The Country Club Set

There's a reason for the twenty first century
Not too sure but I know that it's meant to be
--21st Century,
Red Hot Chili Peppers

For every one that exalteth himself shall be abased;
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted
--Luke 18:14
_________________

America is not a happy place. We are disgruntled, disorganized and disputatious, and this is not due to Russian interference in our elective process.

There are two Americas. (Maybe three, if one believes in a "deep government".)

My life has represented the middle class of America. As immigrants, we worked and struggled to integrate into American life. We carried union cards and served capitalism, as required of any citizen.

We bought the myth that any man (if not woman) could become President, and all the other platitudes of citizenship. We saluted the flag and pledged allegiance, and even marched off to war when asked to.

When we returned, it was not to a membership in the country club, which is the place the Others occupied. These are the folks blessed by capitalism, and they are the source of our leadership class.

Nobody in my family visited or were petitioned for membership in a country club. Our elections seldom placed working men in leadership positions. Yet we elect into positions of power people who live in artificial communities, people who live in a foreign land, for us.

The same was true in the military. The men of destiny had played golf, and had not worked, at the country club. This was doubly true in the Reserves. Those blessed by capitalism also excelled at promotion boards

We pretend to be a democracy when in fact we are a class-riven society dominated by and for those favored by capitalism. Even our new religion of Prosperity Gospel supports the idea of success as being a favor of God.

So the power struggle ensuing in the United States now is not for the soul of democracy but for the rights of capitalism to continue predating upon the workers. Strange that for capitalism to work, the people that elect our leaders must vote from among a small stable of the privileged.

The People are played when they buy into the lie that the system is democratic and designed to benefit all.

Seeking external corruption is merely a distraction aimed at keeping us obediently in our places, in thrall to the media scions and the country club set.

The only thing that matters to our power class is that we believe that whatever party they hail from represents the Truth and The Way. That they are public servant saviors giving it up for us, offering the hope of a bit of power and glory in the form of a company COSTCO membership.

The fact is, there is no salvation in any political system. Golf balls and tennis rackets are the basis of capitalism, and life can be devoid of both.

--by Jim

Mittsionary Position

 Never think that war, no matter how necessary,
nor how justified, is not a crime 
 --Ernest Hemingway

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can,
only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity 
--President Dwight D. Eisenhower

 History teaches that war begins when governments 
believe the price of aggression is cheap 
--Ronald Reagan

____________________ 

In a time of war, it is good to consider the capabilities of the Commander-in-Chief.

The U.S. hasn't had a military president since George H. W. Bush elected in 1998 (his son, George W. Bush, had registered with the Texas Air National Guard, but his service record is contentious.) Five Presidents beginning with Taft and ending with Hoover had no military experience, either; one of them elected to enter a war (Woodrow Wilson, World War I).  Most other U.S. Presidents had military experience.

We are entering a phase in our history when military service has become "professionalized", and is usually not the track taken by men who would enter the political domain.  Neither candidate in 2012 has a military background, so this is not a slam on either, but rather the Selective Service system itself.  Should the President and those who serve elected office have had the experience of military service?  Why is the leadership of the free world exercising his strength via ordering seemingly limitless warfare?  Could this be compensation?

Mitt Romney took a religious and educational deferments from 1965-70, until the downturn of combat in Vietnam.  Like former Vice President Cheney, he had other priorities.  How does doing a proselytizing stint afford one the same deferment as that of an ordained minister? Meanwhile the rest of us lived or died according to the vagaries of the draft laws.

Young men from factory neighborhoods like Ranger's were drafted and inducted to the max.  Ivy League dudes didn't puff out the ranks of the Infantry, Airborne or Special Forces in that period.  The American caste system plays out in terms of opportunities for advancement or death, and one's trajectory is determined almost at birth.

Who is to blame guys like Romney whose male stock successfully avoided or evaded active combat service for four generations? It is the Selfish Gene, writ large. Draft laws and tax laws have never been equable; the poor and near-poor will always carry an outsized burden.

And yet, men like Clinton, Obama and Romney seek war, foisting the responsibility for its execution onto others, and the hypocrisy bites.  An egalitarian society like that of the United States should seek to distribute burdens across the populace spectrum, lest favoritism and bitter resentment be our legacy.

These are odd times when a presidential contender promises in advance that he will get us into a major meltdown war if elected (Romney on Iran.)  The Republicans used to be isolationists; Eisenhower and Nixon were elected to end wars (in Korea and Vietnam). American presidents used to sue for peace and quality of life for all the nation's citizens.

When did the U.S. accept the mantle of being a nation of martial prowess led by draft exempted cheerleaders?

Better a platoon of sheep led by a lion than a platoon of lions led by a sheep.