A Herd of Liars

Last night around eight PM my doorbell rang and I opened the door to find Max Angst.
“Art, I have to talk to someone. I’m really pissed off. Can I come in?”
“Of course, Max. Come in. What’s the matter?”
He came in sat in the parlor and I got both of us a Sam Adams. Then he said.
“Art, I’m sure you’re aware of the democrats bills in both houses of Congress calling for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. I have here an article form the International Herald Tribune that says the withdrawal claims are a lot of crap.”
“ That is bad news, Max. Can you give me the details? Who wrote the article?”
“The Article is by retired Brigadier General Kevin Ryan, who is a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.” The bills have two kinds of provisions: one kind is supposedly aimed reversing the current surge, the other sets dates for withdrawal of our troops. The first requires that army units have 365 days at home before they can be redeployed and Marine units have 210 days. Also units deployment could not be extended beyond one year for army units and seven months for marines. But, the bill allows the President to waive these restrictions in the interest of national security. Which allows Bush to do whatever he wants; we all know Bush past performance in justifying his most obnoxious actions. This whole thing is smoke and mirrors.
“Geese, Max, that stinks. What about the setting of dates?”
“They give a starting date for withdrawal of March 2008 and its completion by August 2008. The House bill requires immediate withdrawal if the President can’t certify that Iraq or the United States are meeting the benchmarks in the war. We all know what Bush will do. Also, both the Senate and the House bills allows some troops to remain if they’re performing one of three specific missions: protecting American citizens, facilities, or forces: combating Al Qaeda or International terrorism and training Iraqi security forces. General Ryan says this allows as many troops as we currently have in Iraq to remain there. Again smoke and mirrors!!! These bills do allow US forces to stay out of the Shiite Sunni civil war that going on. But when they’re training security forces it often means being embedded with the Iraqis, which could get our people into civil war battles. Fighting terrorists is battle action and so is protecting our civilians, facilities and forces. Where then is the withdrawal? Are not the Democrats lying to us just as the Republicans have been? Art, we all have to write to Pelosi, Reid and the rest of them and let them know we’re on to them and that we expect the conference bill that goes up to the President be free of smoke and mirrors.”
We talked for over an hour and killed the six pack of Sam. Today, I’m writing this blog and then I’ll write to Pelosi, Reid, Durbin and Obama. I’m beginning to feel strongly that we need a third party
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The Washington Swamp

I stopped into Burnie’s Bar to have a few bears as I often did on Saturday afternoon. As usual Max Angst was there.
“Hi Art, I was hoping you’d stop in so we could toast the beginning of the end of the war in Iraq,” Max said.
“Do you mean the house bill yesterday, Max. It’s a waste of time Bush will veto it.”
“If he does he’ll have to get the money for the war from the $505 Billion that the Defense Department has already been allocated. Or, he can pull our troops out of Iraq immediately using funds that I’m sure the democratic Congress will be glad to appropriate.”
“Hmm! I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I admitted.
“ O f course there’s the Senate to worry about. That little rat from Connecticut, Lieberman is sure to threaten to join the Republican Party if the Democrats propose a bill with dates like the House bill. That will put the Republicans in the majority and the House’s bill will go nowhere.”
“That would mean there would be no money and no pull out dates. God, both sides would loose.”
“Except that the last election proved the people want our military out of Iraq. You can bet your bottom dollar, Art, that there will be one of the largest public outcries in history if Congress and Bush don’t do something to begin the termination of US action in Iraq. I see some sort of a compromise coming. Both parties will accept a money bill containing a September 2008 withdrawal date. Then, both will be able to claim they fully supported our troops and carried out the withdrawal during the presidential campaign.
“What a swamp Washington is,” I said disgusted with the whole thing.

God the Target

Spring! On this beautiful Saturday afternoon I was more than glad to meet Max Angst for a walk along the shores of Lake Highpoint.
“You don’t go to church do you Art?” my friend asked as we walked along the lakeshore.
“No, Max, I just don’t feel comfortable with traditional religion. There may be a God out there somewhere, but I don’t feel any connection with him.”
“That’s something I’ve been thinking about. What does the word “God” mean?”
“What did you come up with, Max?”
“For traditional religions he’s a person: a person who created the universe, a person who runs our universe, a person who judges us, a person who provides a road to salvation, a person who embodies perfection. I have no direct experience of such a person, but does the world allow us to reason to his existence?”
“The existence of the Universe does seem to need some explanation, Max. Things don’t just pop up out of no where.”
“ I see you’re not into quantum mechanics, Art. The physicists claim that matter is regularly popping up from no where. Then, there’s the Big Bang; modern cosmogonists claim the Universe popped up out of no where.”
“Well maybe God runs matter in that matter and maybe God caused the Big bang. But I can’t say I really know that.”
“So we’re going to have to be agnostic on God the creator, Art? We don’t know how the Universe came into existence. Would you say that’s true for the running the Universe, too?”
“I don’t know how the Universe is run and I don’t believe the scientists do either, But, how about the religions and their revelations. They’re really the foundation of most religions, the Bible, the Qur’an, the Rig-Veda.”
“Do you know that those revelations occurred and gave the message that is claimed for them, Art? David Hume pointed out that you can never know the veracity of another person’s claim to have received a revelation. So that leaves us agnostic on the Judge and Savior claims, too.”
“Then, Max, I guess we’re completely agnostic because we have no direct proofs of the perfect being either.”
“Art, I’m afraid that not true. We have negative proofs of that claim. All the suffering in our world proves beyond a doubt that there is no omniscient, omnipotent completely benevolent God existing. If God were perfect he would not have created a world with sickness, rape, murder, war and starvation. Since these things do exist, we know no perfect being exists. Also, because we know that no perfect being exists, we have strong evidence that God as a person existing now somewhere outside the Universe isn’t the case.”
“ Max, I just remembered the argument that God doesn’t solve these problems because he doesn’t want to rob humanity of its freedom by interfering in our world.”
“Yes Art, but the people who give such arguments believe God answers prayers, that God sent his son as a savior, that their Churches are God acting in the world, that God has sent many revelations, that God judges them. Most important If God does not act in the world, as this argument claims, there is no proof of his existence there would be no revelation, he would not have been the creator and he isn’t running the Universe
So, Max, we’ve proved conclusively that there is no God.
“Only if we talking about that supreme person. But, I ran into another idea about God’s nature that I feel offers more hope, God the ultimate goal.
“You’ll have to explain that one, Max.”
“ When I was twenty-six I read Teilhard De Chardin’s Phenomena of Man. It speaks of a Universe that is evolving towards and Omega point which is pretty much the same as the God we spoke about earlier, one that is all powerful, all knowing a perfectly good and beneficent. Suppose, Art, we view our world as a place where we are challenged to build ultimate knowledge, efficacy and benevolence. Wouldn’t that be interesting? Wouldn’t that be the basis for an ethics, a religion. I know I could accept such an idea as the guiding principle of my life. What do you think?”
“I want to think about it, but it does seem promising.”

Damn Fools

I hadn’t seen Max Angst for almost two months. Bad winter weather and bad health – my arthritis has become much worse – kept me in the house. But, then one day the sun came out and the temperature went up and I just had to get out of the house. I would have enjoyed a walk down to Burnie’s Bar, but my sore knees wouldn’t allow that, but I did crank the car window down as I drove over there. Max was at his usual spot at the far corner of the bar with a pint of Guiness there in front of him.
“Art, just the man I wanted to see. Sit down and have a stout,” my friend,” Max called out.
I did as he asked and was glad to have a sip of the dark, heavy brew. After all Paddy’s day is only two weeks away.
“Art, you know that I try to be fair in what I say, but the future of my country makes declare any worker who supports the conservative power structure in this country is a horses ass.” Max said.
“You obviously have something on your mind, Max. Let me have it.”
“I remember the ideals of the fifties, sixties and seventies. I remember the average American believed that he lived in a system in which hard work and a little careful economy would provide a good life for him and his family. He believed the next generation—his kids-- would do even better than he did. He believed he didn’t have to take any crap from anyone, even his boss. If his boss got out of line, he’d have the union on his back. The average American had a good job, owned his own home and was fairly free of debt. Then in nineteen- eighty we elected a conservative president, Ronald Reagan, and all those good things went down the tubes. For years the bosses were trying to weaken the unions. When Reagan got elected he appointed management oriented conservatives to the National Labor Relations Board and the decisions went in favor of management. Today workers are more productive than ever but their pay is a much smaller part of the corporate financial pictures; the managers and the investors are getting all the benefit of this increased productivity. The benefit situation stems from so called Free Trade. The corporations are competing with foreign companies that have lower wage and benefits costs than they have. Of course management doesn’t want to cut their pay and benefits and they have to keep the investors happy or they’ll go elsewhere, so they cut back on employee wages, health care and retirement. The conservative government not being concerned with the worker go along with this under the rubric of free trade. In the first place Free Trade is bull much international trade is carried out through secret negotiations aimed at improving the interest of the investment class which results in the management class coming out ahead by being granted higher pay and benefits. The interests of the employees are never considered until its time to adjust costs to guarantee profits. Then the employees find their wages and benefits diminished. If the Government had the workers interests at heart, and the workers do comprise the largest portion of the population, there would be tariffs that would control prices of goods coming into the country so American businesses could compete without ruining the people who work for them. And those Federal agencies that are supposed to keep an eye on Business would actually do their job. Well, Art, you see why I think workers who support the conservatives, and the elections of the last twenty-five years show there are a lot of them, are damn fools. They’re attacking their own interests.