Curb Your Enthusiasm

[exedir]

As President Obama's summer vacation comes to an end, he played a few holes of golf with Larry David, a producer and writer of the hit comedy series, Seinfeld and the quirky HBO series, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Both of David's hit shows have been pointed out to be about, well, nothing. As to the state of David's golf game, that has remained unreported as was the president's.

As to the state of relaxation of the president, if not reported, it certainly has ended as he and his family have returned from Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, where David must have felt Seinfelded in being on the Vineyard and not in either of his iconic locales, Manhattan or the Hollywood Hills.

As to the how the president felt, he probably can only be dreading what is going to happen as the calendar moves from summer into fall and the outstanding political agenda fills with the passage of a budget, debt ceiling extension and the opening of Obamacare's individual health insurance exchanges. Added to this dread, can only be the ongoing and expanding crisis in the Middle East as Egypt and Syria have moved into further levels of chaos.

And of course the president is not going to relax, he has scheduled a bus tour of western New York and in Pennsylvania to gin up an economic message, and then give a speech to commemorate the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Martin Luther King will be remembered for is I have a dream speech on Wednesday, August 28th, then Labor Day and then the return of congress on September 9th, where dread should trump enthusiasm.

[LoveLife&Laughter]

And just what do you think he should be doing about Egypt and Syria.  Remember Libya? 

[Ioruach]

For that matter, look at Iraq.  Our involvement turned that country into a killing field.  No one is safe anywhere.

[exedir]

And of course, Afghanistan, if not Yemen or hundred of points across the globe.

What we have here is complicated as to what we as America can do and what should be done.  However, to say that this and those are of no interest to us, that is also not true.  So what is the policy?  Do we have one or is it all ad hoc.  And no, reset is not going to work, with Russia or with Iran.

One policy has to be to support our allies.  If we are unwilling and unable to do what it is we want to do then we need friends, both the willing and able ones.   But then again, in the Middle East, the one that is willing and able is Israel, and that is a problem.  And to lose Egypt, Egypt's military, that is another problem.

What we seem to be headed toward is a neo-isolationism that is as a much of a matter of fatigue, wariness, history, lack of results and no clear vision of possibilities as much as it has to do with any policy advanced by the administration. 

[LoveLife&Laughter]

Really.  Looks like just the usual criticism of Obama by the right wing smear machine.  Be honest, the right already bithc'n about what Obama has already done in Syria.  I guess you forgot.

[exedir]

There is much to be concerned about Syria, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq....and the list goes on..much of this is time sensitive in that events will change...and it just so happens this is occurring on the Obama administration's watch.  

If the Bush doctrine of intervention no longer applies and what we have is not beguine neglect, then what is the America policy.  

We know the American interests are a protected Israel, access to the Suez canal, removal of threats in the Persian Gulf, stability in Saudi Arabia and the UAE and the free flow of oil.   

And can this all be sustained by the use of minimally, invasive use of drone strikes as compared to boots on the ground, piloted, armed aircraft in the air and warships and aircraft carriers near the shores to impose our will.

What we have here is a dangerous world, full of dangerous places and people not friends of America and Americans.  Once our oceans and distance saved and protected us, now our defense is just a matter of time, and not years, months or days but minutes.  And the result of those minutes do not say left or right, they say danger.

[LoveLife&Laughter]

Defending our shores from what?  Would the right be happy if we nuked every Muslim Country and Democratic State? The blacks I presume have already been dealt with with voter suppression and stand your ground laws.

[ProblemAgain]

exedir....what is your point? we all pretty much understand without you doing a simple recap of what reality is....american intervention has resulted often in more enemies than friends. and many of the republicans fail to realize that the 'foreign aid' for instance they are debating withholding from egypt with opinions like the terrible news that the aid 'is not buying bread for the poor' but instead military items....that's a big f'ing duh to begin with...for 50 years it's been a cute little circle jerk of the us supplying foreign aid which was then used to buy military hardware from american defense industries...sort of a corporate welfare as it were to keep the dog on a leash.

[LoveLife&Laughter]

I believe the point was to 'dis the President.

[exedir]

Of course, "foreign aid" has a self-interest motive, that was the point of the Marshall Plan, our excess capacity for Europe's reconstruction and sustenance which give our farmers and our manufactures markets and jobs for returning veterans.

Of our most lasting of industries is the military-industrial complex, as President Eisenhower label it, and that complex is in the most demand by foreign governments and foreign governments' military in their own self-interests both internal and external.

As to policy, well, other then selling and giving stuff to generals, we want something in return, and in the past, we were able to buy it.  Today, though the world still wants our weapons and yes, we have a complex wanting to sell the stuff, the return is not what it was in the past.  Then, it was to be "on our side" of the Cold War, now, what is the value of being a friend of the United States?   Maybe, nothing.

[exedir]

The point is many fold, inclusive of the future of foreign policy and national security.  And of course, politics is involved, always.

As to the future, that is why we need leadership, to show us the vision if not the future and what is being done to accomplish it.  

As to this administration, it is challenged, challenged to lead a divided people and country in the next few months and in the next 3 years.  That challenge is so inclusive, so diverse and so problematic. that all of us are involved, no matter what political label we identify with or espouse.  

I more concerned with issues than labels, but that sometimes seems to be the alpha and omega of what passes for comment.

As to what the president and the administration do, well, be very careful first but yet understand that sometimes you need to be bold, take the initiative, spend the capital and know that as such, this is the last turn and a legacy is being built.  

I mistook the date of the commemoration of the March on Washington as being August 28, it is rather this coming Saturday that, that event is to occur.  And it is also interesting that the speech that Martin Luther King give that day was not the one he had prepared, what he did do was at the moment, change what he was going to say and instead, delivered extemporaneously, and with inspiration, his "I have a dream..." and yes, we still need those moments and we still need those dreams, even if they are political nightmares.

[LoveLife&Laughter]

Only the "so-called" Republicans are divided.  The country is only divided because tea party extremists want it that way, and are working very hard to make sure only their extremist views are heard.  This is so UnAmerican, very frustrating for decent civilized people.

[exedir]

No, I don't take it that way as the problem.  What divides us are real problems, problems not in means necessarily, but ways.  Ways that are fundamentally, different, and those differences are not a matter of optics and/or media. 

In this case, division is more the symptom than the cause, the cause is how to live one's life and how others are to live theirs.  

Once the cause of the nation was E pluribus unum, from many one.  

My son back from school, as a small child, declared that they had learned in class about America's motto, the one that shows up on our money,  E pluribus uranium, which of course is, from many, radioactive.