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Firstly, I am talking about the link below.

I love this Onion video. It shows the average Trump voter after he has read some writer who was an expert on Feminist Lesbian Theory. This white 50ish factory worker changed his mind completely after reading this treatise. He only wishes he read it before he had voted for Trump.

Since this comes from the Onion, I am pretty sure this is satire. I fear though that some people might mistake this for truth. If only people would read my obscure academic theory, a light will go off in their hand, they will understand what I am saying and change their mind. I can only give you my humble opinion on this matter but I can assure you when people start dropping names like Foucault or start talk about gender theory, I generally have the same reaction — why can’t I understood a single word this person is saying? Its like they are speaking a foreign language or something. Followed quickly by figuring out an exit strategy so I can leave this idiot and go to where the fun is.

The big problem with this kind of talking is it comes off as condescension. Often, when the speaker sees the glazed eyes of his listeners, he will say something like — to really understand what I am saying you need to read this book by so and so. Of course, the underlying message in such a statement is you are uneducated yokel. An incomprehensible message is a pointless and alienating one. How can you expect to win voters when you can’t make yourself understood? How are you going to compete with foreigners are taking your jobs, or your cities are being overrun by lawless hooligans?

The Link: https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=917787202212037

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A scene in a Succession episode jarred me the other night. Succession is intelligent, witty, and funny television. I enjoy it immensely. In this particular scene (see link to scene below), however, the writers are trying too hard to show their intelligence and I came away annoyed with them instead. The show would have us believe that gruff self-made billionaire Logan Roy would use the word fungible while having conversation with someone he is incredibly angry with.

It struck me as out of sync with his character and a distraction from the plot. It didn’t help me that I had to look up the word to make sure I understood it correctly. Sometimes using big, unknown words is unavoidable and important for the plot. If it seems right, then I am all for using big words that may be unknown to me. In this scene, it seems completely gratuitous. Thrown in to the episode simply as evidence on how smart the show actually is. It was jarring particularly since the character who says it is more know for his profanity laced insults than using 50 cent words. I might believe him saying you are a dime a dozen or I can hire a recent college graduate off the streets who can do the job as good as you. But fungible never.

Worse still, it felt like contempt. Yes, we are using the word fungible. If you don’t know the meaning of the word, then look it up. We are not here to make it easy for you.

What concerns me is that it reveals just the elite condescension that right wing apologists complain about. It is unnecessary and unhelpful. Succession is great at showing the moral rot of the wealthy capitalists who run the world economy but, unintentionally, it shows the contempt that the media elites have for their own audience. This might cause some viewers to determine that these media elites are fungible with the capitalist elites so why exchange a new boss that is just as bad as the old boss.

Link to Fungible Comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4ByzXJHDJ4

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I love this guy.

His boss hassled him whenever his company’s Instant Messaging software told the boss how long he has been gone. You know what I mean. Every employer uses some form of instant messaging software that always narcs you out — think Microsoft Lync that tells people how long you have been gone with the green light/yellow light red light gizmo. This tool fights the boss who needlessly monitors your work time when they are happy as a clam with you work otherwise. This guy’s device moves your cursor while you are away from your desk which tricks Microsoft Lync into thinking you are at your PC. Green light instead of yellow light or red light — if you know what I mean. And image what your boss will think with all of those nine and ten hour days. And, really, who gets harmed in the deal.

Here is the link. https://slate.com/technology/2021/12/mouse-movers-market-corporate-productivity-tracking.html

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I never much liked school. For the longest time, I thought my parents hated me for sending me there every day.  I thought why on earth would anybody go to such a terrible boring place. I was an early advocate of do what you have a passion for, and, let me tell you, I had very little passion for school, so I put very little effort into it.  If I wasn’t interested in the subject I did the absolute maximum I needed to do to get a C.  Which was fine during the mid-1960’s, when I was growing up, C’s meant what C’s were supposed to mean, it meant you were average.  I was fine when they appeared on my report card, and, more importantly, so were my parents. 

My journey to being a C student really got going in the second grade.  This was when I took the Iowa Basics which, at that time, tested a child’s intelligence. The Iowa Basics were taken seriously.  You were given a questions book, an answer sheet, a strict time requirement a proctor to make sure you followed all the rules. The answer sheet was a page of unfilled ovals which students were to give their answers on by filling in the appropriate oval with a number 2 pencil. The proctor emphasized the importance of the number 2 pencil mark and also the need to stay within the boundaries of the oval.  If you failed these two simple instructions, your answers would be invalid, you would screw up the whole test and be considered a dim wit for the rest of your life and, since I went to Catholic schools, you would probably end up in Hell. 

Teachers could be blunt in my day.  If they thought you were stupid, they told you so. If you complained to your parents that your teacher called you stupid, your parents called you stupid too.  The teachers and the parents always agreed when the stupidity of the child was under discussion.  So, if the teacher thought you were going to Hell, it was her duty to let you know so that, perchance, you took her guidance seriously, you could at least make it to purgatory instead of rotting in Hell for eternity. The good old days. 

Anyway, I ran into a problem with my Iowa Basic test before I even had a chance to open the questions book. The answer sheet didn’t have enough ovals for my very long name – Thomas Bartholomew Fitzpatrick. Instead of notifying the test proctor of my dilemma, I fumbled around trying to figure out where I made my mistake. That this was the design of the test never occurred to me. So, while other kids were filling out the appropriate oval with their more manageably sized names, I was desperately trying to jam my full name onto the answer sheet.

Things came to a head when the proctor tried to start the test.  She asked if everyone had completed putting their name on the answer sheet and I had to admit I was struggling.  Of course, she became irritated with me for not bringing this to her attention earlier. I had ample time to complain and now I was going to delay the start of the test for everyone. How thoughtless of me. However, I am happy to report that she was equally stumped on how to proceed with getting my full name on the answer sheet.  She needed to call the principal who didn’t know what to do either but she had the good sense to realize that there was no good reason to hold up the test. She told the proctor to start the test and she would figure out what to do about the name later.   

So, there I was taking the test that would determine the course of my entire life. I was nervous wreck already. Full of questions and worries.  Why did my parents give me such ridiculously long name, didn’t they know about the ovals on the Iowa Basics?  Furthermore, because of my ridiculously long name, both the test proctor and the principal were angry with me.  The proctor particularly irritated because she looked foolish in front of the principal and took every opportunity to glare at me as if I was trying to subvert the Iowa Basic test she was proctoring thus dooming all these other children’s lives as they would be marked for life as dim wits along with me. And, finally, my fellow students, not knowing how long my name was so not understanding my dilemma, looked at me like I was some kind of idiot. How hard could it be to fill out an oval with a number 2 pencil.  To say I was nervous was an understatement, I was a wreck as I tried to pull myself together while under the watchful eye of every living soul in the room.  

The terrible pressure of that moment is the only explanation I have for my completely average score. Because, I am certain, if I hadn’t been so discombobulated by the stress of that day, I would have scored much higher. Instead, I scored smack dab in the middle. 50 percent of the American children scored above me, 49 percent scored below me. The good news, at least for me, my parents took the Iowa Basics seriously. If the Iowa Basics determined I was average, I was average. No reason to get their hopes up for Harvard and the Presidency for this child. From this point on, their only expectations of me from that point on was C student.

I can’t tell you how liberating it was to be a C student.  I was left alone to determine my fate. And, with such low expectations, all I had to do was find a job, pay my bills and not be a burden to society.  I am happy to say, with very little exertion on my part, I have met those expectations and had an awfully good time doing it. Just think, if in the second grade I had aced the Iowa Basics, I would still be battling the other smart kids so I could get my chance to maybe make it to the top of the heap, giving up nights of fun for working even harder so I could keep my hands on that greasy pole called success. I shudder at the thought that my parents could have chosen a less lengthy name.

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If nothing else, David Chappelle is a marketing genius. He artfully generated some free publicity for his television show. Controversy is the best way to get the media involved. Chappelle provided them with a controversial topic. The media, whose distribution of controversies is its only reliable function, hungrily bit the hook and frontpaged the outrage. Particularly perplexing is how the transgender community fell all over itself to give Chappelle more free publicity. Controversy rarely stops people from doing anything, it does, however, entice people who might never have even heard about if you hadn’t bothered to complain about it.

I tried to understand it but, for the life of me, I can’t figure out exactly what Chappelle did wrong. He is making fun of transgender people. OK. Probably not a good idea for people who are sensitive about this issue.  Still, it is in his job description to make fun of people.  What he said that makes him transphobic is unclear to me. All I can get is that he doesn’t adhere to some standard people are expected to follow in order to avoid being called transphobic.

Since I can’t make heads or tails, I now have to see his show. Standup isn’t really my thing, I have absolutely nothing against it. But if I have a choice, I prefer other types of entertainment. Standup was always something that I could pass on for other shows.  Now, however, I want to see Chappelle’s show. Everyone is talking about it, I need to know what I am talking about in order to put my two cents in.

So, other than people yelling at him, which, ironically enough, only creates more controversy, so more free publicity for him, Chappelle has come out of this unscathed. The press, on the other hand, has no excuse.  This was, maybe, a one-day story.  Then came the yelling match.  The media, who is patently unable to pass up screaming individuals, kept the story going.

When will people learn that if you want to stop people from seeing something, absolutely, positively keep your mouth shut. Otherwise the very thing you wanted people not to know, will now be spread even further than the performer ever dreamed possible without the controversy.  Kudos for Chappelle for showing us how to sell a television show using free publicity.

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The resignation of Jon Gruden has raised a lot of hackles with conservative columnists. It was a little shitty how his emails came to light, but when you make enemies, as Gruden has, you should expect these enemies to use any weapon they can find against you. The bottom line is that Gruden sent prejudice-laden emails. If he had paid any attention to the HR videos that every other employee in the civilized world is subjected to, he would have refrained from sending them in the first place. After years of incessant lectures regarding appropriate e-mail procedures, everyone should know that once you press send your email is both stored forever and can be sent absolutely anywhere. So, this incredibly responsible and privileged man ignored the rules of corporate e-mail etiquette and got caught. He now paid a high price for doing so.  

This is why HR departments worldwide conduct classes to instruct employees what is appropriate behavior to avoid such embarrassing situations.  HR, also, reminds us that if that e-mail is sent on a company server and/or with a company email address, your company has the right to read your emails.  If your emails are deemed inappropriate, you could be disciplined up to and including termination. I find it difficult to believe that someone at Gruden’s level didn’t know that words like “faggot” and “pussy” are offensive words. Everyone knows that e-mails are not private that is why HR instructs employees to be careful when sending them.

More importantly, Gruden is using blatantly homophobic, sexist and racist words while communicating with other top executives associated with football. He says he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. Maybe Gruden reasons that he was only talking about the size of DeMaurice Smith’s lips. He could be talking about any person of any race who happened to have big lips. Right. Context is everything here. He was describing a black man using one of the most frequently used stereotypical descriptions of Black people.   

Even if we could give him some wiggle room for his big lips comment, what was his intention for “faggot.” Any person living in 21st century America knows that the word “faggot” is an offensive term. There is absolutely no debate about “faggot” which undermines his argument about not having a racist bone in his body. He seems pretty comfortable using homophobic language when describing gays, then it also seems likely that he is just as familiar with the racial epithets.

Some argue that OK he may have used colorful language but this was a private email. He never intended for anyone other than Bruce Allen to read it.  This is a troubling argument because Gruden manages blacks, women and gays.  How can a person be a private racist and a public non-racist? Is that even possible? It is not something you can turn on and turn off whenever you move from public to private. If, as a work colleague, you have Gruden’s homophobic statements, how confident could you be that Gruden treats his gay employees fairly. At the bare minimum, it should make you suspicious.

You would think that someone would have reminded Gruden about his phrasing. From what I can determine, absolutely nobody said a word to him about his choice of words. None of these men owed their jobs to Gruden, they could speak freely without fear of losing their jobs.  Yet, they said nothing. Indeed, they carried on with their conversation as if this is the way they talk every day.  Conversations filled with racist, sexist and homophobic innuendo.

And, to their argument that Gruden doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.  These men probably believe it. They don’t see any harm in talking like this with other white men. They have a very narrow definition of racist. To them, a person has to be a member of the KKK or the Nazi party before a person can be considered a racist.  Every other White is basically OK.  Their casual racists remarks are forgiven.  He was just being funny. He doesn’t really mean it. He would never do anything to physically harm someone. The KKK is a racist but a white man noticing that a black man has big lips – that isn’t racist, it is observation.

So much for all these HR trainings having any effect on the workforce. Clearly Gruden and Allen need to attend another course.

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Why are we still debating about vaccinating people who have already had COVID? It is a small point but someone like Rand Paul harps on it anytime he gets a chance to spar with Dr. Fauci.

Sen Paul’s point is that someone who has had COVID has antibodies to COVID thus erasing most of the danger of getting COVID.  Antibodies are antibodies. Public Health officials go through horrible gyrations in their explanation of why people who have recovered from COVID still needs the COVID vaccine.  They give it the old college try and it is painful to see. After watching these people squirm I realized that Sen. Paul must be right.

So why argue about it? It is a  losing battle? More importantly, it isn’t going to have any impact on bringing down deaths from COVID.  If a person has had the disease, can prove it with an COVID antibody test that person is considered vaccinated. This would eliminate opposition from some of the people who are presently fighting vaccination.  Public Health officials then can focus on a much different group – people who have no antibodies to COVID. They are, after all, the people who need to get vaccinations.  And, as an added benefit, the government is giving them a choice about how they get their antibodies – they can either get COVID or get the vaccine.

To continue to argue about is insanity. Let’s save our time, energy and money for something that really matters.  This would save Public Health officials from looking like sputtering fools defending the indefensible and we shift the focus back to the problem – how to keep people who don’t have antibodies from getting the disease. It is a very small bone to throw to anti-vaccers. But a bone is a bone.  It would have little impact, if any, on the spread of COVID. So why argue about it. What worries me is that the pro-vaccinators have lost their patience with anti-vaccers to such an extent that they continue to fight a losing battle because they now want submission . They want everyone vaccinated and that is that. I understand the frustration but it seems to me a stupid battle. A hill not worthy of dying on.

Let’s choose our battles wisely.

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I find myself increasingly irritated with the quality of reporting emanating from even the most prestigious news outlets like the BBC and the New York Times in regards to the evacuation of Kabul. It seems like everybody needs to get evacuated. Everybody.  I am not sure why and they aren’t particularly adept at telling me why.

A good example of this occurred several weeks back on the BBC that still nags at me.  Lyse Doucet, a BBC correspondent, interviewed an Afghan man who felt abandoned by the British because of visa issues which left him in Kabul after the Taliban took over. The man worked for the contract caterer who supplied meals for the British Embassy. He felt like he served the British well during his tenure and deserved evacuation without all of the visa application roadblocks the British government were putting in his way. Again, his only connection to the British government was serving meals to the embassy staff. He felt this work made his immigration during this time of chaos automatic and necessitates the British to ignore their application process for him and his family. He never really explained why other than he worked hard for the British. Doucet doesn’t pursue it. She does let the viewer know he feels abandoned and would like to very much for the British government’s help in bringing him there. 

I do not want to live in a Taliban controlled Afghanistan. I feel sorry for any Westerner or any Afghan ally who was left there.  I also want the Western governments to continue to help anyone who wants to leave.  I am sure that there are hundreds of thousands of people who want to leave Afghanistan. But, if the BBC was looking for a compelling story about someone trapped in Kabul and who is in immediate danger from the Taliban, the trusted news organization missed the mark by quite a lot with this particular story.

Evacuating a country, in the best of circumstances, is difficult operation. Afghanistan is far from a perfect situation. The country is in a civil war.  It was a dangerous place before the Taliban took over and it remains a dangerous place today now that the Taliban has taken control.  Both the Westerners who went to Afghanistan and the Afghan allies who worked with western governments knew this when taking their jobs. The British government was faced with a difficult job of evacuating their citizens and any Afghans allies. They had to prioritize based on the chaos around them, the resources available to them and the people who needed to leave immediately.

This is where the BBC breaks down. Just because the man felt he should be evacuated doesn’t mean that it was urgent for him to leave, or that it is important for him to jump the queue. Doucet doesn’t even try to make his case.   I kept thinking what exactly has he done that warrants the British government getting this man and his family to Britain. I am sympathetic to him wanting to leave, a lot of people do. But does he risk death or prison because he remains in Afghanistan. Did the Taliban threaten him?  Did the BBC have evidence of the Taliban threatening anyone and everyone who worked with the British embassy?  What were other Western governments doing for their catering staff?

Doucet milked this man’s uncompelling story for all that it was worth while spending precious little time determining if the man warrants any real concern. It is sad that he wasn’t on the list to evacuate immediately but if I were compiling that list, and given the facts I have, I would certainly have left his name off of it. Which leaves me pondering why the BBC chose to air this story. I am certain there are better examples out there that illustrates the point they were trying to make. Unfortunately, this man’s story fails miserably. It lacks both context and urgency. In the end I learned about an Afghan who doesn’t want to live under Taliban rule and who felt his very tenuous link with the British government entitled him to better treatment. The British government disagreed and he remains in Afghanistan with a lot of other Afghans who want to leave and who will have to struggle with British visa process to gain entrance.  It is a sad story and I am sure there will be more sad stories like it before the Taliban is through, but the man was not abandoned and he doesn’t warrant any special treatment.

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I accidentally got involved in Facebook argument the other day.  I know better than to argue with people who disagree vehemently with my position as I can never change that person’s mind. NEVER. If a person is passionate about an issue they are committed. They do, however, think that they can change yours. The argument will begin with the pretense of reasoned argument and end with taunts and name-calling.  I avoid these types of arguments as much as I can.

I stepped into this particular pile of shit because I thought I was replying to someone I knew, and probably agreed with. The post had the following statement: Why do you hate the rich? I answered the question with another question: Why do the rich hate us? There are billionaires out there that make more money than they know how to spend, why don’t they give this money to the poor and middle class so that everyone can enjoy a better life.  Today’s rich live in the greatest luxury known to humanity so even if they were taxed more, they would continue to enjoy the good life with little, if any, discernible change in how they live.

As I thought I was talking to my largely liberal friends, who would disagree? Yet, the disagreeing comments came.  When I checked the names of my opponents, I realized these were not people I knew and I should move on without comment.  I need to make a small confession here. I like to argue politics.  It is fun.  Or it used to be. I remember in college that I would go to a bar with people of varying political beliefs. We would drink and argue, but even though drink was involved we were mostly respectful of other people’s opinion, we listened and occasionally minds were changed.

Facebook arguments, if you haven’t been in one, aren’t friendly bar room arguments.  And that alone is saying a lot. I would rather argue with blind drunk political partisan in a bar than a completely sober person on Facebook.  Facebook arguments are savage hand-to-hand combat followed by the full nuclear arsenal raining down on the wounded bodies strewn across a bloody battlefield. It is bloody to participate in, impossible to win and thus pointless to respond.

But if I were to respond this is what I would say.

The crux of their argument wasn’t even an argument, it was a question: why did I care about how the rich spent their money.  It was their money and they earned it. This is where I disagree. What happens is that a company receives profit and the leaders of the company decide to divide the money between the people who are employed at the company.  The people who divide the pot are also the big wage earners. Low income earners are not invited to this particular table.   

It should be no surprise to anyone that the people dividing up the pie are the same people taking the biggest slice of the pie. The perverse side effect of this type of distribution is that high earners demand more and more money because their wages keep increasing and in order for companies to stay competitive they must pay their top earners more while the lower income earners wages are stagnant and there is little pressure to give this group more money. In fact, the top wage earners have abandoned their low wage-earning peers by putting more and more pressure on the lower income earners through automation and out-sourcing. So, while everyone at a company contributed to creating the profit, the top wage earners decided to take the lion’s share of the money claiming that the market made them do it. They personally had nothing to do with this skewed distribution, we are only following the dictates of the market.  If it was up to us, we would happily pay more money to low wage earners but, the market, you know must have its way.

Which brings me back to my question: Why do the rich hate us.  They take an unequal portion of the profits. They drive down global wages. They allow low income earners, people who by the way work a full-time job, to live in precarious economic situation while they live in luxury. They work to limit access to good public services for low income people. They are contemptuous of everyone who makes less money than them. Why do they hate us so?

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Thank you President Biden for getting us out of that hellhole of Afghanistan.  The cost was way too much. Over 2 thousand Americans dead and 20,000 wounded, 2 trillion dollars spent and 20 years of time. For what exactly?

 I understood the war when it started – we were punishing the Taliban for supporting Osama bin Laden who had attacked New York and Washington.  I supported that but once we accomplished that – sometime around 2003– what else could we do? Oh, yes, bring democracy to a country with little history of democratic institutions, shockingly high illiteracy rates and a widespread adherence to an extremely fundamental version of Islam. It will be a challenge but we might as well give it a go, right?    

Of course, everybody knew the Americans would fail. We have terrible intelligence. We don’t understand the issues on the ground. We always screw these things up.  I find this “I told you so but you didn’t listen to me” stance particularly irksome. If everyone knew this was going to happen, why do we now find ourselves in the position of evacuating all those trapped people at the Kabul Airport?  I don’t know about you but if I knew that the Taliban was going to rollover the Afghan forces in a little over a week, if it was truly that obvious, I would have gotten my ass out of Afghanistan. Well, everybody why did you stay?

But there are Americans caught in a war zone. Everything should be done to get them out. On the other hand, these aren’t thousands of tourists who got caught up in an unexpected civil war.  We are talking about government workers, contract soldiers, and aid workers who knowingly went into a war zone.  Even when American troops were present, their safety was at risk.  And, after all, wasn’t the Taliban victory inevitable. Everybody knew it, and still these people took the risk.

Well, then, everybody says we have to bail out those Afghans that worked for us. They are facing death. Again, I am all for trying, but this is not our war and it isn’t our country. The Americans were trying to help Afghans bring democracy to their country. The mission was theirs not ours. If Afghanistan was in any way salvageable as a democracy would all of these people be trying to escape instead of heading for the hills of Afghanistan to fight another day. It speaks volumes about what they think is going to happen.  They think the Taliban is going to stay in power.  But, of course, everybody knew that beforehand.

Still, everybody says these people risked their lives to help us, we owe it to them. The Afghans helping us were also the ones supplying us with information about how the project was going. Did they ever tell us that it was hopeless and the Taliban was going to take over when we left? It appears the everybody else knew, why didn’t our Afghan allies tell American intelligence?  Now I am just guessing here but maybe our Afghan allies weren’t giving us accurate information because they wanted us to stay. They were stuck in wishful thinking that the Americans would never leave and they would be protected forever. Or they were just plain corrupt – taking the money as long as the Americans were giving it out. Whatever they were doing, they weren’t telling us this was a hopeless cause.  Do we really owe evacuation to people who fed us 20 years of bad intelligence? Can anybody tell me why?

 It is a horrible situation, but there are millions of horrible situations on this earth – why do we have to spend any more blood, treasure and time on this one. The Afghan people supported the Taliban instead of our Afghan allies.  If we empty the country of all of the Taliban’s political opponents, we really are giving up on Afghanistan democracy. Is that what we want? Wouldn’t it be better for the Afghan opposition to stay and fight?  Again, that they want to leave instead of stay, gives you the ugly truth – it, at least for the foreseeable future, is hopeless.  And, again, why were we there?

Well, then, everybody is saying that the Americans triggered the pullout, the Taliban leaped at a chance to take over and when we decided to leave, and the Afghan government was left in the lurch. The Afghans armed services had about 300,000 people with the best equipment and technology in the world facing a smaller force of 80,000 Taliban fighters with older weapons much of which has been captured during the course of the war. The Afghans troops didn’t get run over by a superior force, our Afghan allies left the fight before it happened. So even though everybody knew our departure date, and everybody knew the Taliban was on the march, and the Afghan army had ample time to prepare for the fight – it appears that our Afghan allies decided to head for Kabul airport instead.  

Everybody says we should have started the evacuation earlier so it could be more orderly withdrawal.  This is the most galling criticism of all.  How exactly was that supposed to work?  On one hand, we announce that the American troops are withdrawing but we are leaving you in the good hands of the Afghan army. Then, on the other hand, with a sly wink wink we say you better get out of Afghanistan because these guys couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. Don’t worry though we support the Afghan government 100 percent and we think they are going to do a swell job. We couldn’t evacuate anybody until the Afghan army got routed because to do so would have brought screams about how our evacuations were undermining confidence in our allies. And they would be right. Everybody would have had a fit if we had done that.

All those American lives, don’t we owe it to those soldiers to win this battle.  If we give up the battle, those lives were lost in vain. How long do you want to sacrifice soldiers’ lives to a losing cause?  Do we give it another 20 years? We already have 2,248 dead Americans. If we can’t win, why do we want to lose another 2,000 people? Can anyone say that additional soldiers lives would change the present outcome?  At one point do you give up on, what everybody admits to being, a hopeless cause?

And the money.  I can’t even wrap my head around two trillion dollars.  I had to write it down on a piece of paper and actually see it  — $2,000,000,000,000. If we were going to spend  2 trillion on Afghanistan, it would have been better spent giving every Afghan $50,000. Instead of fighting a vicious 20-year civil war, the Afghan people could have been sunning themselves on the French Riviera. Everyone would have been happier too.  More importantly, we wouldn’t have to worry about evacuating them now, they would already be gone.

It really takes a lot courage for President Biden to end a failing project. It’s not pretty and it is painful. I also appreciate that President Trump, a person who I rarely have a good word for, took the initial steps to leave Afghanistan. President Biden deserves kudos for keeping to the schedule despite intense pressure from the power elite to change his mind.  But, honestly, can anyone tell me what more can we do? And, if all you got is keeping American forces in Afghanistan indefinitely then you are admitting you don’t have an answer.  There is no way this enterprise would ever be successful. 

As a side note: this citizen is done with nation building. Everybody says we are bad at it and, for all I care, everybody else is free to take on any future endeavors of this sort since they know so much more about the subject.