White House "Snow Jobs," "Issues," and "Challenged" Truth.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of its children . . . . This is not a way life at all. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

That was General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the U.S. According to the U.S. Accounting office and others, we have spent, thus far, on George W. Bush’s attempt to position himself in history as a great man, $99,380,000,000. That’s ninety-nine billion, eight hundred thirty-four million, and that’s per year. That’s $278,000,000,000 – three hundred, seventy-eight billion, total.

I like quotations. They’re the past, so they give you perspective, a measure of what you’re doing or about to do. Here’s another, from Mark Twain. He wrote this in 1906, in a work entitled “Glances at History.”

"To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, 'Our country, right or wrong,' and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?”

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the President of the United States asked the U.S. Congress to allocate sixty-nine billions, that spread over five years. That’s $13,800,000,000 per year. Thirteen billions, eight hundred million.

The numbers are also a measure of priorities where the George W. Bush Administration and the Federal Government of the United States are concerned. The measure tells a citizen, for instance, what to expect when his interests are compared with those of an illegal alien from Mexico – and who will get the most sympathy, effort, and assistance. The measure tells the poor what to expect when their interests are compared with those of the nation’s military-industrial complex (it was also President Eisenhower who warned that a coup-d’etat was about to take place in our country).

Humanity, in other words, will be hung on a cross of iron.

“To speak of atrocious crimes in mild language is treasonous to virtue.” Edmund Burke.

A couple days ago, the “Iraq Study Group” published its much-ballyhooed report. Guess what? “Things aren’t going well in Iraq.” Believe it or not, I not only knew that, but I said things would not go well in Iraq months – years, in fact - before the invasion. What an amazing guy I must be – a real seer.

That “things aren’t going well” remark is a quote for the latest White House “Snow job” – one of those “briefings” (of course, a White House briefing is a briefing the way a FoxNews newscast is news). The pundits are now telling us about the schism that occurred in Islam centuries ago, and how Sunni and Shiite Moslems have hated and killed one another for all that time.

That’s over which relative of the Mohammed should have become boss (things like that, to an historian, also provide perspective – what to expect of people who follow that particular break with reality called religion).

In case you think I forgot about the Kurds, I didn’t. It’s just that the Sunni-Shiite issue is trouble enough. The choice of words “issue” and “trouble” should provide even more perspective that having to do with the matter – not the choice of term) of the likelihood that an “American” – note the perspective – has any chance of knowing what the hell the reality is where any of this is concerned.

My point? Well, there are several. First, a very tiny percentage of the people who read this will have any way to know what numbers as large as $378,000,000,000 mean. They will have even more trouble – try to make “issue” work there – dong the division or multiplication necessary to know what the perspective I refer to where illegal aliens and U.S. citizens is.

What are the odds of your receiving help, if your problem – “issue?” – is to be weighed against that of an illegal Mexican? How much will your government spend on you? How much on the Mexican? How much is your government taking from Social Security to spend on an Iraqi? How much are the poor being deprived of, in order to assure that CEOs of military-industrial giants live like maharajahs?

How much is $13,800,000,000, divided by $99,834,000,000? Is that the way to calculate the odds in your favor or against?

What do you calculate the chances that a White House “Snow job” relates to any kind of reality? What do you think the reality might be? How do you figure it? How about a FoxNews “newscast?” What numbers do you use to diminish or increase the truth of what they tell us? What’s been the ratio – no, not “issue;” there’s no argument about it – between what they said was the truth and what WAS the truth?

How about Iraq? What did they say costs would be? What are the costs again? How about casualties? Time we would be in Iraq?
How do things like “stay the course,” “cut and run,” and the rest of White House “Snow Job,” FoxNews palaver relate to Mark Twain’s “our country right or wrong and urge on the little war’ relate. How do you compare them?

What is a liar? If I think the U.S. has “issues” in Iraq, what does someone mean when they say trouble? Disaster? How big an “issue” is a disaster? If I think a liar is someone who is “truth-challenged,” what is a lie? A challenged truth? Is THAT what an “issue” is?

What is insanity? Is it “challenged” reality? Is reality an “issue?” Seems so, doesn’t it . . .?