Military Draft:The Way Out Of War Mongering Policies.

Photographs by Gilbert Mercier
All Rights Reserved.

America has been at war for the past 8 years. We have currently 2 wars ( 3 if you count Pakistan) going on, yet most Americans have not been asked for any personal sacrifice to this war effort.

Americans seem to be a lot more interested in mindless distractions such as American Idols or sports as opposed to what truly matter: Why are we fighting so many conflicts with such a heavy toll in human life and at an unbearable cost for a nation in financial crisis?

George W. Bush called himself a "war president " as many times as possible to justify countless quasi dictatorial actions to govern in secrecy, spy on the American people & "legally " torture prisoners detained in US custody. Yet, the very same George W. Bush, and his VP Dick Cheney, when given the opportunity to do their duty & serve their country in Vietnam acted like the cowards they truly are. Bush's father used his political influence to make sure that George junior would not be deployed in Vietnam. Dick Cheney was a 5 times draft dodger.

It seems pretty obvious that the Vietnam war would have dragged on for a lot longer without the draft. It certainly motivated the anti-war movement in America at the time.

Very few countries still have a military draft; among them Russia & Israel. France had a draft up until the 90's. I served in the French military, and my experience made me realized that the military was even worse than what I thought before being drafted. The experience turned me into a peace activist for life. Most armies operate the very same way: At first the hierarchy brakes your will power to make sure you will never put orders into question no matter how absurd and/or criminal they might be.

Obama is yet another "war president " assuming the role of Commander in Chief with absolutely no personal military experience. In football, Obama would be the very definition of an armchair quarterback. Yet, it does not seem to bother anyone in America. Americans are under the false and very dangerous impression that wars should be handled by professionals military men. This is the best way to have endless conflicts for one simple reason: Military men only understand military solutions and certainly not political ones.

It seems paradoxical, but I think that the only way to break with the vicious logic of permanent warfare is to institute a mandatory draft. Unlike the one during the Vietnam-era it should be across board ( for men & women) with no exception. We could have 2 options: A two years tour of duty if serving in the military or three years if serving in civilian capacities.

Last week the Senate voted for an astronomical supplemental bill ( money we currently don't have) to fund the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. The amount was $ 91.3 Billion, only 3 Senators opposed the bill ( Coburn, Feingold, Sanders), 86 Senators approved the bill with enthusiasm. What I can guarantee, if we had a draft and their sons & daughters could be send to war, is that it's likely that the bill would not have passed.

Edwards' Affair: A Tale of Sex & Hypocrisy in America.

"Take Time To Pray"
New-Orleans Post Katrina
Photo by Gilbert Mercier
All Rights Reserved.


John Edwards had a promising political career. He was John Kerry's running mate in 2004, and was drawing some traction, during the 2008 primaries, within the left of the Democratic party for his stand on the two Americas. He had a message of social justice that was sort of lost during the general elections.

All of this went crashing down after the revelation of his affair. He became persona non Grata, even in his own party. He was not even invited at the DNC convention.

America still has the view that a politician, in order to be electable, must be faithful to his wife. Yet the contradictions are absolutely shocking between the public display of virtue, and the reality of Americans life in 2009.

The examples of this amazing societal hypocrisy are countless.

The porn industry is a 10 Billion per year business venture, and this does not even include the proceeds from pornographic magazines and pornography on line. The profit from the porn industry is higher than the one of Hollywood mainstream entertainment.

Americans spend more money at strip clubs than on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in theaters, the Opera, the ballet, Jazz & classical music performance combined.

The case of Janet Jackson exposing her breast (by accident) and the scandal it stirred up is typical as well. A ruling from the Supreme Court confirmed recently that the network broadcasting the program would be fined 500,000 dollars.

This dichotomy finds its very roots in the foundation of America. The Puritans wanted to impose the strict enforcement of their rigid moral code in dealing with matter of sexual behaviors.

The problem for the so called " moral majority " in America is that they are quickly becoming a " moral minority". One state after the other is voting in favor of legalizing gay marriage. It was a corner stone for the Christian right " value " voters, and they have more or less lost that battle.

Europeans find America's hypocrisy towards sexuality completely ridiculous. When elected, French President Mitterand had an open relationship with his wife; she had a lover & he had a mistress who had a child from him. Everyone knew about it in France, and it did not prevent him from winning the elections two times. It could have never been the case in America. In France, sex is regarded as a private matter, not a public one.

America needs to grow up, and leaves its various sexual hang ups of the Victorian era behind. Only in America could you have the Congress trying to impeach a competent President over a blow-job, and not impeach an incompetent one for dragging the country to war based on lies and manufactured evidence.

Bush: A Legacy of Deception, Wars, Torture & Global Economic Collapse.

New-Orleans Post Katrina
Photo by Gilbert Mercier
All Rights Reserved.

When a US President takes residence in the White House, he is supposed to be serving the interests of America & the American people. It is usually not the case, but during the reign of George W. Bush it was even less so.

I would like to make an analogy. Let's say George W. Bush is a guest at your house. What he would do is use the bathroom without flushing the toilet. He would likely proceed to raid your fridge and eat all of your food. Then, when you are not watching he would kick your dog and put your cat in the washing machine just for fun. He would also steal your mail and fight with your neighbours.

As the tenant of the White House for eight years, Bush was the guest of the American people. The way Bush behaved during that time is illustrated in my previous analogy. Except it is on a much bigger scale. Bush is the kind of guest that would set your house on fire by " accident ", if given the opportunity.

Bush's trail of destruction and misery is epic in scope. Some accused him of applying a "shock doctrine " theory, in order to create a constant chaos justifying authoritarian policies. I don't really buy it, as a plan thought process. I think, the chain of events was a series of very unfortunate accidents, the main one been, of course, the "decider" himself.

General De Gaulle once said:" You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination". This quote applies perfectly to George W. Bush, and to the million of Americans that elected him, not once but twice.

Bush is likely to go down in history books as the worst US president ever. To me, it is too kind. Bush has managed in a short 8 years to wreck not only America, but the global economic well being of the planet. I think he belongs to a league of his own as far as disastrous world leaders. He is on par with Nero; the mad Roman Emperor who watched Rome burn from his own hands while playing the fiddle. Bush was not even an " accident waiting to happen", he was the accident.

Bush is currently working on his memoirs. He said that it would have 12 chapters that are the " most difficult decisions he made during his Presidency".

The accidental president should have stopped at chapter zero, the one when the author stares at the blank page and realizes he was never fit for the job.

Inside Bush's Troubled Psyche: " The Bush Tragedy".

Jacob Weisberg has a few things to say about the presidency of George W.Bush. He's assembled his thoughts in a book called The Bush Tragedy.Time magazine political columnist Joe Klein calls it a "scorching, powerful and entirely plausible account".Weisberg explores some of the causes of the deeply rooted psychological & emotional problems of Bush...

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Obama Is Blaming Bush for Economy Meltdown.

In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed "An end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics." However,he is no longer doing that, and he is now reminding Americans that he "inherited" our current crisis from Bush.That is perfectly accurate.....

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Palin administration is shrouded in loyalty and secrecy.

May be she doesn't understand the" Bush doctrine" too well, but it appears that she has being running the state of Alaska very much like Bush and Cheney the White House. She gives value to loyalty over competence and likes to operate in secrecy.

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McCain introducing Bush in 2004.

McCain said in 2004 that " Bush deserves our admiration". However in 2008, McCain and the GOP doesn't even mention Bush by name and McCain has the incredible dishonesty to claim that he is the " candidate for change ". He wants to " reform Washington" as if he didn't have a chance to do it in the last 30 years.

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Tres Amigos Episode 2: From an Undisclosed Location

INT. SHELTER. DAY OR NIGHT.
W is in bed reading his bible.

W

We have to know!

Rummy is at the periscope.

RUMMY

We'll die up there!

W

Revelation! People disappearing! Rummy says that the whole city

of Washington is gone! It looks like a dessert! We have to

know what happened up there! We could have missed the Rapture!

RUMMY

A nuclear war is what happened!

Dick sits in front of the computer screen. One hand on the mouse the other out of sight.

DICK

My God W! When did you start believing your own lies?
W

Look, fellas, just read Matthew 23 and 24 and you'll see what I mean.

Dick, still at the computer, closes his eyes briefly. A steady POUNDING sound, from under the desk.

W (CONT'D)

Rummy! Read the chapter! That's an executive order!

Rummy looks through the periscope.

RUMMY

I don't have a Bible!
DICK

Borrow mine. I'll look it up online when I'm finished, er, trying to

make contact.

Rummy get's the bible from Dick's night stand. He carries it toward the window staring at it like he would a foreigner. He opens it. The pages have been cut out to hide a hand gun. He turns a page, the handgun. He looks at Dick. Dick sits in front of the computer. POUNDING NOISES. He grunts happily. Rummy looks at W. W looks at his bible. He runs his finger over a line of text. Looks puzzled, runs the finger over the same line, GROANS. Rummy looks back at the Bible. Then out the window. Instead of the beach scene, Rummy shakes hands with Saddam Hussein.

RUMMY

Jesus!

W

Amen!

Rummy shakes his head, and looks back at the window. A badly burnt child being carried away on a gurney.

RUMMY

Holy Crap!
W

Frightening huh? Better than a Steven King...

Dick, nearing orgasm, let's out a GROAN.

W (CONT'D)

Good for you Dick! I've never seen you this passionate about

something that didn't make money.

Rummy watches the window in horror. A city in flames. A mother crying and cradling a baby in her arms. A crude likeness of him, one of Dick, and one of W, draped in American flags and being burned by and angry mob. Rummy walks to bed, throwing the bible back on Dick's night stand.

W (CONT'D)

I know. It's a hard thing to get through.

W replaces his bible on the night stand.

W (CONT'D)

Just try again tomorrow and we'll get through it together.

Black.
P S:
To read Episode 1 click on Tres Amigos Episode 1 in the recommended links. The authors are currently looking for filmmakers to make Tres Amigos a visual reality. A good format for it would be flash animation, but we are open to any ideas and input. It could even be adapted for theater. Please contact us on this site.

Cheney sees nothing stopping Palin from doing job.

While in Rome, Cheney said that he loved Palin's speech at the convention. Cheney did not do any favor to McCain's campaign by giving his seal of approval to Palin as McCain and Palin are trying to distance themselves from Bush and Cheney as much as possible. Bush's name was not even mentioned at the RNC and Cheney is even less popular than Bush.

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Should George Orwell Blog?

Orwell in his book " 1984" could clearly see Big Brother coming. He was just about 20 years off. Since the start of the so call " war on terror" by Bush and his allied ( specially England) our civil liberties have been under relentless attack using the pretext of security.In the process, we just lost our basic civil rights, our freedom and liberty.

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David Frum is still not sold on Palin.

Former Bush speech writer and National Review contributor David Frum has huge concerns about Palin on issues. I guess the " small town " appeal that Palin had at the RNC last night is not rubbing on rational Republicans like Frum.

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One of Bush's brain for hire wrote Palin's speech.

Matt Scully was the main speech writer for Bush until 2004. The speech that Palin will give at the RNC tonight was written by Matt. This link is an interview of Matt on the National Review for the publishing of his book " Dominion ". What a nice gesture from the president to let McCain and Palin " borrow " one of his brains.

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Blackwater: Bush's Shadow Army in NOLA again.

The Nation's Jeremy Scahill describes the rise of Blackwater USA, the world's most powerful mercenary army. The Bush administration " Praetorian Guard " has been dispatched to New-Orleans to pick up the slack....from the Louisiana National Guard still busy Iraq. I guess when you don't believe in government you need a private army.

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Tres Amigos: Can you say Nuclear? A play by Nathan Huntley and Gilbert Mercier

ON THE SCREEN A NEWS WIRE CAPTION ROLLS...DECEMBER 20 2013.

REPORTER (V.O)

The POTUS faces a growing global crisis.

News footage of people burning American FLAGS and pictures of the POTUS in Syria and Iran, other news reels of RIOTING over food shortages.

REPORTER (V.O)

The rhetoric is heating up, with Syria, Iran and North Korea on one

side, the US and Israel on the other. Today, in a joint statement

at the UN, Russia & China vow to respond to any attack against their

Asian and Middle Eastern allies.

A LAP TOP is opened. A card key is inserted, a RED BUTTON emerges from the keypad. A finger wearing a GOLD RING with a W set in diamonds, hesitates a moment, then pushes the RED BUTTON down.

REPORTER (V.O.)

With tensions this high, a single

shot could start WORLD WAR 3.....

The transmission is interrupted, on the screen we SEE the film melting and burning, we HEAR explosions and slowly..
FADE TO BLACK:

EXT.
From the darkness emerges a COCKROACH, it disappears into a DRAIN PIPE. We TRACK the bug down a title roll on the screen.
DECEMBER 21Th 2014

INT. UNDERGROUND ATOMIC SHELTER (UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)
In the bunker war room, DICK (Cheney) sits at a computer desk. RUMMY (Rumsfeld) looks through a periscope. W (Bush) stands, his back to them, looking out of a FAKE WINDOW displaying an image of a TROPICAL BEACH at sunset. The tension is palpable. The power blinks on and off throughout.

W

Number two, any contact?

DICK

Standing by.

W

Don, anything from the surface?

CUT TO:

EXT. RUMMY POV (PERISCOPE) OF A SURREAL DESERT SCENE

RUMMY (O.S.)

It's still a desert, Sir.

CUT TO:

INT. ATOMIC SHELTER

W

Dick, are you on line?

DICK

Still trying 43.

W

Rummy, what's the radiation level?

We PAN to see a DIAL: low, guarded, elevated, high and severe. The hand is on SEVERE.

RUMMY

High Sir!

W

Jesus! How long will it last?

RUMMY

I don't know... could be six days,

six weeks..I doubt six months.

W

DON, do you think I did the right

thing?...I'm a peace man. Damage to

human life bothers me. I...

The power goes out. A few emergency lights stay on but the room is near dark. Dick starts up a dim staircase.

DICK

So much for that. Anyone for lunch?

Post Scriptum: This is the episode one of a full play originally written for the screen. The authors ( Mercier/Huntley) are currently looking for interested filmmakers to do an animation ( flash or other) version of it. We are open to any suggestions, including an adaptation for theatre. Please contact us on this blog or at Nathanhuntley@sbcglobal.net.

Thanks.

Obama/Biden versus McCain/?

I am writing this while listening to the inspired speeches of Obama & Biden. It is a great ticket for the Democrats and it shows that Obama has already made a great and critical decision by picking Biden.

A decision not based on political calculation but on finding the right partner to get us out of our present mess.

Obama is showing that he can lead and make decisions.

However, the pick of McCain is a question mark. It shows one thing very clearly. Obama can act, on the other hand McCain just reacts.

Why? Does he need the approval of Bush and the neo-cons to make the most important decision in his bid for the White House or is he just thinking with the logic of politics instead of the common good for American people?

McCain is not a leader...that is why the question mark is still next to his name.

Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex.

Eisenhower exit speech on Jan.17,1961. The last US President, war hero and true Republican was prescient in his warning. The tragedy of 9/11 gave Bush and the neo-cons the opportunity to implement a policy serving the oil-military industrial complex scheme of war for profit. McCain would have a more hackish policy than Bush and is likely to re-start the cold war. Eisenhower was a hero.

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A Texas oil man with a plan for alternative Energy ?

Unfortunately, not the one we had in the White House for the last 8 years. This one is oil tycoon's Pickens. Mr. Pickens is spending some serious money on the biggest wind farm ever built. Big enough to power a town.Other folks should follow his lead.

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Al Maliki wants the US troops out of Iraq.

This is the transcript of Der Spiegel's interview of Iraq's prime minister Al Maliki.He agrees with the time table proposed by Obama, it would have most troops out within 16 months. This is bad news for the Bush administration and also McCain. You can count on the GOP's spin doctors to say that Maliki supports Obama.

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Historians views on Bush's " Legacy".

The approval rating of Bush has hit record low among Americans. Could it be that W stand for Worst US president ever? Historians are giving their perspectives.

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Bush: Cheerleader in chief or completely delusional?

Today, Bush had a quickly arranged press conference to address the growing anxiety of the American people.

In the last few days, the crisis in the mortgage and financial market has reach a critical mass. On Friday, the Feds had to take over Indy Mac,a mortgage lender and saving institution, based in California. The institution is FDIC insured, but Monday at the crack of dawn, hundred of customers were lining up to withdraw their money. What most of them didn't know is that the Fed guarantee only up to 100,000 dollars...above that you are on your own. A man, who got in line early, still lost 40% of his entire life saving after 40 years of hard work. The scene at the bank was a reminder of the 1930's and the great depression.

An even bigger problem is the state of disarray of giants mortgage co. Fannie and Freddie. The two private institutions are traded on the stock market and hold 5 Trillion worth of mortgages in the US market. A collapse of the two institutions would have catastrophic consequences and the Feds, over the week-end, made an explicit commitment to bail them out if needed. Later today, their stocks took a dive of 26%....I guess the share holders do not really trust the Bush administration.

How about trusting " the market to regulate itself", Pres. Bush? Right now, the Bush administration is doing exactly the opposite. The rule is simple: In good time the profit stays private and go to the very top, the top executives at Fannie & Freddie are very well compensated. In bad time, it becomes everyobody's problem and we all pick up the tab.

Pres. Bush this morning kept saying that things were " tough " for Americans right now but that we were not in a recession and we had to stay " optimistic". He used the word " psychological" a few times, as if he wanted to give Americans the sense that everything would be OK. Another point that he made over and over was the validity to " drill for oil " to solve the high gas prices. He conceded that it wouldn't solve any problem in the short term, but once again he brought up the " psychological impact" it would have on the rest of the world.

What I find ironic about this is the symbolic aspect of it: The Bush administration has put America in a giant hole of debts ( 9 Trillion and counting). We are fighting two wars, with borrowed money, that we can't neither afford nor win and yet the Democrats' controlled Congress is still funding the wars and all the " tools needed"( by a delusional administration) to fight the so call " war on terror". Thanks to Bush's policies we are in a giant hole, yet in his absurd logic, the " Decider" wants to digg( drill) more.

What I got from Bush' s press conference was a feeling of panic, the sense of someone even less focus than usual, lost and quite frankly almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Could it be that he is drinking again?
If Bush was planning to be America's President/ Dr. Phil today, I don't think the " mission was accomplished".