Bush Wept

From Whitehouse Briefing, August 4, 2006:

Today, Ron Hutcheson of McClatchy Newspapers writes: "If there's a starting point for George W. Bush's attachment to Israel, it's the day in late 1998 when he stood on the hilltop where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, and, eyes brimming with tears, read aloud from his favorite hymn, 'Amazing Grace.'

" 'He was very emotional. It was a tear-filled experience,' said Matthew Brooks, a prominent Jewish Republican who escorted Bush, then governor of Texas, and three other GOP governors on the Middle East visit. 'He brought Israel back home with him in his heart. I think he came away profoundly moved.'

"Eight years later, Bush is living up to his reputation as the most pro-Israel president ever. As Israel's military action in Lebanon heads into its fourth week, the president is standing firm against growing international pressure for an immediate cease-fire.

What's Wrong With Stopping for the Sake of Stopping?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

Jesus of Nazareth, c. 33 CE

What shall we talk about?

I'm thinking about tomorrow evening when the man I love and I will be joining friends for dinner. It will, no doubt, be a sweet, cool evening; unusual for this time of year in the Southwest, but we've been given grace from the desert heat this week.

Perhaps we'll dine outdoors in the garden, a lovely small oasis of wild flowers, vegetables and grapes among the alien green lawns or sensible xeriscaped front yards of cacti and stone and the Mediterranian herbs that grow so well here ... rosemary, lavender and the delightful foreigner, the Russian sage. I suppose a deal of water is expended on that garden, even with the drip irrigation, but hey, that's what an oasis is for -- water, green solitude in a desert where people may meet in peace.

But when we do -- my lover a Christian, I a wayward Catholic who wandered for a while and came back a pagan witch, and our hosts, Jews who not only identify as Jews but worship as Jews -- when we meet in their oasis of a garden ...

What will we talk about?

The weather, the cool breeze, how the kids are doing; and look how well their older dog is getting on; they'd been worried about him, as we do about our ageing pets. And the food will be delicious; no doubt the wine will be as well. (I'll be taking people's word for that.) Our host will be, as ever, gracious and after all the catching up is finished and the clatter of dinner over ...

What can we talk about?

We cannot talk about the state of the world. That is clear. Someone might try to, but we know, all of us, that we'd better not. After all, we'd all edged quietly past "The Passion of the Christ" -- and we all thought it was hideous.

(And everyone's lord knows we are not going to talk about Mel. No, no, not Mel.)

"The Passion," even Mel's latest rancid blathering -- these are small potatoes compared to what the world looks like tonight and will look like tomorrow night. We are not all of a mind about Israel and Lebanon, Israel and the American President, the Middle East itself. No, we certainly are not going to talk about that.

We have not been able to have any but strained discourse when it comes to Israel and her neighbors. In Yahweh's name (but he doesn't really have one that we know), in Christ's or that of any goddess I can mention, how can we talk about the Middle East now that it's all so much worse than the last time we met to dine?

And yet, we should start talking. Soon. At dinner tables, in coffee houses, in the small oases of our back yards and gadens, we should be talking about Israel, Lebanon, the American President, Iraq; about Syria and Iran and the unthinkable -- nuclear weapons gone astray.

We really should talk about it and find a way not to lay blame. We should try to find a path to a small oasis where we can meet in peace.

It won't be easy, but all of us should try, because, in the words of the old song:

The eastern world, it is exploding . . .

Really?

Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday pointed to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah as fresh evidence of the ongoing battle against terrorism that underscores the need to keep President Bush's Republican allies in control of Congress.

"This conflict is a long way from over," Cheney said at a fundraising appearance for a GOP congressional candidate. "It's going to be a battle that will last for a very long time. It is absolutely essential that we stay the course." -- AP

Really?

Of course, I don't doubt he said it, he's been saying it for years. But ... really? Could this really be a good reason to return Republicans to the House and in a few years to the Senate and the White House?

One war after another, the mideast in flames and -- well, the water is running red in Qana, but that's not because anyone is changing it into wine.

(Yes, it's that Cana)

Return Republicans to Congress, stay the course ...

Do you really think we should?

Really?

What's wrong with stopping for the sake of stopping?

President Bush acknowledged growing international pressure for an immediate Middle East cease-fire Monday but dismissed any idea of simply "stopping for the sake of stopping" withouta plan for lasting peace.

How about stopping for the sake of letting Lebanon's children live?

Or, how about stopping for the sake of giving everyone a chance to cool down?

Or, here's an idea -- how about stopping so Americans can take some time to get an idea of what's really going on in the Middle East?

Since none of these reasons seem to appeal to our President, perhaps it isn't that Mr. Bush can't find a reason to stop. Maybe he isn't interested in learning whether he still has the power and influence to get Israel and Hezbollah to stop at all.

America, whether Mr. Bush has the will or the power to stop the fighing now or doesn't, you still have the power to go here to find a pretty good idea about what's going on beneath the surface and behind the headlines: Blood in Beirut -- and don't forget to read all the way to the part about Exxon's fabulous profits.


You could do it for the children -- your own, the helpless ones who are dying in Qana and other cities, and the beautiful little girls who are signing the bombs, "From Israel with love."

In Lebanon

They wonder, why?

Why are they paying for the sins of others?

Or, why are they caught between Hezbollah and Israel?

Perhaps they wonder -- and they should -- why does the American Preisdent think the destruction of their democratic nation will bring the "flowering of democracy" to the Middle East?

In Lebanon, they probably wonder whether all their children will die because two Israeli soldiers became casualties of a war no child started.

It is a cause for wonder, don't you think?

Greg Palast has something for you as you begin to wonder:

We are trained to think of Middle Eastern conflicts as just modern flare-ups of ancient tribal animosities. But to uncover why the flames won’t die, the usual rule applies: follow the money.

Am I saying that Tehran, Riyadh and Houston oil chieftains conspired to ignite a war to boost their petroleum profits? I can’t imagine it. But I do wonder if Bush would let Olmert have an extra week of bombings, or if the potentates of the Persian Gulf would allow Hamas and Hezbollah to continue their deadly fireworks if it caused the price of crude to crash. You know and I know that if this war took a bite out of Exxon or the House of Saud, a ceasefire would be imposed quicker than you can say, “Let’s drill in the Arctic.”

So, maybe, you could go read the rest of what Palast has to say, and think about what's really happening to Lebanon and the Middle East. It truly is a wonder.

So why is it ...

... nearly unforgivable to suggest that the events of 9/11 are not the worst thing that ever happened to this nation?

Surely no one can make the case that those events, heartbreaking as they were, terrifying to the point of being surreal, cannot be considered the worst thing that has happened to this nation, the most horrible thing our government and America herself has had to deal with?

In sheer loss of life, can anyone say that the attack on the World Trande Center and the Pentagon or the loss of life when Flight 93 went down in Pennsylvnia is worse than the loss of American lives in Vietnam?

• Or the Second World War?
• Or the First World War?
• Or the Civil War?
• Or the War of 1812?

Of course no one can, and soon we'll be able to point to the loss of American lives in Iraq and be able to say that it, too, has surpassed the number of lives lost on September 11, 2001.

So, if it isn't the number of lives lost, what is it? That we were attacked on our own soil? But that happened during the War of 1812; we managed a ferocious attack on ourselves during the Civil War with the a horrifying death toll. We survived the shock of the attack on Pearl Harbor and responded with all the courage and military might we could muster.

Americans did not cower, did not shirk our duty or shrink from the call. Those who had objections of conscience declared them and dealt with the consequence, those who enlisted to fight or answered the call of the draft, fought.

We are not a nation of cowards. And yet ... nearly everyone you speak with will talk of the terror of that day, September 11, 2001, as though nothing like it had every happened before, ever, anywhere, to anyone.

Why do you think that is?

Have we lost our nerve? Have we lost heart? Are we no longer daughters and sons of the American Revolution?

Something has happened to the national spirit.

What do you think it is?

Whose values?

American Values

While the politicians scramble to protect their turf by hedging it in with their carefully tested "values" -- or not so carefully tested, depending on who you're talking about -- America is asked to choose one extreme or the other.

Americans can be forgiven for feeling that we have no other choice but these:

"Family Values" means little more than being anti-everything that doesn't pass the litums test of the Religious Right. Anti-abortion, anti-gay/lesbian, anti-anyone who isn't prepared to take the not-so-nonexistent religious test the Constitution prohibits.

"Liberal Values," once the sturdy cable with which FDR wove the social contract that protected the sick, the elderly and the poor, have come to be described as the ability to possesses and use the qualities of empathy, the ability to nurture and create and defend community. Uh-huh. Give me FDR, but it's not likely anyone will.

There is another compass by which our nation should steer its course, our true moral compass that has never led us astray and can guide us back to the firm ground on which this nation was built, on which it stood from the day after the Revolution ended to the day the Supreme Court stopped the counting of votes in the 2000 elections and ordained a President.

You will find this compass in The Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution of the United States.

And, lest anyone doubt, we still hold these truths to be self-evident.

Welcome, come in and think a while

Welcome to Just Sayin' where I'll be writing from time to time about my thoughts and feelings on the state of the nation.

I've never accepted the Red state/Blue state dichotomy as anything more than divisive. I won't be giving that dichotomy credence on this blog.

I'll be writing about America and by extension all Americans. We are the heirs to what our ancestors fought for -- a nation of states united as one

I'm not ready to see those united states crumble, I am not ready to let this legacy be torn to shreds by the politicians presently installed in Washington.

I'm here to write about my ideas, my suggestions and my hopes.

This isn't a conversational blog, there are plenty of those and you probably won't miss one more. This is a "community of one" looking out at the larger community of America.

You've no doubt noticed that the Comments function is turned off. That's for a reason. It's not like I don't enjoy a good chat or heated argument. I love 'em. But I feel that a lot of energy is being spent talking on blogs, energy that could be better spent putting boots on the ground, as the saying goes.

Why is everyone angry about the state of things ... yet no one is taking to the streets about the state of things? Taking to the streets? Yes, and by that I mean working for local campaigns, GOTV, canvassing -- and protesting when you have to do that.

I don't really know why no one is taking to the streets, but I wonder whether part of the reason could be that we're finding our satisfaction blowing off steam on our favorite blogs.

Just sayin'.

So, if you don't like what you see here . . . well, there it is. You'll have to content yourself with shouting at the monitor, or finding a more congenial place.


But if you do like what you see, take it away with you and talk to others about it -- off-line, please.

It's time to do some serious thinking, some serious talking and time to take some very serious action.

Nancy

THINK then ACT