I’m spending the evening watching my daughter struggle to get to sleep and I’m listening to a speech by Minister Malcolm from 1965 entitled “Prospects for Freedom.” The minister had the gift of bringing it home – and he was singularly penetrating in that capacity. At the beginning of his speech, he talks about the conditions of the ground in Kenya and the question of “Responsible Leadership.” The essence of his point was simply that Europeans and whites exercised interests in Black leadership in ways that resulted in the emergence of a certain type of leader – and the death or disappearance of another type. In fact, it has often been the case that ethical, conscientious African leaders in the US, in the Caribbean and on the continent have been reviled by Europeans and whites. Frankly, it is hard for a Western capitalist to do business with an honest man representing poor people. Could it really be any other way?
When one considers the material wealth of the African continent with respect to natural resources like oil, gold, diamonds, uranium, bauxite, cocoa and rubber (and that’s the short list), it should not be difficult to understand why the continent is in such disarray today. In a natural contest for leadership, it stands to reason that the best and brightest would tend to dominate leadership positions. However, in a contest for leadership that is determined by the external interventions of interested parties, it would stand to reason that the “winners” would be the most corrupt, ruthless and unscrupulous leaders – precisely because that is the type of behavior required to emerge within the Western paradigm. Could it really be any other way?
This paradigm worked fine for Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega for years. These men were the golden boys of the West until geo-political shifts and a few not-so-wise moves put them in personal peril. In Africa, leaders with a commitment to build infrastructure, heal and teach their people, and provide a future for the next generation are in short supply – and they live in mortal danger every minute of every day. Nelson Mandela was one such leader for decades…and he received precious little support from the West. In fact, the US and Europe greatly opposed his efforts at freedom. The same was true of Lumumba. Instead, the West has supported the crook, the thug, the vandal and the murderer in order to install Black-face terror regimes. In lands riddled with all manner of abuse (physical, psychological, sexual, cultural, etc.), it stands to reason that there would be a ready pool of candidates waiting to snatch national wealth in an instant. It stands to reason that some African persons could be appointed to leadership and usher in the destruction of their nation – pursue the wealth and luxuries of the West – and ignore the mandate to build a viable, sustainable nation. That is the type of work that does not pay well and requires a willingness to confront European and American spies and mercenaries on a regular basis. It requires a willingness to confront starved and desperate Africans working on behalf of the West, or at least in their interests.
It almost requires one to be perfect. And the Western press is always looking for the Perfect Negro. And so are those liberal readers of the Western press seeking absolution of the sins of their fathers and mothers (and selves). The price of Africanity or of Black leadership, however, cannot be perfection. It’s too high a price to pay. None of us can be perfect long enough for it to matter. We can be good and we can work in our own interests, but we cannot always be perfect.
When I look for “Responsible Leadership” I’m looking for something different than the Western world might hope for. I’m looking for the type of leadership that Minister Malcolm referenced in the persons of Patrice Lumumba and others. And in the absence of that leadership (how much is it really needed?), I want to live a life worthy of emulation. That’s it.
Changing the look around these parts for a minute. I might be back in the mix in a minute. After that comedic debate last night and my daughter having a restful night’s sleep, I’m feeling the fire (like Peabo Bryson).
Democrats tried to play with your emotions? Nothing that they say stays in my head. I’m thinking about hosting an All-African Presidential Debate right here. We’re going to be asking those tough questions about agricultural subsidies, the G-7, trade and debt, security, child labor, resource exploitation and rendition that escaped most folks last night. Those questions will be followed up the new litmus test line of questioning on crystal meth vs. crack cocaine (isn’t powder played out?) and fiscal equity in education formulas (isn’t segregation vs. desegregation played out?). Man, if I just get some white kids to sit next to my keyboard…I’d be a better writer!
My face/blog is feeling Pharaoh-onic…feel the Phunk, baby!!
In New York, the education establishment has worked its way around the logical implications of Brown by two primary mechanisms: 1) retaining discriminatory funding formulas tied to property values and 2) subsidizing the capacity of wealthy and middle-class white districts to retain experienced and high-quality teachers by allocating funds according to the “average teacher salary” at the school. In other words, when preliminary budgets are introduced, School A (located in a primarily white district – like Douglaston, Queens or downtown Manhattan) could have an ATS of $75000. These teachers may have 10-15 years in the system…they may be award winning, accomplished professionals who are in high demand in lower performing districts; they will likely hold master’s degrees and have demonstrated leadership skills in professional development, etc. but…
School B, which will be located in East Harlem or Central Harlem or Bushwick or Bed-Stuy or East New York or the South Bronx will have an Average Teacher Salary of $48000. Those teachers, however, are new to the system. They have one or two years experience. They are cultural aliens and know nothing of classroom management. Their school of education has prepared them to teach white girls, almost exclusively. They arrive in classrooms with no white girls – except the one in the mirror. There are more high-poverty students, more limited English proficient students, more special needs students – and FEWER community-based/parent financial support networks to augment services which cannot be provided by the school.
The differential in Average Teacher Salary effectively provides more funding for schools with better teachers and SUBSIDIZES the capacity of these schools to add NEW TEACHERS without significantly undermining the averge teacher salary of the school. It also incentivizes school principals to pay new teachers in “better schools” higher salaries, while principals in schools with lower ATS’ cannot encourage new teachers with higher salaries at the expense of the existing staff.
This fiscal end around the Brown decision effectively keeps schools segregated (a non-issue) while keeping the most experienced, best paid teachers in schools with the most experienced, best paid admininstrators; the wealthiest, most connected parents; the wealthiest most effective community networks and the least “needy students.”
This particular item has generated a great deal of heat. There has been a ground swell of energy to change the funding formulas to focus on the needs of students. Consider one implication…if School A wants to keep a full compliment of teachers at $75k, the city doesn’t subsidize that decision…the school and its parents/community pony up the dollars to pay those teacher salaries – and make tough cuts if they’re unable to raise money on their own. School B, with its high-need students gets a significant infusion of cash which can be used to hire more experienced teachers or add external support servics to improve outcomes for those children.
The current system operates like WalMart…a poor majority contributes their nickels and dimes so that a few wealthy children or middle to upper middle class children can attend elite PUBLIC Schools in a few locations. If you EVER look at TEST SCORES in NYC, the top scores come from 2 districts (out of 32)…that’s it – just 2. District 2 (a mega district that covers most of downtown Manhattan and serves a demographic that does not reflect this increasingly black and brown city); District 26 (Queens – Douglaston, a wealthy enclave in an outer borough that has retained its retinue of million dollar homes and water-front views). The other districts are scattered along an achievement curve that precisely follows the relative income of adults.
The City of New York has admitted as much. Considering this urban funding pattern with the suburban funding pattern predicated on property taxes, it’s a wonder that any poor children in the State of New York actually have any academic success.
“Mmmm-muh! Kiss your father goodbye – he’s off to the rock pile. I’ll see you guys later. Be good (thought cloud: ‘As if you could actually be something else after only 15 days outside the womb.’). Drink all your milk! Have fun…Back soon.”
Meanwhile, here at Slate’s Rock Quarry, there’s lots of love for Soul Daddy #1. It’s great to see. Everyone has well wishes and warm hearts. The birth of twins, often noted as a sign of luck in cultures around the work, also brings spiritual elevation to dyed-in-the-wool rationalists. Ours is often mind numbing, brain-breaking work, but it has it’s rewards. There is a spirit of comraderie which congeals around the struggle for sanity being waged in every office and cubicle across the State. We feel one another’s pain – and fight to free our respective brains from the dumb, dumb conundrum of never all, just some.
Babies, or any initiate, infuse the rest of us with tons and tons of perspective. En route to chopping my own personal pile of bricks, I came across a young man dressed in suit, carrying cap and gown, and walking in the proud company of his elders. I offered congratulations, with the added encouragement of “No limits, no fear.” Today is a day of reckoning…with the self and the world. Everyday is a day of reckoning, whether we move closer to our heart’s desire or farther away…time is not neutral and we are not mere observers.
It’s quiet now. It’s almost midnight of my first night under the same roof with my wife and new twins. It’s a special time. Midnight also marks my wife’s birthday – so there is much to be thankful for around here. She’s sleeping now and I’m getting into the importance of swaddling. I know this is no silver bullet, still, all my little vampires are knocked out – at least for another hour. I’ve learned a great deal over the past few days and I suspect I’ll be learning a great deal over the next three or four decades. (If I can get five or six more that would great.) Posts will be few and far between before they’re furious again. It will be interesting to see what makes the blog – and what doesn’t. It’s all for posterity now.
This bit of peace won’t last – but it’s all worth it, in the beginning and in the end.
Tomorrow is the delivery day. It’s on. Looking forward to arrival of little Temples 4 (girl) and 5 (boy). The wife has never been bigger (though not at all fat – just yooge!). She’s ready, I’m ready. Our dog is ready. Friends and family are ready. The doctor is ready. All I have to do is not drive like a maniac to the hospital and it should be all good.
And don’t expect a kinder, gentler dude when I get back -at least not online!
I love a hype-machine as much as the next guy. I really do. I believe that marketing hype is like sex and baby-making – it makes the world go ’round. Without marketing hype, would any of us have made it through the last season of the Sopranos? Isn’t marketing hype the only reason why anyone still watches ‘Lost’? My neighbors say “it’s because of all the cute guys.” I still haven’t seen the show. I’ll take their word for it. The hype machine got rolling this week when the Detroit Pistons were roughed up outside of a local school yard and had their lunch money stolen by some ruffians from Cleveland. The word is that the band of young Turks was led some kid named LeBron who did the greatest thing since man invested the wheel and round things. It seems he scored 48 points and did some other stuff that people in the media swore they’d never, never, never, ever seen before anywhere on the entire planet earth in the history of the world. I thought they were lying at the time. I know they’re lying now.
I saw a rookie win an NBA championship (on tape-delay, damn it!!) in 1980, one year after winning a national championship. To win that NBA title (the first of five), he replaced arguably the greatest player in the history of the game, played five positions, and defeated a team led by none other than the league’s leading physician of the era: Julius Erving. I saw that.
I saw Isiah Thomas run around on one ankle (as if he were looking for another ‘a’ to spell his name) and score 40+ on the Los Angeles Lakers and their elite defensive guard Michael Cooper. I saw Cooper look like a motherless child as he faked from here to there and left in the rear view with nothing but shadows. Isiah was gone.
And, just last year, I saw a team with aging veterans on the brink of elimination at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks. This aging team was “saved” by this young blood from Chicago, via Marquette in Milwaukee. In the next four games of that finals contest, Dwyane Wade went for 42, 36, 43 and 36. In a two-point win in Game 3, Wade added 13 rebounds and shot 18 free throws, making 13. Game 4, a 20+ point blowout, Wade managed 36 on 8 of 9 shooting from the line. Game 5 was an overtime thriller. This time, Wade went for 43 and converted 21 of 25 free throws. In the final game, Wade hit for 36 again, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals and 3 blocks. 16-21 from the free throw line…that’s living in the paint.
That’s some week. There was a time when memories like that would last longer than a single season. In some places, they still do.
After last night’s meltdown by the Detroit Pistons in the sixth and final game of the 2007 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, I wondered about the mindset of one Rasheed Wallace. Wallace was ejected from the game after receiving a second technical foul for arguing (or better yet, lambasting) with officials “over balls and strikes.” This was nothing new. Yesterday’s double were ‘Sheed’s sixth and seventh technical fouls of the 2007 playoff season. It’s been a long ride – and it may be over in Detroit.
Mr. Wallace is not without his admirers, especially his teammates. And if you’re even remotely anti-ownership, anti-establishment, his antics have to resonate with you on some level. Still, there is something basic that separates Wallace’s work from that of a player like Dennis Rodman. As incredible as this may sound, Rodman knew when to stop. Rodman’s histrionics were about riling up the opposition and his competitive drive to run a stake through the heart of that vampire in the other uniform. Rodman seldom, if ever, was ejected from big games where the outcome was in doubt. He stuck around long enough to block shots, take charges and rebound every shot that didn’t find the center of the rim. Rodman rebounded errant popcorn jumpers from 8-year olds in the front row. He picked off ill-fated cubes of ice headed for the floor of the United Center or whatever other arena he blessed with floor burns. Rodman stuck around long enough to enervate other “rebounders”, aggravate enemy fans and infuriate “their media” caught in a love-hate relationship they hated themselves for loving.
Rasheed is another story, altogether. In fact, Rasheed is such a different story, that if it were not for Kobe Bryant, his legacy would be embarrassingly different. Rasheed Wallace is one of the most talented players in the league. He has the talent of a Derrick Coleman (minus the handle) or Chris Webber – even a Tim Duncan. When Rasheed played for the Portland Trail Blazers, he was an unstoppable offensive juggernaut that commanded double teams and inspired his teammates. He was the same player when he first arrived in Detroit. But, somewhere along the way, something happened. Somewhere between Simon Gratz High School in Philadelphia and the University of North Carolina, ‘Sheed decided it was okay to get ejected from big games.
Regardless of what you think of the NBA, Czar Stern or any officiating crew, getting ejected from games is not pardonable in the context of playoff basketball for talented players. Only players with eroding skills and certified “pain in the ass” personalities like M.L. Carr or hockey’s Claude Lemieux can justify regular ejections from big games. Rasheed is simply too good to spend the balance of big games in the locker room kicking around coolers telling the towel boys about how he got a raw deal. In the simple parlance of this day, “That’s some ol’ bullshit.”
What the many media clips and soundbites may never reveal about Rasheed is his deep intelligence and his concern for the integrity of the game. Why the brakes don’t work in particular situations is another question, altogether. I thought I might be able to answer it – but it is beyond me. In the absence of certainty, I can only put forth a theory.
The Rasheed Wallace Combustible Integrity Theory
Preface: Every theory worth its salt has to have a few assumptions. The assumptions don’t have to be grand. They simply need to be simple and testable. Since water is wet, swimmers get wet. Maybe not ideal, but you get the picture. A theory also has to have a hypothesis. The hypothesis is the thing that makes people say the theorist is either an Einstein or an idiot. Of course, theories cannot be positively proven. If that were the case, we’d call them facts, not theories. And when theories pass from unproven to proven, that is no guarantee of permanent keys to the kingdom. Those keys can be revoked in five years or a hundred years or a millenium. After all, there was a time when Christians in the West believed the world was only 6,000 years old. Laugh now, but that wasn’t so funny when dumb dumbs with degrees could hang you by your thumb thumbs until you screamed.
Nuts and Bolts: Rasheed Wallace’s frequent in-game eruptions at NBA officials are purely expressions of anger directed at the “league” and ownership for what he perceives to be a dehumanizing (albeit enriching) experience. Here are my basic assumptions:
Rasheed is a smart man with a demonstrated commitment to family and community.
He is an excellent teammate (ejections, notwithstanding).
Rasheed can focus and reign it in when he wants to. During the 2004 playoff run to a title, Rasheed was on the court and was absolutely lethal against the Lakers in bringing a title to the Pistons. He was universally regarded as the missing ingredient between that team and a title.
Thank you, Kobe. The 2004 season is the only season since 1998 in which either Tim Duncan or Shaquille O’Neal has not concluded the season with an NBA title, a summer parade, and bad singing by mediocre teammates. In 2004, Kobe Bryant played 1-on-9 and consistently had his water shut off by Tayshaun Prince and others. While that is the subject of another conversation, that debacle opened the window of opportunity for Sheed and the mighty, might Peace-tones. They have been unable to squeeze their rather large asses (er, egos) thru that window since.
The league into which Rasheed was drafted is fundamentally different than the one in which he now plays. It is more international, more oriented toward offense and less physical.
Rasheed no longer plays the same type of physical interior game for which his abilities are uniquely suited. In his second year, he played closer to the hoop and made about 56% of his shots. Since that time, he’s moved farther and farther away from the rim – and now, this 6′-10″ player has mid-40 percent accuracy. What was once unconscionable in the days of Chamberlain is now commonplace.
Rasheed would kick David Stern’s ass in a New York minute if he believed two things: 1) it would be a fair fight…it would not; 2) it would change the heavy-handed manner in which the league is managed.
I believe Rasheed Wallace takes extreme umbrage at the way in which David Stern and the league have sought to demonize Black culture and the old school mores of the league for the sake of marketing. Whether you’re talking about the close refereeing of games, where every bit of contact is whistled, or whether you’re talking about a dress code, the league has sought to curtail or even preclude the possibility of another grand throw down. From the Miami melee involving PJ Brown and the Knicks to the Big Ben-Artest-ed Development, the league has sought to accentuate the positive. The public relations nightmare of large, angry, aggressive black bodies crashing against one another is enough to make a Desperate Housewife wet with desire, but it’s enough to make her husband cancel those season tickets.
Rasheed sees these things for what they are…marketing at the expense of basketball. Basketball used to be like football and baseball, in that when there were conflicts, they were handled on the court…then the refs jumped in. Hockey used to be that way too. Back in the day, pitchers beaned hitters to protect their lineups. Football players clocked the dog-shit out of one another to protect the QB or the star running back. Revenge was exacted between the lines…and faint of heart teams could seek no refuge from the men in striped shirts. If Kurt Rambis was tackled by Kevin McHale, it wasn’t Dick Bavetta’s job to make it right. It was Kareem’s job, and Magic’s job and Worthy’s job and Byron Scott’s job. If that Danny Ainge or Bird had to get jabbed up, so be it.
If Laimbeer or Mahorn got too far out of line, the Bulls usually just cried about it until the refs intervened – and that’s when it all changed. The days of putting a physical player on his ass because you’d had enough were basically done when the refs increased their engagement to protect players like Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant and BJ Armstrong and Steve Kerr and others who wouldn’t protect themselves. Jordan could protect himself and did…he didn’t get migraines. He didn’t need Stacey King or Bill Cartwright or Bill Wennington to rush to his defense. And no great players before Jordan could ever expect the assistance of referees to clear a path to the lane. Everyone else was hammered en route to the rack…that’s what made the NBA worth watching. It was a test of wills.
Now ‘Sheed may have been a UNC grad, and he may worship the ground that Jordan walks on (can’t say), but all the grace accorded to the Bulls didn’t do him one bit of good. You see, the referees over time increasing took the power of game policing away from players…and they did this in two ways: first, by having inferior referees oversee games during an era of expansion and mediocrity. Mark Cuban has hit on this before. And the evidence of the impact here is this: Bruce Bowen.
Bowen is the type of player who, had he played before the astral ascent of Michael Jordan would have had his ass kicked on a regular. How do I know this? Because players just like that routinely got that ass smacked in the years before 1991. Players like Danny Ainge, Bill Laimbeer and others were kicked, punched and grilled for doing stoopid shit. Remember when Robert Parish popped Laimbeer in the nose for being a byatch?!!? No foul, right. Damn right, it was revenge between the lines. Nowadays, no one lays Bowen out. Nope. Vince Carter leans his head against Bowen like he wants to snuggle (and the Nets wonder why Vinsanity is ring-less; shiiiit, I don’t). Ray Allen complains in the press. Back in the day, someone like Micheal Ray Richardson or Rickey Sobers or Ricky Pierce would had straight whupped Bowen’s ass on the court, in front of Duncan, Popovich, Stern and his mama – and the shit would’ve been too bad because if Duncan or someone else tried to get in the way, Bob Lanier or Maurice Lucas would put the fear of god in that ass – end of story. Instead, Bowen runs a muck…Amare goes to the press; Nash loses his mind and his team is out – all for the want of a devastating screen that draws blood and starts beef.
In those post-Jordan transition years, there were only a few teams capable of winning a championship – but the temperature in the league went up to 212 kelvin. The league either didn’t notice or didn’t care because the Knicks were competitive, the Heat were on the rise, and the Lakers were the brightest lights in the universe. They beat a one-dimensional Nets team, a one-dimensional Sixers team and a one-dimensional Pacers team. Good for you if you remember the order. Fights broke out all over the place. New refs, more refs, mediocre refs…busted ass teams; retread coaches and weak benches. It was ugly (but is was beautiful)…and then came the final nail in the coffin…
“The Bullshit Call.” Everywhere you go, if you’re a lip-reader, you’ll hear players complain about “the bullshit call.” Rasheed said it last night. What is “a bullshit call?” It’s when one of a few things happen:
a ref makes a call based on what he thinks you must do (based on his experience and the physics of the play);
a ref makes a call but is out of position and a better positioned referee makes no call;
a ref calls a minor infraction which has no bearing on the play; or
all of the above.
Now, if you’ve played ball in the street, you know any one of these things (in games without refs, where players call their own fouls) can lead to fights. In street ball, one of the first rules is that if you’re not actually involved in the play, “be quiet.” A second rule, which actually precedes the first, is “no harm, no foul…play on.” These rules are essential to the game because basketball is a rhythm game…it is all about flow and harmonics…about the synchronicity of five as one. Basketball is not about size or speed or quickness or any of that…it is really about flow – and playing great basketball means working in harmony with teammates. That doesn’t simply mean passing the ball all the time. Sometimes it means rebounding or great team defense. Sometimes it means taking over and having your teammates feed you the rock in the right place at the right time. Sometimes it means setting a devastating pick that rattles teeth and starts beef. It’s different from play to play and game to game. That’s why basketball is attractive to the 10-year old white kid in Indiana, the 22-year Black kid in Harlem, the 65-year old Jewish cat in Long Island and the 14-year old upstart in China and Serbia. In this respect, basketball has a great deal in common with hockey and futbol. Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm.
So, officials (at the behest of the league) made significant inroads to seize the rhythm of the game – and this killed the game, for a time. The league, though, realized the error of their ways and introduced new rules to accelerate the pace of the game and improve the flow…but that old vestige of the bullshit call remains – and it is the source of most of the tension in the league. Small, incidental, ticky-tack fouls called on men who are 6′10″ tall and 265 pounds amount to micro-managerial insults akin to telling a grown ass man how to dress. Now, a grown ass man with intelligence, a family and a love of community will sharply resent intrusions into his world by micro-managers. We all know that most micro-managers should be lined up before firing squads (as a teaser), then fed to piranhas for lunch. We know this, but we don’t react with the disdain of a Rasheed Wallace.
We know that micro-managers are responsible for most of the great blunders in the world, yet we accept their intrusions because of rules and policy. We abide because of concerns that Rasheed Wallace does not have – like how to feed his family. This man has been to the mountain top in his profession. He has hardware, the respect of his teammates, and his sense of dignity. Not unlike Mark Cuban, he views Stern and his minions (the league office and the refs) as evil-doers, anachronistic parents trying to pull the plug on his Gemini mixer – trying to send everybody home in the middle of Frankie Beverly singing “Before I Let Go.”
In his mind, Stern and the league are all about the whistle, the ticky-tack, the minor infraction, intensified policing, the bullshit call. Remember, the law is for the criminal, not the law-abiding citizen – and believe it or not, Rasheed has been a law-abiding citizen on the court. No cheating, no nonsense, no dirt – just true grit. Somewhere deep inside, or maybe right on the surface, I think he figures, “What’s the point? I might as well jack threes. These refs are calling flops in the post. A man can’t do his thing down there. Why bother. I’ve got my ring – I’m going to the perimeter.” – if not the edge.
Rasheed Wallace is the Big Temperamental, but his temperature may be just right – and the rest of us are ice, ice, baby…too cold, too cold.
“Every weekday, at a secure commercial office building on Manhattan’s East Side (my emphasis), a team of 20 U.N. experts on chemical and biological weapons pores over satellite images of former Iraqi weapons sites. They scour the international news media for stories on Hussein’s deadly arsenal. They consult foreign intelligence agencies on the status of Iraqi weapons. And they maintain a cadre of about 300 weapons experts from 50 countries and prepare them for inspections in Iraq — inspections they will almost certainly never conduct, in search of weapons that few believe exist.”
I know who has the best chance of uncovering something significant, but I won’t hold my breath.
I would like to know, though, if the US military could spare one or two folks IN IRAQ to look for those things that don’t really exist. Honestly, by now, I thought the US would have brought some more chemical weapons over and planted them deep underground for a “Voila!!” moment. Hasn’t happened yet.
Republicans, according to the New York Times (always a suspect source of information), are beginning to consider the folly of Mr. Bush’s war. How can that be? What’s different from 2003? The Iraqis are still not Europeans or Christians or Westerners or white. It’s still okay to kill as many of them as possible to achieve a goal. There is a non-aligned, unstable political situation that is not entirely controlled by the United States. Iraq still has natural resources that the United States believes are essential to national security and its regional interests. Saddam Hussein is in a pine box, but that’s immaterial. It always was – unless you actually believe the drivel coming from the desks of your elected (and often un-elected) representatives. Only a few thousand soldiers have been killed. I don’t see how any honest, self-respecting Republican could possibly be bent out of shape over this since the casualty totals are so low. These numbers pale in comparison to Vietnam or even single battles in WWII. Isn’t all of this bitching, moaning and wailing over casualties really a concoction of the liberal media?
So what possible reason could an honest Republican have for wanting to abandon Iraq now. With the prospect of renewed oil leases and long-term US control of Iraqi oil, why would a Republican possibly want a time table or any other indicator of withdrawal? With unprecedented internal violence, why would a Republican want to leave now? This is the perfect moment in this conflict for the United States of America. It’s almost traitorous to the party for a real Republican to suggest withdrawing now. It makes no sense. If the goal is to seize rights and access to natural resources (like most wars), then this is no time to leave. If you’re a Republican and you believe this is about extending the principles of freedom and democracy to some non-European, non-Christian, non-Western, non-white desert people, you are dumber than the proverbial box of rocks – but you’re also one step away from being a big fat pussy. You would actually forego billions of dollars for the principle of a vote by some rag heads…you’re a border line lunatic.
If you’re a Republican and even considering “cutting and running,” you’re simply confused. Snap out of it. You’re nation is predicated on precisely this type of military-political maneuvering. It worked to gain success entry to conflicts like the Spanish-American War, WWII and Vietnam. The consequences of withdrawal may not be worse than staying, but this is not the time for Republicans to begin selling out because their stomachs are too weak to stick to this imperative. The idea is to take these people’s stuff and screw them over. That’s the neo-con ideal. That’s the Bush ideal and the Cheney ideal. What’s the problem?
Through four elections, Debbie Thompson has supported Representative Mark Steven Kirk, a Republican and staunch backer of the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq.
But Ms. Thompson, a mother of two from this affluent suburb of Chicago, says her views on the war have evolved, and she now wants Mr. Kirk to change, too.
“My patience for this war, it’s run out,” said Ms. Thompson, 53. “I think this is the most expensive, stupidest thing ever done. My frustration has reached a level that is so unsettling, something has to be done.”
Nor is Mr. Kirk alone in his struggle to appease increasingly restless constituents. He and 10 other Republicans in Congress recently delivered a warning to President Bush that conditions in Iraq needed to improve soon because public support of the war was crumbling.
In a poll in March, a majority of Republicans said that a candidate who backed Mr. Bush’s war policies would be at a decided disadvantage in 2008.
