They Die There, Too

the scribe drops in to make a few comments and continue on with a red hot summer.

One of highwayscribery’s guiding concerns is for those who die innocently in all the “history” generated by the “big ideas” of egomaniacs.

We are for the little girl in the courtyard with her kitten in any city that’s ever been bombed. We care for her, because no one else does; an essential democratic act.

It’s not defeatism to recognize that the problem of terrorism is intractable. It's not weak to accept we’ve run short of countries to lash out at, or short of the soldiers with which it might be done. It's practicality, and statesmanship, and even realpolitik.

Endless bombs in bags left under bus benches await us and nothing a (r)epublican or Democrat has in mind to stop it will. That’s because none would talk to these angry people, and none would concede to remove our troops from their land.

It’s much too easy letting others pay the price of one’s prideful politics.
And hey, here's a name you haven't heard much of late: John Bolton.

And so our hearts go out to that multi-racial and polyglot collection of faces – gallery of the unfortunate – that is the London bombings.

But it is necessary we pull our heads out of our self-indulgences and stop shivering about what that bombings mean to our way of life.

What happened in London happens every day, numerous times, in Iraq - the country George Bush turned into hell.

These murders are useful only as a framework for the American deaths contained therein. “One American killed” and then Ali Baba and the Forty Nobodies we are patriotic enough to feel no pain or concern for.

There is condescension in the fetish we place upon our own precious lives and the devil-may-care shrug employed when confronted with the thousands of sadnesses deemed necessary to make the Middle East safe for mini-malls.

There is condescension when Bush alludes to the “civilized” mission of the G-8 gathering: to help developing countries when those countries are neither present nor allowed to have a hand in the planning of their own destinies.

And it’s wrong.

Elsewhere...

It may be too early to tell, but the first head of the administration may finally be lopped off. And a grand prize it would be, too, should Karl Rove finally pay the price for a life of dirty tricks and charlatanism.

The scribe’s Washington (D.C. that is) contacts swear “the worm has turned” against W. and crew and it’s about time.

But these guys win a lot; especially in a court system they’re poised to sew up for a generation. So let’s wait and see.

Sen. Kerry, the guy who should be the president is still on Rove’s ass. He sent out an e-mail today with the petition he’s been circulating requesting the (r)epublican Rasputin’s resignation.

Sign it:

http://www.johnkerry.com/petition/rove.php