Voyeurism

 

I am a camera with its shutter open,

quite passive, recording, not thinking 

--I Am A Camera, Christopher Isherwood

 The observer is the observed 

--J. Krishnamurti 

 

Somebody help me,

I'm being spontaneous!

 --The Truman Show (1998) 

____________________

Shortly after checking in to his lodgings in a Cleveland suburb, Ranger witnessed what felt like a flash mob in the motel lobby (above). It was a convergence of parents and students en route to attend a parochial high school prom.

Outstanding were two points: the jarring contrast between the abject poverty we had seen half and hour away in the inner city (dates shared color-matched formal outfits), and the quality of the viewed experience.

Half of the people were photographing others, while half were photographing themselves on their Smart Phones, presumably to immediately upload to their Facebook page.

What are we as a society if every event must have the intermediary of the ever-vigilant camera? It no longer suffices to savor dinner and a conversation. No -- the meal must be posed and documented before it may be consumed. We are functioning as our own CCTV.

How can a people complain about governmental intrusion when we post our data voluntarily?

Cat House, or, War Zone C

You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you?
Perfect organism. Its structural perfection
is matched only by its hostility 
--Alien (1979)   

On the whole her frame of mind showed 
a marked divergence from the purring complacency of Attab, 
who was again curled up in his corner of the divan 
with a great peace radiating from every curve of his body. 
But then he had killed his sparrow 
--The Philanthrpist and the Cat, Saki

 The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
with distant gay traces
that used to be there you could see where 
--Lush Life, Billy Strayhorn

________________

New idea for Ohio state motto: "Ohio -- At Least We're Not Michigan." Don't get us wrong -- Ranger's home county is not much better. It is just that the derelict homes there were never once grander; they are mostly like Navin Johnson's family home in "The Jerk".

In a Bette Davis moment ala Archie Bunker, Ranger said of inner Cleveland: "What decrapitude!" (his elision of dilapidated + decrepitude.)

This morning's waitress did not dis me, so there's that. Jarringly for a Sunday morn, however, one of  two elderly women having a hard time at the paper box in front of the restaurant exclaimed, "Sh*t", as I walked by. It seems just another sign of society's general comedown. It made me think, "What will the tattooed, Jay-Z and Eminem devotees be like in their dotage?"

Lisa's definitely not a Midwestern girl. She has sometimes thought Ranger obtuse, and that he is intentionally so, but after a taste of this area has decided that for someone who has spent the majority of his life here and in the Southeast -- specifically Georgia, Alabama and FLA -- he's doing pretty good, gosh darn it.

So to the post's photo:

The cats own this home on 77th Street. Note the mother calico in repose on the porch -- she is surrounded by seven kits. Greenery has overtaken it, providing a soft lying ground. They have cleverly placed a sign outside, "City -- do not cut grass," to allow for more lush hunting grounds for the rats and other small rodents that compose their primary diet.

It was weird seeing the postman walking down these abandoned streets, with perhaps two operational abodes among the now-abandoned, plywood-boarded worker's homes. To head off potential break ins, pray-painted signs proclaim, "PVC only -- all copper gone"; it is unclear who might care about break-ins. The broken windows and jimmied doors suggest a robust squatter population. Pitiful to see the odd resident actually on a ladder attempting a repair; there will be no re-sale dividend for being the one upkept house in a dead zone, but it will keep the rain out.

Ranger was pulled over by a cop for driving slowly and rubbernecking in the upscale neighborhood of Bratenahl. Less than a minute after pulling into and leaving the driveway of what appeared to be an abandoned house, the lady p'liceman pulled him over, saying, "The residents don't like people entering their driveways." We were probably being shadowed shortly after we entered the street, labelled as potential hoods scoping out the area.

But a mere three minutes away in the vicinity of St. Clair and 77th Street we loitered for half an hour with no police presence. We're guessing the residents there see new blood is seen as positive as it might signal a potential drug buyer or a potential target; being a homie, Ranger is not a mark. Additionally, the residents seem enervated drinking booze as many do from paper bags at 11 a.m., so it is unlikely they could muster the energy to score an assault or call the police, or that the police would even respond.

So that's a Sunday in Cleveland.

The Rake's Progress

--The Rake's Progress, Wm. Hogarth 

But all you are is mean
All you are is mean and a liar and pathetic and alone in life 
And mean, and mean, and mean, and mean 
--Mean, Taylor Swift
 ________________

Subtitle: Down on Main Street, emphasis on down.


We will continue with our travelog apiece. But first, here is the Red Holland Harbor lighthouse we saw yesterday in Ottawa County, MI:

But today was Ohio, and in Vermillion we encountered preparations for Sunday's annual "Wooly Bear Festival". Now while true that vermillion is not orange, dear readers, Ranger's power color orange of creation and optimism yet raised its head there.

Wooly bears are the larval form of Pyrrharctia isabella, the Isabella tiger moth, celebrated for its mythical association to winter forecasting.  The truth is divined in the width of their orange bands. A woman told me these caterpillars can go into a state of deep freeze and awaken the following year, and can do this for 14 years. The women told the story at a roadside garage sale where they were selling many electric tools where Ranger was regaling her daughter with riveting tales of his successful efforts before leaving Florida with an easy-out bit on an old rifle; such talk seemed to suffice to enthrall the average Ohioan.

Lisa was miffed after a breakfast experience, and though she now feels more at pity for the offender, this is her catharsis.

It was an unimpressive joint, with an unusual handwritten sign in the window: "KARMA has no expiration date: 00.00.00". To explain:

Preferring smaller portions, when eating out she often shares an entree or orders a half-portion; often, that will be the child's portion. So it was in Port Clinton this a.m. A dollar less delivered a half-portion of the identical adult breakfast, but that is fine and what was expected. What was not expected was the rude response to her inquiry regarding the matter of the drink which was stated as included in breakfast on the menu but was not, in fact.

Now, water with lemon is my usual choice for hydration when feeling parched, as was the case this morning. But being part British, when tea is on offer, refusal is not an option. But specificity was the order of the morning, and I said clearly, "IF the drink is included -- as it says it is on the menu -- THEN I will take a tea." I expect nothing more, but nothing less, than what is ordered. A child's portion and drink was that thing.

However, the drink charge did appear on the ticket, and I inquired. But instead of receiving a calm explanation of the charge, she was confronted by a harpy in Aqua Net:

"Fer gawd's sake, ya ordered the children's breakfast!"

"Yes ma'am, I did, and got what I expected too, save for the drink. I asked the server if it was included, and said I would take tea ONLY if it was." At this display of humble earnestness, she refused to look at me.

"Pay for yer drink, for Pete's sake!" And off she stomped. Meanwhile, Ranger was in the back of the restaurant regaling her husband, the restaurant owner, with advice on how to apply for veterans benefits (he was a cook in the Army prior to owning the restaurant.)

It should be noted that the older couple dining in the booth behind us had just told this woman about a recent diner in the town who had left a scathing review of another resto on Facebook. "There's always one bad apple" said he, in an philosophico-Ohioan fashion. And dontcha know, after the woman's tirade, this couple approaches her and says of me, "There's your bad apple. See ya tomorrow"! WTF?!?

Now, this woman seemed to have everything a Midwestern woman could want: a frosted bouffant, jewelry from QVC, nails by her local Vietnamese nail shop, eager Mexican busboys, and a restaurant in a somewhat faded resort town. Yet she could not manage a tad of politesse.

She lacked the one necessary thing for being a successful restaurateur -- she had no joie de vivre, no bonhomie. She also lacked bog simple common courtesy and the desire to understand and satisfy her customer, the bread and butter of her business ... me.

Ranger surmised that the rudeness came as a result of a scarcity mentality in a poor economy. He also opined that larger women often cannot understand their smaller sisters' desire to eat less.

Why do some women get so bitter? Was her husband spending too much time in the kitchen? Was she worried about Goss's wilt -- Ohio's coming corn blight? Did she just take a dislike to me because a did not sound like a Canadian goose?

I will never know, and because their place will never be reviewed on Chowhound, I will be unable to share my story. But with you, kind readers, I share my feelings of deracination.

Don't worry ... karma has no expiration date.


Tomorrow: this beats most cat vids

The Slough of Despond

 _________________

Your RangerAgainstWar writers have just exited Michigan, probably for good.

No doubt the Upper Peninsula and the Southwest coast is lovely, well-maintained, and a redoubt for the mostly wealthy citizens of the tri-state area and Amway reps, but we left feeling a certain rift with the citizens of "Pure Michigan". Actually, I felt like a stranger in a strange land (apologies to any MI Ranger readers.)

It is probably a Midwestern thing; the natives are very conservative to boot. Ottawa Beach had erected a plaque mentioning sometime resident President Gerald Ford, and then it struck home: Ford, Mitt Romney ... THIS is Michigan, and, of the upper echelon. "Cool" and "hip" are not the proper descriptors.

Hey -- it's not that FLA is a sack of hipsters ... it is just that we have enough heterogeneity as the land of grifters and witness protection program denizens to allow for some interest, Flannery O'Connor style, whereas Holland, Michigan and environs is predominantly Germanic (duh).

Being culinary travelers, there isn't much on tap anywhere. Traveling back across Ohio almost felt normal. We traveled through Holiday City (pop. 52) in the cornfields, and couldn't figure out what was "holiday" about it. Next was "West Unity", and the rupture of the potentiality bade poorly. We are still open to the messages the universe might provide Ranger in his personal journey, though.

We are in Port Clinton, a beachside retreat down on its luck. We had read about it in the NYT this summer and wanted to see if it checked out (Crumbling American Dreams); it does. Everyone wants his piece of the coast, and the builders during the boom era obliged with Soviet-era concrete condominiums which are now being raffled at bargain basement prices. The wealthy still manage to have their $500 K houses on the beach, out of sight of the riff raff.

Ranger will visit some friends and family over the ensuing days. The gustatory pleasures will be humble but genuine: fresh dairy products and Eastern European cuisine, which is to say, cabbage rolls, kolaches and Russian tea biscuits. Thoughts are many, but road travel precludes much writing. Stay tuned -- we will toss on various ramblings in the next week or so before return; it's all good, as the ersatz hippies say.

Children of the Corn

--Orange, the color of earnest novitiates

Did you ever know someone who said that we'd be
wild and crazy and free and then you find out she'd
been using the imperial "we"?
--Deadwood

Me used to be a angry young man
Me hiding me head in the sand
You gave me the word, I finally heard
I'm doing the best that I can
 --Getting Better,The Beatles

We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive
where we started and know the place for the first time
--Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot

The exodus is here
The happy ones are near
Let's get together
Before we get much older
--Teenage Wasteland, The Who

________________

In solidarity with the United States' government shutdown, RAW will "congress" for a bit (not that we do not have tons of thoughts, queries and wonderments to share soon.)

He enjoyed an impromptu writing seminar this week with his friend, the inimitable mystery writer, Mr. Z. It was on his way to conduct some business in the Ohio area, and Ranger took a brief time out in his college town to reflect upon his personal journey. He lodged in a motel that abuts a cornfield.

--Lisa with Ranger's power animal

Mr. Z. expounded upon people's fascination with things supernatural, so we thought we would entice you with our own version of RAW, Paul Coelho-style. Is Ranger the next Benjamin Button?  To explain:

Ranger shares a certain skill with Bill Clinton -- he has a photographic memory. He stores data like the winning score of the last home basketball game in 1966; such things might be considered dead wood in need of pruning. To that end, he is on an introspective journey to sort the memories, lurching ahead like the ENIAC. Hopefully, his mental valise will be lightened after the effort.

Upon entering town, we saw a road sign and stopped for dinner at the local VFW post -- he, hoping to meet some brothers in arms. It was not to happen, but the dinner was well-attended by locals, and he was adopted by a kindly local couple who built their house near a cornfield and their florist shop in 1964 and never left. They seemed riveted by every small detail Ranger offered, in that homey Midwestern way: "Y'don't say?" punctuated every minute tale he shared.

Near their house at the end of a cornfield stood a wonderful old structure they explained served as  a conduit in the Underground Railroad ... could this mean Ranger is making his own escape to freedom from mental burdens?

"We don't know where we'll put ya, but we've got a sofa." Ranger's re-birth had begun.

A representation of Ranger's "power animal" -- the falcon -- stood in greeting in the motel lobby. He is "Freddy Falcon", the mascot of the BGSU sports teams. A native American soapmaker back home suggested that the falcon or hawk was his totemic protector.

That evening, he also found an orange silk tie in the walkway outside of his room, orange being the color of the 7th chakra symbolizing creativity and renewed faith. Buddhist novitiates wear the color. He then saw an older white man in Saugatuck wearing an orange pimp hat -- twice, and later in another town, two men in sequence but not related wearing orange formal shirts. His journey continues apace.

We will update you as the pilgrimage continues ...

A Hill of Beans

 --Jack and the Beanstalk, 

Walter Crane

__________________

Just a small musing:

Ranger has been traveling amongst fields and fields of soybeans recently, and wondered why we must import soybeans for human consumption from China, that far-from environmentally-sound country.

Calling them edamame does not make them any safer. Why does such a ubiquitous U.S. production as soybeans have to travel around the world from a toxic place?

Starry, Starry Night

--A simple game of chess

Our crusade was such madness 
that only a real idealist could have thought it up
--The Seventh Seal (1957)
___________________

Ranger will draw connections among three fights: Lang Vei (Vietnam, Feb. '68), Mogadishu - Black Hawk Down (Oct. '93) and the Battle of Kamdesh at Command Outpost Keating in Afghanistan (Oct. 2009).

The key devolution over 40+ years is that the U.S. is no longer fighting enemy armies but simple assemblies of enemy fighters variously described as militias, militants, insurgents, etc., and while U.S. forces are arrayed to fight battles, they instead get roughly handled by simple street thugs ... people for whom soldierly behavior does not apply.

So, why do we fight for hills, towns and terrains which are disposable and not of worth to anyone except those squatting on that particular grid square, and then pull up stakes and leave? Have the principles of war lost their relevance? This is the Day of the Jackal; you lie down with dogs, you get fleas. Has Clausewitz had his day? If so, what will direct and constrain our present and future conflicts?

From his personal discussions with battle survivor (Lt.) Paul Longgrear, the Battle of Lang Vei was the death of the United States Special Forces A-Camps, which were small and remote fighting camps with mission augmentation. The fall of Lang Vei showed that the US Army could not hold a camp if the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) was determined to expend the operational assets to destroy their objective.

If the  NVA could do this at LV with USMC assets a 105 Howitzer distance away, then any SF fighting camp in VN was a potential death trap. The LV Battle was a knock-down fight between two determined armies; after LV and Tet '68, the outcome of the American war in Vietnam was sealed.

And yet, despite that death knell the U.S. continues 40 years on to emplace its soldiers in indefensible outposts which suffer the same dire fate.

Like LV, the Mogadishu battle [Black Hawk Down - "BHD'] was conducted by the finest Special Operations Forces (SOF) -- the 75th Ranger Battalion assets teamed up with SOF Delta operatives. The difference in the BHD scenario was that the enemy was an unorganized opponent lacking a detailed Table of Organization and Equipment (TO& E) and order of battle; in short, they functioned as militias lacking state apparatus. They probably lacked mission objectives beyond killing soldiers and controlling the countryside and cities by armed violence.

But BHD demonstrated that militias with platoon-level weapons (including RPG2 and 7's) could engage and kill prime US war fighting assets IF the militias were willing to take the casualties. It was estimated in BHD that the U.S. killed 1,000+ militia fighters, yet the U.S. mission was ultimately frustrated and abandoned. Somalia is still the same sewer 20 years on.

The book and the movie were an awe-inspiring view of a world-class infantry, but insurgents and militias world-wide re-learned that they can fight any army to standstill if willing to take the casualties. The lessons taken from the '79 Russo-Afghan war have been re-imagined in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2001 onward.

The Battle at Kamdesh in '09 for which SSG Clinton Romesha earned the Medal of Honor earlier this year occurred 20 miles away from a similar failure the previous year in the Battle of Wanat. While the U.S. soldiers supposedly killed 100 enemy militants, that is immaterial since the 4th Division no longer occupies any terrain in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan.

An old Counterinsurgency (COIN) metric goes, if we are killing 10:1 of ours, then we are being successful. It is doubtful the U.S. met that metric in LV and it assuredly did not in BHD. And in Kamdesh, with a kill ratio of 8:100 ... ? Did we win?

The New York Times reported the Americans following Kamdesh "declared the outpost closed and departed — so quickly that they did not carry out all of their stored ammunition. The outpost’s depot was promptly looted by the insurgents and bombed by American planes in an effort to destroy the lethal munitions left behind" ("Strategic Plans Spawn Bitter End for Lonely Outpost.")

COP Keating was not a win, and they left like Lee slinking out of Gettysburg in July 1863. The difference was that instead of withdrawing under an enemy army's pressure, they faced a rag-tag group of militia fighters who may have been simple bandits or warlord fighters. Though not a Waterloo or Liepzig, it was a total failure nonetheless.

If U.S. forces were to kill 100:1, they would still be losing in a Low-intensity conflict (LIC) or COIN environment.  We no longer talk of LIC, instead pretending that we fight battles, but LIC is the order of the day, and reality demands that understanding. However, that understanding would threaten to upend the profitable military complex as we know it.

Ranger's unit in RVN, Studies and Observations Group (SOG), is reported to have had a kill ratio of 150:1, but we still lost control of the Ho Chi Minh Trail since we never controlled the key terrain on the ground. An army can hold ground, but that is not equal to controlling the ground.

In the last 43 years, the U.S. Army has lost the ability to control the ground. It may have conquered Kabul and Baghdad, but it never controlled the ground, nor the hearts and minds of the locals. This is the fallow result of phony wars.

The latest wars prove the inability of the U.S. Army to destroy and force U.S. will on insurgencies and militia-inspired insurgencies. They are continuations of LV and BHD on another chessboard. What should we have learned?

Time is not on our side.

[cross-posted @ milpub]

Detroitus, Part Deux

 --WPA poster fr. Chrysler Ad

I believe, umm, that certain people in life
are meant to fall by the wayside; to serve as warnings
to the rest of us; signs posts along the way 
--Igby Goes Down (2002)

These mills they built the tanks and bombs
That won this country's wars
We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for 
--Youngstown, Bruce Springsteen

Well our fathers fought the Second World War
Spent their weekends on the Jersey Shore
Met our mothers at the USO
Asked them to dance, danced with them slow 
--Allentown, Billy Joel

_________________

More on Detroit:

Ranger had incursive thoughts the other night about Motown and the American way of life and war.

He recently re-read T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom in which Lawrence repeatedly praises the Ford vehicle in which he tooled around Arabia while fighting World War I. Detroit's efforts helped the Allies win World War II, also.

America boomed in an economy based around the automobile and its associated products. For the last several decades, this once-powerhouse had been rusting, and the great steel cities lie in tattered shambles, like a post-apocalyptic dinosaur graveyard, the defunct building's bones standing mute testimony to the glory of what once was.

Springsteen and the rappers have missed the bus by failing to produce anything on the predicament of their supposed fellows. Eminem's glitzy Chrysler Superbowl advert does not qualify, Diego Rivera's worker's murals notwithstanding. Ranger feels fairly certain that Beyonce et. al. won't be producing anything like "Tom Joad" anytime soon.

We shrug at Detroit's twilight and cast about for reasons explaining its downfall. Unions, white flight, drugs and crime ... whatever, Detroit has been destroyed just as surely as was any firebombed city, except this time we self-immolated. Funny that banks which create fantasy derivative schemes are too big too fail, while one of our once-largest cities -- a tangible good -- is not.

Nobody has an idea how to correct the situation, and moreover, how to prevent it from happening elsewhere. Like any successful military operation, the city needs resources and a plan which can reasonably be implemented. Like Leningrad in WW II, we either reinforce it or abandon it.

Why hasn't the city be declared a federal disaster zone? Nature is not the only thing that lays waste to the land. We shame-facedly say we are nation building abroad, yet we cannot reinforce an American city in need of reconstruction. Of course, what we do with unqualified success is making things go BOOM, as we did in Fallujah, et. al. Some of the soldiers involved with the boom-and-bust abroad must watch backwards as thier city goes down.

Breaking down is easier than building up.

Alpha and Omega

--10th Group Special Forces 

You broke my heart
'Cause I couldn't dance
You didn't even want me around
And now I'm back, to let you know
I can really shake 'em down

--Now That I Can Dance, The Contours

 The Last Man always carries an automatic weapon

--The Omega Man (1971)  

__________________

What is the relation between the ostensibly the first example of Special military operations -- the Trojan Wars -- and that fought by the Special Forces today? (David and Goliath might have been an earlier example of Special Ops, but that is for another time, perhaps.)

The Trojan War was fought to capture (liberate?) Helen -- the face that launched a thousand ships. More precisely, to return her favors to a powerful man, after she had been expropriated (chose?) another. Powerful men, like the powerful nations they often preside over, do not like to be embarrassed, so their reaction to slights is often heavy-handed (=war).

That war was long, costly and grueling, and it was decided by the Trojan horse feint; we are still wary over Greeks bearing gifts. The archetypes of this engagement have become common. While the Greeks could kill all of Troy's men and rape and enslave the women, they could not alter Helen's wayward ways; the war may even encouraged them.

In our current wars on terrorism, the United states launched its own 1,000 ships despite the fact that no one could be returned from the initial calamity.  There was no Paris to bear the brunt of our fury, nor a Troy to target. 1,000 ships might be a bit much for one woman, but our accounting is far worse: 5-6,000 soldiers dead; 5,000 so seriously wounded they will require lifetime full attendance; 30,000+ wounded, with hundreds of thousand afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Do any of these facts make the dead of the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01 rest an more easily? Did returning Helen from Troy convert her into a loving wife? The Phony War on Terror (PWOT) has seen the closing of the cirlcle on the concept of Special Ops -- the Omega to Troy's Alpha. What have we learned since the destruction of Troy?

The United States invades countries trying to win hearts and minds, like Paris courting a loosely-moraled queen. We have killed multitudes of Iraqis, Islamic volunteers and similar Afghan stooges, but to what avail? Is the U.S. safer or stronger by the efforts of our Trojan Forces? Is the region from Algeria to Pakistan any more stable or friendly to our interests? Does Helen love us?

5,000 years separate the wars, and we have not come far from the idea of punitive expeditions and vengeful wars. While the predication action for neither war was warfare, they spawned military responses. 

5,000 years ... a teardrop in time. Not long enough to figure out a viable alternative to calling knee-jerk wars in response to offense or crime. We are all still Menelaus, the slighted, wronged man who will never know if his efforts equaled his gain.

Too Big to Succeed

__________________________

In my short life, the United States has been continuously enmeshed in wars, big and small.  The purpose, besides funding the military complex, is unclear.

Are we for Balkanization, or for the preservation of national state's status quo? Are we against secret or entangling alliances?  Have we learned the lessons of World Wars I and II?

Why did the U.S. enter the world stage in WWI? This is salient to what is spooling out in what we are calling the Syrian Civil War. The situation is similar to that of the Balkans in August, 1914 when the Western world tore itself apart over an insignificant assassination in Sarajevo. (Interestingly, a U.S. combat unit presence remains in Kosovo under the aegis, "peacekeeping".)

As in the Balkans of 1914, there is a similar fault line in Syria which could rupture into a regional war. One little spark (like the self-immolation of Tunisian fruit seller Mohammed Bouazizi) can set off the tinderbox of the one reality: this is a highly factionalized region, now as then

Did U.S. leaders fail to recognize this before destabilizing the region by invading Iraq? What has happened to realpolitik? For what reason did the U.S. rush in then, and why would they do so now?

Does it matter if their governments are democratic, autocratic, theocratic, Sunni, Shi'ia or any combination thereof? If so, to whom? Of what strategic concern is this to the U.S. government? What progress has been made since the wars in the Crimea and the Balkans?

WWI and II solved nothing; there were no victors, only losers. What did the U.S. gain from either war that we didn't have  or wouldn't have if we had stayed strictly neutral?

Why has the irrational response of war become a rational choice in our current condition? What democratic nation can prosper by maintaining a war footing for 100+ years?

Ranger's Rule of Order

  Blessed are the peacemakers:
for they shall be called the children of God 
--Matthew 5:9 

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ,
think it possible that you may be mistaken
--Oliver Cromwell
 ______________________

The run-up to the bombing of Syria has been full of the usual bloviation justifying the use of violence as the American Way of problem-solving. But if and when we bomb Syria it will not be war, because the United States has lost the ability and skills to fight  a real war with all attendant features.

If we contravene the efforts of the world community to stave off our brinksmanship -- if we drop bombs on Syria -- this will be violence without purpose. Do not mistake the application of violence as war; it is not war. It is simply a flash and bang simulacrum of war.

Ranger's Rule of Order #1: Adding violence to an already violent situation will not ensure a peaceful outcome. Corrolary: The result will be de facto a continuation of the violence. For civilians, this act is akin to adding salt to an overly salty soup; potatoes would be a more sensible addition if the goal is to ratchet down the saltiness.

Dropping bombs is not peacekeeeping.

In war, violence is added to achieve goals, but in peacekeeping violence is SUBTRACTED to reach the goal. Even for a Ranger who prides himself in his simplicity, this is embarrassingly simple to have to state.

Because Obama!

________________________

A brilliant spoof of social networking and simpiness: a Kickstarter campaign to steamroll over our constitutional protections.  Just look at those sincere faces (especially the emo hipster guy with the horn rims) -- like lambs to slaughter: "We pledged to support HIM!"

He's Old School and New, our Peace Prize beknighted (benighted?) demon Democrat, hell on wheels, whelped on George W. Bush's game plan and standing in the door to co-opt the "war" from the war hawks. How can we not want to affiliate with such a dude ... just look at His iPod list. There will be "drones that play the Lumineers, while they attack -- It'll be the most socially-media focused war EVER!" Oh, and "you'll probably end up in a refugee camp -- but it'll have free Wi-fi."

 And, "he's friends with Jay-Z"; every demi-despot deserves his own semi-thug personality friend, no? North Korea's Kim Jong-un has Dennis Rodman to throw him a birthday bash, and our President Obama has Jay-Z.

Make your donation today before taking your nighttime dose of Soma. It'll give you something besides Miley to Tweet about.

Agitprop and The Underdogs

In our opinion and from our experience,  
there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen  
that realistically threatens the United States of America  
--John Kerry's 1971 Testimony to Congress on Vietnam  
______________________

Aside from being a great name for a punk rock band, the title describes how we live our public lives (when we're not debating whether Miley's twerking is a valid dance move, or whether Mr. Castro swinging in his jail cell will go to hell.) 

So it is heartening that some people are considering what might have previously been thought an imperative to show U.S. military force in Syria. You Tube clips, no matter how well-staged or how they make John Kerry cry, are not sufficient evidence to launch rockets, just as Colin Powell's pathetic easel drawing of mobile chemistry labs should not have propelled the U.S. into the quagmire that is Iraq.

Just what is a rebel, and insurrectionist, a freedom-fighter, a nationalist, a religious zealot and a hoodlum? Perhaps one man's freedom-fighter is the other man's hoodlum. This more measured approach contrasts with the opposite and more typical approach as seen in a recent encomium on Palestinian "stone-throwers" run by the New York Times (In a West Bank Culture of Conflict, Boys Wield the Weapon at Hand.) 

Of course, the agenda was to downplay the harm done, and to liken the many generations of stone-throwers to righteous heroes fighting for the good of the people. (Only one mention was made of the deadly nature of the "boys'" game when the writer meets a woman whose husband and son were killed by stone throwers.) No one mentions that stone throwing is terrorism and can be deadly, and becomes acceptable due to brainwashing and a culture of living on public assistance, and because we love the "David and Goliath" story.

Would that same writer would be willing to write an homage to our own homegrown stone throwers ... in Watts, Division Street, Hough Street, Overtown, et. al., and risk being shown for the patronizing person she is? Unlikely, because we don't cotton to such behavior at home ... people get injured and killed, and businesses get destroyed. It is more akin to mayhem than iconography when it happens stateside. Reginald Denny, the trucker who sustained brain damage from bricks and kicks to the head in the 1992 L.A. riots, symbolizes our take on rioters, which is something shy of admiration.

How incredibly condescending to suggest that generations of stone-throwers are admirable, just as it would be to suggest the L.A. rioters could do naught else in such a racially-biased climate. People can always do better, and often do. To provide a pretty cover for violence -- or to join in on the side of another nation's rioters while not loving ours -- does not bode well for a democracy.

The recent more considered reaction to events in Syria is a welcome change from the U.S.'s usual rush to join in the fight on behalf of the perceived "underdog". Since we are not there, our perception can only be shaped by the agitprop we receive.

Moral Double Standard

--You probably won't see RAW fronting words
from Sarah Palin again
__________________________

Four months ago (3 May 2013) The Week Magazine quoted from the Russian press following the Boston Bombings, presaging the Syrian question:

(Moskovsky Komsomolets on the Beslan Chechen terrorist murders of 330+ school members): Maybe now the Americans will correct their "hidden belief that terrorists who strike them are bad, while terrorists who strike Russia are good."

Yet the Americans have a similarly skewed attitude about Syria, said Nzavisimaya Gazeta in an editorial. The Boston bombers are extremists Wahhabis. They share Jihadist fanaticism with some 3,000 Arab militants fighting with the Syrian opposition. The Americans say they are fighting al Qaida, and strongly condemn the terrorism of the Tsarnaev brothers, yet they send help to the Syrian rebels. That reveals a "moral double standard" that "continues to divide terrorists and extremists into friends and foes."  Until we agree that all terrorists are the enemy of all states, we will never be able to wipe out this scourge.

The Great Society

--And Here's to You, America, 
Anheuser Busch commercial (1986)

We pay the taxes we pay the bills
So they better pay attention up on Capitol Hill   
--We The People, Billy Ray Cyrus

  Thank God for the everyday heroes
For all you've done and for all you do
Thank God for the everyday heroes
It's a better world because of you 
--Everyday Heroes, Aaron Lines 

 Don’t scab for the bosses
Don’t listen to their lies
Poor folks ain’t got a chance
Unless they organize 
--Which Side Are You On, Boys?
Natalie Merchant 

_____________________

Happy Labor Day, Ranger readers. We know that some of you are laboring today, while others are worshiping at the altar of the God of the Marketplace, because you are told this is what good citizens do.

Today, a holiday recognizing labor seems a bit cruel, being as it is a celebration of the labor movement and the social and economic achievements of workers in the face today of a much reduced labor presence. We live in the midst of a fast-bifurcating society, the dreams of the middle class shattering upon the rock of profit-making and the inexorable expansion of internationalism. In a world of fixed resources, it was inevitable that company paternalism would go by the wayside as other players entered on the leading edge of economic competition. For money, and not love, do we operate.

As traditional affiliations fray, commitment to anything besides the bottom line has become a quaint idea. Workers superannuated via outsourcing, hanging onto life rafts, must now grab onto any job that pays. For many, that means selling your soul (if you had one) and becoming a highly-paid indentured servant to the military contractor industry. We know local fishermen, oystermen and store employees who accepted work with Halliburton as they "had families to feed," and the work paid well.

What's good for war is also good for those who hang around at the bottom of the totem pole. There are always positions for human flack jackets, or for the brighter, those who will flack for the war machine. (Of course those who choose that route will probably need a few good shots of a double malt to get to sleep at night, but they can afford it ...)

An interesting trend in the press recently is the number of stories promoting white collar exploitation (= working at free internships) and the even greater number of stories questioning the usefulness of a college degree. The final trend in higher education reportage is the skew for working in the technical STEM (science, technology, engineering and math.) The subtext is: Work as a drudge so that you'll be too tired to be discriminating, and will be grateful for whatever job pays you; work in technology so your only reading time will be spent keeping up with technical journals.

In addition, if you are only about STEM -- or better,  if you lack a college degree -- you will have neither the ability or will to be a discriminating, voting citizen. The other things that college might introduce to you will be lost as quaint relics of that brief period of time when the needs and development of the citizen had merit.

We don't know what the labor pool will look like in a few decades, but the improvement of the worker's lot will not be anyone's primary consideration.

And as long as we can get some income and bennies, and have the ability to stuff our abodes full of cheap and toxic Chinese garbage, not too many of us seem too troubled.

Notorious B.H.O., Sequel: On Point

You turned me out, you turned me on
And then you dropped me to the ground
You dropped a bomb on me 
--You Dropped a Bomb on Me, The Gap Band 

 We're drawin' the line,
So keep your noses hidden!
We're hangin' a sign,
Says "Visitors forbidden"
And we ain't kiddin'!
--Jet Song, West Side Story

Governing today means giving acceptable signs of credibility.
It is like advertising and it is the same effect
that is achieved -- commitment to a scenario 
--Jean Baudrillard

_____________________

We commented on the "Notorious B.H.O" over a year ago HERE. As our first Black President, Mr. Obama is being tested yet again for his street cred over the issue of whether to bomb Syria. We wonder if other Presidents had to prove their credibility on the basis of their not quailing when an opportunity to shoot presents.

The same imperative stacks black bodies up in Chicago, Detroit, D.C. and every other gangsta ghetto. Perhaps the question is a sign of the times; more likely, the expectation that comes with having elected a black man from Chicago. Except a cruise missile is a little more than a 5 by 38.

Just think of any other recent murder in the press and imagine the perp stating that he killed to keep his credibility intact. If we are repelled at the thought of honor killings in the mafia, then why not those that issue from our Oval Office? As for the dead as a result of the cred-getting gesture? Buonanime, baby.

Why do we cry in our beer over Saturday Night street cred killings, while demanding, sanctioning or accepting them on a much larger scale at a national level?

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue should not be the address of a credibility-seeking street thug, nor should we be cheering on such behavior.

Don't Panic

We @ RAW thought this was a nice explication of what is about to happen, or not:

In our opinion and from our experience,
there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen
that realistically threatens the United States of America
--John Kerry, in his 1971 Testimony to Congress on Vietnam  

Ain't got no cash, ain't got no style 
Ain't got no gal to make you smile 
Don't worry, be happy  
--Don't Worry Be Happy,  
Bobby McFerrin 

__________________________

Obama Promises Syria Strike Will Have No Objective

By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

30 August 13

 

ttempting to quell criticism of his proposal for a limited military mission in Syria, President Obama floated a more modest strategy today, saying that any U.S. action in Syria would have "no objective whatsoever."

"Let me be clear," he said in an interview on CNN. "Our goal will not be to effect régime change, or alter the balance of power in Syria, or bring the civil war there to an end. We will simply do something random there for one or two days and then leave."

"I want to reassure our allies and the people of Syria that what we are about to undertake, if we undertake it at all, will have no purpose or goal," he said. "This is consistent with U.S. foreign policy of the past."

While Mr. Obama clearly hoped that his proposal of a brief and pointless intervention in Syria would reassure the international community, it immediately drew howls of protest from U.S. allies, who argued that two days was too open-ended a timeframe for such a mission.

That criticism led White House spokesman Jay Carney to brief reporters later in the day, arguing that the President was willing to scale down the U.S. mission to "twenty-four hours, thirty-six tops."

"It may take twenty-four hours, but it could also take twelve," Mr. Carney said.

"Maybe we get in there, take a look around, and get out right away. But however long it takes, one thing will not change: this mission will have no point. The President is resolute about that."

That's Entertainment!

--Fake Revolution -- psych!

A mark, a yen, a buck, or a pound
A buck or a pound
A buck or a pound
Is all that makes the world go around 
--Money Makes the World Go Around, Cabaret

Business is the business of America
--President Calvin Coolidge

The clown with his pants falling down
Or the dance that's a dream of romance
Or the scene where the villain is mean
That's entertainment! 
--That's Entertainment, The Band Wagon
_________________________

"Morality?" The question rings in my head in my best irate and clueless Michael Palin voice. Some are saying aerial bombing of Syria would be "moral", and not bombing would be immoral.

Morality with a Florida flavor came when Florida's Governor Rick Scott cut $1.3 billion dollars from the new education budget, resulting in cuts to programs like art and music, Head Start and after school programs. The same week, on a national level we debate dropping bombs at a $1 million+ a pop over Syria (that's just the cost of the paltry warhead, of course.) Neither action will not make our students smarter or more compassionate citizens. 

I propose a morality defined by the uplift and betterment of our citizens. A morality which hews to our Constitution, which is to say a Republic which adheres to our rule of law, if for no other reason than such a nation acts on behalf of enlightened self-interest.

Of course, the program cuts do not affect the lives or families of the decision makers, which is to say, they don't matter. Their children will not suffer the ignobility of being told that things of beauty are not needed for their lives, and that they should get on with the business of a straight-jacketed life in the STEM industries (science, technology, engineering or math), IF you can manage it, and on your dime. If not, service "professions" await you.

Note that while all of this important stuff is going on, you are being distracted by the exploits of Miley, and before that, stories of various women who have killed their husbands, or their kids, or husbands killing wives, etc., or the Ohio three, or Caylee, or Jon Benet, ad nauseum. The news forefronts these salacious tidbits to you, which you then Twitter about, because it is something easy for us to digest, a special little pint of Ben and Jerries called "Bublegum News -- Not."

Since Warren Buffet or Rupert Murdoch will not be going into a Jiffy Mart anytime soon or jogging on streets outside of their gated communities, it is not much matter to them the tragic little stories of Christopher Lane or Joshua Chellow, et. al. Trayvon Martin would not have walked uninvited on their streets, and Mr. Zimmerman would not be guarding them. And further, why would anyone waste an instant on the sad little, all-too-common story of Trayvon Martin's death in a little Florida town? (It was my incredulity over the passion of the predictable knee-jerk reactions and media lynch mob which disgusted me.)

These are economic issues, and not partisan ones; Al Gore could not answer a reporter's question about the price of a gallon of milk, just as George W. Bush did not know the price of a gallon of gas. Other people work for them, discharging the daily minutiae of a life too busy to contend with such trivialities. Their employers operate on another rung of life. Reading the Wall Street Journal is an entirely different matter than reading USA Today, Foreign Policy different than People. The act of reading itself, a different one from viewing.

George Schultz asked in a recent interview hosted by the Commonwealth Club and broadcast on NPR, "How do you govern over diversity in an age of transparency?" It was the query of an overlord asking how to keep the minions in check if they have access to all the news that's not fit to print. Of course, the minions tame themselves, using their connectivity for not much that will benefit them beyond entertainment, which is the goal, of course.

There's not much more to say on peonage so entrenched and embraced, so I'll end with an excerpt from a Charles Pierce essay on the wisdom of interfering in Syria in Esquire:

Make no mistake. If we strike, we will be making actual war in Syria. Ordinary Syrians will not see our missiles as "bomb-o-grams," telling them with every deadly explosion that we're really on their side. We will be another belligerent making their daily lives brutal and deadly, and there will be enough of them to hate us for that to guarantee that we will have to make more war in that place, or in some other place, very soon. That is what we do now. We make war in a place without going to war in a place, and nobody is fooled except ourselves (Making War in Syria.)

War Begets War

 --Miley, what America does best

"Therefore, my Harry, 
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds 
With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days." 
--Henry IV, Part II, Shakespeare

 I don't want you to be no slave
I don't want you to work all day
But I want you to be true
And I just wanna make love to you 
--I Just Wanna Make Love to You, Etta James

Just lemme put the tip in
--Richard Pryor

________________________

We at RangerAgainstWar often employ lyrics and quotations to make our point.  Here are a few for you.

Shakespeare needs no help from RAW (h/t to Chris), but the late Richard Pryor had a brilliant sketch about a lover imploring his resistant partner to "just allow the tip" in. We all know of course that if you do that, you get the shaft. Shouts all 'bout for just sending in war heads to Syria -- "just the tip".  Right-o.

And then there's Etta James telling her lover that she just wants to cook him bread and wash his clothes, if he will just be true to her. Substitute, "I just wanna make war on you," and you have the United States' 21st century version. End of lesson.

But we will ramble on, as it's fun to tell the truth.

The New York Times yesterday ran an Op-Ed arguing for bombing Syria on "moral grounds" (Bomb Syria, Even if It Is Illegal.") We wonder if author Ian Hurd has ever faced having the prospect of having a mega ton dropped on him, and if he did, would would he think it very moral? We suspect that even if he were one bad dude, he wouldn't cotton to the idea. It's all about walking in the other guy's shoes, Ian, something that requires you understand a little about him.

Let's be clear about the U.S. position: We are so morally outraged at the use of chemical weapons to kill people that we have to kill some other people by bombing them ... not exactly Logic 101. Nor is it a consistent position, which claiming for "morality would seem to require.

If we go into Syria for "humanitarian" reasons, why didn't we go into Africa where millions of innocents were being slaughtered? Darfur has been experiencing ongoing genocide for over a decade, but no one advocates  bombing Sudan? Ranger just read an excellent book of reportage on the Rwanda genocides (We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families.) Brutality beyond the pale, yet which failed to enlist one American bomb -- not ONE.

But let us shelve all this high-falutin talk of morality, and talk common sense. What sense is there in supporting al-Qaeda rebels whom the Syrians hate who hate the U.S. and who are at war with the U.S. in Afghanistan -- Hello? Politicos have offered plenty of stupid and immoral reasons for bombing and killing since the war in Vietnam, but we don't often hear arguments for peace and focusing on prosperity.

Make no mistake: Bombing Syria with cruise missiles and stand-off weapons has no relevance to the welfare of our nation. Not one million+ dollar missile will help to repair even the smallest section of sidewalk in Detroit, nor will our water quality, public education and general welfare will not be improved one iota.

Ranger had an up-close and personal experience with aerial bombardment during the Vietnam War -- an action which was sold as pulling a rabbit out of a hat in terms of its ability to settle an internecine dispute cleanly. Aerial bombardment has never stopped a nation from fighting, when a fight is what it wants. Air power can simply deliver death and destruction, it cannot resolve conflicts. The Germans, Russians, Japs and Brits soldiered on in the face of overwhelming air power.arrayed against them.

Bombing does not shake a nation's resolve, and may even steel it. It will surely gain you no friends. And what if the Syrian loyal forces fall as a result of our actions? Do we imagine they will be treated humanely and in accordance with the rules of land warfare? Are we willing to accept their annihilation as the price of our supposed "morality"?

We have a war machine out of control, and it is so under civilian guidance. This was not the Founding Father's intent, who sought civilian oversight to rein in the military. When you as a citizen risk life and limb, you think twice ... of course the problem today is, only 1% of the population bears the service burden for the hawkish wonks.

So, we will unleash our Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) because we don't like someone else using their WMDs all under the rubric of, "We'll never forget 9-11-01", or somesuch. Dr. Strangelove's got nothing on us. Like comic Ron White says, you can't fix "stupid". If you believe bombing Syria "just a little" is an important "slap on the wrist", that's stupid.

The highest moral imperative it seems is, feed the military-industrial complex ... it's a hungry beast.

Tell the People What They Want to Hear

 You don't have to drag me down
I descend 
--Trouble, Shawn Colvin 

I'm Winston Wolfe. I solve problems
 --Pulp Fiction (1994) 

The trouble with this country is that there are 
too many people going about saying, 
"The trouble with this country is ..." 
--Sinclair Lewis
___________________

Egypt and Syria are convenient sops to sidetrack the discussion from America and Americans. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarek is back like the Ghost of Christmas past. Remember the passion you saw on the You Tubes at his deposition? Yeah, that guy, and those people. You are watching a Mobius Strip in real time.

You are told that social networking platforms which consume your lives are enabling the flash mobs of liberty to go forth, except it is just not so. Wildly entertaining, until you realize it is another crazy cat video in another guise -- and where did your precious hours go?

The truth is, the events in Syria or Egypt do not affect our national health and welfare, though they are a convenient distraction. How repulsive to realize that your country is enabling the military takeover of an elected government in one country (Egypt) and attempting to overthrow another by means of rebel proxies in another (Syria). In the meantime, we have fought two wars to impose democracy upon Afghanistan and Iraq -- nations in which we opposed rebellion and Civil War. It's all good of course, if you don't mind being Janus-faced.

Pity to see former Winter Soldier of conscience John Kerry suck up so badly in Ms. Clinton's shoes, but that is what power does according to Mr. Machiavelli. Secretary Kerry is naught but another guise of the disgraced Colin Powell, in another uniform. Is anyone vetting the source of the attacks? What is the sense for the Assad regime to use gas at this time? Will this be John Kerry's "roving vans of WMDs" moment? We can see Powell and Kerry bemoaning their fate as stooges on the same rung of Purgatory now. Two stooges ... who will be the third?

Mr. Kerry made his emotional appeal to do something based on the content of videos uploaded to YouTube by rebel supporters in the early hours of 21st August -- You Tubes! Well, this is what it has come to for the once-mighty Department of State, as former Foreign Service Officer Peter Van Buren often highlights at his site (Gangnam-style being the most faddish though already demode.)

All of the Islamic countries are one step away from chaos at any given time. The effects of World War I continue to haunt the region, and WWI did not resolve the prior entrenched volatility. The British, French and other European powers stepped off when colonizing the natives of Africa, Middle and SW Asia became a too-costly proposition, so why is the U.S. stepping into the chaos? We are self-appointed "Fixers", but we do not operate with the elan of Harvey Keitel's character Winston Wolfe in the film Pulp Fiction, but rather the buffoonish duo of Jules and Vincent. And what do we stand to gain?

If this is so momentous a moment, why does Congress not reconvene to debate the wisdom of intervention and vote on it? Who is considering the worst-case scenarios: What are the potential reprisals from launching U.S. cruise missiles, and what if our roulette wheel chooses to support the wrong brand of rebels? And what if they lose?

Since there is no overt logic to our current amebic actions in these Islamic entities that are difficult to call "states", there must be a meta-rationale which has not been made public by either the President or the Congress.

Inquiring minds want to know.