Somewhere in a cave...

.... in the mountains of Afghanistan there's a tall, bearded man smiling at the destruction he has wrought.

Watching MSNBC yesterday morning, sick as dog from a head cold and stomach virus, I listened as Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Christopher Cox, and Jim Lockhart squirmed to explain to the Senate Banking Committee why the credit markets need a $700 billion dollar blank check, courtesy of the American taxpayer. I could not help but imagine the bogey-man of our worst nightmares point at his huge flat-screen television and laugh to his cohorts, "Dude, look what we did!"

I know I'm being a bit too simplistic about the Bin Laden connection. What's happening now to our financial markets has it roots in events and circumstances that go back much further than the moment America became aware of Osama Bin Laden. As I was researching information for this post, I came across this article that appeared in The Washington Post back in June:

Anatomy of a Meltdown: The Credit Crisis

Do you think Messers. P., B., C., and L. read the story? How about Bin Laden?

I can't help but wonder: Is he smiling? I'll bet a king's ransom he is. As our country hemorrhages money out every orifice like some poor soul suffering from E-bola, he is smiling because he probably pushed the first domino that set us on this ruinous path.

The cost of fighting terrorism now stands at $581 billion and counting:

###
Iraq War Cost


But that doesn't count. That's the cost of taking the fight over there, so that Americans can be safe here.

Ha! Safe. I feel it. Don't you?

In meantime, while the country's attention was transfixed on the war, the Bush Administration purposely turned a blind eye, as men like Paulson, who was the head of Goldman Sachs before his government gig, gutted the banking industry.

And now they want us to pay for their fuck up.

Listen to Paulsen, Bernake, Cox, and Lockhart as the beg.... BEG!... the Senate Banking Committee for the $700 million dollars.




They look like a bunch of junkies begging a dealer for another fix. Even after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) suggested that the money be paid off in installments, they we're adamant in stating that they needed the money now, much in the same way, that Bush was adamant about need for cash to fight the war.

Let's do the math folks:

$581 (Iraq war cost)
+
$1,100 (A.I.G., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns)
+
$700 (All the rest)

= 2,381*

* - figures in billions

That's alot of cheddar for a fix.

Now that the shaft has been inserted into our collective asses with the war, the Bush Administration now wants to give it a nice shove for good measure with this bailout.

What angers me about our present predicaments is the fact that the warning signs were there.

The warnings leading up to 9/11/01 were obvious. Bin Laden had been trying to goad us into a fight for the longest time, blowing up embassies and ramming a bomb-laden boat into the USS Cole. You can blame President Clinton all you want for his administration's tepid reaction to those events, but I quite admire his reserve. Why commit military resources to what is essentially a job for Interpol and the FBI? As we know now, it would have cost us billions to use the military to catch him, and with no guarantee of success. Instead Clinton chose to focus on the economy, on building relationships with foreign nations, and making government run more efficiently. Is it any wonder we had a budget surplus on January 20, 2001?

Listen to Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) take the motley crew of financial gurus to task over the warning signs of this financial crisis:



But it's too late now, I'm afraid. As Congress figures out what to do about Wall Street, people are losing jobs and homes left and right; our infrastructure is crumbling as we speak, and our military is stretched to the point of breaking.

I hate to say this folks, but the wolves are circling the carcass and shooting them from a helicopter won't help.

Russian navy ships head to Venezuela

Our once great nation has fallen to its knees and is holding the ropes taking an eight count.

And somewhere, in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden is smiling.

Remembering 9/11/01

I've grown weary of all the 9/11 remembrances, especially the big ones.

Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives that day seven years ago, most here in New York. So, it's right to remember them and recall how their lives enriched our world in ways large and small. I lost no one that day. I had two close calls with a brother who was supposed to be in Tower One that morning and a sister who witnessed the second plane crash into Tower One as she was merging onto West Street from the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. I lost no one, still, I felt the loss that day, as every American did.

What has me so weary is not so much the many remembrance ceremonies, but this inescapable notion that some of these gatherings, particularly the televised ones, have become more important than the event it commemorates. Is it any wonder that fewer and fewer family members of the victims of 9/11 even bother to attend them?

Why is that? Could it be that they're tired of bullshit politicians picking at the scabs of their wounds for the sake of political gain?

Rudy Giuliani is one such bullshitter.

I can't begin to describe the loathing many victim's families have for his "9/11" antics, particularly those of the 343 FDNY firefighters who died that day. Buried somewhere in his "I'm-the-hero-of-9/11" show, is the fact that Mayor Giulani's inaction in replacing the outdated FDNY radios probably cost those firefighters their lives. Many who went into the burning towers died in the collapse because they never heard the call to evacuate. Two years ago, Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins wrote a scathing critique of America's Mayor called Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani. If you haven't read it, you should.

George Bush is another one. Here's what he had to say today at the Pentagon ceremony:

Since 9/11, our troops have taken the fight to the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home... Thanks to the brave men and women, and all those who work to keep us safe, there has not been another attack on our soil in 2,557 days.

Indeed. But at what cost? Since 9/11, we've lost over 4,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and caused the deaths of a million Iraqi and Afghani civilians. And, we're now were on the verge of sacrificing more lives in an attack on Iran, when it all could have been prevented, had Bush acted on intelligence reports handed to him on the 6th of August 2001 indicating a 9/11 attack was imminent. Because of his failure to act, we now live in a nation so jacked up about the need for security, that few if any understand just how much our civil liberties have eroded since 9/11/01.

We had one such gathering in my town of Lindenhurst, NY. It was a rather subdued ceremony to honor the six residents we lost in that attack. But like many of the local town officials standing on the dais tonight, I did not know Susan Clyne all that well, just as I did not know either of the Joe Angelinis (father and son FDNY firefighters), or Geoffrey Guja, or Gary Lee, or Lawrence Nedell.

A color guard was on hand to present the flag, and someone gave a poorly-sung, but heartfelt, rendition of "God Bless America." Various town officials and religious leaders spoke to the crowd, none missing a beat in calling the attacks cowardly and lauding our dead as heroes.

But unlike Rudy Giuliani who milked the 9/11 tragedy dry for personal profit, and George Bush who used fear of another 9/11 to shred our Constitutional rights, what I witnessed and felt tonight in Lindenhurst was a genuine sense of unity.

What I heard them say to the victim's families is something you'll never hear from Giuliani or Bush or any other politician coat-tailing these events. What my neighbors say is "I'm sorry for you loss"?

All Aboard the 6:17: From Joba to Obama

Yesterday morning on my commute in to work, this guy gets on the train at Amityville and starts ranting about the New York Yankees pitcher, Joba Chamberlain. He's no stranger to me. I see him everyday and he usually talks sports with his riding buddy from Babylon. But for this ride, he put his vitriol in high gear and opened up loudly over the fact that the Yankees manager, Joe Girardi, pulled Joba from his first major league start after only 2 and a third innings. "How could he do that?" asked our intrepid man from Amityville. "He gave up two runs and only threw 62 pitches."

If you live in New York and follow sports, it's very difficult to avoid the Joba Chamberlain saga. Let me spare you the gory details -- he came to the Yankees in August 2007 with lots of high-praise and promise. He broke in as a reliever and was promoted to a starter. His claim to fame in the pros is being on the mound in Cleveland during Game 2 of last October's American League Division when he was attacked by a swarm if bugs called midges . Big deal, right?

What struck me about the whole scene was not the content of his discussion, but visceral disgust in his voice over what transpired. This guy was livid, blathering on to the guy from Babylon with phrases like:

"I can't believe this."

"This is outrageous."

"How could Girardi do that to him."

This went on for a good 15 minutes, within which he managed to work in a smattering of "In the old days, pitchers would throw doubleheaders..." statements, as if there was some lesson to be drawn from this nostalga.

Okay, dude, we get it.

What I wanted to know then and now is why all the hulabaloo? What vested interest does this guy have in the New York Yankees that compels him to tell everyone and his mother about his disgust with Joba being pulled from the game?

I never asked him these questions, but yet, there I was expecting the answer to reveal itself. From the volume of his voice, the only logical reason I can deduce from his tirade was that he is passionate about his team. I guess that's why we call them fans.

But the question I wanted to ask him, but didn't was, who gives a flying fuck?

He was reading the newspaper you see to the left, which, like the other printed rags in New York and around the country rightfully blared on its front page the news of Obama's historic victory as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. I wondered why he didn't flip to the front cover of his copy of The News and talk about that. Given what's at stake in this election, you would think that the Obama-McCain match up is much more important than the fate of a rookie pitcher.

Boy was I wrong.

It dawned on me at that this is yet another example of how little politics is discussed in public circles. Yeah. We go at it here in blogosphere, and the discussion generated by our QWERTY keyboards is quite lively. But raise the point on the train or in some other public setting and you are likely to be branded a social pariah, a trouble maker, or a rabble rouser.

Don't get me wrong here. I couldn't tell this guy apart from Adam, if not for his rant on Joba. For all I know, he could be the nicest, kindest and most politically-active Obama supporter in the world. You wouldn't know it from the way he was dressed. He had a green polo shirt with a PGA Tournament emblem, complimented by a pair of tan khakis and soft leather uppers with the Dockers® logo. But given the fact that my wardrobe choice that morning was not that far off from his, it's a fathomable possibility.

Like me, he appears to be a person who is gainfully employed in a corporate job, a homeowner, husband, and father to great kids. He's probably someone who is feeling the pinch of the rising costs of goods and services, including $4.15 we pay for regular unleaded gasoline in Suffolk County.

You would think that he would rather discuss Obama (or McCain) because we're sinking in the same boat; that he would want to turn over his newspaper and smile (or rant) at the man pictured on the front page because finally, a viable candidate has emerged who is committed to taking on and reversing the destructive policies of current sitting administration. Finally, we have someone who speaks for those of us who are not in the top 1% (or even 20%) of income or accumulated wealth. Finally.

In my mind, I'm screaming, "SAY SOMETHING ABOUT OBAMA!"

But not my man from Amityville. Yesterday, it was all about Joba. With his newspaper open, he slapped at the picture of Joe Girardi, lamenting the fact that the Yankees let Joe Torre go. "I'm so disgusted," I heard him say. That's when I checked out.

But just as I was about to bury my head back into the CISSP study guide I was reading, I heard his buddy from Babylon ask him about how Hideki Matsui did that night.

Amityville: He went two-for-four with an RBI.

Babylon: Awesome. I have him on my fantasy team.

And there you have it. These two guys talk about sports non-stop because it's a concept that they can wrap their heads around. I'm not saying that these guys are dumb, but when you contrast the sports of politics and baseball, the differences are quite stark.

Politics is a sport that has real consequences to you and me. The rules are, at best, difficult to understand, and more often than not they engender a sense of hopelessness because for lots of people, like my man from Amityville, don't have the time and or the energy to make the leap between an issue like the Iraqi occupation and their personal lives. It's too much work.

Baseball is different. The rules are well-defined and there is always a definitive outcome with little or no personal ramification. It's easy to get mad or happily giddy about what's happening on the field of play because it's just play. Once the game is over you either head back home or turn off your television, momentarily happy or sad over the outcome. There are no long-term effects once the game is over.

As I was walking off the train at Penn Station, I happened to catch this Non-Sequitur cartoon in the newspaper left behind by the guy from Babylon, which sums up my man from Amityville's political apathy.












David Wiley Miller, you are a genius.