Mark Drolette

Here’s one you can count on (unfortunately)

By Mark Drolette

It is time to admit publicly that some of my predictions of the recent past did not manifest. I believed at one time or another:

• We would bomb Iran

• Republicans would steal (ano)the(r) election

• Martial law would be declared (justified by terrorist attack, avian flu or a sudden nationwide outbreak of critical thinking)

• The Giants would win the World Series (thankfully, my meds have since been adjusted)

Except for that last one, I don’t mind being flat-out wrong about such things, regardless how much my good reputation suffers. Or might, if I had one.

A primary personal prognostication, unfortunately, has come true. Long ago I said:

Argentina confronts its past. Can America do the same to its present?

By Mark Drolette

Something I noticed about Argentines while visiting Buenos Aires recently: they seem to have an almost unquenchable thirst for living. Maybe that’s because, a generation ago, successive governments deprived horrifying numbers of them life’s most basic right -- that of continuing it.

Beginning after the May 1969 civil uprising in Córdoba and lasting until 1983, an estimated 30,000 Argentines became desaparecidos, citizens “disappeared” by right-wing dictatorships that ruled Argentina with stinging cruelty. Of particular barbaric note were the “death flights” which entailed flinging Argentines from aircraft to plummet thousands of feet into the Atlantic Ocean or the Río de la Plata, the immense river abutting Buenos Aires.

You can cry for us, Argentina

By Mark Drolette

Having (regrettably) spent much of my life in jingoistic ignorance, I never imagined I'd one day set foot in Argentina. Then again, I never imagined I'd witness an American administration whose death-dealing militarism and breathtaking corruption would dwarf those perpetrated by even the worst Latin American dictatorship, so there you are.

And, well, here I am, visiting the grand city of Buenos Aires, and just in time, too, to catch on Argentine TV the long, sad faces of investment banker after investment banker insisting a $700 billion giveaway to America's richest was what must be done, had to be done, to save the U.S. economy. And here I also am just in time to see Congress members predictably scream there'd be a bailout over their dead bodies (hmm…) before they just as predictably rubber stamped that puppy.

Boy, for a free market, it sure is expensive

By Mark Drolette

I’m afraid I just don’t get this “free market” stuff. Recent government bailouts of private companies look to me like anything but adherence to free market principles, but then, what do I know? I’m just an average American, not someone economically savvy like George W. Bush who -- well, I’m not economically savvy.

So far be it from me, at a time like this, to ignorantly chime in with unhelpful negativity about the $700 billion plan by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulsen to fund the government purchase of oodles of “toxic debt” from companies that shoulda known better, even if its cost, when added to previous bailouts of $29 billion (Bear Stearns), $200 billion (Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae) and $85 billion (AIG), shoves the total tab for the American taxpayer past a trillion dollars for 2008 alone. (The silver lining: there are only three months left!)

Think we're tough? Think again

By Mark Drolette

Last month, in her article “Dear World,” Naomi Wolf appealed to the global community to save itself by confronting America. A quote:

“We Americans are either too incapable, or too dysfunctional, to help ourselves right now. Like drug addicts or the mentally ill who refuse treatment, we need our friends to intervene. So remember us as we were in our better moments, and take action to save us -- and the world -- from ourselves.”

Wimpy-sounding, eh? I thought so, too. And I should know, since I wrote something similar three years ago in a piece called, interestingly enough, “Dear Fellow Citizens of the World...” Addressing our “non-American brothers and sisters,” I said:

You go, Hugo, and take your goody-goody goodie bags with you

By Mark Drolette

With the recent expulsion of the U.S. ambassador from Venezuela, thus greatly reducing the chances of promoting a coup, I mean, cooperation there, I see that the anti-American, thrice freely-elected dictator, Hugo Chávez, is at it again. His belligerent refusal to play fair-and-square by doing things the right way -- ours -- brings to mind something I read about the underhanded, overly-informed oppressor a couple months back in Costa Rica’s leading English-language newspaper, The Tico Times. The article lead, “[S]ome 800 (Costa Ricans) have traveled to Venezuela for free eye surgery over the last few years, 93 (in June) alone, on a gift from President Hugo Chávez’s government.”

9/11 a conspiracy? Ha! Well, OK, so it was, but not the weird kind

By Mark Drolette

As yet another September 11 approaches, like it does so often this time of year, I need to address an issue that makes my true-blue patriotic blood boil. (Even though it’s red, really.) I’m talking about the 9/11 conspiracy nuts.

Sometimes, a wave is just a wave. Welcome to Costa Rica!

By Mark Drolette

Someone asked if I’m content with my decision to leave America.

I’ll put it this way: I’m content with how content I am. Despite a leaky (new) roof, a shower drain that doesn’t, a 10-minute walk down dirt or muddy roads followed by a 20-minute bus ride to town, a neighborhood with no phone lines and a state-run phone company with no cell phone numbers, at least I’m free of one concern: When will Costa Rica attack Iran? (For one thing, it’s pretty hard to do without a military, which Costa Rica hasn’t had since 1949. For another – well, there isn’t another.)

You mean, violence isn’t the answer?

By Mark Drolette

I didn’t realize how much I didn’t miss living amidst violence until I realized I didn’t miss living amidst violence.

Actually, I’m lying. (Just practicing, in case I’m reincarnated as a Republican. Or a Democrat.) Really, I knew before I moved to Costa Rica in April I’d not pine for the latest mad pronouncement from the Bush administration -- in other words, any pronouncement from the Bush administration -- claiming that ceaseless warfare is the price peace-loving Americans must pay to, uh, live in peace.

Yeah, martial law’s really only a problem when it’s declared

By Mark Drolette

“Hey, Mark!” taunted my right-wing brother-in-law. “Who ya gonna vote for in the election?”

Dolton was seated opposite me at my parents’ golden wedding anniversary celebration. Why oh why hadn’t they gotten divorced at some point?

Teeth gritted, I plunged. “What makes you think there’ll be one?”

“Told ya!” he cackled to my sister Apolitica as he jabbed her, hard, in the ribs. As much as I loved her, she’d forfeited all potential sympathy years back with two words: “I do.”

Her beloved was just warming up.