New Plans for the old Cash Cow

They don't milk 'em like they used to.

Are we already in too deep to stop the inevitable surge? And who is to blame for our being in too deep? And who will pay? Ask the one who pays - our national Cash Cow. Today, a 20,000-man Band-aid for Baghdad. Tomorrow, a ___________-yen Band-aid for the economy?

Whose advice shall we take? Machiavelli? or that of a "Founding Father"?

"America... well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extraction, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force... She might become dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit." - John Quincy Adams; Address, 4 July 1821

Sound familiar? Invade Iraq to bring Democracy by force? What reasoning is that?

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none." - Thomas Jefferson, 1801 inaugural address.

Tell that to the Pro-Israel Lobby.

Or better yet, remind them that sometimes one's worst enemy comes from within. Read this quote from someone we may not want to remember:

"It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." - Dr. Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945.

Then remember Karl Rove... and the Republican propaganda machine... leading to the war in Iraq, among other things. Somehow, I remember Rove's love of Machiavelli, who sounds like the "gentleman" quoted above, that shared love of the Almighty Spin. Where is the Axis of Evil - or should we give it another name?

And by the way, what happened to the Cash Bull?