At the end of the Werner Herzog film “Rescue Dawn”, widely taken as an homage to the American spirit, American pilot Dieter Dengler is stumped, at a loss to access meaning and convey it to the Navy comrades who plucked him out of the jungle of southeast Asia, where he had napalmed and strafed peasants, barely survived captivity, and been betrayed by his fellow American POWs. All he knows and can transact is the personal, expressed by a will to survive, a “can-do” spirit, almost “pathologically upbeat” mood (as Andrew O’Hehir put it at Salon) and a compulsive need to fly military missions again – a need driven by childhood experiences that programmed him with a single-minded focus on individual self-preservation: to strategize, control, and elevate above (so to speak) personal vulnerability. Unaffected by potential gains in empathy, by moral development, integration of experiences, or reflection, he has gained nothing. His cunning, pluck and triumph are admired far and wide.

After an election stolen by thugs on their highest court, being duped into a criminal military action killing a million, after normalization of state torture and domestic spying, and steady creep toward a religious state, Americans, like Dieter, remained stumped, unsure, split about 50:50 on whether to keep the same faces in charge of things, or some different faces from the same incestuous family, seemingly opting for change only when their personal financial security started to unravel and a dangerously disordered girl stepped up within a stroke of confidently unleashing mayhem.

In this celebrated, rosy dawn, with the predictable cliquing-up by their New Leader with those who duped them into the moral debacle of Iraq, with apologists for the same corporate/militarist/religious state, the new faces they have trauma-bonded to look more and more like the old. But never mind. It’s a new dawn. All together now.

There’s no joy in sitting down with Billy and Sissy to explain why mommy went to rehab and daddy went away. Nor pleasure in affronting or startling those whose innocent gaze at pretty new window dressing elicits “new day” or “united” or “change”, when real change demands nothing less than burning down the house. But there is dharma, and there is adult responsibility.

"We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority."

- Barack Obama, apparently neither intoxicated nor under duress, October 7, 2008

I have had occasion to actually observe gentlemen in a different venue address and debate similar matters of loyalty, consequences, power differentials, and strategies to wield influence in ways that maximize gain to their particular competing group versus another, and to further their particular ideology and hold on power.

The gentlemen I observed were in different attire, perhaps more forthright in expression, and rather than enjoying the more formal and respectful constructions we might afford the likes of Mr. Bayh or Mr. Lieberman, such as “leadership”, “Senator”, and “Chairman”, were more likely to refer to each other using terms like “shot-caller”, “torpedo”, or “my punk-ass bitch”.

Additionally, men in the groups I observed, compared to those referred to here by Ms. Walsh: were more likely to regulate distress using methamphetamine versus alcohol, were less sophisticated and successful in the construction of falsehoods, tended to be diagnosed rather than undiagnosed, and had considerably less social capital and access to heavy weaponry, which rendered them relatively impotent, compared to the scale of action enjoyed by the likes of e.g. Mr. Bayh, Mr. Lieberman, and Mr. Obama.

Apart from those differences, however, the practical uses of their discussions and machinations, the tactics employed (e.g. deceit, intimidation, deal-making, bargaining for status), and indeed the level of moral and intellectual transactions, seemed quite comparable to what Ms. Walsh represents here. Almost as if the same basic personality traits were in play, but I could be way off on that.

she is in the moral and intellectual company of Mr. Obama, Mr. Emanuel, President Bush, and, actually, all those we have been willing to cede our well being to.

is serving a real need, and succoring a distraught Nation.

Why?

Are the social costs less than those associated with warrantless eavesdropping?

How does criminalization of addiction square with Holder’s lofty sentiments on “individual freedom and basic human rights”?

What else comes along with the War metaphor and cognitive model?

If Hillary, Colin Powell, Rahm, and Joe are ready to put that unfortunate turn of events in Iraq behind them, and move on to help Barack with our business in Afghanistan and Iran, then who are we not to accept and forget? That’s what unity is all about. Like in a beautiful family.

Together in church.

The constructed machismo; the perseveration on gender, disclosure, and homophobia; the quite odd connection with Oprah, “because she's so open about weight and about clothing and about her greedy desires to own stuff and her private desires to change ...”; and the real anger and aggression displaced safely onto children and disguised as parenting.

I dunno . . . .

Lazy parenting, or lazy work on self?

he’s super smart when it comes to picking a crew! For some serious writing on how that’s looking, check out Jeremy Scahill’s piece over at AlterNet.