UFOs Are Back, Ho Hum

 

I'm not a UFO expert, and I don't play one on TV either. But for some reason, UFOs are in the news again, and this time it's not just the usual suspects – you know, the stereotypical tinfoil-hat wackos who claim to have been abducted and subjected to bizarre surgical procedures, etc. – but, arguably, establishment types like the U.S. military, which has quit referring personnel who claim to have seen a UFO to the post psychiatrist but is now, apparently, taking these things seriously. Of course there's a long and colorful history of the whole UFO matter which, among other things, has inspired great numbers of sci-fi movies and TV shows – and the military, especially the Air Force, has always been depicted as the “bad guy” – skeptical, dogmatic, conservative, secretive, and so on. And the popular culture – not limited to sci-fi fans – has generally assumed that whenever the Air Force denies that something exists, that automatically means it does exist, and that the military is “hiding something” – advanced weapon systems or actual aliens, or both – from the American public and from our enemies.

One overarching theme over the years (decades) has been that UFOs, in some mysterious way, were part of the Cold War. This notion was supported by the fact that most even semi-credible sightings were in the vicinity of military installations, test sites, military aircraft, or warships. So the idea was that UFOs were, indeed, either data-gathering instruments or advanced weapon systems – but whose? If ours, the military wanted to disguise the fact, understandably. If someone else's, the military wanted to keep whoever it was from realizing that we had detected their advanced systems... or, the government wanted to keep the public from being upset by the thought that the Russkies might have weaponry far superior to ours. So in that sense, the “little green men” thing may have been no more than a red herring (so to speak) – a harmless diversion that was allowed to run its course, and an excuse to shut down all inquiry and speculation (because “only a nut would believe...” etc.). (Now why the specter of being invaded by Martians is less scary to the public than the notion of the USSR having weapon systems far superior to our own is another matter. But that depends to some extent on one's view of what aliens from another planet represent.) (See my post, “Jonesin' for Aliens”, July 25, 2015.)

But then the Cold War ended – or so it was assumed – back when the Soviet Union broke up. But did UFOs disappear? Apparently not. They keep coming back, like those cohorts of locusts – they're in the news, then they aren't. They generate societies, meetings, publications, then the whole thing fades away. Pop culture gives us “The X-Files”, then ratings fall off and the show closes. And then the whole thing starts over again. And so on. So yes, the UFO thing comes and goes, and the military can never seem to make up its mind as to whether they're real or just a symptom of Air Force pilots suffering from oxygen deprivation leading to hallucinations. So years go by when they don't talk about it, and then you get the kind of revival of interest we're seeing now.

But then we run into another interesting angle – one that has been part of the story since the first “flying saucers” were sighted soon after World War II. And that is what I'll call the quality of evidence. Now, it was easy enough to understand, in the early days, how photos or films of alleged UFOs were always grainy and blurred (not unlike photos of the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot) – whoever was taking the pictures (and they were nearly always photos, not radar captures) was probably using a Kodak Brownie or 8mm home movie camera, and was trembling with excitement (or fear) (or dreams of collecting big bucks from the National Enquirer for exclusive rights to the footage).

But that was then. Nowadays, the military has optics so advanced that they can read someone's poker hand from 50,000 feet (or so I'm told). Add high-speed cameras, digitization which yields extremely fine-grained images, and other improvements – and yet the imagery we see in the news is still as grainy and blurred as anything that came out of the 1950s. There's obviously something wrong here. And this is just traditional optics – hasn't radar made just a few advances during that time as well? And then you have infrared optics. And so on. And yet, the level of ambiguity of UFO images (whether moving or still) doesn't seem to have advanced much beyond, once again, the Loch Ness or Bigfoot stage. Are you really going to declare a national emergency based on images resembling first-generation arcade games? Hopefully not.

Then we have the “noise” factor when it comes to electronic systems. Yes, they are sensitive – almost too sensitive at times. They pick up everything, the way microphones used to do in movies before voice-over and Foley artists took over. Now, you might say, isn't static just the same as white noise – i.e., chaotic and incapable of generating anything resembling an actual image? Not necessarily. (I commented to someone recently that I can see stuff resembling UFO footage when I drive with a dirty windshield (especially at night).)

And what if... just what if somebody or something is “trolling” us and generating signals made to look like supersonic, ultra-agile UFOs when in reality it's coming out of some guy's garage in Lubbock, Texas? I mean, there are plenty of geeks out there with time on their hands – what could be more fun than coming up with something that will freak out the military? Not actual physical objects, but signals aimed at the electronics of military aircraft (or ships, in some cases)? Or -- any chance that the Russkies are back to their old tricks and just want to distract us from focusing on whatever they're up to in their own weapon development programs? Make us distrust our lyin' eyes and radar, in other words? And as far as our “system security” goes, well... if you can hack into a system in order to steal information, you can hack into the same system in order to generate fake information.

And now Congress, waking from its usual slumber, is demanding – OK, asking – OK, politely requesting – the intel community to tell them all it knows about UFOs. Riiiight. When's the last time the intel people told anyone in Congress all that it knows about anything? I mean, would you? Might as well relate your history of STDs to the town gossip. The intel people have been down this road before – they'll blow smoke up the appropriate butts, toss out a few bones, and we'll wind up with a bigger nothingburger than the Durham Report. And so it goes. “Nothing to see here, dumb asses – go back to your silly power games.” And the amazing thing is, everyone in the establishment will be satisfied. Another round in the endless game, now let's head for the nearest watering hole.

There are so many possibilities here, but the main point is that if the military, or anyone else, wants to convince anyone in the public, or in Congress, on this point they'd better come up with something better than a handful of glowing green Fritos floating around against a noisy black and green background – or a black jellybean dropping into the ocean. But this isn't going to happen, because – for whatever reason – those in charge prefer to keep things ambiguous and mysterious – interesting, a bit scary perhaps, but not enough to cause mass hysteria like Orson Welles' “War of the Worlds”. In this sense, it's like everything else in government – if you're being paid to solve a problem, the very last thing you want to do is actually solve it.

There are political games – and mind games as well – being played around this issue, but there's nothing really new about it and we don't seem to know any more than we did 70-plus years ago. Or if we do, no one can be bothered to tell us.

 

We Are Not Worthy

Yesterday, March 3, 2015 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the President of the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the Prime Minister of the State of Israel. The United States was at peace with that nation and....

OK, OK, enough with the FDR imitation already. And I'm not sure that 3/3/15 will live in infamy; there are so many other dates clamoring for that distinction in our times. But it was certainly a milestone of sorts. It did not represent a sea change in our relationship with Israel; what it did represent, however, was Israel's – or at least its prime minister's – overt and unambiguous declaration that they are in charge of our foreign policy, no matter what any silly-ass president or his pathetic acolytes in Congress might think. Netanyahu not only called Obama out, but he told it like it is, and demanded that Congress fall into line and agree with him – which they did, by the way, in a show of obsequiousness that set a new high (or low). Not that there's anything new about this either, since that was accomplished decades ago, but on this occasion the prime minister openly acknowledged the facts of the matter and pretty much dared anybody to object.

And of course there will be a reconciliation, and an “all is forgiven” golden glow will descend on the whole affair, and history will be rewritten to show “no daylight” between us and Israel. So in that sense it doesn't matter... but the fact will remain. Bibi has bearded the lion (so to speak) in his den, and there will be no backing off from that – no spin, no “clarification”. The prime minister chose his words with exquisite care; there was nothing offhand or spontaneous about them. He made his position plain, he made it plain that it was Israel's position, and he made it plain that he didn't much care what Obama or his stooges think, because, quite frankly, they don't count. (The truth is, even Congress doesn't count – but the exercise was valuable as an affirmation of Israel's power base. The standing ovations tell you all you need to know about that.)

Well, Obama is a lame duck – a lot lamer than he was on Monday! -- but so what? He's been insulted by Netanyahu before, and undoubtedly will be again. And he doesn't dare return blow for blow; he is as helpless as a Supreme Court justice sitting like a bump on a log while the president gives a State of the Union address brimming with insults directed at the Court (which is why some of the justices have decided to boycott said annual exercise until further notice). Maybe now he knows how it feels.

So nothing will change. We will continue to pour resources into the Middle East in endless wars, unto and beyond bankruptcy. We will continue to incur the wrath of the Islamic world, and the derision of most of the rest. We will continue to “stand with Israel” in splendid isolation. And yet... one can't help but think that a milestone has been passed. Gone are the days of subtlety and subversion; from here on it's in-your-face, mano a mano. But at the same time, it's refreshing; everything is right out in the open, and we can now decide if this is what we want, or if we would prefer something else (not that what “we” decide will make much difference). The main point is that from here on out no one can claim ignorance, and no one can feign shock the next time Israel abuses its infinite privileges with the U.S., its leadership, its military, and it's citizens.

It would be tempting to dwell just on the more amusing and ironic aspects of all of this; they certainly made my day. (Feinstein and Pelosi both having hissy fits? Please.) But those aren't the sorts of things that usually echo down through history. What does do this is major world events and political forces – and yet we all too rarely get to see them in plain sight; these events are as rare as total eclipses. For this alone we should thank the prime minister; he has shown us... well, not necessarily the truth about Iran and its perceived threats, but the truth about our relationship with our “eternal ally”. That, and at least one truth about our political leadership – that they are infantile, and as mindless as a gang of yobs at a soccer game.

Parliament of Fools

Oh, the indignation! The outrage! That sinking feeling that you've been made fools of and rendered obsolete, and you may as well pack up and go home, and leave the job of running the country to the people who are already in charge, and quit pretending you have any say in the matter. Yes, this is the “feeling tone” we're getting out of Congress these days, and even though it's nothing more than feelings, it's quite on target. Congress is obsolete, but their obsolescence is of their own making, since they have always found it more politically expedient to cede their Constitutional powers and privileges to the sitting president (whoever it happens to be at the time) and to the Supreme Court (by refusing to redefine its scope, which it has the right to do) than to take responsibility. The courage to speak up and defy the president might be found in, say, 1 in 100 at best – the rest are all too eager to robotically raise their hands in the best Supreme Soviet style, and to sign pretty much anything that's placed in front of them. And as for the theory that the American people elect the best out of their number to represent them, well... how many Congressmen are the slightest bit more intelligent, rational, and non-impulsive than the average voter? I prefer to think most politicians are sent off to Washington just to get them out of our face (and to get them to shut up as well).

There has to be a theory somewhere that explains all this. All I know is that we regularly send people to Washington because they appear to have ideas... some of them seem downright bold; courageous, even. But the minute they get there they're grabbed up off the street and taken in a windowless van to some underground surgical facility where a plate is implanted in their head which turns them into petty, thieving, submissive, compliant nobodies. It's like something out of a “body snatchers” film. And when asked to explain their transformation, they mumble something about “compromise” (also known as pleasing no one by trying to please everyone).

In the meantime, the presidency rides triumphant, having accreted unto itself virtually all of the meaningful and significant powers and privileges that the Constitution explicitly assigns to Congress – and much more besides. So Congress becomes a rubber stamp in the best Warsaw Pact tradition, and you will hear nary a whimper about this from anyone in that “august body” (but more than a whimper from people on the outside). And it's not as if Congress has ceased to “make laws”. It's just that their laws typically originate somewhere in the executive branch, and the ones that don't are subject to, first, veto, and second, being completely ignored by the president and his minions. And as if that weren't enough, the Supreme Court reserves (un-Constitutionally, I might add) the right to declare any law passed by Congress null and void, which they do with alarming frequency. So much for the delicate and exquisitely-designed “separation of powers”.

So what are we talking about here? A flaw in the Constitution, or a flaw in human nature? I say both. The Constitution was a marvelous document as long as men of good will were in charge, but it started, fairly early in our history, to fail various stress tests, chief among them being wars. Wars have a magical way of turning presidents into dictators, and when the war is over not all of those dictatorial powers are returned to whence they came; a good deal are held onto because, well, it's good to be king, and you never know when they'll come in handy again. And anyone knows it's easier to rule by diktat than by vote; tyranny is for lazy people.

But does Congress take this lying down? Not a bit of it! They pass various “war powers acts” which are designed to restore the balance of power – but those acts are ignored, and there's nothing they can do about it. Any American president determined to be a “war president” can ask, paraphrasing Joseph Stalin, “How many divisions does Congress have (compared to me)?” And the answer, of course, is zero. And this doesn't bother anyone in Congress on a day-to-day basis; they would just as soon someone else take charge and thus be responsible, accountable, and blamable when things go wrong. The ideal for a Congressman is to be elected, go to Washington, and go into a state of suspended animation until it's time to campaign for re-election; that way he avoids making mistakes and taking blame. His record is pure and spotless, because it contains nothing – but that is apparently preferable to taking risks. (And, please note, the voters agree with this premise, or at least behave as if they do. They would rather send a bland nonentity to Washington than someone with ideas, because ideas are – somehow – threatening.)

Oh wait, I almost forgot – Congress also has “the power of the purse” (and I'm not talking about hitting a masher over the head with it, although that might be more useful than what is actually done). The president can't do a thing – can't move a muscle – unless Congress approves the funds. Yeah, well... by the time enough palms are greased, and enough late-night phone calls are made, those funds generally get approved even if no given individual will say they approve. And in those rare cases when there's a “showdown”, and a threat by one or both sides to (Shudder! Shake!) “shut down the government”, Congress always buckles and the president always gets his way.

So really, Congress is powerless, hopeless, and ridiculous. It doesn't even have a clearly-defined mission any more – at least not one that can't be readily taken over by someone else (in the executive branch, with far more efficiency). But they have to be kept in business for the sake of appearances – because we're busy “spreading democracy” throughout the world, based on the premise that our system is the best ever devised by man, and besides, look at how well it works, etc. Besides, if the president dissolved Congress the way leaders in other countries can dissolve parliament, and established himself as dictator, he'd still have to deal with the courts. (But how many divisions do they have, hmmm? You can see how long a two-branch system would last – about as long as it would take the president to have the Supreme Court demolished.)

So if it's all for show, and everybody knows it, why all the fuss over the CIA? Well, you don't have to dig very far down to figure out that the fuss isn't about the CIA per se, or even about anything it does or has done, but whom they did it for, namely George W. Bush and his team of Eeeeevil (as Rush Limbaugh would say) Republicans. Do you honestly think Dianne Feinstein would be freaking out if these offenses had occurred under a Democratic president? Please. They wouldn't even be holding hearings. What they seem to forget, of course, is that the CIA under Bush and the CIA under Obama are.... mmmm... probably just about identical. “Oh, but Obama told them to quit doing those naughty things!” Well, maybe he did and maybe he didn't, but it hardly matters. The CIA is going to do things their way no matter what, because they are accountable to nobody, and that includes Congressional committees and presidents. Oh sure, every once in a while they'll offer some low-level chump up as a sacrificial animal, but that's only to satisfy everyone and keep the pitchfork-wielding peasants at bay. The notion that Congress can “reform” the CIA is like saying that sheep can “reform” wolves.

And some will say, to be perfectly frank, that this is, maybe, the way things ought to be. After all, the CIA is full of smart, dedicated people who are not only much smarter than anyone in Congress, but probably much less corrupt (at least in the material, vs. moral, sense). And I am not one of those who believes that the CIA, along with other intelligence agencies, constitutes a “parallel government”. Most of what the government does matters little to them, or not at all. They don't mind letting it just fumble and lurch along on its merry way. What counts is power, connections, information – and, most of all, The Game. Give the intel guys a game to play, and they're happy. Start to criticize, or attempt to thwart, the game, and you get push-back, which is what is happening right now. Not only push-back, but push-back directed at the same wretches who gave them all that power (and money) in the first place, namely Congress. What ingrates!

So yeah, the CIA thing is just the latest in a long line of insults – the immediately previous one being immigration policy, and before that Obamacare, and waging war on Syria (which, fortunately, got vetoed by Putin – doing the job the U.S. Congress should have done). Obamacare, for that matter, has reared its misshapen head again because of the Gruber kerfuffle – which has added a new expression to the American lexicon. Getting “Grubered” is defined as getting lied to by the president in order to get a bill passed by Congress (them again!). And as to who to blame for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they've been going on so long that no one knows, any longer, who to blame – so they wind up blaming no one (an ideal outcome if you're a president or an ex-president). Unlike homelessness, which magically disappers whenever a Democrat takes over the White House, wars have a pesky way of lasting, and being highly visible (not to mention costly).

And it's not as if this is anything new. Who, among American liberals and Democrats, does not basically blame the Vietnam war on Richard Nixon, even though he inherited it from Johnson who inherited it from Kennedy? Someone who is only "anti-war" as long as they don't like the guy in the White House isn't really anti-war, are they? And someone who is only anti-CIA if we're talking about stuff that happened when someone from the other party was in the White House isn't really anti-CIA, are they? And the trouble with Congress – one of many – is that they are regularly subject to this sort of completely irrational, politically-based thinking... and they don't even realize it, or see it as a problem. “Of course we hate everything the other side does, and of course we love everything our side does!” It has nothing to do with moral absolutes, or principles, or even coherent policy. And yet we keep electing them, again and again. But maybe, at this late date, it doesn't matter, since they have given away any power they may have once had, along with all discernible integrity. Rather than rely on Congress to do the right thing and dissolve itself, maybe it's us who should be the realists and just pay attention to the president and his empire, and reserve Congress for occasional comic relief.

Point of Ordure, Mr. Chairman

First we had the journalism profession up in arms because the FCC was going to assign someone to every newsroom in order to keep the hired help in line. That was good for a few larfs. Now we have the Senate and the CIA standing toe-to-toe and arguing about who has been spying on whom, and who hacked who's computers, and who has, or thinks they have, or pretends to have, oversight over whom... and so on. This is one of those cases where, quite frankly, I don't care who wins because both sides deserve to lose, and lose big. It's like what happens when two schoolyard bullies get into a fight – everyone else wants it to keep going until both of them have to be carried out on stretchers.

Another way of putting it is that the Senate (and Congress in general) and the CIA (and the intelligence community overall) deserve each other. The rise of the intel cabal to its place of preeminence in the government was aided and abetted by Congress, which has been only too happy to give up its Constitutional prerogatives, one by one, almost since the founding. It seems to have started with war powers, but has escalated more recently to the point where Congress is as ignored and left out as the proverbial wallflower at a high school dance. The Executive Branch does as it damn pleases, and the courts reverse all the hard work of Congress on any whim that strikes their fancy. In fact, one could seriously question whether we need the Legislative Branch at all – except that they do the donkey work on laws that the Executive Branch wants, because the latter have better things to do with their time. You could say that Congress is little more, on any given day, than an extension of the White House staff – and you'd be right. And I say this fully aware that we still have, allegedly, a two-party system, and that the two parties in question are at perpetual knife-points about just about everything... except that they're not. As I've pointed out before, all the debates are about trivial and marginal issues, and are staged primarily as demonstrations that the Legislative Branch is not obsolete. (And when you have to stage meaningless debates about trivia, that's the best indicator that said branch is, in fact, obsolete.)

One could ask, plaintively, at what point did legislators cease to represent the people in any meaningful way? And I guess one would have to attribute this to things like bribery, lobbies, interest groups, special pleading, etc. -- in other words to things that have been around since the day after the Constitution was ratified. But again, the trajectory has been a long, slow curve upward – correlated, roughly 100%, with the portion of our gross national product, i.e. our productivity, that was confiscated by Congress and turned to dubious uses. When tax rates were low they had less to play with, and hence were less besieged by people wanting a handout. As, over time, they took a bigger bite out of the flesh of the hapless working American, they had more to play with, and hence were the targets of more, and more irresistible, temptations – not only in the form of money per se, but even more in the form of power. Power, and glory – or, maybe power without glory. Isn't that just as good? And this actually brings us back to the intelligence complex.

You have to admit, at least the hard-core intel types aren't in it for the fame – unless you count strictly intramural reputation as fame. And they aren't even particularly in it for the money. No, it's all about power, which is, supposedly, a product of knowledge, AKA intelligence. The spy has power simply because he can find things out about other people without them knowing – i.e. it's an asymmetrical relationship. He can exploit people without them knowing they're being exploited – sort of a sophisticated, high-tech version of a peeping tom. And that seems to be enough for these characters most of the time. They are content to live – and occasionally die – in obscurity, because they hold the power... the golden keys... the combination to every lock. They are people for whom secrets are like unto pearls of great price, and for whom secrecy, and the arts and crafts thereof, comprise their highest-valued skill.

Now... certain of us are occasionally fooled and misled by the notion that the intel agencies are somehow working for the good of the American citizen, or to protect our way of life (whatever that entails these days)... that they are super-patriots, willing to sacrifice anything to keep the wolf from the door. Well, no. OK – there may be a few genuine patriots slaving away in the bowels of CIA or NSA or some other intel headquarters, but they're either deluded or in denial as to the true agenda and priorities of those for whom they slave. (And they'll never get a corner office, I guarantee you that.)

Am I saying that this is the age of cynicism? Yes, to a great extent. The average citizen may be harboring some residual feelings of patriotism – love of country – but his leaders have grown way beyond such childish, grade-school and social-studies-class foolishness and have acquired a new respect for milking the system for all it's worth. “Intelligence” is no longer, assuming it ever was, about patriotism, any more than “defense” is about pursuing the ideals of the Founding Fathers. And again, I suppose that this is inevitable given the universal concupiscence of politicians when it comes to money and power (sex being a sub-category of power, note). Even the few with good intentions who are sent to Washington by starry-eyed supporters come down with “Potomac fever” the minute they get inside the Beltway, and never recover – nor do they want to. What, after all, is fragile human nature when confronted with that much confiscated wealth, the levers of power, the (kind of pathetic, when you think about it) “perks”? The reason power and money corrupt is that human beings are corruptible – and nothing lends itself more to this process than big government. It would be like expecting dictators to be philosopher kings; it just ain't gonna happen. Fallen human nature is against it. Thus, the folly of ever expecting the sins and offenses of big government to be cured by more government (an affliction which befalls “conservatives” from time to time). No, the idea is: Less, or none. Line up all the government agencies like ducks in a shooting gallery and start plugging away. I guarantee that the more that fall, the more refreshed and liberated and energized we will all be.

Consider, for a moment, how the omnipresent, omniscient intelligence complex came to be. It started in earnest – and by necessity, assuming the war was necessary, which Pat Buchanan questions – during World War II. For two decades up to that point, our unofficial policy when it came to other countries was: They don't bother us, we don't bother them. But all that was to change, and permanently, on that “date that will live in infamy”. So along came the intelligence agencies, and they multiplied like rabbits – internal, external, one for each armed service, overlapping missions, the occasional gap (which 9/11 was not, BTW)... and, like any other government entity created to deal with an emergency (war or otherwise), they turned out to have everlasting life. They could not be killed, because “mission creep” is always way ahead of whoever it is that doles out funding (Congress, for example). World War II was followed in close order by the Iron Curtain, and the Cold War, and all the other artificially life-extending circumstances that required us to keep armies of spies fully deployed around the globe as well as internally, because there are enemies everywhere, don't you know. Add to this our expanding economic and political empire, and you have the perfect formula for the dominance of “intelligence” over all other functions of government. We did not give up on military conquest, but preferred the economic kind – less messy, more efficient. But for economic conquest to work, one must have information, and the intimate symbiosis between the intelligence community and the business community arose quite naturally out of this necessity.

Now, I'm not saying, as some do, that the rest of the government actually works for the intelligence complex. It would be more accurate to say that they are all employees of a higher power. The intel side only seems to have more power because it keeps secrets and can get away with more. But are they running the whole show? I doubt it very much, and one reason is simply, why would they? Why bother? They have their empire – their “parallel government” -- and they don't need to waste time bossing the tools on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Those latter entities have their uses... and the appearance of separation of powers helps when they're dealing with the citizenry (not that there aren't plenty of chuckles and guffaws in Langley or Ft. Meade at their follies). One could almost say that Congress and the White House pretend to be in charge but aren't, whereas the intel agencies pretend to not be in charge, but are. But again, being in charge, I suspect, is secondary to playing the game.

And this is the real key. Intelligence is a game, and ultimately it doesn't even matter who wins or who loses. Losers can write memoirs too, after all. The appeal is that of action – of manipulation – of being in the midst of it all – of knowing what really happened and why, and who did it. Imagine spending a lazy Sunday afternoon riffling through the Top Secret/Kill Self Before Reading files in the basement of the CIA. Wouldn't you then have all the answers – about JFK, 9/11, Jimmy Hoffa... and so on? The great mysteries of our time, revealed? It's tempting to think so. But again, is the ultimate truth really what it's about? Remember, it's a game. Old CIA and KGB guys get together and reminisce over vodka and Cuban cigars: “Ah yes, those were the days. And I'm sorry about poor Percy, but he had to go, you know.” “Think nothing of it, old friend, we got back at you with Ivan, remember.” “Oh yes, I do remember – good show.” (chuckles all around) So when anyone is “eliminated” it's, basically, because they got in the way – not of national security but of the game, like some pinhead running onto the field during the Super Bowl. They get due diligence – but the game goes on. (I imagine this is a major aspect of the JFK story – he was done in by a cabal of cold warriors, intel game-playing types, plain cynics, opportunists, sociopaths, and maybe one or two genuine patriots. Sort of a dream team, if you will. But mainly, he got in the way of the game.)

So the intelligence cabal was partly created (by the Executive Branch and Congress) and partly self-created. It grew and multiplied like the brooms in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. And because it dealt in secrets, everything about it had to be secret as well – budget, staffing, operations, influence on foreign governments, and so on. And... now this is where it gets weird (or pathetic)... Congress is, allegedly, charged with “oversight” when it comes to intelligence operations. Well, who charged it? Itself, of course. So every once in a while a few intel bigwigs trek up Capitol Hill in order to provide a briefing, behind closed doors, to one or more Congressional committees – but how do those committees know that the intel guys aren't just blowing smoke up their butts? They don't, obviously – how could they? What are they going to do, go up to Langley or Ft. Meade in a motorcade with flashing lights to see if the intel guys were telling the truth? “Trust but verify?” How about “Don't trust, and afraid to verify.” Even if they were shown all the secrets down to the third sub-basement, what about the fourth and fifth sub-basements? If someone tells you they've told you all there is to know, how do you know? So it's really impossible. Add to this that the intel agencies have secret budgets (all approved, sight unseen of course, by Congress), and probably take a good chunk out of other budgets as well. How about a personnel count? You've got people on the books, people off the books, contractors, informants, deep-cover operatives, moles, rats, stool pigeons... every species, from high fliers to bottom feeders. “Oversight”? It's a total joke. And yet Congress, in its infinite narcissism, insists on keeping up the pretense, and all is well until they get too close for comfort, and then you have the current situation, with the very people who created the monster now in high dudgeon because said monster is galumphing through the formal garden.

And what's most delicious about the current hostilities is that it's largely Democrat members of the Senate who are feeling victimized -- yes, the same people who will use any means at their disposal to increase the size of government and the extent of its reach into the lives of private citizens – but their own hallowed halls are to be kept sacrosanct, right? Sorry guys, that's not the way it works. Cookie Monster want more cookies, and it doesn't care where it gets them.

What do I recommend? Well, it's too late to get rid of the intel cabal – might as well try to get rid of an inoperable tumor once it's taken over every organ system. It would actually be easier – and more fun – to get rid of Congress, but since they apparently have their uses even in the midst of appearing useless, that seems unlikely as well (not to mention that it would require some minor modifications to the Constitution – but it's widely ignored anyway, so I don't see that as as a major issue). No, I really do think that there is no solution short of waiting for the system to collapse of its own weight – but that could take many more lifetimes even though the process seems to be accelerating. Better to focus one's serious attentions elsewhere, and just let these sorts of controversies serve as comic relief.

Republicans Withold Dues From War-of-the-Month Club

Wow... for a moment there I thought that Congress had rediscovered its male body parts. Should've known better, I guess. But what would you have thought if you'd read this headline: “Obama told to justify Libya”. And the subhead: “Boehner issues deadline for response in accordance with War Powers Act”. Yes! The Republican House Speaker challenging a Democratic president's authority to wage war without the authorization of Congress! This ought to be good. I imagined subpoenas... hearings... impeachment... jail time... but all for naught. It turns out that all Congress can do is “urge” the president to “explain the legal grounds for the continued U.S. military involvement in Libya”. That makes it sound pretty darned optional. But they did set a “deadline” for his response – by which I guess they mean a response to their “urging”, as opposed to things like “telling” or “ordering”. Oh, but they're “ratcheting up the pressure”, according to the AP article -- saying that Obama “did not seek Congressional consent” within the required time. Which is kind of like getting one's arm twisted by Stephen Hawking.

Can't you just see Obama and his neocon cronies sitting in the White House chortling over all this, and giving each other high-fives? Imagine, the U.S. Congress – the mice that roared! After 80-odd years of gradually turning all of their powers and authority over to a dictatorial Executive Branch, they dare to speak up at this late date – like some aged, haggard woman of pleasure suddenly asserting her virtue? No one's going to buy this, especially not a president who has wholeheartedly taken on the full dictatorial powers of the presidency, and significantly expanded on them besides.

I'm not enough of a student of history to tell you at precisely what point, or why, Congress began to turn itself into a vestigial organ – a cipher in the vaunted “balance of powers”. To be sure, the urge to “go along to get along” has been with us always... and elected representatives are nothing if not masters of compromise and the “deal”. But I think there's another mechanism operating here as well, which is the mass hysteria that typically accompanies any sort of crisis, and the tendency of Congressmen to be intimidated and overwhelmed by it all. It has to do with the natural human tendency to look up to the “strong man” -- not “men”, note, but “man”, as in singular. And the focus of this impulse from the earliest days of the Republic has been the president – regardless of his aptitude, intellect, morals, or judgment, and especially regardless of the Constitution. The man in the White House... the “man with the hat”... is the revered and glorious leader in good times but even more in bad times, whom all then turn to, and we have been living in times of more-or-less crisis for, as I said, 80-odd years now, at least. The first to take full advantage of this ill-starred tendency was FDR, but his successors have been no less willing to at least ride along on his coattails – especially when it comes to war and other “crises”.

So it really becomes, ultimately, a matter of the president plus the people, marching off to war amidst banners and the cadence of drums, and Congress is left behind in the dust. What they say, think, and do really matters very little – even when they manage to get some of it translated into law or regulation... because, to paraphrase Stalin, how many divisions does Congress have? And don't think that idea hasn't popped into the mind of many a president over the years. "What can they do to me?" Well, there is impeachment, of course – which has been tried a grand total of twice in all these years. A president has a better chance of being run over by a runaway streetcar than impeached and convicted. So that possibility doesn't even appear on radar. And compared to the glories of being a “war president”, it would be of small concern even if it did.

So with that as background, consider the pathetic mewping of Congress over Libya. If they had no problem with Kuwait, Panama, Kosovo/Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. they certainly have no right to suddenly wake from their slumbers and rediscover the War Powers Resolution, do they? At least that's the position Obama & Co. seem to be taking. And after all, the Resolution was passed during Nixon's time – a time of great strife, before tempers had cooled enough to allow the president to act autonomously.

Plus, consider the politics of it all. As I pointed out recently, America is a war-like, war-loving nation, no matter what anyone says. Most of the voters prefer war to peace. And the Republicans, under the baleful influence of the neocons, the Evangelicals, and the arms makers, never met a war they didn't like... and the Democrats never met a war being waged by a Democratic president that they didn't like. And, any war being waged on behalf of Israel – which means any war against any element of Islam, or against any Islamic country – will be met with deafening silence by members of both parties.

So what's Boehner's problem? Surely it can't be with the Libyan conflict per se. That's just a hook with which he hopes to snag Obama. It is, in fact, an act of desperation in anticipation of next year's elections (forgetting that the average voter has a hard time remembering to take the garbage out once a week, not to mention something that happened more than a year before Election Day). But it won't work, because there's “no controlling legal authority”, in the immortal words of Al Gore. And the reason for that is that Congress has long since given up any authority it might ever have had in this matter. They were stampeded by war hysteria led by FDR in 1941... intimidated by Truman a decade-odd later... totally conned by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, courtesy of LBJ – and he had worked there, note, so he already knew what spineless weasels most of them were. Then we had more war hysteria after 9/11, and that brings us up to the present day.

And sure enough, this very afternoon the Obama administration sent a note to Boehner and Congress telling them to, basically, pound sand. It turns out that “President Obama has the legal authority to continue American participation in the NATO-led air war in Libya, even though lawmakers have not authorized it.” And why is that, class? Why, it's because it's not our war but NATO's. And it's not really a war, because it doesn't involve “hostilities”. (I knew there was something unusually kind and gentle about our rocket attacks on Tripoli, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.) And we're just in a supporting role. And a bunch of other similar self-serving crap. In other words, even though the War Powers Resolution was the work of Congress, only the president is allowed to define when, where, and if it applies – which is kind of like allowing a killer to have the final say on whether his act was murder or self-defense. Oh, and it's not a war because our troops are not really “at risk”. Which I guess means that we could use cruise missiles to nuke Tehran but it wouldn't be an act of war because none of our troops would be “at risk”.

But! Lest anyone fear that what we have here is total anarchy based in the White House, we are reassured as follows: “We are not saying the president can take the country into war on his own... we are not saying the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional or should be scrapped, or that we can refuse to consult Congress. We are saying the limited nature of this particular mission is not the kind of ‘hostilities’ envisioned by the War Powers Resolution.”

I must say, the sheer audacity of this statement is positively blinding in its implications. “It's only war if we say it is, and since we'll never call it war, it's never war, so it's always OK, and you can take your silly Resolution and shove it you-know-where.”

So, what should the response of Congress be to this outrage? To immediately initiate proceedings for impeachment, of course. But what will their response be? To go meekly back into their golden cages, tails between their legs (and nought else). Yes, they piped up again, only to be slapped down – the same way Obama keeps getting hushed by Netanyahu. So now we have a better idea of the true pecking order in today's world. Whereas FDR was a dictator in every sense of the word, my theory has always been that LBJ was the last in that line, or, as I called him, “the last tyrant”. Starting with Nixon, the presidents have been figureheads disguised as dictators, and in fact servants of higher powers, both domestically and on the international level. And Obama is no exception. He can defy Congress all he wants and get away with it, but he is in fact taking orders from others – people who are “above his pay grade”, to use his own terminology. And in fact, Congress is taking orders from those same others – when it's even worth the trouble of giving them orders, which is increasingly less necessary as their obsolescence becomes more total and more painfully obvious.

Relax!

So the next Congress has started its engines -- not without a few annoying pings and knocks -- and the tea partiers are already feeling like one of those wallflowers who spends the entire junior prom sitting on a folding chair in the corner – or like that character that someone invited to the party just to liven things up a bit, but they're not allowed anywhere near the punch bowl. Yes, there's nothing like Congress when it comes to immediately reasserting the dominance of the two-party system, which really means the one-party system. A genuine two-party system would feature some real differences of opinion once in a while, not just the trivial playing around the margins that we see on a regular basis. When the mainstream media speak in hysterical tones about “third parties”, what they're really saying is that they're petrified at the thought of _two_ parties – i.e. of any real opposition to the Regime. So any incursions of independent thought into the hallowed halls of Congress have to be rebuffed without delay – once the Constitution is sheepishly read aloud, that is. (That process made me think of how much good reading the Ten Commandments to an audience of thieves and adulterers would have done.)

So the bottom line is, like they always say in the B movies, “You can go back to your homes now, folks – nothing to see here.” And this is after a ball of green slime has eaten its way through a row of stores, restaurants, and bars along Main Street. Yes, in our anesthetized society, the ultimate criterion for success is: Is everybody relaxed? Have they gotten over their fears... their excitement... their desire to live as free citizens? And if so, we can say “mission accomplished”. Of course, there will always be the occasional alarms and scares, all designed to frighten people back into the herd... but they will be designed to enhance people's faith in government, rather than erode it. Only fanatics, right-wing paranoids, and “haters” persist in believing that government is the problem, rather than the solution.

So now that the hurly-burly's done, the citizenry can return to its more immediate concerns -- our daily bread of preoccupation -- much more than the rumblings that emanate from Washington, D.C. If you live within, or near, the Beltway, it's silly to talk about the relationship of government to your life, because government _is_ your life. It's more than a job, and even more than an obsession; it's the very groundwork of your existence. But I submit that this is a form of insanity, and that people who live elsewhere are already at an advantage when it comes to having a reality-based perspective on things. What I'm saying is that the people who control our lives – or try to – actually have a much poorer grasp of reality than the rest of us do. They may be smart, cynical, powerful, whatever... but they are laboring under a titanic delusion, whereas the rest of us can, if we wish, distance ourselves from that delusion and, on occasion, sit down and figure out what life is really all about. We can at least enjoy freedom of thought, which is something they cannot do; they will not allow themselves to take that risk, because their world is, in truth, much more fragile than ours. So don't spend time regretting that you are not one of the all-powerful “movers and shakers” in the nation's capital. Remember, for one thing, that despite all the “perks” they enjoy, they are always restless – forever tormented by the desire for even more power, and frustrated when they don't get it. They are, in fact, junkies – addicts – in every bit as destructive a way (to themselves and others) as the most abject heroin addict. Do you think even one of them (with the possible exception of the President himself) is satisfied as to his or her level of power, authority, or compensation? If they were, why do they keep scrambling and clawing for more? And why do they spend the better part of each day ginning up fights with each other?

You know, nature, in its wisdom, only assigns one “alpha male” to each pack of wolves... but in D.C., everyone is an alpha male (or female)... or wants to be. And the results more often resemble chaos than any semblance of order, to say nothing of productivity or “public service”. We have created – or allowed to be created – an entire class of power-crazed human beings, and it is actually fortunate that the bulk of them are confined to Washington, D.C. and not evenly distributed across the fruited plain. Imagine the loss to civility if there were one in every small town, or every neighborhood! Well yes, there are local political types, but they don't hold a candle to the pros in D.C. It's like talking about Little League vs. the majors. And this, by the way, is why the “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” model still holds. You just don't know... can't imagine... what the Washington scene is like until you become one of the “insiders” yourself. The pressures... the temptations... the money... all of the besetting sins of body and soul... they are all there in abundance. You wonder why all politicians sooner or later wind up looking like Dorian Gray – the picture, not the person; this is why. Few human beings are equipped to handle the challenges of high office in our time... and the ones who are, well... we'd just as soon they applied their energies and talents elsewhere, like becoming serial killers or something. And this is another argument, among many, against big government – that it is simply unnatural, and appeals to the worst tendencies among people, and attracts the worst of them. Every time you ask, or think, the question, “What kind of person would...?” when it comes to going into politics on the national level, be sure that you don't really want the answer to that question. And even so, if they confined their energies to the great cage fight that is Washington, D.C. It wouldn't be so bad. But no, they ride out, on a regular basis, in raiding parties, determined to reduce the rest of us to poverty and/or slavery. Which, I guess, lends a bit of irony to the fact that it is we, supposedly, who voted them into office.