Curmudgeonry for the Week

Just a quick laundry list of short items.
1. We are trying to bring Afghanistan under the boot heel of our empire, on one level. We could win, but we won’t. The single greatest factor is incomprehensible to the military and foreign policy wonks: the economy. There is a way to appeal to their Islamic moral fervor and build up the economy, too. The Taliban wouldn’t stand a chance if the people had anything to lose by listening to them. No one in charge has bothered because that was never the real objective. Part of the real objective was destroying our own economy, and shattering our military power. It’s working.
2. OWS is dead. It was vulnerable from day one because they hadn’t taken the time to school the protesters. There are only two ways to keep something like this coherent, and that’s ties of blood/covenant, or a strong orthodoxy like communists use. Whether we like it or not, given the vagaries of human political behavior, any kind of revolt demands a unity rather like a religion. Not just any religion, but one with a stern sense of commitment to something concrete which takes on the aura of holiness. While there have been some brilliant flashes of rhetoric, it never reflected enough of the protesters to keep the political infiltrators from destroying it. The protests have been hijacked by several other strong agendas, and will probably continue on that thread for some time to come. The name is the same, but whatever it was at first is long past.
3. There’s a good chance Herman Cain will survive this kerfuffle over sexual harassment, in part because that card has been played too often. If current trends continue, he could easily be the next president. Should that happen, we will most certainly have a World War III, and the US will see conscription on a scale making Vietnam look piddly. More, when draft protesters flee to other lands, Cain is the kind of man who will send execution squads after them. And most evangelical churches will applaud that move.
4. I’m tempted to believe there is something in this provocation of Iran we aren’t being told by much of anybody. While I don’t quite agree with the wild conspiracy theories espoused by Duff at Veterans Today, I do have to wonder at all the posturing from both sides. It seems almost surreal, with an all too public slow-motion march into an obvious, foregone conclusion. It’s hard to imagine how any part of this can yield the surprise attack sort of thing which actually works. Am I the only person who thinks the anxiety leading up to any action is a major, if not the whole, objective? And is there anyone else who wonders if maybe this is all some feint while preparing some other attack entirely?
Most of what you think you see is theater.