[Newspoetry] Wonky-tonk music

[DL Emerick]

Wonks on the team?  Thoughtless as we are, thought rules all.

A.  Military-industrial complex -- ?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/documents/the-war-over-the-won
ks.html

1.  Foreign policy for Democrats continues a rule by old-style thinkers,
Those more interested in stable relationships between states qua states,
Far less interested in any transformative capacity of their regime,
Though they have a minor commitment to an emerging world state.
They do not have a necessary historic visionary leadership,
One that might lead us more expressly out of our confused and chaotic world.

But, under Democrats, as contrasted with Imperial madness of the GoP Klan,
We'll see more stress on multilateral coordination, on genuine diplomacy,
With much less reliance on gunboats,
Or the fearful ringing of welkins over nebulous Orwellian threats,
Ones never actually manifesting, except as mirages, chimeras, ghosts --
the stuff of cowardly fear, only by use of which Bush manages to rule us.

In short, instead of cavalier contempt for other nations and other people,
And indeed, contempt for traditional American foreign policy postures,
We fly a flag of convenience, a convention of acceptances of world presence,
We will create a more peaceful world,
where we can reduce wasteful uses of our military resources,
After the ignorant disastrous Bush presidency, driven by maniacal hawks.

Some of this will happen "naturally" as Democratic advisors are less attuned
To the question of what is good for the MIC;
They are somewhat more traditionally "academic",
Which is to say that they are "state-department" oriented.
Bush never understood the art and the aim of "brinksmanship":
Be prepared to go to the brink, but never, ever go over it --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brinkmanship.

(Personal testimony - though it was a long time ago -
I could see this "academic" crowd at the Harvard-MIT CIA-CIS -
Always carefully oriented to the long term US strategic interests,
And less given over to sheerly romantic imperial impulses like Iraq
and the rather similar but far more blustery Afghanistan war.

It is the latter that is truly Bush's most distinctive failure -
We pointlessly destroyed an incumbent local government (the Taliban regime),
Put in a puppet who stays in office, only with our bayonets to back him up,
Who has no "popular support" and also depends on drug lords -
When our strategic interest is a less brutal "international police action" -
To go solely after Al Qaeda and the monsters of the Bin Laden rogue force.
Even after we determined to depose the government needlessly there,
And to pursue the puppet approach, Bush distracted himself into Iraq,
Dreaming that the time was opportune for a bigger gamble,
And thinking that a few bayonets could perform nation building,
Because they could be so successful in toppling regimes ---
A mistake we call the prime Marxist fallacy -
A great critique of any existing regime is comparatively easy (a child's
play of toy soldiering),
As against the far, far harder problems of vision (and leadership) to make
something truly better.

B.  GDP and things like that

First of all, the economy seems strong, resilient, and rather successful,
So says the New York Times news story, page 1, this morning ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/washington/28bush.html:
"Bush has spent years presiding over an economic climate of growth
[one] that would be the envy of most presidents.
Yet[,] much to the consternation of his political advisers,
he has had trouble getting credit for it..."
(other than trillions borrowed abroad, on false promises of repayment,
Emulating Reagan's borrow-and-spend-madly martial bad public finances.)

[[Same background spinning, by Bush White House,
led to this almost identical "news" story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/27/AR2008012702
337.html
typical lack of critical thinking among the so-called "working" press,
eating caviar crumbs from the White House table,
sipping at champagne sloshed and spilled on the floors.]]

Obama's recent proposal is gimmicky stimulus-demographic-economics:

http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2008/01/13/barack-obama-advisers-unveil-econo
mic-stimulus-plan/ --
it provides no clear vision of how to approach national economic issues.
Why else would Pelosi (or Reid) continue to avoid being a Democratic leader?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/washington/27pelosi.html --
they're all part of the Clinton "conspiracy" called New Democrats,
which is just another way of saying that they are
"Miming Earnest Republicans who are Miming Apish Idiots as Democrats" or
MERMAID, a fantastic creature of sea who is but salt in your eyes.)

The tax give-away just throws money off the back of the chariot -
But in election years, politicians have less reason than ever to be frugal,
Just as they never have an incentive to appear rational or reasonable -
THE MIND OF A POLITICIAN IS LEAST TO BE TRUSTED
WHEN HIS MOUTH OPENS TO TELL YOU WHAT IS ON IT.

Worse yet, Obama is (trained as) a lawyer - 
Next to accounting and MBA-ships (especially CEOs),
that is the worst training one can get, for POLITICAL leadership.
The habits of "thinking" in the minds of lawyers are compromised
By inculcation into a calculus of adversity, anchored to client interests -
Rhetoric is for the media and the masses -
But follow the bouncing ball and see where it goes.

(In Republican terms, "show me the money, and I'll know what is true.",
But Democrats like bouncing balls better for some inexplicable reason.,
Whether it is basketball or some Bill's balls bouncing in the Oval Office.)

The unity of "what is best for all" is not particularizable,
nor is it ever divisible into the quanta of quid-pro-quos.

Democrats love infrastructure programs -
They like to spend tons of public money
on highways and roads, airports and train sets, dams and bridges,
canals and levees, post offices and courthouses, prisons and jails.
We will see that in future spending programs of public spending.
The "environment" (green earth gang) won't go hungry, either -
Spending on parks, wetlands and wilderness preservation areas will abound -
While Republicans will complain about restrictions on public land usages,
The end of unimpeded access to public lands they've enjoyed under Bush -
Where they rob public lands, pay almost nothing, not even costs, for them -
Fearless piracy and its plundering of the public commons
will thus abate, somewhat, for awhile.

Economic progress in the US, from 2000 to 2008, has been minimal,
By the statistics I see, for the last 8 years - a hum-drum economy at best,
Marked by deep pockets of a 9/11 shock-effect Bush shamelessly exploited -
An uneven economy, built on sands no wise man would build upon,
And no solid rock of a credible coherent plan for our economic future.
It is the impossible dream of Republicans mythos --
that an economy needs no governance.
(It's all the magic of an invisible hand.)

Well, they say that, but then cede some necessity for the SEC, the FRB,
And a huge collection of other market-support institutions,
The true infrastructure of our often abstract national economy,
Mostly a mental matter, but imagined and created by "academic" Democrats,
Who truly grasp macro-economics, (and motherly, if not brotherly, love)
And not pin-head micro-economics of the Chicago school of selfish greed.

Indeed, if you listen to the chatter, on what this economy needs,
>From Paulson over the week-end - it is the typical comment:
"An economy most simply expresses itself as a public psychology,
One summarized easily as "the presently governing herd-like behavior",
Where things get better when people are confident,
And worse when the people have no hope."
I paraphrase - but you see this "truth" written everywhere, these days -
Maybe even upon subway halls, going home.
http://sglyrics.myrmid.com/sounds.htm#track01

<<If you can stand midi elevator musaic echos (memes):
Then, by all means, indulge your ears:
http://sglyrics.myrmid.com/silence1.mid.

(A musaic is a mosaic of sounds, you may rightly presume.)

C.  Law, Justice and Other Liberal Wet Dreams
Edwards would be a great Attorney General,
no matter which Democrat becomes President next,
but only Obama is likely to appoint him to that office,
because Hillary is, above all things, a control freak
and could not stand an independent actor in her Administration -
Hillary is not just a bitch from hell,
she's manipulative and domineering,
cruel, crafty, calculating and conscienceless.
(I'd still vote for her
rather than any of the apparently brain-dead Republicans!!!
(Except, maybe, for the equally crass and conscienceless Romney or Guiliani)
That may indicate that I will vote for a person who may be a good president,
Despite all the nonsense they may have uttered in the campaign season).

"[T]he skills required to win power
and ... [those needed] to govern are different."
So says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/27/AR2008012701
499.html,
Ritually repeating a truth that everyone ought to know and never forget.
Indeed, if TRUTH IN ELECTIONS were demanded and implemented, as law,
We'd never let Presidential Candidates, nor pundits, nor anyone, perhaps,
Say even a single word during the Campaign Season,
Allow no TV nor radio news,
Because effective speech, disguised as news and commentary, is effective -
And what is this grave and hidden danger that lies in effective speech?
A false persuasion of mere words far too likely to deceive and mislead us.
Hitler was as Limbaugh is: very good at rank lying, distorting demagoguery -
Hitler did it for power, Limbaugh for money and fame - both for self-glory.)

Despite all that, Edwards would be a great Attorney General -
He would cause great corporate moguls angst --
their shady-day-Street-traders-and-dealers would tremble and shake in fear,
knowing Justice will be coming after them, with the vengeance of the Lord -
like that line from Shawshank's Redemption:
"His Judgment Cometh, and That Right Soon!"
(or, better, from Independence Day:
"Payback's a bitch, ain't it!!!")

Such are the wet dreams of liberals such as me.