Sunday Bloody Sunday
I'll wager that you didn't know the President covered U2 songs. It is, indeed, true. Thanks to c-bee1 on alt.binaries.slack for the tip-off.
Pat Robertson's descent into babbling lunacy continues
Noted comedian Pat Robertson is at it again. Of all the press generated by Pat's latest attempt to outdo Leno and Letterman, I think the following bit from Conspiracy Planet says it best.
Faux Christian/Terrorist Pat Robertson Makes Threat
by URI DOWBENKOFaux Christian and false prophet Pat Robertson, in a very unChristian move (actually I think they call it 'black magic') cursed the residents of Dover, Pennsylvana by announcing that "disaster" may strike their town because they "voted God out" of their city by getting rid of school board memebers who favored the so-called theory of "intelligent design" over the discredited theory of "evolution.'
Robertson, False Prophet in Chief of the so-called "Christian Broadcasting Network" 700 Club, said. "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city."
(Robertson's god AKA Satan evidently does not like rejection. And neither does Robertson, who pretends to be a "Christian.")
"Eight families had sued the district, claiming the policy violates the constitutional separation of church and state. The federal trial concluded days before Tuesday's election, but no ruling has been issued," reported AP (Associated Propaganda).
Also, The Swift Report tells us that "God denies links to Pat Robertson:"
God denied having any links to conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson yesterday after He received reports that Mr. Robertson told residents of Dover, P.A., that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting "intelligent design" and warned them of His wrath. Sources close to the Higher Being say that He is "tired" of Mr. Robertson and wants him to stop using His name.
Majority mistake, and we all suffer
One year ago I asked listeners of the Halloween election edition of my radio show to avoid voting for George W Bush. Not enough people listened, and now we’re reaping the sour fruit of another year of a sad and sorry administration’s mistakes.
Let’s examine the decisions made by this administration since you put this guy and his merry band of thugs and criminals back in office. Let’s see, the price of energy is up over thirty percent. We just learned of the death of the two thousandth soldier in Iraq. Our dead soldiers are drawn disproportionately from the ranks of the National Guard and the Reserve. This figure obscures the tens of thousands of injured and maimed whose injuries are a direct result of one of Mr. Bush’s most stupid decisions. The faux weapons of mass destruction haven’t been found, and everyone in the world now, except for the possible exception of Tony Blair and the insane extreme right, realizes that this was a ruse concocted by the military industrial complex so wonderfully symbolized by Dick Halliburton Cheney. It’s now obvious that after Mr. Bush cowed the country into a shameful military intervention in Iraq based on doctored intelligence that neither he nor any of the cronies, sycophants and toadies he put in charge had any plan for what to do once Saddam’s government was crushed. Maybe the plan was to put in Chalabi as a puppet of the regime, watch the Iraqi people bow down to him, and get the hell out of there? Fat chance. Perhaps the regime you people voted into office last year enjoys chaos and death. It certainly hasn’t hurt the profit margins of the companies they own and control, such as Halliburton and the oil companies.
These people were so intent on padding their pockets with the blood of innocents that the Vice President himself participated in a smear campaign against a critic of their foul plan. Yes, Libby’s been indicted, but justice won’t be done until Rove, Cheney and Bush are made to pay for their lies to the Congress and the American people.
“You’re doing a great job, Brownie!”
Mr. Bush is a walking icon of incompetence. It’s certain that he will never make a good decision as president. He certainly hasn’t made one yet. It appears now that Brownie was a couple of weeks away from resigning as head of FEMA when Katrina struck the gulf coast. What a wonderful decision it was for Mr. Bush to appoint a toady like Brown to be the head of FEMA so he could sit around and do nothing but wonder why he hadn’t resigned a few days before the hurricane struck. How many other federal agencies are being headed by under qualified morons who gave millions of dollars to Bush’s re-election campaign? How many of these agencies that you fund and you depend on are now crippled because of many other bad decisions Mr. Bush has made?
Now Bush and his political “base” wants to legislate more tax cuts (for the rich) while simultaneously funding the unprecedented disaster recovery for the Gulf Coast, and they’re going to pull off this rabbit-in-the-hat trick by cutting funds for “discretionary programs” (for the poor).
The next time you wonder why our cities are overrun by gangs and our rural country is dying of meth, consider how Mr. Bush’s tax cuts force our schools to teach poor girls how to be seamstresses and hairdressers instead of teaching them mathematics and science. I’m sure many of you will have the gall to get all whiny when you see the good jobs get outsourced to third world countries.
Think about Mr. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich when you’re almost bankrupt caring for an elderly relative in a society where the pharmaceutical companies, those who benefit from Mr. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” spend tens of billions dollars a year on advertising.
And yet, you felt that “family values” was more important. You’re so fucking scared that your kid’s teacher’s a devil worshiping lesbian who’s rending the moral fabric of America that you’ve traded good government for a road to ruin. Have you listened to some of the “family values” that windbags like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Pat Robertson have espoused lately? They could give a shit about family values. All they care about are themselves. They don’t care about you, or your family, or your community, or your church, or your quality of life. They want money and they don’t care how they get it. They can even call for the assassination of the head of a foreign state from a fake pulpit and ask for more money to serve Christ’s mission. Well, if that’s your idea of Christ and Christianity, I don’t want anything to do with it.
Did all of you pseudo-religious pobuckers vote for Mr. Bush because of “family values”? Tell me how much better off your family is today with Mr. Bush instead of any other alternative. Is your life any better because the man with true religious morals is in the White House? You mother fucking hypocrites make me sick. Bush and his regime aren’t in it for you or your phony morals. They’re in it for number one. Number one is themselves and their big businesses, most of which dodge the tax laws that suck a big percentage out of your paycheck to fund the chaos and anarchy that every day costs more lives in a hellhole in the Middle East ten thousand miles away. Number one is fulfilling a thirty year dream of stacking the Supreme Court disproportionably with far right ideologues who, like themselves, could give a shit about you or your quality of life.
You voted for him, I didn’t.
Coming Apart at the Seams
The following is excerpted from RetroKitten, written by Daniel Hamil Goode and dated November 1, 2005.
Sometimes, there is little satisfaction in saying "I told you so". It would be nice to have the time to be smug and lord the failures of the current administration over them, but this isn't a high school science fair or a pregnancy test taken by someone you hate. This is our future and it's not looking that bright.I've written before about the frightening tendency of the people in power to keep mouthing lies over an over like a mantra, in the hopes that someday, it would be true. Didn't you know, if you say something enough, it becomes real.
"Mission Accomplished?" - Bite my shiny metal ass.
We've now had over two-thousand American death's in Iraq now and ten times than many Iraqi's. All so that we could punish the people who had nothing to do with 911. The Weapons of Mass Destruction that were our justification for starting this unjust war have never been found. We are stuck prosecuting Saddam for atrocities that we funded during a time when he was our Ally. Peachy.
At least it looks like Karl Rove and Scooter Libby may take a hit for getting caught outing a CIA operative, but who will take the hit for the war that never should have been fought? The Vice President is probably more responsible than anyone, but not a word has been spoken about that. What's frightening is that the Puppet Masters have been reigned in a little, but the puppet is now running around without his strings. If we learned anything from Pinocchio, its that letting puppets make their own decisions is generally a bad thing.
This wouldn't frighten me so much, but this particular puppet thinks he's the Messiah and that his decisions are mandated by god.
I tend to not voice my personal political opinions here, I believe that diversity of thought is important, but I think that's why the Nascar Dad's even had a chance to steer the future of the country. Well, look where it got us.
We have a lot of work to do, and there are many enormous messes to clean up. I'd like to be smug about being right, but for now, I'll just let Tom DeLay be smug. Hopefully, he'll smug himself right through his three to five.
One very callous president, revisited
The following is from a forum on deoxy.org. I'm glad that our contributions to radio4all.net are bearing fruit, and that people are listening and paying attention.
Notes from One very callous president, by Michael Ketter [originally broadcast at 0300 UTC in Sunday, September 4, 2005, on WBCQ 7.415 -- Lw](the rant starts 10 minutes in, these notes start at 17:42)
"If there is blame to be attached to anything that has happened over this past week it does fall squarely on the shoulders of one man...that man is our president George W. Bush. He made several key decisions, straight along the line, that have jeapordized many of the efforts of an agency that is bought and paid for by us: FEMA. He replaced people who were competent at their jobs, and who had proven that they truly were worthy of the positions they held, and replaced them with cronies and bureaucrats with absolutely no background in emergency management. That was a key mistake."
"Now let's go another step futher.When George W. Bush took office FEMA said we really have three basic threats that we are concerned about. One is an attack on New York City. Two is an earthquake on the San Andreas fault, and Three is a category five hurricane hitting New Orleans."
"One of the key decisions that George W. Bush made was that the project of restoring the dams and levees throughout the New Orleans area, throughtout the whole Mississippi basin actually, were to be suspended and that money was to be spent on "homeland security". "
"Why didn't our government respond in time to the people of New Orleans? Unfortunately it is extremely straightforward. They were behaving in either an extremely callous, or a very very very clueless way...When you consider that...a week ago tonight, saturday, there was a clear indication that New Orleans was going to be hit by a severe hurricane. Ordinarily there would be water buffalos waiting in Texas, in Arkansas, in Missouri, in all these places they would be gathering saying, ok whoever's closest when things happen, you just head there, and that was because one person, the head of FEMA, was saying ok, this is important, get ready!"
"The Corps of Engineers gets things done, and you know where they're getting things done right now? In Iraq, and that is shameful...and isn't it odd that the National Guard is in Iraq? Because that wasn't supposed to happen...but somehow, some crazy way George W. Bush saw fit to send our National Guard...see, let's dissect that word: "National" "Guard"."
"It took 24 hours to get all the things necessary done in Florida to have the Shaivo woman kept alive on a respirator...They can get people together in 24 hours to respond to that, it took a whole week to allocate funds."
"George W. Bush, the son of George Herbert Walker Bush, has never been successful. One would think that to be president of the United States of America you would've had to have been good at something, but unfortunately G W Bush has never been good at anything. "
"He had the nerve to say, yesterday, that no one could possibly have forseen the levees breaking. He said that to the people of New Orleans while in New Orleans, and if ever there were a misstatement, that was it. Didn't somebody say Mr. President, this has been an issue for many many years, why, why wasn't this made a priority, why is there no plan?"
"Let this sink in very very clearly. If anything goes wrong in this country right now there is no plan. They have been lying to you. This is evidence of that. Southern Louisiana and parts of Mississippi are like a third-world country. But think about it, how far away are they from anything? It's not as though it's impossible to get there, it's actually somewhat easy to get there."
"Now answer me this, United States government, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, anyone who wants to claim any of the, well responsibility would just be too light of a word, the damnation for this fiasco, why was it on tuesday night and wednesday day when the Canadian government said we have planes ready to dispatch...for "homeland security" reasons they were kept out of the United States? Do you know also that Mexico and the United Kingdom also made similar offers? They had people, equipment, material, ready to go."
"What has happened over this past week has shown us very very clearly that...it doesn't matter, pick a city pick any city, there is no plan, there will be no help. They have taken and spent so much money on star wars--hundreds of billions, that's with a b, thousands of millions, that's what a billion is...a thousand million--hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent in GW's adminstration on star wars. It does not work. It is not protecting us. The threat from that is not as real as the threat of other things happening."
"George Bush, when he took office was told clearly there were three threats that FEMA thought were important. This is the FEMA organization that worked, the one that up until the year 2001, when George Bush took office, actually was a functioning real entity that got things done. And mind you, at that point our national guard, and the army corps of engineers and our soldiers were here in the United States, Now remember that, he was told clearly an attack on New York City, and then August of 2001 he was told planes, Osama bin Laden, attack on New York City."
"Now the second threat, well, earthquakes on the San Andreas fault. I sincerely hope that people out there have made preparations and that they are going to do what essentialy is going to be required of them and in a very zen way, you know, I hope it all works out because all of us are expendable in the Bush Administration. Republicans and democrats alike, we are expendable. Isn't that sick?"
"Point three...a huge hurricane on the Gulf Coast would be devastating to the United States for many reasons..."
"Now again, George W. Bush, the man who has never made a good decision in his life, who somehow got elected to a second term in presidency, how did you not see this as being a priority?"
"It became Lord of the Flies...you want to know why that happened? That happened because the obvious had not been dealt with...Once they got to the superdome why weren't there troop transports put there right away, because we have training bases in all states. How long could it possibly take to react? When you see our troops moving in there to New Orleans it is a sad and sickening sight because what you see is panic. Moving into New Orleans as a soldier is the same as going to war in Iraq. You don't know what you're going to find, there's snakes and alligators and dead bodies in the water and some of the people are shooting at you and nobodys got a uniform and what the hell's going on? And there were people who hadn't had water in three, four, five days."
"What about Iraq? Iraq was a middle class society that had really nothing to do with the "war on terror". The weapons of mass destructions nonsense was exactly that, a bunch of trumped up nonsense, that no one believed, except George Bush wanted to go back and do what his daddy didn't do, and it's the most assinine thing that could've happened because you know what happened at that point? We took a good middle class society, who sure enough had a dictator...and...we destroyed their society. The United States of America preemtively attacked Iraq. It was the stupidest thing to do. It is so wrong, it is entirely unamerican and I personally am ashamed of it because we have deprived them of the essentials of life. Look at the statistics right now, no drinking water in Iraq, no electricity, you're lucky to get one , two hours a day in cities. Complete lawlessness, no army, no police force to speak of, no security. All of these stuff we're sold as being these real achievements are achievements over the fact that we bombed the living shit out of them. We destroyed their infrastructure completely, much the same way as the flooding in New Orleans has destroyed its infrastructure. And you see what happens...people become like ants, they just swarm out of the damage and they just try to gather their lives together, and all around them chaos is breaking out, and the basic humanitarian issues are the last to be dealt with in an administration like this."
"Look at the stock market. Look at the top three earners this week, two oil companies and Haliburton. Gas is over six dollars a gallon in Atlanta and George Bush will not enact caps, he says it's good for the economy, this is supply and demand. Well King George you motherfucker I have had it with you...I have never ever ever in my wildest dreams thought that there could be someone as incompetent as you running this country, and I hope that we as a country have the ability to withstand the damage you are doing to us."
"What has the four years since September 11th taught you George Bush? What has anything taught you? You never made a good decision in your life."
"All of you poor people out there who voted for George Bush, all of you upright christian people who make up the majority of rural america, you made a foolish decision and we are all paying for it now."
"George Herbert Walker Bush, do you hear me? You bailed out your son, you and your buddies bailed out you son. You thought it would be a good idea. See what you did? You put an incompetent person in office. You have more in common with Bill Clinton than you do with your own son."
"You realize that wherever the president goes there has to be a huge entourage that accompanies him, and that to create what they call a staging area is really an elaborate thing. Now they were able to make a staging area for the president, they were able to make places for him to go. Now you tell me, no matter how casual that may have looked, structurally that was quite a feat, logistically that was quite a feat, and they pulled it off, so he could tell the people of New Orleans that no one ever could have suspected that those levees could have broken. Idiot! I mean, George Herbert Walker Bush why did you not box that boy's ears?"
"How many americans are going to be caught up in this terrible wheel of destruction that Bush has created?"
"Doesn't it strike you as odd the group of people who are in there now, how inhuman they behave, and how there seems to be no accountability for the bad behavior? It's like the emperor's new clothes."
"All of you out there your fuel bills are going up two to three times this winter, and George W. Bush has no intention of stopping it. He thinks it is good that people starve, he thinks it is good that people will freeze to death, he thinks that it is good because he has no contact with the real world. If you had hundreds of millions of dollars would you know the price of a loaf of bread? Would you even care how much it cost to put fuel in your Hummer? If you had hundreds of millions of dollars, especially if it were invested in oil companies...would you care?"
"This has got to stop. Regime change begins at home. The american system is stronger than George Bush and his administration, the american people are stronger than George Bush and his administration, and we have to take control of this. If we don't do it now we will not have the opportunity."
"I hope you're paying attention. The time has come my friends and we better start doing something about or we're not going to have the opportunity to do it. I hope and I pray for everyone in New Orleans, the worst it yet to come. So many people have died, so much work yet to do, so much human devastation, and one very very callous president."
A God with Whom I am not Familiar
The following article by Tim Wise originally appeared on www.counterpunch.com, in the September 3/4 weekend edition.
"Those Looters Should be Shot, Praise the Lord, and Pass the Guacamole!"This is an open letter to the man sitting behind me at La Paz today, in Nashville, at lunchtime, with the Brooks Brothers shirt:
You don't know me. But I know you.
I watched you as you held hands with your tablemates at the restaurant where we both ate this afternoon. I listened as you prayed, and thanked God for the food you were about to eat, and for your own safety, several hundred miles away from the unfolding catastrophe in New Orleans.
You blessed your chimichanga in the name of Jesus Christ, and then proceeded to spend the better part of your meal--and mine, since I was too near your table to avoid hearing every word--morally scolding the people of that devastated city, heaping scorn on them for not heeding the warnings to leave before disaster struck. Then you attacked them--all of them, without distinction it seemed--for the behavior of a relative handful: those who have looted items like guns, or big screen TVs.I heard you ask, amid the din of your colleagues "Amens," why it was that instead of pitching in to help their fellow Americans, the people of New Orleans instead--again, all of them in your mind--chose to steal and shoot at relief helicopters.
I watched you wipe salsa from the corners of your mouth, as you nodded agreement to the statement of one of your friends, sitting to your right, her hair neatly coiffed, her makeup flawless, her jewelry sparkling. When you asked, rhetorically, why it was that people were so much more decent amid the tragedy of 9-11, as compared to the aftermath of Katrina, she had offered her response, but only after apologizing for what she admitted was going to sound harsh.
"Well," Buffy explained. "It's probably because in New Orleans, it seems to be mostly poor people, and you know, they just don't have the same regard."
She then added that police should shoot the looters, and should have done so from the beginning, so as to send a message to the rest that theft would not be tolerated. You, who had just thanked Jesus for your chips and guacamole, said you agreed. They should be shot. Praise the Lord.
Your God is one with whom I am not familiar.
Two thoughts.
First, it is a very fortunate thing for you, and likely for me, that my two young children were with me as I sat there, choking back fish tacos and my own seething rage, listening to you pontificate about shit you know nothing about.
Have you ever even been to New Orleans?
And no, by that I don't mean the New Orleans of your company's sales conference. I don't mean Emeril's New Orleans, or the New Orleans of Uptown Mardi Gras parties.
I mean the New Orleans that is buried as if it were Atlantis, in places like the lower 9th ward: 98 percent black, 40 percent poor, where bodies are floating down the street, flowing with the water as it seeks its own level. Have you met the people from that New Orleans? The New Orleans that is dying as I write this, and as you order another sweet tea?
I didn't think so.
Your God--the one to whom you prayed today, and likely do before every meal, because this gesture proves what a good Christian you are--is one with whom I am not familiar.
Your God is one who you sincerely believe gives a flying fuck about your lunch. Your God is one who you seem to believe watches over you and blesses you, and brings good tidings your way, while simultaneously letting thousands of people watch their homes be destroyed, and perhaps ten thousand or more die, many of them in the streets for lack of water or food.
Did you ever stop to think just what a rancid asshole such a God would have to be, such that he would take care of the likes of you, while letting babies die in their mother's arms, and old people in wheelchairs, at the foot of Canal Street?
Your God is one with whom I am not familiar.
But no, it isn't God who's the asshole here, Skip (or Brad, or Braxton, or whatever your name is).
God doesn't feed you, and it isn't God that kept me from turning around and beating your lily white privileged ass today either.
God has nothing to do with it.
God doesn't care who wins the Super Bowl.
God doesn't help anyone win an Academy Award.
God didn't get you your last raise, or your SUV.
And if God is even half as tired as I am of having to listen to self-righteous bastards like you blame the victims of this nightmare for their fate, then you had best eat slowly from this point forward.
Why didn't they evacuate like they were told?
Are you serious?
There are 100,000 people in that city without cars. Folks who are too poor to own their own vehicle, and who rely on public transportation every day. I know this might shock you. They don't have a Hummer2, or whatever gas-guzzling piece of crap you either already own or probably are saving up for.
And no, they didn't just choose not to own a car because the buses are so gosh-darned efficient and great, as Rush Limbaugh implied yesterday, and as you likely heard, since you're the kind of person who hangs on the every word of such bloviating hacks as these.
Why did they loot?
Are you serious?
People are dying, in the streets, on live television. Fathers and mothers are watching their baby's eyes bulge in their skulls from dehydration, and you are begrudging them some Goddamned candy bars, diapers and water?
If anything the poor of New Orleans have exercised restraint.
Maybe you didn't know it, but the people of that city with whom you likely identify--the wealthy white folks of Uptown--were barely touched by this storm. Yeah, I guess God was watching over them: protecting them, and rewarding them for their faith and superior morality. If the folks downtown who are waiting desperately for their government to send help--a government whose resources have been stretched thin by a war that I'm sure you support, because you love freedom and democracy--were half as crazed as you think, they'd march down St. Charles Avenue right now and burn every mansion in sight. That they aren't doing so suggests a decency and compassion for their fellow man and woman that sadly people like you lack.
Can you even imagine what you would do in their place?
Can you imagine what would happen if it were well-off white folks stranded like this without buses to get them out, without nourishment, without hope?
Putting aside the absurdity of the imagery--after all, such folks always have the means to seek safety, or the money to rebuild, or the political significance to ensure a much speedier response for their concerns--can you just imagine?
Can you imagine what would happen if the pampered, overfed corporate class, which complains about taxes taking a third of their bloated incomes, had to sit in the hot sun for four, going on five days? Without a Margarita or hotel swimming pool to comfort them I mean?
Oh, and please, I know. I'm stereotyping you. Imagine that. I've assumed, based only on your words, what kind of person you are, even though I suppose I could be wrong. How does that feel Biff? Hurt your feelings? So sorry. But hey, at least my stereotypes of you aren't deadly. They won't effect your life one bit, unlike the ones you carry around with you and display within earshot of people like me, supposing that no one could possibly disagree.
But I'm not wrong am I Chip? I know you. I see people like you all the time, in airports, in business suits, on their lunch breaks. People who will take advantage of any opportunity to ratify and reify their pre-existing prejudices towards the poor, towards black folks. You see the same three video loops of the same dozen or so looters on Fox News and you conclude that poor black people are crazy, immoral, criminal.
You, or others quite a bit like you, are the ones posting messages on chat room boards, calling looters sub-human "vermin," "scum," or "cockroaches." I heard you use the word "animals" three times today: you and that woman across from you--what was her name? Skyler?
What was it you said as you scooped the last bite of black beans and rice into your eager mouth? Like zoo animals? Yes, I think that was it.
Well, Chuck, it's a free country, and so you certainly have the right I suppose to continue lecturing the poor, in between checking your Blackberry and dropping the kids off at soccer practice. If you want to believe that the poor of New Orleans are immoral and greedy, and unworthy of support at a time like this--or somehow more in need of your scolding than whatever donation you might make to a relief fund--so be it.
But let's leave God out of it, shall we? All of it.
Your God is one with whom I am not familiar, and I'd prefer to keep it that way.
Hey media, are you listening?
Just in case this goes away any time soon, I am including the last posting from Lopez' page on 98 Rock's web site below.
IN MEMORIAMTO EXPRESS MY SHAME AND SORROW AS AN AMERICAN AND AS A HUMAN BEING THAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND MANY AMERICANS WHO BRAG ABOUT BEING "CHRISTIANS" HAVE SO SHAMELESSLY EXPLOITED THE LIVING CORPSE OF TERRI SCHAIVO FOR THEIR OWN SELFISH POLITICAL ENDS, EXPOSING THIS HELPLESS WOMAN TO THE CRASSNESS OF COMMERCIAL "INFOTAINMENT" MEDIA WITHOUT HER PERMISSION OR COMPREHENSION, 15 YEARS AFTER SHE BECAME UNABLE TO EXPRESS HER DESIRES, AND MANY YEARS AFTER THERE WAS ANY REAL HOPE FOR HER RECOVERY.
AND, BY THE WAY, THE NEWS MEDIA -- ESPECIALLY TELEVISION -- OWE A SPECIAL PENANCE FOR COVERING THIS SHAMEFUL STORY LIKE SOME KIND OF SPORTING EVENT INSTEAD OF INFORMING THE PUBLIC AS TO THE TRUTH OF THE APPALLING EXPLOITATION OF TERRI SHAIVO BY RAPACIOUS POLITICIANS AND LYING SELF-IMPORTANT DEMAGOGUES GOING ALL THE WAY TO UP TO THE WHITE HOUSE, THE VATICAN AND "CHRISTIAN" CENTERS OF POWER TOO NUMEROUS OR TRIVIAL TO NAME.
-APRIL, 2005
The 23rd Psalm According to Dubya
I found this one on rec.radio.shortwave lately, plagarized from The Washington Spectator.
Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want. He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests. He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness. He restoreth my fears. He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war, I will find no exit, for thou art in office. Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discount me. Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion. Thou anointest my head with foreign oil. My health insurance runneth out. Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term, And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.
The Incredible Senator Moron
Stupid Washington politicians always seem to come up with the best sound bytes. This time, we have some sewage from Arlen Specter, chair of the Judiciary Committee, commenting on the treatment of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales during Attorney General confirmation hearings. The following statement was made by Specter was broadcast this morning on NPR's Morning Edition radio show (Wednesday, February 2, 2005):
..if the winds of Guantanamo Bay and the winds of Abu Ghraib hadn't blown across this hearing, I think, perhaps, we would have had a unanimous vote in favor of Judge Gonzales. In this highly charged political atmosphere...one has to wonder if he isn't being a torture victim himself.
Yeah, right. A bunch of senators grilling a Judge with heated invective constitutes torture. Maybe we should subject Senator Specter to some of the tactics used by American citizens in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, and elsewhere. Perhaps he might be enlightened by this experience and correct his definition.
Specter obviously has about as much sense as a horse's ass, so we should not be surprised in the future when he responds to some partisan bickering on the chamber floors in the Capitol by comparing those opposed to his viewpoint "terrorists."
What an incredible moron.
He's a sick Republican sleazeball with the face of a horse's ass
Thanks to the Pab Subgenius Project and RNI's rebroadcast of Pab's most recent show, I came across a cute little ditty attributed to WNNX in Atlanta. The song is entitled "I'm A Nazi" and is sung by none other than Rush Limbaugh himself.
Peace & The New Corporate Liberation Theology
Here is a speech delivered by Arundhati Roy, on her award of the 2004 Syndey Peace Prize. I am reposting it here for those of you who might not want to register at the originating news site.
The 2004 Sydney Peace Prize lecture delivered by Arundhati Roy, at the Seymour Theatre Centre, University of Sydney.
Peace & The New Corporate Liberation Theology
It's official now. The Sydney Peace Foundation is neck deep in the business of gambling and calculated risk. Last year, very courageously, it chose Dr Hanan Ashrawi of Palestine for the Sydney Peace Prize. And, as if that were not enough, this year - of all the people in the world - it goes and chooses me!
However I'd like to make a complaint. My sources inform me that Dr Ashrawi had a picket all to herself. This is discriminatory. I demand equal treatment for all Peace Prizees. May I formally request the Foundation to organize a picket against me after the lecture? From what I've heard, it shouldn't be hard to organize. If this is insufficient notice, then tomorrow will suit me just as well.
When this year's Sydney Peace Prize was announced, I was subjected to some pretty arch remarks from those who know me well: Why did they give it to the biggest trouble-maker we know? Didn't anybody tell them that you don't have a peaceful bone in your body? And, memorably, Arundhati didi what's the Sydney Peace Prize? Was there a war in Sydney that you helped to stop?
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Speaking for myself, I am utterly delighted to receive the Sydney Peace Prize. But I must accept it as a literary prize that honors a writer for her writing, because contrary to the many virtues that are falsely attributed to me, I'm not an activist, nor the leader of any mass movement, and I'm certainly not the "voice of the voiceless". (We know of course there's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.) I am a writer who cannot claim to represent anybody but herself. So even though I would like to, it would be presumptuous of me to say that I accept this prize on behalf of those who are involved in the struggle of the powerless and the disenfranchised against the powerful. However, may I say I accept it as the Sydney Peace Foundation's expression of solidarity with a kind of politics, a kind of world-view, that millions of us around the world subscribe to?
It might seem ironic that a person who spends most of her time thinking of strategies of resistance and plotting to disrupt the putative peace, is given a peace prize. You must remember that I come from an essentially feudal country -and there are few things more disquieting than a feudal peace. Sometimes there's truth in old cliches. There can be no real peace without justice. And without resistance there will be no justice.
Today, it is not merely justice itself, but the idea of justice that is under attack. The assault on vulnerable, fragile sections of society is at once so complete, so cruel and so clever - all encompassing and yet specifically targeted, blatantly brutal and yet unbelievably insidious - that its sheer audacity has eroded our definition of justice. It has forced us to lower our sights, and curtail our expectations. Even among the well-intentioned, the expansive, magnificent concept of justice is gradually being substituted with the reduced, far more fragile discourse of 'human rights'.
If you think about it, this is an alarming shift of paradigm. The difference is that notions of equality, of parity have been pried loose and eased out of the equation. It's a process of attrition. Almost unconsciously, we begin to think of justice for the rich and human rights for the poor. Justice for the corporate world, human rights for its victims. Justice for Americans, human rights for Afghans and Iraqis. Justice for the Indian upper castes, human rights for Dalits and Adivasis (if that.) Justice for white Australians, human rights for Aboriginals and immigrants (most times, not even that.)
It is becoming more than clear that violating human rights is an inherent and necessary part of the process of implementing a coercive and unjust political and economic structure on the world. Without the violation of human rights on an enormous scale, the neo-liberal project would remain in the dreamy realm of policy. But increasingly Human Rights violations are being portrayed as the unfortunate, almost accidental fallout of an otherwise acceptable political and economic system. As though they're a small problem that can be mopped up with a little extra attention from some NGOs. This is why in areas of heightened conflict - in Kashmir and in Iraq for example - Human Rights Professionals are regarded with a degree of suspicion. Many resistance movements in poor countries which are fighting huge injustice and questioning the underlying principles of what constitutes "liberation" and "development", view Human Rights NGOs as modern day missionaries who've come to take the ugly edge off Imperialism. To defuse political anger and to maintain the status quo.
It has been only a few weeks since a majority of Australians voted to re-elect Prime Minister John Howard who, among other things, led Australia to participate in the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq will surely go down in history as one of the most cowardly wars ever fought. It was a war in which a band of rich nations, armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, rounded on a poor nation, falsely accused it of having nuclear weapons, used the United Nations to force it to disarm, then invaded it, occupied it and are now in the process of selling it.
I speak of Iraq, not because everybody is talking about it, (sadly at the cost of leaving other horrors in other places to unfurl in the dark), but because it is a sign of things to come. Iraq marks the beginning of a new cycle. It offers us an opportunity to watch the Corporate-Military cabal that has come to be known as 'Empire' at work. In the new Iraq the gloves are off.
As the battle to control the world's resources intensifies, economic colonialism through formal military aggression is staging a comeback. Iraq is the logical culmination of the process of corporate globalization in which neo-colonialism and neo-liberalism have fused. If we can find it in ourselves to peep behind the curtain of blood, we would glimpse the pitiless transactions taking place backstage. But first, briefly, the stage itself.
In 1991 US President George Bush senior mounted Operation Desert Storm. Tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed in the war. Iraq's fields were bombed with more than 300 tonnes of depleted uranium, causing a fourfold increase in cancer among children. For more than 13 years, twenty four million Iraqi people have lived in a war zone and been denied food and medicine and clean water. In the frenzy around the US elections, let's remember that the levels of cruelty did not fluctuate whether the Democrats or the Republicans were in the White House. Half a million Iraqi children died because of the regime of economic sanctions in the run up to Operation Shock and Awe. Until recently, while there was a careful record of how many US soldiers had lost their lives, we had no idea of how many Iraqis had been killed. US General Tommy Franks said "We don't do body counts" (meaning Iraqi body counts). He could have added "We don't do the Geneva Convention either." A new, detailed study, fast-tracked by the Lancet medical journal and extensively peer reviewed, estimates that 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives since the 2003 invasion. That's one hundred halls full of people - like this one. That's one hundred halls full of friends, parents, siblings, colleagues, lovers.like you. The difference is that there aren't many children here todaylet's not forget Iraq's children. Technically that bloodbath is called precision bombing. In ordinary language, it's called butchering,
Most of this is common knowledge now. Those who support the invasion and vote for the invaders cannot take refuge in ignorance. They must truly believe that this epic brutality is right and just or, at the very least, acceptable because it's in their interest.
So the 'civilized' 'modern' world - built painstakingly on a legacy of genocide, slavery and colonialism - now controls most of the world's oil. And most of the world's weapons, most of the world's money, and most of the world's media. The embedded, corporate media in which the doctrine of Free Speech has been substituted by the doctrine of Free If You Agree Speech.
The UN's Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix said he found no evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq. Every scrap of evidence produced by the US and British governments was found to be false - whether it was reports of Saddam Hussein buying uranium from Niger, or the report produced by British Intelligence which was discovered to have been plagiarized from an old student dissertation. And yet, in the prelude to the war, day after day the most 'respectable' newspapers and TV channels in the US , headlined the 'evidence' of Iraq's arsenal of weapons of nuclear weapons. It now turns out that the source of the manufactured 'evidence' of Iraq's arsenal of nuclear weapons was Ahmed Chalabi who, (like General Suharto of Indonesia, General Pinochet of Chile, the Shah of Iran, the Taliban and of course, Saddam Hussein himself) - was bankrolled with millions of dollars from the good old CIA.
And so, a country was bombed into oblivion. It's true there have been some murmurs of apology. Sorry 'bout that folks, but we have really have to move on. Fresh rumours are coming in about nuclear weapons in Eye-ran and Syria. And guess who is reporting on these fresh rumours? The same reporters who ran the bogus 'scoops' on Iraq. The seriously embedded A Team.
The head of Britain's BBC had to step down and one man committed suicide because a BBC reporter accused the Blair administration of 'sexing up' intelligence reports about Iraq's WMD programme. But the head of Britain retains his job even though his government did much more than 'sex up' intelligence reports. It is responsible for the illegal invasion of a country and the mass murder of its people.
Visitors to Australia like myself, are expected to answer the following question when they fill in the visa form: Have you ever committed or been involved in the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity or human rights? Would George Bush and Tony Blair get visas to Australia? Under the tenets of International Law they must surely qualify as war criminals.
However, to imagine that the world would change if they were removed from office is naive. The tragedy is that their political rivals have no real dispute with their policies. The fire and brimstone of the US election campaign was about who would make a better 'Commander-in-Chief' and a more effective manager of the American Empire. Democracy no longer offers voters real choice. Only specious choice.
Even though no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq - stunning new evidence has revealed that Saddam Hussein was planning a weapons programme. (Like I was planning to win an Olympic Gold in synchronized swimming.) Thank goodness for the doctrine of pre-emptive strike. God knows what other evil thoughts he harbored - sending Tampax in the mail to American senators, or releasing female rabbits in burqas into the London underground. No doubt all will be revealed in the free and fair trial of Saddam Hussein that's coming up soon in the New Iraq.
All except the chapter in which we would learn of how the US and Britain plied him with money and material assistance at the time he was carrying out murderous attacks on Iraqi Kurds and Shias. All except the chapter in which we would learn that a 12,000 page report submitted by the Saddam Hussein government to the UN, was censored by the United States because it lists twenty-four US corporations that participated in Iraq's pre-Gulf War nuclear and conventional weapons programme. (They include Bechtel, DuPont, , Eastman Kodak, Hewlett Packard, International Computer Systems and Unisys.)
So Iraq has been 'liberated.' Its people have been subjugated and its markets have been 'freed'. That's the anthem of neo-liberalism. Free the markets. Screw the people.
The US government has privatized and sold entire sectors of Iraq's economy. Economic policies and tax laws have been re-written. Foreign companies can now buy 100% of Iraqi firms and expatriate the profits. This is an outright violation of international laws that govern an occupying force, and is among the main reasons for the stealthy, hurried charade in which power was 'handed over' to an 'interim Iraqi government'. Once handing over of Iraq to the Multi-nationals is complete, a mild dose of genuine democracy won't do any harm. In fact it might be good PR for the Corporate version of Liberation Theology, otherwise known as New Democracy.
Not surprisingly, the auctioning of Iraq caused a stampede at the feeding trough. Corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, the company that US Vice-president Dick Cheney once headed, have won huge contracts for 'reconstruction' work. A brief c.v of any one of these corporations would give us a lay person's grasp of how it all works. - not just in Iraq, but all over the world. Say we pick Bechtel - only because poor little Halliburton is under investigation on charges of overpricing fuel deliveries to Iraq and for its contracts to 'restore' Iraq's oil industry which came with a pretty serious price-tag - 2.5 billion dollars.
The Bechtel Group and Saddam Hussein are old business acquaintances. Many of their dealings were negotiated by none other than Donald Rumsfeld. In 1988, after Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds, Bechtel signed contracts with his government to build a dual-use chemical plant in Baghdad.
Historically, the Bechtel Group has had and continues to have inextricably close links to the Republican establishment. You could call Bechtel and the Reagan Bush administration a team. Former Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger was a Bechtel general counsel. Former Deputy Secretary of Energy, W. Kenneth Davis was Bechtel's vice president. Riley Bechtel, the company chairman, is on the President's Export Council. Jack Sheehan, a retired marine corps general, is a senior vice president at Bechtel and a member of the US Defense Policy Board. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on the Board of Directors of the Bechtel Group, was the chairman of the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.
When he was asked by the New York Times whether he was concerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest between his two 'jobs', he said, "I don't know that Bechtel would particularly benefit from it [The invasion of Iraq]. But if there's work to be done, Bechtel is the type of company that could do it." Bechtel has been awarded reconstruction contracts in Iraq worth over a billion dollars, which include contracts to re-build power generation plants, electrical grids, water supply, sewage systems, and airport facilities. Never mind revolving doors, this -if it weren't so drenched in blood- would be a bedroom farce.
Between 2001 and 2002, nine out of thirty members of the US Defense Policy Group were connected to companies that were awarded Defense contracts worth 76 billion dollars. Time was when weapons were manufactured in order to fight wars. Now wars are manufactured in order to sell weapons.
Between 1990 and 2002 the Bechtel group has contributed $3.3 million to campaign funds, both Republican and Democrat. Since 1990 it has won more than 2000 government contracts worth more than 11 billion dollars. That's an incredible return on investment, wouldn't you say?
And Bechtel has footprints around the world. That's what being a multi-national means.
The Bechtel Group first attracted international attention when it signed a contract with Hugo Banzer, the former Bolivian dictator, to privatize the water supply in the city of Cochabamba. The first thing Bechtel did was to raise the price of water. Hundreds of thousands of people who simply couldn't afford to pay Bechtel's bills came out onto the streets. A huge strike paralyzed the city. Martial law was declared. Although eventually Bechtel was forced to flee its offices, it is currently negotiating an exit payment of millions of dollars from the Bolivian government for the loss of potential profits. Which, as we'll see, is growing into a popular corporate sport.
In India, Bechtel along with General Electric are the new owners of the notorious and currently defunct Enron power project. The Enron contract, which legally binds the Government of the State of Maharashtra to pay Enron a sum of 30 billion dollars, was the largest contract ever signed in India. Enron was not shy to boast about the millions of dollars it had spent to "educate" Indian politicians and bureaucrats. The Enron contract in Maharashtra, which was India's first 'fast-track' private power project, has come to be known as the most massive fraud in the country's history. (Enron was another of the Republican Party's major campaign contributors). The electricity that Enron produced was so exorbitant that the government decided it was cheaper not to buy electricity and pay Enron the mandatory fixed charges specified in the contract. This means that the government of one of the poorest countries in the world was paying Enron 220 million US dollars a year not to produce electricity!
Now that Enron has ceased to exist, Bechtel and GE are suing the Indian Government for 5.6 billion US dollars. This is not even a minute fraction of the sum of money that they (or Enron) actually invested in the project. Once more, it's a projection of profit they would have made had the project materialized. To give you an idea of scale 5.6 billion dollars a little more than the amount that the Government of India would need annually, for a rural employment guarantee scheme that would provide a subsistence wage to millions of people currently living in abject poverty, crushed by debt, displacement, chronic malnutrition and the WTO. This in a country where farmers steeped in debt are being driven to suicide, not in their hundreds, but in their thousands. The proposal for a Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is being mocked by India's corporate class as an unreasonable, utopian demand being floated by the 'lunatic' and newly powerful left. Where will the money come from? they ask derisively. And yet, any talk of reneging on a bad contract with a notoriously corrupt corporation like Enron, has the same cynics hyperventilating about capital flight and the terrible risks of 'creating a bad investment climate'. The arbitration between Bechtel, GE and the Government of India is taking place right now in London. Bechtel and GE have reason for hope. The Indian Finance Secretary who was instrumental in approving the disastrous Enron contract has come home after a few years with the IMF. Not just home, home with a promotion. He is now Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.
Think about it: The notional profits of a single corporate project would be enough to provide a hundred days of employment a year at minimum wages (calculated at a weighted average across different states) for 25 million people. That's five million more than the population of Australia. That is the scale of the horror of neo-liberalism.
The Bechtel story gets worse. In what can only be called unconscionable, Naomi Klein writes that Bechtel has successfully sued war-torn Iraq for 'war reparations' and 'lost profits'. It has been awarded 7 million dollars.
So, all you young management graduates don't bother with Harvard and Wharton - here's the Lazy Manager's Guide to Corporate Success: First, stock your Board with senior government servants. Next, stock the government with members of your board. Add oil and stir. When no one can tell where the government ends and your company begins, collude with your government to equip and arm a cold-blooded dictator in an oil-rich country. Look away while he kills his own people. Simmer gently. Use the time collect to collect a few billion dollars in government contracts. Then collude with your government once again while it topples the dictator and bombs his subjects, taking to specifically target essential infrastructure, killing a hundred thousand people on the side. Pick up another billion dollars or so worth of contracts to 'reconstruct' the infrastructure. To cover travel and incidentals, sue for reparations for lost profits from the devastated country. Finally, diversify. Buy a TV station, so that next war around you can showcase your hardware and weapons technology masquerading as coverage of the war. And finally finally, institute a Human Rights Prize in your company's name. You could give the first one posthumously to Mother Teresa. She won't be able to turn it down or argue back.
Invaded and occupied Iraq has been made to pay out 200 million dollars in "reparations" for lost profits to corporations like Halliburton, Shell, Mobil, Nestle, Pepsi, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Toys R Us. That's apart from its 125 billion dollar sovereign debt forcing it to turn to the IMF, waiting in the wings like the angel of death, with its Structural Adjustment program. (Though in Iraq there don't seem to be many structures left to adjust. Except the shadowy Al Qaeda.)
In New Iraq, privatization has broken new ground. The US Army is increasingly recruiting private mercenaries to help in the occupation. The advantage with mercenaries is that when they're killed they're not included in the US soldiers' body count. It helps to manage public opinion, which is particularly important in an election year. Prisons have been privatized. Torture has been privatized. We have seen what that leads to. Other attractions in New Iraq include newspapers being shut down. Television stations bombed. Reporters killed. US soldiers have opened fire on crowds of unarmed protestors killing scores of people. The only kind of resistance that has managed to survive is as crazed and brutal as the occupation itself. Is there space for a secular, democratic, feminist, non-violent resistance in Iraq? There isn't really.
That is why it falls to those of us living outside Iraq to create that mass-based, secular and non-violent resistance to the US occupation. If we fail to do that, then we run the risk of allowing the idea of resistance to be hi-jacked and conflated with terrorism and that will be a pity because they are not the same thing.
So what does peace mean in this savage, corporatized, militarized world? What does it mean in a world where an entrenched system of appropriation has created a situation in which poor countries which have been plundered by colonizing regimes for centuries are steeped in debt to the very same countries that plundered them, and have to repay that debt at the rate of 382 billion dollars a year? What does peace mean in a world in which the combined wealth of the world's 587 billionaires exceeds the combined gross domestic product of the world's 135 poorest countries? Or when rich countries that pay farm subsidies of a billion dollars a day, try and force poor countries to drop their subsidies? What does peace mean to people in occupied Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Tibet and Chechnya? Or to the aboriginal people of Australia? Or the Ogoni of Nigeria? Or the Kurds in Turkey? Or the Dalits and Adivasis of India? What does peace mean to non-muslims in Islamic countries, or to women in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan? What does it mean to the millions who are being uprooted from their lands by dams and development projects? What does peace mean to the poor who are being actively robbed of their resources and for whom everyday life is a grim battle for water, shelter, survival and, above all, some semblance of dignity? For them, peace is war.
We know very well who benefits from war in the age of Empire. But we must also ask ourselves honestly who benefits from peace in the age of Empire? War mongering is criminal. But talking of peace without talking of justice could easily become advocacy for a kind of capitulation. And talking of justice without unmasking the institutions and the systems that perpetrate injustice, is beyond hypocritical.
It's easy to blame the poor for being poor. It's easy to believe that the world is being caught up in an escalating spiral of terrorism and war. That's what allows the American President to say "You're either with us or with the terrorists." But we know that that's a spurious choice. We know that terrorism is only the privatization of war. That terrorists are the free marketers of war. They believe that the legitimate use of violence is not the sole prerogative of the State.
It is mendacious to make moral distinction between the unspeakable brutality of terrorism and the indiscriminate carnage of war and occupation. Both kinds of violence are unacceptable. We cannot support one and condemn the other.
The real tragedy is that most people in the world are trapped between the horror of a putative peace and the terror of war. Those are the two sheer cliffs we're hemmed in by. The question is: How do we climb out of this crevasse?
For those who are materially well-off, but morally uncomfortable, the first question you must ask yourself is do you really want to climb out of it? How far are you prepared to go? Has the crevasse become too comfortable?
If you really want to climb out, there's good news and bad news.
The good news is that the advance party began the climb some time ago. They're already half way up. Thousands of activists across the world have been hard at work preparing footholds and securing the ropes to make it easier for the rest of us. There isn't only one path up. There are hundreds of ways of doing it. There are hundreds of battles being fought around the world that need your skills, your minds, your resources. No battle is irrelevant. No victory is too small.
The bad news is that colorful demonstrations, weekend marches and annual trips to the World Social Forum are not enough. There have to be targeted acts of real civil disobedience with real consequences. Maybe we can't flip a switch and conjure up a revolution. But there are several things we could do. For example, you could make a list of those corporations who have profited from the invasion of Iraq and have offices here in Australia. You could name them, boycott them, occupy their offices and force them out of business. If it can happen in Bolivia, it can happen in India. It can happen in Australia. Why not?
That's only a small suggestion. But remember that if the struggle were to resort to violence, it will lose vision, beauty and imagination. Most dangerous of all, it will marginalize and eventually victimize women. And a political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it and within it is no struggle at all.
The point is that the battle must be joined. As the wonderful American historian Howard Zinn put it: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train.
Arundhati Roy
Tips for rational living
Voting for G. W. Bush and his Republican, far-right religious and corporate henchmen will accelerate America`s road to ruin.
(From Glenn Hauser, DX Listening Digest 4-165, October 30, 2004.)
John Kerry for President
I work in a cubicle farm. They've been blanketing their cubicles and common spaces with the worst of the far right propaganda for a long time now. In the past, this was another thing about working in a cubical farm that one puts up with and shrugs off as something that really doesn't matter too much.
Earlier this week I happened upon a rantfest from a group of my coworkers. On this particular occasion this group were all foaming and frothing about the democrats lying about some manufactured "headline-issue" of the day. Nearby, someone had posted a facsimile of a bumper sticker with Osama bin Laden's picture on it and a caption that read "I'm voting for John Kerry."
I used to have a fun time debating politics in the office. Time was, I had a co-worker who leaned to the right, just about as much as I leaned to the left. We had a lot of fun debating the issues of the day keeping in mind how stereotypical and hilarious our debate was. It was great fun.
Now, my favorite debating partner's gone. What's left is a bunch of people who completely trash the opposing viewpoint, and have no idea how stupid and insipid they look, as they hoist the flag of righteousness and purity spewed forth from so-called "news media" like Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. They appear to have no tolerance for any other viewpoint, and they now come across as a mob of zealots.
So now their mob rant tells me that I'm a liar beacuse I just happen to be a registered Democrat. And they implicitly state that I am somehow allied with Osama bin Laden and I support terrorists beacuse I support an alternative to GW Bush.
What's happening here? When did dissent become dangerous? Why does questioning the decisions of our leaders get one branded as unpatriotic, or worse, sympathetic to terrorists? When did our healthy discourse break down in such a way so that people can make such vicious and vile statements directed at people whose opinion differs just a bit? Maybe this is a reflection of the nastiness of this particular political campaign. Maybe it will fade once the election is over.
But to me, it seems that the quality of the discourse is gone. I suppose it was that Osama bin Laden bumper sticker that got me.
I would never print out and post in a public area a faux bumper sticker showing GW Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft in Nazi uniforms, gleefully stomping all over international agreements on human rights, the treatment of prisoners of war, and our own personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America. That doesn't mean I haven't thought about it. But I wouldn't print it out and stick it above the fucking printer so everyone could see it.
There's something wrong with this country today. There needs to be a reconciliation of the opposing viewpoints. In 2000, GW Bush said he would, but that turned out to be a lie. He filled up his administration with the far right. Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, the list goes on and on. There's no opposing viewpoint in the Bush administration that hasn't been forced to retire.
Sadly, there doesn't seem to be anyone in power, or anyone tring to be in power, who's capable of opening up a reconciliation between our rapidly polarizing country. And that's a shame.
And there's only one thing to say about that. Get Bush out of there.