to the universe,
with the exception of certain parts of New Jersey
--Sleeper (1973)
 ___________________

When a combat unit sustains 30% casualties, historically such a unit is considered "combat ineffective". Upon this designation the unit is reconstituted by filling it with replacements.

Now consider the following:


-- 47.7 million Americans receive food assistance (a 50% increase since 2009). 

-- 15%, or 46.5 million Americans, live in poverty

-- 49 million U.S citizens suffer food insufficiency

-- The poverty rate for unemployed Americans is 33%

-- 45% of U.S households headed by a single mother live below the federal poverty guidelines


If the United States were a combat unit, it would be approaching combat ineffective status.

In my NorthFlorida county, 30% of the total population lives in poverty. Does this mean that our social structure is ineffective? Have we lost the ability to fulfill our mission -- the  pursuit of life, liberty and happiness?

While becoming a warrior nation, we have ignored the plight of our people. When did this happen, and where? Why does the taxpaying public accept this gross miscarriage of democratic thought and action?

This essay was prompted by a United States Marine Corps ad which stated that the Corps was "defending the American way of life." The American way of life is being degraded by our focus on other efforts in other places which conveniently take our eyes off the ball. The "American Way of Life" being defended should not include hunger, homelessness, poverty and despair.

If the U.S. were a combat unit, we would be stacking arms and headed for the Prisoner of War compounds.

Paeans to the Peons

What I learned is the four basic needs—
food, house, clothes and medicine—
must be cheap and easy for everybody. 
That's the civilization. 
But if we make these four things hard for people to get, 
that's uncivilized. 
 So I feel like now is the most uncivilized era
of humans on this earth 
 --Life is easy. Why do we make it so hard?, 
 Jon Jandai  

Their world didn't allow them to take things easily,
didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy.  
--Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

 

______________________

How does this sort of thing strike you? Take the Crate and Barrel Holiday Gift Guide 2013:

Page 21 features the "Alpaca Animal Ornament" suite, featuring a "Chubby Schnauzer Dog," "Chubby Husky Dog," a "Jailbird Penguin" and "Winter Cow with Scarf", hand-knit by peasant women in the Lake Titicaca region of Peru, "empowering the crafters to earn a sustainable income to provide their families with food, shelter and healthcare."  

That would be what we call "subsistence level", and doubtfully most of the crafters are "chubby" or own chubby animals. But we are and do, and can afford to hang little sweater representatives of our ampleness from our trees (or possibly from the faux-tree triangular structures they also sell.)

Below the fat animals are a set of skeletal euphemistically-named, dark-skinned "Natural Fiber Bicyclists" made by "small family groups of artisans" also trying to "earn a sustainable living," i.e., genuine Skinnies in Kenya. Ironic, no? But thanks to our largess and holiday desires for bright and shiny things, some Mexicans, Peruvians and Indians can stave off food insufficiency for awhile.

Also odd is the car featured alternately carrying a tree or wrapped boxes -- what appears to be an early 60's Studebaker Lark. What does this nostalgia say about festivities in 2013? Is something missing when Black Friday shopping is conducted on Thanksgiving Day?

 

And then there are the children's play shelters featured in CB's sister catalog, The Land of Nod. The "A Teepee to Call Your Own" at $159 (see below) costs more than the cardboard homes of many who live on the street in Bangalore or any other blighted city, and probably outstrips the annual income for many who live there.

What is interesting is that the "artisans" creating the work featured in many hipster catalogs like CB2 are either endlessly reproduced "reproductions" of someone else's design, or they are manufactured by denizens of women's shelters or prisons, or are the result of some effort by a blighted member of a Varying Disabilities school population. 

Is this the legacy of Ruby the Painting Elephant, or Warhol's elevation of the mundane to art status? Is it the manifestation of Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"?

In any event, while we apotheosize the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) industries, it seems we are outsourcing our art or marketing bright scribbles packaged by those who handle the unfortunates who "create" it (the wardens, special ed teachers, etc.) Not that what Rothko or Lichtenstein did was much different, but they got paid well for it.

The New York Times asked in a recent editorial if the age of Liberal Arts education was over. Florida's Governor Rick Scott convened a task force last year recommending that students majoring in liberal arts and social sciences should pay higher tuition fees, arguing they were “nonstrategic disciplines” (Humanities Studies Under Strain Around the Globe). 

A liberal Arts education will not guarantee great art or literature, but it can provide the fodder out of which such things grow. Without that, see the holiday catalogs of Crate and Barrel and CB2 for a glimpse of your future in art and design: gaudy, garish and bright. All gash, no flash.

Don't get me wrong: bright and colorful can be wonderful. But the artists who design and create these works of art should be remunerated accordingly, and there should a place in society for them so that they may live above the subsistence level Crate and Barrel crows about.

With governors like Rick Scott that is unlikely to happen anytime soon.


NEXT: Ranger's outrageous rejection by the American Legion

Sitting Ducks, Pt. 3: Johnny Got His Gun

It's a beautiful night, 

We're looking for something dumb to do 

--Marry You, Bruno Mars 

We knew you would leave because you could leave. 

We lived here; we couldn’t leave 

--Vietnamese diplomat to Robert McNamara

_______________________

Upon seeing a recent photo of the M240 and the M-249 machine guns with which we are arming the Afghan National Army, Ranger returned to the 50% poverty rate of Athens County, Ohio, home of Ohio University, a small town remembered in its better times over 40 years ago.

Two of these weapons cost almost as much as the annual income of the folks of Athens Co. Why did we give an enema of democracy to those who do not love us in Afghanistan, giving away weapons to people who will never defend democracy or add to the security of Americans dancing on the edge of the volcano that is poverty.

It is hard to understand how the good folks of Athens will benefit by this huge outlay of materiel.  But the boys still love to get the plastic guns at Walmart, preparing for their role in the grand drama.  It is hard to see what all of this outlay will buy for Athens, aside from some more names for a war memorial; perhaps a few more families who can feel conflicted about the good their family's ultimate sacrifice has achieved.

When we leave, as we will, it will be as it was when the Army of Vietnam fell.  There the U.S. left behind 22,000 M60 machine guns, which were then flung worldwide into various camps hostile to U.S. interests.

Thank you, Uncle Sam.

Youth in Asia

--Vietnamese street children,
fr. collection of RAW

The corruption of the people
is the key to the mastery of Rome
--Allen Bloom on Julius Ceaser

kid he says you have
seen better days i can
tell that from looking at you thanks
i said what you say is at
least half true i have never
seen any worse ones
--Why Mehitabel Jumped,
Don Marquis
__________________

Let us patrol some hostile terrain and discuss the wars of my lifetime, 1968 to present, using two simple photographs; both sum up the wars in a nutshell.

First look at the photo shot on a Saigon street in 1970, one which still haunts me. See the diseased bodies, filth and hopelessness of these children and ask yourself, "Does it mean a tinker's damn to these kids who controls Vietnam if they cannot get medical intervention? Ditto Detroit and Cleveland, today.

Now look at the cover shot of Noam Chomsky's "Power and Terror". Note the barefoot poverty of the Afghan children and the structure in which they are sheltered, which has a door but no roof, a perfect metaphor for our military efforts: We will kick in their doors, but fail to see the lack of a roof; what is the use in violating such a structure?

Contrast this lack with the combat dress of the U.S. soldier: He has more combat gear on his body, money-wise, than this Afghan family may see in a lifetime. He has knee pads, but they don't even have shoes. Do they care who controls their country?

The only way those kids will ever see that much money is if we kill their parents and then we buy them off with a cash pay out -- the Ghetto lottery, Aghan-style.

Contrast the female troop eating her ice cream bar with the Vietnam villager of today transporting her home on her back (thanks to reader Deryle). U.S. troops are often cosseted in comparison to the dismal reality of the villagers, regardless of intentions or outcome. The entire question of war is based in poverty, and one cannot fight poverty with a rifle and bayonet.

Imagine yourself an Afghan or Vietnamese parent, helpless in the face of this grinding poverty, looking at a U.S. soldier: What do you see?

It seems that for the last 50 years America has not asked the right questions or made the correct assumptions when conceptualizing the direction of its wars. As immigrants, we should remember that we all came to the U.S. to escape poverty of the body and spirit. When we fight impoverished people believing we are confronting an enemy that can kill our way of life, we are operating from an impoverishment of the spirit.

Operating from the most pragmatic position, we should ask, "What does fighting impoverished people accomplish? What can they gain, and what do we lose?"

Simple Folk

What do the simple folk do
To help them escape when they're blue?
The shepherd who is ailing,
the milkmaid who is glum?
--What Do Simple Folk Do?,
Camelot (19767)
_________________

Predictably, everyone prone to hop on the sound byte did, but sound bytes fail to tell the actual story. The actual story is, most contenders for the job of U.S. president are totally out of touch with the common man. We seem to like having our collective heads whipped around by the spinmeisters and being outraged by gaffes, and since we don't demand better, we do not get it.

Romney is certainly not the first candidate to show his disconnection with the voters. Al Gore fumbled when asked for the price of a gallon of milk; George Bush did not know the price of a gallon of gas. Simple, real people know these things, and they know by pennies how much each increases by the week.

But now it's Romney's turn in the barrel.

He said, "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it." Insensitive statement, to be sure, but it was the follow on which should have merited the outrage. Continued Romney, "I'm concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling and I'll continue to take that message across the nation."

Now that is a load of baloney, but who has addressed it? This implies and marginalizes a small band of perpetually straggling groundlings -- the 5%? But the rest are worthwhile ... the "heart of America", the 90-95%?

The truth is, 15% of Americans live in poverty (Poverty Rate Rises in America). The rate is higher for children: 22% of all children, or over 1 in 5, live in poverty. But that's not the whole story, either.

Almost half of all Americans live at or near the poverty line (Close to Half of All Americans Live Near Poverty). These are people who are a couple of paychecks or one serious medical event away from destitution. With 49 million Americans lacking medical insurance, the potential for catastrophe is near. Their head is above water, but barely. These are the people who have fallen OUT of the middle class, and are hanging near its bottom margin by a tenuous thread.

Even if you go with a rosier Census Department study in December '11, close to 100 million people, or a third of the U.S. population, live at or near the poverty line. Math is not my forte, but 33 - 50% of us are very poor. Does that mean that Romney does not care about almost half of the country?

Romney's statement may turn out to be one of the more honest utterings of the campaign. He could not possibly feel our pain, or he would not have made such an absurd statement.

He was patently pandering the other ones he "doesn't care about" ("I'm not concerned about the very rich, they're doing just fine"), because he is in the rich's pocket.

The Greatest Show on Earth

I could say that my name was Bonaparte,
and show you Napoleon's tomb;
that wouldn't make him my grandfather would it?
--Showboat (1951)

Makes me feel quite dirty,
Though we all do sometimes
--I Wanna Be a Cowboy,
Boys Don't Cry

Oh. Um, l-- look, i-- i--
if we built this large wooden badger ...
--Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)
_________________

Ranger often quips that he was Special Forces before SF was cool, before it earned its "O".

In his day, joining SF was a career kiss of death for an Infantry Officer, as it was often viewed as abandoning ship. The Infantry's main focus was, "Clank clank, I'm a tank" and the Fulda Gap. The war in Vietnam was just a live fire exercise which Ranger called the field Army in the ambush; the events in SE Asia were mostly seen as a distraction from the Cold War (anyone remember that one?)

Fast-forward 2012 and everyone is GAGA over Special Operations Forces. Poster child Seal Team 6's exploits are touted as the best thing since sliced bread (and since Wonder Bread's going bankrupt, it's nice that we can have a replacement.) The new Bill of Goods says Special Ops are the wave of the future, but this is hype based on showboat moments.

Recent vaunted ST6 actions are not military in nature. Similarly, the killing of Osama bin Laden was a simple assassination, gussied up for American consumption as a heroic military operation. However, wars are not won (or lost) via assassinating individuals; if they are, Ranger would suggest that this is a war he would rather not fight.

How about the recent ST6 rescue of two hostages in Somalia? Portrayed by the administration as a military operation, again this was simply the killing of eight pirates hoping to negotiate for somewhere between their requested $10 million in ransom and the $1 million offered. The WaPo reported, "U.S. officials said there was no evidence that the hostage-takers had any connection to the [al-Shabab militant group which is said to be allied with al-Qaeda]". Shabby brigands who understand Westerners are flush and so want to steal a little; you'd think they'd studied the banker's handbook.

So they rescued a couple of hostages -- a Jessica Lynch moment for sure, replete with blonde captive Jessica Buchanan, reminiscent of other constructed American Teutonic heroes like "Lucky" Penny, the would-be downer of ill-fated Flight 93 (Sorry, Shoshanna, we have not forgotten you). But how does this translate out to war fighting?

This is not exactly Guns of Navarone or the Son Tay Raid, or Desert One. This was simply a feel-good raid against a small band of bandits -- anything but prime troopers. This action was not Anzio or Pointe du Hoc or the Great Raid featured in Ghost Soldiers. This was not a Studies and Observations Group mission against superior enemy forces; not the Hammelburg Raid, alas.

So why do we get our peckers hard about a chicken shit live-fire practice raid?

For SOF assets to contribute anything of value the assets must be part of a Theatre Commander's strategic plans and must work as a force multiplier to synergistically enhance the overall mission objectives. Crummy little raids like these need not apply.

In the 1980's Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR) had raids and target folders that identified and delineated targets 450 kilometers to the rear of the forward line of troops (FLOT). This meant that troops had to insert by fixed or rotary-wing flying over enemy-controlled terrain and then conducting the operation, followed by an attempt to return to friendly lines -- a far piece from fighting drug-dazed bandits.

How does a raid against OBL or a rag-tag bunch of pirates contribute anything beyond enhanced recruitment for the SEALS? It is all movement with no progress. One more dead guy (even OBL) or 20 more bandits is hardly a strategic event.

We are so desperate to call the Phony War on Terror (PWOT©) a real war that we stretch the reality of ancillary actions to the breaking point? Why not just dress the teams as United Parcel Service deliverymen and hide them in the back of the truck? Why not use aTrojan Horse or a Trojan Rabbit?

Our operations mimic those of a bi-polar amoeba. One wonders if the good folks at DARPA have studied that application yet.

Sticker Shock and Awe

--Think About Those Who are Starving!
1920's Soviet propaganda

The eagle watches from the mountain

As the warriors turn into fools

And the dice are thrown on sacred ground

And they move closer to the truth

--Closer to the Truth, Tony Joe White

are [sic] there justice and conscience in the USA?

And who are the people that

really respect justice and conscience?

Dr. Nguyen Trong Nhan

Agent Orange and the Conscience of the USA

A soul for a piece of bread.
Misery makes the offer; society accepts.
--Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
_______________________

When discussing warfare, Americans often use the imagery of guns and butter when reckoning costs. We are now so affluent, or at least so able to borrow funds, we think that we can have both guns and butter without sacrificing either. We cannot, however.

Federal poverty guidelines for a family of four is $22,350, and you can bet that income doesn't allow for much butter on the white bread. Consider survival for your family of four at that level of income: That is $5,588 per person per year, $465 per person per month, or $18 per day.

Contrast that with the $800,000 expended per year per perpetually incarcerated prisoner at Guantanamo Bay (the Cuban Club Med), which is approximately $2,100 per prisoner, per day. We bet that they eat better and get better medical care than do our poorest American citizens. Halal food is better than the E. coli tainted tubes of Smithfield Farm turkey the Walmart denizens may choose.

An MRAP costs anywhere from 400,000 to $800,000 (depending upon Bluetooth and Sirius radio compatibility.) The cost is before theatre-level upgrades, organic weapons and commo gear. We have at least 10,000 MRAPs in Afghanistan, not counting those left in Iraq. A Humvee goes for $140,000, leaving Ranger with sticker shock.

His original thought was to compare poverty guidelines with the cost of a single machine gun, but that cost is not readily available. A 2005 figure of $4,080 for a Minimi purchased from Belgian conglomerate FN is much less than a previous figure of $15,000 for the 7.62 version, but cost were not readily available online. (Any knowledgeable cost estimates would be appreciated.)

Contracts total 100's of Billions, but as the number of guns are not listed, unit prices are unknown. But to the basic weapon, one must add the price of assault packs, top-end optics, telescoping stocks, lightweight bipods and shorter barrels. All involve separate retrofit contracts which went to FN, an off-shore company with U.S. factories. Other contracts went to Colt, HK, Glock and Baretta, all foreign-owned.

Provenance matters: Why does a Superpower buy foreign weapons to fight its wars? Our needy citizens get minimal financial assistance while our war profits go overseas.

What happened to U.S. arsenals like Springfield and Rock Island, to include arsenal ammunition production? What of Winchester, Remington, H & R, Inland Division G.M. and all the other U.S. weapons designers and producers? These firms kept money in the U.S. to finance butter while churning out the weapons systems.

When the cost of a single machine gun can exceed a year's poverty-level income for a family of four, something is rotten, and it's not in the state of Denmark. That country and its neighbors do not seem to suffer the social ills that perpetually eat away at our bottom half.

When a machine gun fires and will not stop, it is called a "runaway gun"; expending the belt or twisting it is the only way to shut the gun down; a straightforward fix for an attentive gunner. But how do we stop the downward spiral of someone in the beaten zone of long-term poverty?

The Russian Revolution was founded on the slogan, "Peace, Bread and Land". People were tired of war and they were hungry.

Are we close to being animated by that slogan, yet?