Progressive Diary: The Musings of Sebastian Van Der Douche, Harvard ‘08

March 25th 2010

Dear Diary,

It has been a most eventful past few days. With the passage of Health Care I have no doubt that the plebes will finally acknowledge what we progressives have always known; that President Obama has already solidified his place as America’s greatest President.

For a moment there I was scared that the right-wing America haters would get there way and use the legislative process to deny us the victory we so rightly deserved. I mean really, how dare they use something as insignificant as votes to block the bill? It should have been done with Deem and Pass. Our health care is more important than the mere niceties of congressional procedure. The-worse-than- Hitler Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for bringing up the Constitution during the “debate” over the bill. The Constitution has no place in the discussion when it comes to progress and, better yet, there shouldn’t even be a debate. The Founding Fathers, though handicapped by their racist white outlooks, also would have seen the need to push health care through no matter the opposition. Somethings are more important than some 18th century scrap of paper.

Why even bother with open hearings or debates at all? The American people are too stupid and feckless to grasp the basic tenant that they need to be forced into health care. They embarrass themselves with all this talk of “what they want” and their pathetic protests and letters to Congress. They should just shut up and let the people that know best, we enlightened few, we band of brothers with Ivy League degrees, handle things. Like children, they know not what they do and must be put in their place. They don’t know what they want and they don’t know what is best for them. People like Speaker Pelosi need not answer to that shabby and dirty rabble.

Thanks to Republican run education systems in places like Texas, I bet they can’t even read much less articulate a real argument. “Privacy!” “States rights!” “Democratic process!” HA! It makes me laugh, it is like a five year old trying to understand Shakespeare and playing at adults with big boy words! Why do they hate America? Don’ they see they need to be forced to get healthcare? It will run down the deficit too (though I am not quite sure how, I am good with numbers but how does spending a trillion dollars lower the deficit? Why not just tax the shit out of fat-cats making over $30,000 a year?).

President Obama should do us all a favor and fence off everything between the Mississippi and California. Those so-called states resemble more of a third-world loony bin than the US. With their guns and superstitions as well as their racist, sexist and homophobic outlooks, those people belong more to a bad western than the modern era. They even like Sarah Palin! Ha! She doesn’t have a real degree (a “BA” from the “University” of Idaho….how droll!) How could they be so stupid!?!

Thank goodness though. Thank goodness our beloved leader, our Great One, our Dear One, had the courage to do whatever it necessary to pass the bill. He is from Chicago and you can tell! They have it right, they know that important things need to be passed and that the law shouldn’t get in the way. Giving dissenting pieces of shit whatever they wanted in pork for their districts was an inspired tactic! Our beloved President’s bold leadership saved the say from the stupid filthy masses!

It is a great day to be an American. I thought I would never see the day when the Democrats would finally get the courage to do whats right and put to bed silly notions of “Constitutionality” that stand in the way of whats best for America. We finally have a leader that will do whatever it takes to transform this nation into a real, modern social democracy! We will no longer have to be ashamed of America and lower our eyes when the French or Germans talk about the glories of cradle-to-grave government protection.

I have to run, first I have to pick up my check from McDonalds, then clean out my room at home (Mom is on me again) and then I have brie and wine with Jenny Williams-Anthony-Cohen and her life partner * Copeckny-Liter-Jones at the independent bookstore. Its poetry night! I hope my “Ode to Our Beloved One” is as well received as “Texas is Full of Stupid Rednecks and Racists.”

-SVD
Berkeley, CA

Credit Where Credit Is Due

For those who don’t know, I rarely agree with our erstwhile savior on much of anything. I have been known to call him silly names like “Dear One,” ” Messiah” and other such veiled epithets. However, one cannot be critical of somebody’s policies, without sometimes admitting that, on occasion, the person in question actually did something well. To do otherwise would be nothing more than demonstrating what a snickering baboon one is (Rush).

So it came to pass that Barack Obama gave a pretty decent speech on the occasion of his acceptance of a Nobel Peace Prize awarded for what one presumes is possible future action. Much printer ink has been spilt on the vagaries of how such an unaccomplished man (at least at the point he was nominated in late January) won such a prestigious honor and I am not going to rehash it here. Rather, in focusing on Obama’s remarks we see a man that actually admits the necessity for war. Obama, waxing on the imperfections of man, states that in some instances, it behooves the good people of the Earth to destroy those forces of evil that seek to enslave and terrorize the innocent. Needless to say, it was a welcome change of pace from his continual bashing of the US insofar as he also recognized the need for the US to step in and fight evil from time to time (presumably when it is not tyrannizing Native Americans and African Americans).

Obama further counseled that the US must use its great power wisely, and that though we do have the power to obliterate, we should guard against such wanton use of power ensconced in blatant moral chauvinism. We are not always right, and I suppose we shouldn’t always act as if our proverbial shit doesn’t stink.

As leaders of the free world, it is incumbent upon us to actually walk the walk as well as talk the talk. Why on Earth the Bush administration never fully disavowed torture is beyond me. It is common sense that leaders set an example. Why should others follow us when we can’t even forgo a practice that is abhorrent, vile and mostly ineffective? Even from a RealPolitik standpoint it is much wiser to assert a no-torture policy and lie about it than spend years denying water-boarding is torture (it is).

So what does this all mean? Has Obama actually turned the corner and come down from the heights of cloud cuckoo land? Or should we take the more cynical approach and snidely remark that he was simply trying to throw starch into his poorly received, and defeatist speech given at West Point? Who really knows at present.

So, like Josey Wales, our beloved Dear One gave the world our words of life and our words of death. But will those words, like his vacuous promises of Hope and Change, ring hollow by his lack of action?

What Is In a Word: Obama and the V-Word

One of my favorite heroes of the Second World War was Winston Churchill. Any British school child could tell you that Churchill faced the nearly impossible task of keeping the morale of his people high in a time of great privation. England alone stood against Germany and was rewarded by daily and nightly air raids. Everywhere he went the often grumpy, embattled, and always witty (and not sober) Prime Minister gave hope to his battered and bombed-out people by the mere act of holding up his right hand, palm out, index and middle fingers spread apart signifying a V; a V for Victory. This simple act bespoke a truth that every war-weary Brit knew to his core. Ole Winnie would never, ever, settle for anything less than total Victory over a hated and tyrannical foe. Churchill’s simple act of defiance against the all-powerful field-grey legions of Hitler’s Wehrmacht gave reason for the conquered peoples of Europe to continue the fight against the Nazi invader. Resistance groups across the Continent splashed alley walls and city squares with giant painted Vs. V became more than a letter, it became a promise that one day Europe would once again breathe the fresh air of freedom that an Allied Victory would bring.

Flash forward more than 60 years later. America finds itself at war with a foe just as tyrannical and vile as the Nazis. Like the generation that has been labeled the “greatest,” the youth of today have also sent many of their best and brightest to fight in the wastes of Iraq and the forbidding mountains of Afghanistan. Like our illustrious predecessors, we too have endured death and lamented the loss of many brilliant, beautiful and promising young lives. But unlike the struggle 60 years hence, America is divided in its counsel, and, I dare say, not committed to Victory; an omission that clouds the sacrifice of those who have fallen. Nothing manifests this truly tragic state of affairs than the actions of our putative Commander-in-Chief.

In his speech at West Point, President Obama promised to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan by 30,000. He spoke at great length of the necessity of increasing the strength of the Afghan Army as well as holding Pakistan accountable for its lapses in judgment where the Taliban is concerned. Obama further outlined his disastrous decision to impose an impossible timeline for withdrawal of said US troops in what can only be considered an abject admission of the US’ lack of interest and commitment toward a successful conclusion to the fight in Afghanistan. Finally, Obama failed to mention, in his 4300 plus words, one: Victory.

Why is Victory important? How is it that a single word can change the entire complexion of a war involving hundreds of thousands? It is quite simple. Victory is a commitment to win. Victory is a covenant to put tyranny in its place. Victory gives comfort to those who have lost their loved ones and validates the ultimate sacrifice that so many willingly undertook. Victory sends a message to our friends and foes alike that we are in the fight to the end and that we will stop at nothing. Anything less is a stab in the back of those in the armed forces fighting, and dying, to bring this war to a successful conclusion.

One marvels at the absurdity of a war-time president that is not committed to Victory. After all, who gets in a fight to lose? No doubt defenders of the President will be quick to point out that he did not get us into Afghanistan, nor did he mismanage the war prior to his election in 2008. What those people fail to realize is that it IS Obama’s responsibility to finish the fight and to secure a successful, and Victorious conclusion. As the Dear One pointed out in his historic run for president, “Afghanistan is a war of necessity.” I would think, by implication, that wars of “necessity” should generally be wars that are won and not cast aside when they become politically inconvenient (say, for example, in late 2011 prior to his re-election bid…).

Can real Victory be achieved in Afghanistan? Certainly “winning” in the Kush is not the signing of a surrender document on the deck of a battleship, nor is it a negotiated armistice in Paris. In the War on Terror there are no armies to crush or a capital to take. As such, we need to s trive for a species of Victory. What we can expect is an Afghanistan where the people are allowed to choose their destinies without the interference of tyrants and where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are broken, discredited and irrelevant entities. Any species of Victory is far more preferable to no Victory at all.

So on one hand we have a leader who despises the word Victory and on the other the man who imposes a ludicrous timeline on a surge to nowhere. Are these the actions of a man, and a government, that is committed to winning? Or are they the actions of a man attempting to placate both the anti-war wing of his party and those who still believe that the US must, by necessity, win this war?

What contempt does history have for those peoples who deign to defend themselves? What disdain will future generations of Americans have for us when they read our chapter in their history books? Those who fight wars to lose, by implication abdicating all responsibility of their own defense, deserve to be relegated to the scrap heap of history.

In the end it boils down to a single word. Some, mostly those who have never sacrificed one iota for this nation, dismiss Obama’s glaring omission by claiming that the word Victory in itself is unimportant, nothing more than a jingoistic expression of the prior imperialistic and chauvinistic administration. I think Winston Churchill and hundreds of millions of free people in Europe, to say nothing of posterity, would humbly and forcefully disagree.

SARAH INVICTUS: The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Sarah Palin.

I was distraught and anxious in ways I couldn’t articulate. In some ways it was like a dream that wouldn’t end, not a nightmare per se, but not exactly a romp in the sheets with Megan Fox either. It was the discomfort of person well aware of the old adage that one should be careful of what they wish for. In their wisdom the ancients gave warning that many still fail to heed….Yes, I was watching the rise, fall, casting off, redemption of, implosion of and rebirth of the phenomenon that has become Sarah Palin. A year long agony that may never end.

Like pandora’s box I had helped unleash a pox (of sorts) upon the land. For before John McCain made his momentous decision I had been actively lobbying for Palin’s consideration as VP candidate. I wrote, I lobbied my friends and generally pined for an option that few took seriously and I wasn’t the only one. My logic was simple, she was new, she was fresh, she was a reformer and she was a MILF. What more could a public starved for heroes want (or junor officers looking for someone in their chain-of-command to fantasize about)? Of course, I knew that the selection of such a newcomer would come with a price of its own insofar as it would be necessary to continue the defining of Palin well after the fanfare of her entrance. History proved me correct as what followed the perfect introduction was the most imperfect handling of a candidate since Josef Stalin ran on the Green Soil ticket in 1896.

The weeks following the GOP convention were nothing short of a savaging so brutal that few could watch without feeling lurid, shameful and unclean. Distortions great and small abounded, and lies were treated as the gospel. The media whispered openly of salacious and pornographic fantasies so revolting that to replicate them here would send children, nuns, kittens, Mormons and people from Nebraska fleeing to the hills (well, not the Nebraskans, they have no hills). The press howled and leftists jeered and conservatives either rallied around the outraged woman or cast her off for the media wolves to feed on. In the end there was little more than a bloody stain of a candidate, a smear, little more than a caricature and Tina Fey’s well honed delivery. Thus ended Sarah…or did it? It wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor and it certainly wasn’t over for Sarah either.

Flash forward a year. Far from being irrelevant Palin is now a force in her own right. A whirling dervish of political power and folksiness leaving destruction, puzzled pundits and insanely incontinent liberals in her wake. Palin rewrote the discourse on the proposed Obamacare overhaul with the infamous and pertinent “Death Panel” speech. She up-ended the special election in New York’s 23rd district (though not to the GOPs advantage). Her every action sees legions of would-be GOP nominees scurrying like rats to mimic her every move. In many ways she is the standard bearer and lightning rod that those seeking the Republican nomination must win over, or supplant, if they are to be successful.

With the publication of her autobiography,“Going Rogue,” Palin’s approval numbers now out-pace that of the Messiah Obama. Whereas the clueless and weak Dear One vacillates on Afghanistan, stumbles to and fro on Health Care and meekly watches as the world laughs at his personal diplomacy, appearances on Oprah and other high-profile shows have largely rehabilitated Palin’s image and have convinced many that she is not the monstrous jezzebel that the media had painted her as.

Once a joke, the thought of Palin running successfully in 2012 is no longer a laughing matter. At the very least, she will play the role of the ersatz king-maker for the GOP in 2012 and, perhaps, far beyond. Where the jackals once sneered and mocked her they now cower and urinate on themselves unsure of what they have done.

Indeed, the very process in which she had been destroyed, the unending and manic misogynistic attacks on her and her children, have strengthened her like the tempering of the blade of a samurai sword. Now rather than believing the attacks on her intelligence and character, more people than not see the media and the hateful Left as bullies, wilding a paragon of American womanhood whilst draped in the illusion feminist clothing. Finally good people everywhere have become sick to the stomach of the truly barbaric and savage attacks that have been par for the course regarding Palin. Robin of Berkeley, an avowed feminist and renounced liberal, writes:

“And so the Left must try to destroy her. And they are doing this in the most malicious of ways: by symbolically raping her…Liberals do this by calling her a c__t, ogling her legs, demeaning her with names like “slutty flight attendant” and “Trailer Park Barbie,” and exposing her flesh on the cover of Newsweek. And from Atlantic Magazine’s Andrew Sullivan “Sarah Palin’s vagina is the font of all evil in the galaxy.”

Read more here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_wilding_of_sarah_palin.html

They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…that is true, though they can now say that hell hath no fury than feminists turning on their own for the crime of ultimately rendering hollow their twisted view of what womanhood can and should be. Nothing so ugly, so rapacious and so vile ever made it more clear that the cretins on the far Left were far from being on the side of women.

Things change. What worked before will not again. Like Count Dooku after Master Yoda casually swatted aside his burst of force lightning in Star Wars Episode II, the bullies in the media are now at a loss as to how to proceed. The radical leftists and all efite, elitist liberal snobs everywhere are at loggerheads of how to treat this whirlwind. Where once they gloated over brie and anti-American slogans on the misery they had inflicted on Simple Sarah, Caribou Barbie of the North, they now quake at the juggernaut that they helped create. After all, how does one destroy a politician that has absorbed every projectile within the Left’s smarmy arsenal?

Only time will tell. She defies explanation. No other politician has ever been so defiled and yet managed to survive and in many ways propser. Some theorize that like all sensations, she will disappear, forgotten like so many Rueben Studdards. But then again, maybe not. After all, hasn’t her fifteen minutes run their course? Will there come a day when the Left rues the day they attacked and sexualized Palin’s minor children? Will there come a time when they regret the horrifically graphic and sexually disturbing slurs and barbs they once defamed her with? Will there be a reckoning when everyone that ever dimissed Sarah Palin as a slutty, trailer trash rube will realize they sowed the seeds of their own destruction? I gleefully await, as should all God fearing men and women, the day that providence punishes those savages in a manner best befitting their worst outrages by electing her President.

I know a hero. His name is Tyler Parten. Let me tell you about him.

“These things happen” is something often heard around any Army unit. It is usually the unspoken truth that most Soldiers carry within them, tucked away in a hidden place treated with reverence and to be explored only in the most private and isolated of spaces. Of course, the “things” that happen are the inevitable deaths of those who we have eaten with, lived with, served with and were friends with. It is bound to happen in times of war, particularly in the war with two fronts we find ourselves in, and today it happened to me. Today I found out that my AOBC classmate and friend, 1LT Tyler Parten, fell in battle in Afghanistan protecting his nation and its people.

I found out after lunch, as I leafed through Stars and Stripes. As I always do, I look at the casualty list in the hopes that I wouldn’t recognize any names. Today as I stared dumbstruck at the name on the page I felt a horrible knot in my stomach and was smacked in the face with several emotions. I wrestled with the idea of writing anything public for the better part of the day. After all, there are far more people out there that knew Parten a great deal better than I. What right do I have to feel loss? I have recognized names in the Army Times and Stars and Stripes before. I have also known too many officers I have worked with that passed away due to accidents and even suicide. The difference this time around is that he is…was…IS a comrade and a friend and I do feel the loss of someone special. Writing this, in the hopes that people that never knew him will know what type of man he is, makes me feel better. So I am going to write.

Parten was a larger than life type of person. He thoroughly enjoyed a good joke and was not above debasing himself in the juvenile pursuit of making others break out in spasms of laughter. He was fun to be around and welcome relief in those times when The Suck was taking its toll. He was also a professional dedicated to his craft and of single minded purposefulness in his efforts to eradicate those who had inflicted harm on our nation on 9/11.

I met him at Fort Knox during AOBC. We were in the same platoon during tank, recon and COE phase. After he graduated and I was left at Knox to rot with injury, we emailed as we were both adjutants with our respective units. As with AOBC, we mixed business and stupidity with alarming ease. We commiserated and offered each encouragement through our predicaments, he, waiting for a platoon at Fort Carson, and I, trying to heal my ever-present stress fractures and graduate from BOLC III. He wasn’t ADJ for long and did get the platoon he waited for and seemed more than overjoyed.

One memory I have of Tyler that came to me almost immediately upon learning of the news was our AOBC class’s first mission in the CCTT (a full scale tank simulator). Undoubtedly, we knew we would not fare well and our foreboding was justified. Who was the sacrificial victim that was to be thrown to the wolves, better known as Black 6s? None other than Tyler Parten. Of course, initially we did not do too badly. The 6s and the civilian technicians took it easy on us and we clumsily defeated an enemy tank platoon set on stupid. But soon things went awry and Tyler found himself in a rapidly deteriorating situation where his bravo section was somewhere getting hammered by AT-5s and his driver kept going in circles. Having been thrown into sheer chaos, Tyler forgot the proper reporting format to Black 6 and was fumbling his words. The ever testy SFC Theim, in his most condescending tone, asked if there was another, presumably proper, way of describing the happenstance of Red Platoon being annihilated by an enemy Mechanized Infantry Company and T-80U platoon. Tyler composed himself, undoubtedly took a deep breath, and said, clearly and confidently: “Black 6, we’re FUCKED!” Even the curmudgeonly Theim laughed. Most people would have been horribly embarrassed by the performance and radio feux pas, but not Tyler. As with all things, he merely laughed it off and endeavored to do better the next time (he did).

Those who don’t know people in the military truly have no idea the sacrifice that Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Marines make to protect this nation. While fringe nuts and seditious Democratic Congressmen are doing their best to lose our wars, our servicemen and women lead stressed out, exhausting existences in every hellhole found on this sordid globe. Families suffer with their loved ones so far away and live for emails and phone calls. Too many families experience the ultimate pain and most horrific loss. For them the name on the news or in the paper is neither a statistic, nor another numeric measure of success or failure. To them, that name represents the end of their world as they have known it and a future devoid of the warmth and joy of their loved one. We Americans put too much into sports stars and celebrities by calling them heroes. I am no hero, nor is any other Soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are merely doing our jobs. The only true heroes are the brave men and women who will never see another sunrise, smell the sweetness of a summer day or feel the warm embrace of a tearful and joyous reunion.

I leave off with another recollection from AOBC. During dismounted recon STX Tyler and I were tasked with scouting the next rally point/training site. We stealthily covered the 500 meters or so to the coordinates given to us. As we neared the correct grid we saw our civilian instructors pull up to the clump of trees that was our destination, get out, light up a smoke and begin chatting. These men between them had around 50 years of scouting experience and we both resolved to sneak up on them and report back to our platoon. Slowly, and only crawling through the tall grass when the wind shook the branches in the trees, Tyler and I creeped up until, finally, we were within a mere 20 feet of the trio. I radioed our PL and in hushed tones whispered that we had arrived at the rally point and that we had snuck up on our erstwhile instructors (still oblivious). Tyler and I grinned at each other and shared one sublime moment of joint understanding where our newbie self-doubt evaporated. Maybe we were going to do alright at this profession. Maybe we weren’t as hopeless as we were sometimes led to believe. Maybe we would, someday soon, make worthy tank or scout platoon leaders.

Well, it came to pass, at least in Tyler’s case. Though he had to suffer the indignity of serving as battalion adjutant before getting his platoon, he no doubt savored every moment at Fort Carson as an armor officer. He was a fine leader and an even better human being. No person deserves the sobriquet of hero more than him. He will be greatly missed.

I know a hero. His name is Tyler Parten. I will never forget him.

Lay down your burdens brother, it is time to rest. You have strove much and given more. You have given us laughter and you have protected us. Rest now and know we are eternally grateful.