Patience is a Virtue (& I don't have it)

Nor do I want it, in certain situations. I've heard this palliative banality numerous times over the years, and I really don't need to hear it now. Patience is okay for a while, but eventually it becomes a siren's song that can woo you into inaction.

I thought about this today when I reflected on the fact that it's the eighth anniversary of 9/11, and then had to swallow a potential spit-take when I realized that we are still in Afghanistan. Obama ran on a platform that he would refocus the mismanaged "war on terror" and increase troop presence in Afghanistan while lowering that in Iraq. It sounded good during the general election, but I think most of us progressives/liberals didn't fully grasp what this entailed.

This new tactical reconfiguration means that attention would shift away from Iraq, which was perhaps the worst foreign policy decision made by a president ever. Certainly, most would agree that it was the worst foreign policy enacted by a sitting president in our lifetime. But really, though, it was the worst foreign policy in the history of the US.

As I've said before in what has become a perfunctory disclaimer that you have to preface every criticism of the military with, American troops have served admirably and blah blah blah.

We can all agree on this. We can't seriously assert, though, that America has returned the favor. Bush and his cadre of morons, either evil or not (mostly the former), forced us into war with relentless lying, and subsequently thousands of these soldiers have died. Call me crazy, but I don't think this means that Republicans love the military as much as they claim. Okay, I think we can agree on this too.

Now, though, we need to put an end to the madness. It's a cliche, but you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. It has been said by countless pundits, but some societies can't really handle democracy. Sometimes, an iron fist is all that they know and understand, so I hate it when delusional Americans extol the virtues of democracy and then try to force reluctant societies to accept it. Is that not, in itself, the height of hypocrisy?

And no, I'm not a wimp willing to forget about the atrocities that Bin Laden encouraged and ultimately perpetrated. He needs to experience the full spectrum of human pain, like that "Sloth" victim in Se7en.

At the same time, we need to agree that health care should not be a privilege, but a right. As I watched Obama's address to Congress last night and heard that galactically stupid (to borrow a phrase from A Few Good Men) outcry from Joe Wilson, that obscenely dumb senator from South Carolina, I understood completely and finally that the president needs to brandish a sword and threaten morons like that with decapitation.

Intolerance is a door that swings both ways. It can be ugly, in the case of Bin Laden, militant Islamic extremists, and Republican congressmen. It can also be sweetly satisfying, but we have yet to grasp this because Democrats still insist on pusillanimous mutual identification. Once they grow a pair, I think Democrats, including Obama, will understand that they don't want to, nor should they, compromise with the lunatics of the GOP.

I'm done with holding my breath and waiting patiently for a simple resolution to a number of issues that can be dealt with easily by ignoring Republican demagogues and their caterwauling.

Fuck them, and their politics based on selfishness and all sorts of bad things. Composing a litany of their bullshit would be both exhausting and futile, because I'm pretty sure many loud Republicans can't read. That sounds dismissive, I know, and it should. I hereby dismiss the ideology of the right.

Totally. I've mentioned Woody Allen's tactic of violence with regard to dealing with Nazis, and I think it applies to hopelessly churlish Republicans as well. Devastating satirical pieces are one thing, but bricks and baseball bats really get to the point, and I think we should all be at this breaking point finally.

President Obama, use the bully pulpit aggressively, and brandish something behind it if you'd like. The sharper, the better.

R