Peace vs. Smarter Warfare

Rumor has it, temperatures are starting to drop around the country in preparation for the winter. It's still t-shirt and jeans weather here in the Sonoran Desert, so I can't know for sure, but in case you need to warm up from the cold - here's a tidbit of info that's sure to raise your blood temp

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says if Republican candidates want to succeed on Election Day, they should turn their focus away from the Iraq war.

"The challenge is to get Americans to focus on pocketbook issues, and not on the Iraq and terror issue," Frist said in an interview with the Concord Monitor on Tuesday.

Frist suggested that Republicans remind voters of subjects like tax cuts and lower gas prices, the result, he said, of the energy bill passed by Congress last year.

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Hear that military families and supporters of the troops? There's no spin there - lawmakers could give two shits about the effects of their policies on the lives of military personnel, let alone the scores of human lives being erradicated each day in whatever battlefield the suits and pearls in Washington have callously failed in diplomacy and peace-building to protect from the latest barrage of Shocking and Awful.

So, ex-Dr. Frist wants to remind voters of pocketbook issues, eh? Is that some type of dog whistle message to his greedy friends in the oil business? I think so.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the world's two biggest oil companies, posted higher third-quarter earnings than analysts expected after crude prices soared to a record and production increased.

At Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil, net income rose 5.7 percent from a year earlier to $10.5 billion, or $1.77 a share, the company said today in a statement. Shell's net income dropped 34 percent to $5.94 billion. Profit excluding a year- earlier divestiture and changes in inventory values rose to $7.03 billion from $5.8 billion.

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Think about that the next time your child's school has to have a bake sale in order to raise money for classroom supplies; or the next time you have to figure out whether food or medication is the priority this month; or a lawmaker votes con gusto to provide funding for more militarization of your neighborhood to stem the invasion of brown people instead of staunchly supporting economic policy overhauls and union movements.

Congressional elections are just over a week away and while the winds of change are in the air, the trap that the U.S. constantly finds itself no matter which political party is in power has been set and it's salivating for the opportunity to capture its next victim

A Pew Research Center poll this month found that 50 percent of independents listed Iraq among their top two national concerns, compared with 36 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of Democrats. Overall, 58 percent of respondents said the war is not going well and only 38 percent said the battle for Iraq is helping the war on terrorism.

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"I'm getting less and less happy with way Bush is handling things," fifth-grade teacher Denise Hall said in Doylestown on a crystalline autumn morning. Iraq is "definitely a factor" as she considers backing Democrats this year after twice voting for Bush. "Things seem to keep getting worse."

Hall said she is troubled not only by the war deaths -- 93 Americans killed this month, the highest total in a year -- but also by what the Bush administration's approach to Iraq tells her about its ability to manage other crises. "My real concern is North Korea," she said. "That scares the heck out of me. Would we go in somewhere else and think we could straighten it out?"

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"With the way Bush is handling things."

The million dollar question is whether the public in the U.S. has finally had enough of its warmongering government or if they're just sick of its warmongering goverment failing on the battlefield and within diplomatic circles. The answer, to recall the [gag] Secretary of State's words, could come in the form of a mushroom cloud someday.