archived: 16 - 22 Apr, 2006 Back Next
JAY GREENE*
“IF YOU DON’T HEAR FROM ME”
Mr & Mrs America and all ships at sea - flash! Good reason to believe El Presidente, nuestro leder maximo, aka Shrub, will visit our 'umble 'amlet (St Helena, California) soon. There has been an announcement he will be in CA April 21-26 and I (as did all members) just received a notice from our local club, Meadowood, that the club would be closed to members from 0600 Friday April 21 to 1800 Saturday, the 22nd, because, as it is phrased so carefully, "the requirements of a guest traveling with an independent security team necessitate that we restrict access."
So, if you don't [hear from me] two Mondays hence, you'll know I'm in the slammer because I was carrying a sign saying "si su puede" or "get the hell out of Iraq" (or what is worse, "you're no Republican, you're a patsy for the neocons"). How about I make a sign, "We welcome you, George but if you want to bring Dick along tell him there's no quail hunting around here"?
On the other hand, I may be picked up on Main Street because I am on their watch list - you have no idea how many subversives hang out among the grape vines hereabouts. And we're completely seditious, muttering things like "I sure wish those tax and spend Dems were back
in office because at least they didn't run us deeper into debt to China."
We don't have many visits by Really Big Names. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were here for a spell in the thirties when she was filming "Pollyanna" using a small cottage still on Main Street. Joe Montana lives a few miles up the road and Robin Williams has a place a few miles in the opposite direction, but that's about as ritzy as it gets. Oh yeah, Dickie was here for a wedding last summer but was asked the leave any firearms outside the Valley - we are a nuclear free zone, here, fella.
(But in my listing of Really Big Names I overlooked the distinguished Michael Lasser and his bride, the fair Elaine; they stayed at this very club last year. How humbling it is to be so close to Fame.)
BTW, there's a big effort here to restrict tourism and I say, let's start now!
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* Jay Greene is a frequent contributor to TPJ. Junkie considers his article “Deadwood Act” to be one of the finest pieces ever to appear in TPJ. Greene is retired, but he held top management posts in the steamship industry and international trade on the Pacific Coast.
JUNKIE: Greene’s wit and wisdom are a delight, but underscore an important point that TPJ has been making. Defeating the radical Republican right requires Democrats, like Greene, who are willing to “take the cause to the streets.” Democrats will return to majority Party status only when Democrats make the case for change to the members of their community.
As an aside, TPJ informed Greene that we are prepared to make is bail if arrested, assuming that he is not declared an “enemy combatant” and shipped to Guantanamo; and TPJ will organize a legal defense fund to help defray his legal expenses, assuming that he is permitted a trial in the American courts of justice with access to an attorney. Under the radical Republicans’ view of the American Constitution, these are two precarious and frightening assumptions.
ALLEN L. ROLAND*
“WHY RUMSFELD WILL NOT RESIGN”
The reason Rumsfeld will not resign is because this is a Cheney/Rumsfeld war and Rumsfeld will not go until Cheney is either indicted or impeached.
To understand our very dangerous current situation in Washington, D.C. you must realize that this country is being run by a cabal of five people – The Gang of Five.
Dick Cheney is the main man (everything begins with and goes through Cheney). The recent Plamegate leak findings confirm this White house scenario.
Donald Rumsfeld is the military arm of Cheney's grand neo-con agenda. The Generals hate him because Iraq is not being conducted as a military campaign – it’s a cold and blatant political campaign which has sacrificed many lives for its questionable neo-con objectives.
In today's Washington post, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-2005, says, "We need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork." Another retired officer, Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs, shared his sense that "everyone" in his peer group "pretty much thinks Rumsfeld and the bunch around him should be cleared out," and that he "emphatically agrees." "Batiste's comments resonate especially within the Army," the Post reports, since it is "widely known there that he was offered a promotion to three-star rank to return to Iraq and be the No. 2 U.S. military officer there but he declined because he no longer wished to serve under Rumsfeld."
George W Bush is the front man or cheer leader for the Cheney/Rumsfeld action agenda and, as such, is purposely left out of many key decisions in order to maintain a sense of oblivious innocence or disengagement from the abuses of power all around him.
Condi Rice is the velvet glove for the Cheney/Rumsfeld agenda, who is also beholden to Cheney – who paved the way for her position at State.
John Bolton is the enforcer – the Republican bully and stooge whose job is to intimidate the United Nations toward the Cheney/Rumsfeld way of thinking.
All of them have blood on their hands and all answer to Cheney.
So how do we bring down this neo-con cabal – whose self-serving agenda is totally out of sync with what most Americans desire?
You bite off the head of this poisonous snake – which is Dick Cheney.
And when Cheney is either impeached or indicted the rest of it will fall apart and the most corrupt government in our nation's history will finally be revealed for the world to see.
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*Allen L. Roland served five years as a Navy fighter pilot and ten years as a stockbroker. He has earned a masters degree in psychology and now works as a therapist with an active private counseling practice in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Roland has a wonderful website, Allen L. Roland's Radio Weblog. He also publishes a newsletter that is TPJ recommended. You may subscribe here: Newsletter
NOTE FROM DR. STEVE JONAS:
Rumsfeld will not resign. Even if he did it would not make any difference because the visible person running policy, his alter ego from the Nixon/Ford days, Cheney, will stay in place as long as he can stand up (or maybe even from a hospital bed, who knows?)
Hurrah for the courageous generals, but again, their statements will have no influence on policy. They will also have no influence on the political situation as long as Democrats are behaving themselves exactly in the way you describe.
What gives me some hope for the long-term future in the battle against Georgite theocratic fascism is this. In my view, as long as the Democrats continue to do what they are presently doing we are headed for the Second Civil War, as I discussed at length in TPJ last year. However, at least we now have an indication that there may be some experienced and skilled Generals who will line up on the side of Constitutional Democracy. We will surely need them.
One last point here, on the generals and Bush's response to them. Isn't it just remarkable that he has recently been saying, about Iraq, that "I will do what I want to in Iraq, based on what our commanders on the ground tell me about the situation there, because they know the facts on the ground and none of you war opponents do." That is except when that message "from the commanders on the ground" just happens not to jibe with what Bush wants to do in Iraq, regardless of reality.
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Last Update: 04/22/2006