The Swamp Is a Mess

I've been reading quite a bit in the past few months. It has been an interesting education and I'm sure many would find fault with what I'm reading. For the first time in years I am reading current non-fiction.

At the moment I'm reading the following books:

FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks
State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III by Bob Woodward (I read the first two parts when they came out several years ago.)
The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs by Madeleine Albright
The Republican Noise Machine : Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy by David Brock

I've finished these in the past eight months:

Conservatives Without Conscience by John Dean
Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George. W. Bush by John Dean
Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter
Against All Enemies: Inside American's War on Terror by Richard A. Clarke
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies by James Bamford
Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea by George Lakoff
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock
Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future by James Carville and Paul Begala
America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy by Francis Fukuyama
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside American's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 by Ron Suskind
American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation by Jon Meacham

And I have the following waiting on the bedside table:

American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury by Kevin Phillips
The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina by Frank Rich

So where am I after reading all this? To what profound conclusions have I come? I'm not sure I have fully arrived at conclusions, but I do have some thoughts that seem to recur.

1) America is not comfortable as the world's sole super power.

2) Many of the ideas that have been kicked around (pre-emption, unilateralism, rendition, torture) are more appropriate for a true imperium. And the citizens of the US are not truly committed to an imperial presence in the world.

3) The conservative Christian powers within the US (and I am most comfortable being identified as a Baptist - who are generally pretty conservative in the protestant world) have managed to fall into a number of traps. And in my opinion, these include a lack of hubris; a remarkable ability to forget our own history as many try to force their beliefs onto the political and social structures of our society; and a foolish alliance with political powers that have agendas and modes of operating that compromise our Christian witness.

4) It is funny to me that from the very beginning of our conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq I have generally been and continue to be intrigued by the possibility of using a US military and civil occupation/dominance to impose or develop democracy in both or either of those countries. However, I also believed that such an effort:

a) would be very difficult, because we would not be greeted as liberators;
b) needed to be run as a civil/political operation where the military was used in a very limited role (winning over the people is the objective);
c) must be explained honestly and conservatively to the US people as a 10 to 20 year commitment;
d) had to be funded in a massive way that would strip other significant federal spending programs resulting in economic and other hardships on the American people; and
e) would be contingent upon a dialogue with and overwhelming support from the people. The American people do not tolerate being misled and they do not like long entanglements.

Telling them it would be short and simple when that was not accurate was a political time bomb..... which is exploding before our very eyes.

5) The marriage of conservative social values and politics via a disaffected conservative Christian bloc was a brilliant short term political strategy for the Republican party, but was bound to fall apart. If man is fallen (and that seems pretty certain), then no organization of ambitious, powerful men (and women) is likely to avoid massive values oriented meltdowns (see Mark Foley, Jack Abramoff, etc.).

6) The Democratic party is fundamentally bereft of leadership. Personally, I like Hillary okay and Gore is okay I guess, but where is the charismatic, visionary leadership. The people of this country don't like either of those characters and the Democratic party can't seem to mount an effective campaign to convince people to like and trust them. Mostly, the party just doesn't play in Peoria.

7) So, it is time for the protests... time for the independent and 3rd party candidates... time for the satirical folk songs, web sites, radio shows, etc. It's time for a Jeffersonian revolution. And unfortunately, those oft-times lead to their own excesses.

8) Worst of all, we are at a moment in history when the collective economic progress on the planet gives us a rare moment when we could cure extreme poverty in our time. Jeffrey Sachs' The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time lays out a compelling case for ending extreme poverty, but in my opinion it requires US leadership..... And we can't lead right now, because we're going to examine our collective navel while we try to figure out who we are and what we're doing. In 2002, we had the opportunity to make a choice - compel democracy in selected countries around the world over a very very long term plan or try to cure poverty and indirectly reduce terrorist threats also requiring a very very long term plan. In my opinion, we had to choose, because we couldn't do both. Well, we chose, and we've managed to screw up the one we chose.

So, that's where I am right now. More as I continue my exploration.