My Day

I had a third grade today. Yesterday it was a second grade at another school. This is what a substitute teacher does. And tonight I have to do lesson plans for my wife the Art Teacher. I have a couple hours ahead of me, she does five classes a day.

We got a turkey, and my 17 year old son, soon to be 18 is fixing the Thanksgiving dinner. This kid has all of a sudden become interested in cooking. It's a passion with him. He mourned the death of Gourmet Magazine.

And then I heard the news about Obama's trial balloon, that he is going to send another 32,000 to 35,000 troops to Afghanistan. This is insane. We have millions of people unemployed here in the United States of America and Obama is thinking of sending troops at a million dollars apiece (this is what I hear it really costs to deploy one trooper overseas for a year) to Afghanistan. This is truly nuts. Has Obama learned nothing from Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam? Has he learned nothing from the disasters that came to British and Russian adventures in Afghanistan? Why is Obama doing this? Did the CIA or the Pentagon tell him he'd better go with the program or maybe something bad would happen to Michelle, some kind of accident maybe to her or one of the kids? I can think of no other reason Obama would send troops to Afghanistan.

And the only reason he can get away with this is because most people don't have a clue what it is going to cost to send more troops or how we are going to pay for more war over there. The war isn't in the budget. It is kind of a side thing that Bush created to hide the true costs of Iran and Afghanistan. This country has burned at least a trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan so far. And we've lost over 5,000 mostly young men. And we've killed, according to at least one study, a million Iraqis. And now Obama wants MORE of this, an expansion of the war in Afghanistan.

With so many people out of work, this kind of decision, to widen the war instead of stopping it, makes my head spin. During Vietnam, with the body bags coming home by the dozen, I felt the insanity of it on a personal level. I am a vet myself, did some peacetime patrolling in Korea. Was lucky not to see war during the Vietnam era.

Here is what we need to do. It is something no politician in Washington has the guts to do. Or if there is one or two with the guts, the rest of them would think him nuts to propose it. We need Congress to pass a War Tax, a special progressive tax on everyone in the country to pay for the two wars we currently have going. And we need one more thing, a proposal I am personally against, but at the same time I think it would be good public policy. We need to reinstitute the draft. Of course none of this is going to happen, becuase all the Washington Warmongers realize that a War Tax and a Draft would instantly turn most Americans into pacifists demanding we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Now. I am personally against a draft because I have a teenaage son. Still, it's a good idea.

People love the war. They love the idea of us kicking ass somewhere in the world. But if they have to pay for it, well that would be a different story. Only they are paying for it. They are paying for it with a lousy economy and a few million Americans out of work. Somehow, our wars have not been connected to our 21st Century Great Depression.

And speaking of Obama, I am so disappointed in Obama. Not just because he has cozied up to Wall Street. Not just because he has offered little or nothing to those of us whose taxes bailed out Wall Street while they give us the middle finger and a kick to the curb. Not just because Obama hs done little to really create jobs the way FDR did. Not just because he is continuing Bush's insane wars. Not just because it looks like we are about to get Health Care Reform that is going to mostly benefit the insurance companies and do little for the rest of us.

No I am disappointed because I voted for the guy. And It thought he was a lot smarter than he turned out to be.

Tomorrow, another third grade class.

Happy Thanksgiving.