The Blusterizer!

“Updated We Stand!”

Soon I’ll go to bed and sleep, and I dread this, because it means I’ll wake up tomorrow and need to figure out how to distract myself from the fact that I’m witnessing a fundamental change in the character of our nation, and it’s the wrong change. It’s the one so many have tried to prevent, that I’ve tried, in my own small way, to prevent.

And here it is.

I’m picturing myself in the ballot booth with my number 2 pencil marking in the bubbles on the scan-tron sheet. That’s how powerful I feel. I get to vote, and even that doesn’t matter because the Supreme Court is in the pockets of the crime lords currently in power.

Think about all the work done to bring about peace. Think about everyone you’ve ever heard talking about a peaceful America. Think about the loyalty to the ideal of America as the peaceful giant, woe unto he who awakens it. The loyalty of military people and civilians alike toward creating peace in the world.

That’s all gone. Erased by what amounts to unilateral action by the US to invade a country that didn’t attack it.

The US is the aggressor nation in this conflict.

The US has never been the aggressor nation. The US has a long tradition of developing a defensive military. But that tradition, that history is gone. Dwight D. Eisenhower is spinning in his grave. The wisdom of every President who stayed his hand and didn’t call for an attack is betrayed.

Everything good about US might is perverted. Everything bad about US might is confirmed and redoubled. We are the frat-boy nation.

And don’t talk to me about the cheering Iraqis lining the streets. They’d have cheered for anyone. Progressives were talking about the atrocities of Hussein, and about how we shouldn’t be dealing with him, even as Donald Rumsfeld went over there and shook his hand and gave him money and weapons and chemical and biological weapon precursors. Dare to say, “I told you so…” and you’re accused of being a tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy kook.

And don’t tell me about how much better Afghanistan is now. Sheesh. Bush forgot to put the aid money in the budget! Afghani-Wha? Afghanistan, where, again, progressives were decrying the oppressive Taliban regime while George W. Bush was busy signing checks to send to them.

It’s a huge fucking flim-flam. The hugest ever. It’s 1984 meets Starship Troopers. All we need now is a story about genetically modified super soldiers in underground bases in Montana. It wouldn’t seem out of place.

Protest: Meaningless. Politics: Meaningless. What’s left?

Presented here as a public bookmark:

Iraqi Wars by Chalmers Johnson, who, it turns out, agrees with me about the real reason for the Bush administration’s foreign policy workings. The difference is he has a PhD and is a war veteran.

The only news I can stomach right now is from the Christian Science Monitor. They have a special Iraq section of their website.

Blissfully free of jingoism.

How To Wake

“Here comes the morning
Blind and tired
Pulled by the undertow
This world of mine
This world is mine”
–David Sylvian/Rain Tree Crow, ‘Pocket Full of Change’

The transition from dream world to the other, more mysterious world is like walking through an airport. An infinite number of external forces determine how easy or hard.

For me, there is coffee. Usually there is coffee, either brewed in my little rented kitchen, or after a stroll down the hill for espresso.

Coffee is the wake-up drug. Buddha might say it’s not really the wake-up drug, or even the become-conscious drug, but for me it’s the drug of the morning after sleep.

The coffee comes after the drifting, however. The eyes open and the floodgates let the outside world in. Mercifully, the gates open slowly; the bouy of consciousness can drift and bob. Some days it’s a gentle rising, others are a sudden drowning panic flood. Encourage the gentle, enjoy the experience.

Shifting under the blankets. Volley of conscious thought: Time to get up! Resist this urge. The body sends back: Oh how warm and comfortable. Shift again. Emerge out from under the covers one part at a time. First head and neck, then arm, then back or chest (depending). It’s time to turn the heater on and pee. Dash to the heater, dash to the bathroom, get barefoot chill, hop back under the blankets, undo all that slow work of waking.

The body and the mind both know it’s time to get up, but they play games with each other. Just a few more minutes… Make plans for the busy day… Feel the warm… Taste the coffee.

This is the only kind of offense the mind can put up at this point. Body gives in, because it likes coffee, too. Some might say it’s addicted.

Coffee is a ritual unto itself, all on autopilot. Pour out yesterday’s brew from the press in the special way that squeezes the water out of the grounds (pull the plunger most of the way out, swish the coffee to de-sedimentize the grounds, turn the press upside-down, press the plunger up), put the grounds in the compost bin, rinse the press, measure the water, put the water in the pan on the stove, grind the coffee, put it in the press, wait. Etc.

Later the vitamins get taken. The look out the window at the yard. The email. The weblog. Gradually, ‘awake’ happens and the rituals become less obvious.

Just woke up. Went to bed at 8pm.

“Mind not go.
Cannot do the think.”

Nice article on Slate about the legitimacy of Bush’s war against Iraq.

If the hawks get their way, we’ll be fighting wars like this one for the next fifty years or so.

Yay empire.

As you watch the war on TV, keep in mind that freeing the Iraqi people from the oppressive rule of Saddam Hussein is merely a positive side-effect of the real reason we’re there.

Well, not exactly. Getting rid of Hussein is a reason to be there, as is helping the Iraqis. But to read this, you might think the hawks in the administration have been looking for any justifiable reason to get their hooks in the strategic and economic benefit of an occupation of Iraq.

Is it about the oil? Well, of course. But just invading for the oil alone is a losing proposition, and the hawks in the administration understand this. That’s how they can say it’s not about the oil with a straight face; you asked the wrong question, stupid.

Iraq’s oil is imporant, as is the strategic location bordering Iran and Saudi Arabia, as is the fresh water supply. Any of these things, taken alone, is not a good reason to invade and occupy Iraq. But put them together and it’s worth it, particularly when there’s enough sentiment against Hussein to be able to get away with it.

I got started writing this ‘blog because I got started reading this article on Salon. It’s a ‘premium’ article, but you can look at some advertising and read the whole thing.

The article is an interview with John Brady Kiesling, a political advisor in the US Embassy to Greece, who resigned recently because he couldn’t live with himself trying to justify US policy to the Greeks. It’s worth reading if you care about how difficult it has been to keep allies, thanks to the actions of the administration.

And it contains this:

Why do you think Bush is pursuing this war?

I’m frankly at a loss. I think he feels an incredible moral responsibility not to have another 9/11 happen again. Since he is not intellectually equipped to understand why such a huge part of the world could have these negative feelings about us, he’s looking for a simple answer; and I think he’s been manipulated by his Cabinet.

Even as the bombs are being dropped, I can’t allow myself to see it. I could go to CNN.com and look, but it’d be like watching a snuff video. Because that’s what it is. So I’m here thinking about policy and power.

Today’s music:

‘Here Comes President Kill Again‘ by XTC

Click to listen.

I woke up yesterday at about 4am. I decided, rather abruptly, that I’d go to Issaqua and get Krispy Kreme donuts. This is a half-hour or so drive across town to the only Krispy Kreme store in the Seattle area.

I tried not to listen to the radio. I was curious about the weather forecast and all that, but my brain couldn’t take any more war info.

As I approached Issaqua, I saw the sunrise straight ahead of me. The clouds covered the valley where I was driving, and extended right to the tops of the Cascade foothills, where they stopped in a distinct line. The pink reflected sunlight accentuated this stripe in the sky.

I decided not to get donuts. I kept driving east. I got to North Bend and the whole of the sky behind Mount Si was glowing like an ember.

I stopped and got an Egg McMuffin at a drive-thru. The woman who handed it to me was stuck in her own little drive through world, and I said, “Uhm, I’m not usually up this early. Does the sunrise always look like this?” I pointed east. She looked out and smiled and said, “Uhm, no.”

I kept going east up the mountains. I wondered what I’d see in the pass. It was bright and clear, and there was a little bit of snow blowing off the peaks.

The road leading to Gold Creek recreation area was closed unless you had a 4×4, which I don’t. I decided to keep going east.

I ended up at Cle Ellum, where I got some more drive-thru breakfast, this time at Burger King, which I have to say is much better than McDonald’s.

I looked at my map. I wondered if the North Cascades road would be open; I could head east, go up 97, and back through the mountains on US20. I also entertained the idea of going north on 97 to Leavenworth, and then back across the mountains on 2.

Then I thought about the Columbia river gorge, and so I ended up doing that.

The only problem was that I hadn’t really had any sleep at all in the past few days. I should have turned back and been content with the lovely sunrise.

By the time I was approaching Yakima, I decided I’d need to stop at a rest area and sleep a few hours. If you look at a map of Washington state, you’ll see that Yakima is about a third of the way along the loop I was hoping to drive. That I needed to stop and sleep did not bode well.

But I did stop and sleep for about two hours. I had fitful dreams about war and violence. I woke up to a car door slamming. Just some guy going to the bathroom at the rest area. I was startled and still half-asleep, and I started up the car and started driving away. Only after I had done this did I realize that I still needed more sleep and that there wouldn’t be any more rest areas until I got to I-82 in Oregon.

I contemplated getting a motel room. It was still before check-out time, however, and for some reason this was a good enough argument for continuing on.

Highway 97 is one of my favorites. It goes from Canada to Mexico, and it passes through the desert high plains of eastern Oregon, the Klamath River basin, and the Shasta and Lassen regions of northern California. But I had never followed it between Yakima and the Oregon border.

In my sleep-deprived state, I oggled at the lovely mountains and the grand, barren desert areas. There’s a point just north of the Oregon border where, if it’s clear, you can see Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Rainier. Of course I could only see Adams, because it was a mere 40 miles away.

After that, it’s a steep downgrade into the Columbia gorge. Dive right in! I made an obligatory stop at the Stonehenge monument, since it’s a WWII memorial. Whenever I visit the Stonehenge monument, I get the sense that it’s like the version of Shakespeare that would be written randomly by the 10,000 monkeys typing on typewriters. An ancient but still potent tool for ritual magic, re-created to commemorate war deaths? Being there is like driving a Ferrari below the speed limit.

Still, it’s nice to sit just inside the outer ring of concrete slabs and look southwest across the river to see the pointed cone of Mt. Hood rising into the clouds, framed between the uprights.

I decided to find a motel in The Dalles. The Dalles is a town with a dam. It’s a big, fascinating dam. I thought about stopping and looking around, but then I remembered: Terror alert. Dam. They’ve got enough on their minds without keeping track of me.

Still sleep-deprived, I would see the signs saying, “Lodging This Exit:” with little badges for each hotel, and only partially register what that meant until I had passed the exit. And then I was beyond The Dalles.

The gorge is astonishingly beautiful. It’s mother nature’s experiment with fung shui. It’s a river that somehow drains westward, across a mountain range. The geological story of why this is the case is quite interesting, but I’ve mentioned it here before so I won’t bore you.

But it’s a beautiful place, with terraced cliffs and rounded hills, and volcanic mountains. The weather was a little overcast, which gives the surrounding forests and moss-covered rocks a dark, mysterious quality.

I stopped for some food at the mouth of the Hood River. I found a nice motel that was extremely crowded, so I didn’t even go in and ask. But I did sit in my car and eat a burrito and listen to music and toss scraps to the beggar birds. I thought that this little service-industry town that is the jumping-off point for skiing in the Mt. Hood region might be a nice place to live.

And then I zoomed along.

(Part 2 when I get some more momentum.)