(“And then we will all have some skin in the game” – promoted by pfiore8)
Ladies and gentlemen, a quote so vacuous and so blithely, blissfully immoral that it cuts through the armor one has against the nonsense of political expediency to take one aback with its brazeness.
Democrats moved to press Bush on another front, linking the sagging U.S. economy to escalating war costs. On a day when oil hit $112 a barrel for the first time, lawmakers said that energy-rich Iraq should be footing more of its own bills. “We’ve put about $45 billion into Iraq’s reconstruction . . . and they have not spent their own resources,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.). “They have got to have some skin in the game.”
I would like to take this opportunity, so amazingly given to me by Rep. Emanuel, to muse on the twisting of rhetoric and reality by Washington Democrats. Having boxed themselves into a rhetorical corner, they seek out rationalizations for (allegedly) wanting to leave Iraq without saying that our very presence there is a sin in the first place.
Democrats in Washington don’t say: the Iraqis don’t want us there. Saying that would be too close to saying we are not always of perfect moral integrity. Instead, they say: Iraqis aren’t living up to their end of the bargain. As if an occupation were a bargain made by the occupied.
Democrats in Washington don’t say: the Iraqi parliament has a hard time meeting a quorum because travelling in Iraq is so dangerous. They say the Iraqi parliament is lazy.
Democrats in Washinton don’t say: the Iraqi parliament has no motivation to pass US-set benchmark laws, and much motivation not to pass them — since George Bush said at the beginning of the “surge” that US forces would leave Iraq if benchmarks were not passed in a timely manner, it makes the most sense to interpret the Iraqi parliament’s refusal to pass benchmark laws as an attempt to get us to do what we said we would do — leave.
Instead, Democrats in Washington say: we need to set a schedule for leaving so the Iraqis know that they have to take responsibility for themselves.
In an interminable, and ultimately exhausting-to-watch, years-long display of moral douchbaggery, of absolute rhetorical emptiness on matters of life and death, in which every word uttered is intended not to speak a truth or even a falsehood but merely to deflect and delay and postpone moments of crucial decision, Democrats in Washington have hit upon ways of framing the debate designed to keep them from looking cowardly but instead, in fact, render them looking like disconnected aristocrats with no concern for the real deaths that their mindless rhetoric allows.
It has come to the point where hearing a Democrat in Washington talk about Iraq causes a certain cottony feeling in the back of one’s mouth. A feeling of complete numbness, of “They’re gonna pretend they’re not in a world ruled by laws of cause and effect again.” A feeling that one is listening to a person who does not care in the slightest if their words conform to any reasonable interpretation of observable reality.
All so they can delay, postpone, deflect.
It gets so twisted, so ass-backward, so, screamingly and intentionally irrelevent, that words like these are uttered: “They have got to have some skin in the game.”
And it’s no more than we expect. We expect Washington Democrats to utter insanities. We understand, however articulated or implicit our understanding might be, that a game is being played. That winning this game means winning an election, and then another election, and then another, with no final point or reason to any of it other than the maintenance of a status quo that provides certain persons with power, wealth, reasonably clear consciences . . . and the renewed assurance that we, and they, share an understanding. We will pretend to root for them to win elections. We will pretend that we beleive them. They will pretend that we are not pretending. And the dance goes on and on. And will go on, until eventually, one day, the powerful and we who pretend that they are trying to do the right thing all come crashing into a real world of endless resource wars. And then we will all have some skin in the game.
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Pretending is lying to ourselves.
Emanuel, Pelosi, in fact virtually all democratic leadership, flat out lie whenever they make any noises about wanting to withdraw from Iraq.
They don’t. They want Iraq owned lock, stock, and every barrel possible.
Bush, Cheney, McCain and other Republicans are at least honest enough to not make bullshit noises about wanting to leave. Honest enough to not try to hide their psychotic ambitions.
that what we are confronted with in the Democrats and Republicans are merely two factions of the same party, fighting over whose turn it is to run the empire?
The sense of entitlement among the power elite is obscene.
everybody ought to read it and wrap their heads around this thing.
The only way I know to really start to change things is to jettison the idea that the Democrats in Congress or in the White House will save us.
just a few of my many rants about getting over the Democrats…
Glenn Greenwald pisses me off, too
writing in the raw: if life’s a game, then let’s play it
Regarding George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the NeoCon Chickenhawks:
Or something like that.
Mu . . .
just to see what a good sport he is. Hey Rahm, go tackle that guy with the big-assed machine gun…bonus points if you don’t get shot. 😀
really HAD IT with this attempt to blame the Iraqis!!!
“Skin in the game”?????
But I hope no one on Rahm’s staff knows how to do the Heimlich Maneuver.
… a while back at the orange.
We invaded Iraq, dismantled their entire political infrastructure, terrorized its citizens, chose its leaders and for some time now I’ve heard over and over about how Iraqis have to “step up to the plate.”
Not surprised Rahm is saying this … politicians on both sides, as well as our lamestream media (h/t lasthorseman) have been saying this all along.
And the American people … shrug.
to have these ‘leaders’ tell you that after five years of bombing, killing, torture, and destruction that these people need to step up. Before we invades they had undergone more then a decade of flyover bombing and economic sanctions. Even the so called liberals, like Kerry and Hillary, adhere to this obvious non reality. Do they believe it? I think not. They know what they are doing and hope we will buy into the lies. Sadly a lot do. Look at McCain’s supporters, they love the wars. Somehow people think that ‘national interests’ means killing anyone who has something we want.
after we have already depleted our own is mind-boggling.
We broke it. Now we want them to fix it, all the while allowing us to dictate the terms. This is madness.
…but he’s essentially right in his sentiment: we’ve put an enourmous amount of money down the Iraq Reconstruction rathole, and it can’t and shouldn’t continue apace indefinitely.
Also:
Which Democrats have been saying that the Iraqi Parliament is “lazy”? I Googled Iraqi Parliament quorum lazy Democrat and similar and can’t find any similar. At any rate, I would agree that anyone who has called the Iraqi Parliament lazy is not fairly assessing the problem. But I don’t think that I’m alone in my disappointment in Iraqi legislators who live in luxury in Amman, Abu Dhabi, and London rather than toughing it out in Iraq and taking the personal risk alongside their countrymen and women in order to make the country a better place. If their country is not important enough for them to risk their hide and live there or at least show up for legislative sessions, then they should resign and let someone else serve. If I was an Iraqi, I probably wouldn’t much appreciate my MP jetting off home to Dubai every week while the country was in such a dire condition.