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Petraeus
I take away two things from the dreary story of the famous general and CIA chief who just lost his job because he was having an affair with his biographer. The first is the difficulty, which we already knew about, that men in important jobs have, keeping their dick in the their pocket, even when they know they run the risk of ruining their careers. Though it is very ironic to think that deceiving his wife would disqualify someone from running the CIA. The blame extends, of course, to Paula Broadwell, who also apparently perceived no conflict of interest in presenting herself as the general's impartial biographer, while fucking him.
But by far the most disturbing and less familiar lesson relates to the FBI agent who started the investigation. Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, a friend of the Petraeus family, after receiving five anonymous jealous emails from Broadwell, complained to another member of their social circle, FBI agent Frederick Humphries, who got the agency to investigate. According to "The Daily Beast", the emails were catty, not threatening--real high school, "don't flaunt yourself" stuff. I find this fascinating and rather bitter, because I am aware of a far more serious, persistent and disturbing incident involving hundreds of emails, tweets and Facebook postings, many of them impersonating and slandering the victim, in which another FBI office took no interest whatever. So it appears you have to be connected to get the FBI working on your problem. The FBI would not investigate actual federal computer crimes involving impersonation, while eagerly getting involved in a case of juvenile taunting. Occupy wasn't wrong with the 99%/1% analysis. The FBI's choices certainly confirm the idea we are living in an oligarchy.
Election explanations
Romney and Ryan's childish maunderings about the reasons they lost the election offended even the conservative "Ethics Alarms" blogger, who pointed out they lost it fair and square and should be grown-ups about it. Ryan's reference to "urban" voters was, of course, a lightly coded reference to black people, while Romney's reference to "gifts" was equally sleazy, given the billion dollars Republicans spent mainly through super-PAC's trying to buy the election. In the end, run through the neurolinguistic translator, all Romney or Ryan are really saying is that--zounds!--the President attracted more people to vote for him than voted for them! How awful and blameworthy that is!
Britain
What has happened to the once proud English? The birthplace of western democracy, the home of Shakespeare and Milton, is now in thrall to Rupert Murdoch, the place of shameful phone hacking scandals such as the Murdoch press' infiltration of the voicemail of murdered teenager Milly Dowling, and is now the locus of the Jimmy Savile story. He was a very creepy BBC host, whose fame and connections gave him such an invulnerable force field that he waas able to boast in his biography of spending the night with teenage girls. The Times printed the still from a video available on Youtube where Savile can be seen groping a teenage girl on live television. The British seem to have slid into some permanently infantile, narcissistic and--I don't ever use this word lightly--evil place totally unworthy of their history, contribution and capability.
Israeli suicide
Israel has been in the grip of the wingnuts for some years now, of whom the worst is Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose plan for overthrowing PLO moderate Mohammed Abbas is typical of him. In the wingnut worldview, the only solution would be to destroy the Palestinians and expel the Israeli Arabs, hunker down and be prepared to fight for centuries. Meanwhile, an invasion of Gaza is stirring that would take the country a big step towards this final solution.(Later--the Israelis seem to have paused on the brink of that one.)
Let's be clear here. The whole idea of bordering an enclave which shoots hundreds of rockets at you a year IS intolerable. It IS as if New Jersey felt entitled to rocket New York on a weekly basis. If you look at just the situation on the ground today, no wonder the Israelis would invade Gaza every few years, an activity they call "cutting the grass", knowing they will have to cut it again. But how did we get here?
In 1974, Professor Arthur Hertzberg, a very knowledgeable Zionist and student of Zionism, responded to a question I asked him in a class at Columbia by saying that there would never be peace in the Middle East until Israel accepted the creation of a Palestinian state. That truth, which has founded the officially stated basis of all American diplomacy in the region to this day, has not gotten one step closer to realization since Hertzberg made that remark thirty-eight years ago. Now Lieberman wants to overthrow Abbas because, tired of waiting for Israel to meet him at the table, he dares to ask the United Nations General Assembly for state observer status.
The Israelis, after making peace with the PLO, squandered an immense opportunity to facilitate the creation of a strong, stable partner. The causation is clear, simple and direct-- if the Israelis had done a better job of meeting the PLO halfway, Hamas would never have broken away, and Gaza would be under PLO control. So the Israelis have helped create the monster they must now fight.
When you look past all the smoke and shouting, the desire of the Palestinians for their own state assimilates rather clearly and easily to the Israeli's desire in 1948, ours in 1776. But the Israelis, if they ever were serious about allowing this to happen, have not been in the last twenty years. If they were, they would have stopped the illegal settlements instead of facilitating or officially ignoring them. The settlers, who are themselves a wingnut group, are an Israeli addiction; Israel is like the host who sounds reasonable at the dinner table, but can only sustain himself by slipping into the bathroom several times during dinner for another line of coke and shot of tequila.
Please notice the foregoing was largely a tactical, not a moral discussion. Israel's behavior is grossly immoral, but even if we don't think about that at all, it is situationally suicidal. Count Talleyrand: "Its not only a crime, but a mistake".
Scarcity
One issue I only adverted to, didn't really cover, in last month's article on Hurricane Sandy was scarcity.
We're not used to it. I had never experienced it in my life. The last time gas was rationed, in 1974, I didn't drive yet.
Right after Sandy, the gasoline went away. Local stations had yellow tape around the pumps. Then a tanker would come in and a line of 200 cars would be waiting to gas up. One afternoon, I talked to the first guy in line. He had been there twelve hours and had just been told to expect to wait six more.
I refused to do that. I didn't need my car that much. Not using it created a new way of thinking about my house in Amagansett. Since I bought it in 1997, I knew it was three hours away. But now it was an aggressive five or six day walk, or a two day bicycle ride. I didn't go there til the gas situation eased, about ten days.
I think we have just seen the future. Much of the world already knows how to live with scarcity, is resigned to it. But, with extreme weather, the loss of education and competence, and political gridlock, itr is coming for us.
Palestine
The PLO has just obtained a form of recognition from the UN General Assembly, a precursor to recognition as a state. Good for them. It is such a late, mild-mannered peaceful initiative. Because we are unable to stand up to Israel, the US message to the Palestinians-- to keep waiting--is a morally vacuous one: the Israeli government, dominated by people like Avigdor Lieberman, has no intention of countenancing a Palestinian state. The Palestinians could have morally sought other peaceful avenues long ago. Before you get too caught up in the excuses--whether Jewish "birthright" or the canard that the Palestinians declined or somehow lost the right to the state the UN gave them in 1948--try walking a mile in the shoes of a young, intellectual Palestinian, and imagine how you would feel, about all the stalling, the lies and the violence. One of the worst photographs I have seen in many years, and I have seen many horrors in person while working on ambulances, was of the dead Palestinian child, collateral damage from an Israeli bomb directed at a Hamas official.
Women in combat
Some female soldiers are suing the military on a novel cause of action that deserves to prevail: due to the absence of front lines in a combat against insurgents in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, they are serving in combat in all but name: shooting and being shot at and dying in numbers for their country. But they are denied the rewards of risk, such as they are, because they are officially designated as noncombatants so can't receive the promotions and benefits male soldiers do.
A soldier I know who is finishing his third tour in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who is not particularly a feminist, said to me, "I have met women soldiers I would rather kick a door down with than most men". It is time to let women serve in any role they seek in the military.