Pentagon Wants to Double Force in Afghanistan -- Stupidity Reigns

Here's a thought. Maybe not a very good one, but you be the judge.

It should be obvious that, owing to the way we do politics in America, national politicians owe their status, their prospects, and their power to the same set of clients, regardless of what they publicly claim in the way of political philosophy. It's only natural and logical that our leaders' actions are consistent with the desires of their clients. The clients, of course, are the powerful players in the business community who, in one way or another, pay politicians for their playing privileges.

Most of us non-powerful voters see this arrangement as problematic. Why then, not eliminate the problem by eliminating the offices and duties we now assign to Senators and Representatives?

Why not, in other words, extend the Bush vision of the unitary Executive from its current questionable status to actuality? A national vote for President, funded wholly by the Treasury, would be an up or down vote on an individual's stated aims and governing philosophy with no ambiguity injected by additional votes for legislators who, by any practical measure, act with impunity and have zero accountability for their actions after election.

We could still have the offices of Senator and Representative, but they would serve in an advisory capacity only, with no power. We would gain a government more able to deal with national questions immediately and without ambiguity, and lose a national political process that couples corruption and incompetence with offensive political quackery.

... lies within the American People.

Because the Bush administration has successfully stifled media coverage of returning war wounded and dead, few Americans even realize that real shooting wars are being fought in their names. All anyone sees on TV lately are various homesick GIs in clean uniforms wishing loved ones that they could be home with them for the holidays while the TV personalities dutifully intone about how grateful we are that they are "defending us".

But from whom are we being defended? Those who resent the imposition of the American corporatist way of life via military means.

Our own Revolution was about tossing over the British monarchical way of life because we found it too restricting on our lifestyle choices. So it is in South Asia, where for some reason they cling to the tribal system of social organization. True democracy means allowing nations to decide their own fates, and imposing corporatist materialism isn't democracy - not in Afghanistan, and certainly not in the United States.