When will our own Streets speak?

Let see, masses of demonstrators take to the streets in Egypt and our government slowly and agonizingly pivots. With considerable diplomatic hand wringing, it no longer supports a leader who has taken office through rigged elections and brute police force. Hosni Mubarak has stayed in power for 30 years thanks in large measure to our hunger for oil, deals with the Israelis, and the US taxpayers’ underwriting the Egyptian military.

Okay, now that we’ve seen the light, what do we have planned for the Saudi monarchy with its own dark, US-supplied forces? Or what about our support for the king of Jordan? Or the sheiks in Dubai? And what’s the deal with propping up the patently corrupt Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan? And there's the little matter of the Israeli land grab in the West Bank.

I don’t have a checklist handy of all the tyrants and outrageous causes we’ve supported down through the years and around the world. It is a still active list. And the list is long.

Are we waiting for the streets to speak again?

Then there’s our own manipulated and questionable “democracy” where big money rules, and the wealthy and large corporations have the system rigged. We don’t call it corruption here. It’s all perfectly legal. It’s just that the laws are written by lawmakers bought and paid for by the rich. Example: The CEO of struggling Bank of America just raked in $10 million for is “work” last year. This is the same outfit the government bailed out two years ago — with our money.

If we weren’t so wrapped up in the latest entertainment frenzy (the current one, of course, is the Super Concussion Bowl — love those hits!), we might take to the streets ourselves. It has been known to happen. Two “street” actions within living memory were the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War protests. They didn’t produce permanent fixes, but they nudged things in the right direction.

And there was the original Tea Party, the one long ago that wasn’t underwritten by Corporate America.

But for now there’s more important stuff to do than shaking off a sick and rigged form of government. There’s Valentine’s day and the NCAA March Madness and the NBA playoffs. Let the good times roll!

The presidential campaign, which is starting to gear up, is always good for a few laughs too. Remember “Hope” and “Yes we can!” What will it be in 2012?

While our television and computer screens glow in the night with “Dancing with the Stars” and Facebook “news,” our American streets are dark and mute.

The "Commander-in-Chief" chat

There must come a time in every presidency when the generals whisper to the president that they, not he, are in charge — whenever they choose to be.

Call it the “Commander-in-Chief” chat.

My guess is that seasoned presidential candidates probably get this hush-hush lecture long before they hit the campaign trail. Who knows, it could come with the assignment of the secret service detail.

And who knows what the consequences of bucking the generals (and the intelligence establishment) might be. Conspiracy theorists will tell you that JFK learned the hard way.

What we are getting now is the “soft” (or is it semi-soft?) way.

General David Petraeus, following in the footsteps of his predecessor, General Stanley McChrystal, has been publicly questioning President Obama’s withdrawal plans in Afghanistan. The general’s election-year timing is politically perfect to weaken the president.

Here’s a president who is reeling from domestic problems he didn’t create, and along comes Petraeus to question Obama’s military policy.

It’s a lose/lose situation for the president.

If Obama sticks with his stated July 2011 drawdown plan in Afghanistan, he can expect to suffer whatever the generals (and the spooks and the arms merchants) dole out.

If he goes along with them for the inevitable “quagmire” escalation and accompanying public protests, he can pull an LBJ and simply not run for a second term.

The problem with wars in fractured places like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan is that once you get into them, you’re stuck — and end up making matters worse both here and there.

These are not words that generals, or presidents, like to hear.

A "spectacular" agreement

Earlier this week Gov. Sarah "Heartbeat" Palin and Dr. Henry Kissinger, legendary Vietnam and Cambodia expert, agreed to disagree on whose glasses frames were sexier.

Kissinger also pointed out to Palin where Vietnam and Cambodia are and noted they can't be seen from Alaska, even on a clear day.

A post-peace march encounter with the past

So Portland’s Peace march was bigger than Seattle’s. Who knows, it may have topped San Francisco’s.

Well, never mind. This is not some March Madness peace play-off between cities.

Besides, the evening news tonight is spending more time on a handful of anarchists jousting with police in front of the Justice Center than it is on shots of the winding, quirky, sardonic, bitter march for peace.

And then there was my ride back from the march on the trolley….

An in-your-face guy in his fifties seated across the aisle spots my “Wage Peace” sign and says, “So you’d rather fight them here than over there?”

I’m never good with impromptu retorts, which is probably just as well, but this guy won’t let my silence stand.

“So you’d rather fight them here than over there—and, believe me, we WILL be fighting them here.”

Silence.

“Serve in ‘Nam?” he asks.

“What?”

“Did you serve in Vietnam?”

“No,” I say.

“Did you ever serve anywhere?”

“I was in the Peace Corps in Africa for three years helping people,” I offered.

“Some people don’t want help.”

“Well the people I helped sure did.”

“Some people don’t want help,” he repeated.

“The people I helped CERTAINLY did.”

It was his turn for silence.

Two more trolley stops and he got off in stony silence.

They call Portland “weird,” but they don’t know the half of it.

When my antagonist watches the news tonight, will he remember the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer he encountered on the bus, or will he be focused on the hand-cuffed anarchists being carted off by the police?

Or will we be one in the same?

As for me, I wonder what this Vietnam vet went through 40 years ago that delivered him into the hands of George W. Bush, who never served anywhere for this country.

And still doesn’t.