THOUGHTS ON GASOLINE

It sure seems that every human being has at least one opinion on every conceivable subject ... No kidding, say the legions of fashionably jaded bloggers out there, with the smarmy know-it-all smirk that’s practically obligatory in this business. Fair enough -- I’ve never in my life made any claim whatsoever to originality, pithy witticism, or wide-ranging and/or in-depth knowledge about anything in particular, and that’s especially true as far as this blog stuff is concerned. All I’m doing here is mournfully, hopelessly opining into the virtual ether, same as everybody else. And my “opine” at the moment just happens to be: it sure seems that every human being has at least one opinion on every conceivable subject ...

Among many other matters, the price of gasoline has been on the vituperative tip of many a blogger’s tongue lately. From the liberal-minded, computer-addicted troglodytes who don’t get enough sun or fresh air; to the radical wing-nut freepers who, nightly, kneel in rapturous self-debasement before their plastic Karl Rove party dolls -- everybody out in the ’sphere seems to be chucking in their two cents and opinionating non-stop about the oil companies and the deadly product they peddle. Under the circumstances, there’s little to lose by joining in the general gnashing of teeth over $3 gasoline and rapacious corporate profiteering. Being a resident of Sacramento, the capital of California, makes me somewhat of a reluctant pseudo-expert on these kinds of subjects.

Making a more-than-handsome profit off the behavior of others is an old American tradition, especially when it comes to so-called “lifestyle choices” at the core of this nation’s social-cultural apparatus. In the United States, the “choice” of over-reliance on automobiles, and the crude-oil-based fuels that power them, is a perfect case in point -- particularly so here in the state of California, what with its 25 million cars and trucks (which combine for nearly 300 billion “vehicle miles” traveled annually, according to the state Air Resources Board). With such an appallingly comprehensive stranglehold on the transportation infrastructure, which applies generally across the country as a whole, it would be utterly astonishing if the oil barons didn’t do everything possible to squeeze every last dollar out of all of us. They’re doing only what they know how to do, within the narrow, predatory capitalist scheme of things, to the complete exclusion of anything else: that is, maximize profits, while having no concern at all for the consequences to the wider society. Like I said, this is a fundamental corporate attitude that’s about as all-American as anything. To believe that oil companies would act any differently, perhaps showing at least a modicum of fairness or responsibility towards the citizenry they so ruthlessly exploit for their own advantage, is absurd in the extreme.

So, if the corporate sector -- as represented, in this case, by multinational oil companies -- aided and abetted by the politicians and public institutions they own and manipulate, is hell-bent on raping the earth and milking us poor dumb chumps until there’s literally nothing left, what’s the answer then? If the mystical chimera of profit is allowed to trump all other concerns, both in the human realm and the natural world, what’s the proper response? Plainly, the answer lies in not participating, in not playing the role of passive complicity in a system of ravenous exploitation. In this case, it’s the willful acceptance of a consumerist model of existence -- a dead-end, nowhere mode of living if there ever was one. Specifically, why don’t we just opt out of the fossil-fuel based automobile culture altogether? It’s our panting eagerness to play along with this dangerous fiction, this brutal disaster of an energy source that’s only going to destroy us in the long run, that is itself the foundation of all the violence and destruction being meted out by our so-called political “leaders” upon huge portions of the earth and its sorry inhabitants. Who gives a shit if gasoline costs three dollars a gallon, or ten, or fifty cents? Stop consuming it, for crying out loud; stop providing the ownership class an incentive to continue their mindless rampage of greed -- join the struggle to establish a new, sustainable paradigm of human existence. The alternative is, well, pretty ugly and foul. And terminal.

Yeah, I know, it all sounds so trite, and far more easily said and done. But what hope is there, if we simply succumb to the despair and lurch and stagger onward, in our fog of denial, headlong toward the precipice of oblivion? Not much, actually. The only serious question then, at this very late moment, is: have we already waited too long to save ourselves? My pickled sensibilities very nearly can’t face the answer to that.

In any event, later this evening I’m planning to attend the impeachment forum being presented by the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party, which is being moderated by Mike Malloy. Perhaps we’ll uncover a new, untapped vein of energized optimism somewhere in the proceedings -- we can only hope.

A TALE OF TWO DICTATORS, AND OTHER ASSORTED ATROCITIES

Oh, what a ridiculous grab-bag of BS from which to choose this week. Whether it be the continuing personnel bloodletting inside the debased precincts of the White House, Rice's questionable shenanigans with AIPAC, "wild speculations" over the dead certainty of a US attack on Iran, the price of gasoline, or the bile-churning idea that Chimp-in-Chief Bush actually set foot in the state of California -- all just minor, individual symptoms of a much wider and extensive socio-political illness besetting this poor dumb country of ours -- well hell, what's a lazy, complaining, pissed-off fool with no life supposed to do, when presented with such an overflowing cornucopia of repulsive stupidity? It's all just too damn much to chew on, I swear.

Actually, no thinking person could possibly give two hummingbird farts about Quacker Scott McClellan; the fact that Condaleeza Rice passes on secrets to functionaries of a foreign government -- that's old news with the Leaker-in-Chief regime of an unelected drunk who just happens to be one heckuva Decider; as far as the astronomical rise in gas prices is concerned, it's rather plain that it's merely one of the subsidiary corporate benefits of all the deranged war-on-Iran talk, if not one of its immediate and deliberate goals; and even George Bush's befouling visit to California means nothing in the wider scheme of things, since he's generally regarded here as a paper-thin buffoon with a head packed with wet cement and a mouth full of hog snot. But even so, when forced to endure the never-ending stomach-churning kaleidoscope of thievery and corruption, the maelstrom of minutiae in a world that's out of control, every now and then something stands out a bit from the ordinary run of despair-riddled puke and dreck that's constantly being extruded upon our conscious minds.

For me, the one thing of distinctive character from this past week has to be the curious visit of the Chinese "president" with his equally questionable American counterpart. Having paid only scant attention to this absurd spectacle, I nevertheless can't shake the feeling that what we were reluctantly witnessing was a 21st-century version of the expedient (and, ultimately, catastrophic) Nazi-Soviet rapprochement that took place during the summer of 1939. Now, as we remember from our study of history, Hitler was, at that time, desperately determined to prevent the Soviets from joining the Allied side against him, a development which would've derailed his long-planned invasion of Poland; by offering Stalin something that the British and French would not -- that is, to divide Poland between them and to further delineate each other's spheres of influence throughout the rest of eastern Europe -- Hitler got what he needed the most: Russia's benevolent neutrality and, indeed, active participation in the destruction of Poland. The fact that the Germans eventually turned on the Soviet Union, as any moron could've predicted they would do, is of no real consequence. Political expediency is what mattered, and Stalin's cynical collusion with his arch-enemy allowed Hitler to lay the bases for further, and much more far-flung, acts of aggression and conquest -- not the least of which, against the Soviet Union itself. So, Hitler was given the green light to start the war for which he had such an insane hankering, and we all know what happened subsequently.

After watching bits and pieces of the recent Bush-Hu vaudeville routine, the main questions that come to mind are: Which one of these bastards is playing the role of Hitler, and which one is Stalin? What secret deals are being hatched out of the ponderous, but sickly fertile, political machinery of both China and the United States? What sovereign entity finds itself on the super-power auction-block now? Whose access to natural resources and lebensraum is currently at issue? Yeah, I realize that the business of concocting historical analogies is, at best, fraught with difficulties and is hardly an exact science. Or a science at all, for that matter. However, it's tough to argue with the fact that here you have two monstrous, despotically-inclined empires -- the US and China -- clearly on an historic collision course with each other. Like the Russians and Nazi Germans, they'll continue to play nice publicly, so long as there's some perceived advantage in doing so, and even conspire together when circumstances warrant. But, in the long run, a confrontation is more than inevitable -- historical logic practically requires it. It's happened many times in the past, and considering how easily human energies and intellects are bent and twisted toward the nefarious needs of the powerful, it'll happen again. Guaranteed.

I realize that this is nothing more than a hopeless, useless, and utterly bleak scenario of doom -- if you don't like it, if you're what the Rude Pundit so wonderfully describes as a "wad of fuck," or if you're just an empty-headed optimist who's too deluded and distracted to sniff out the truth ... well, that's not really my problem.

By the way, the Rude Pundit is a real blog, not the phony "wad of fuck" you see here.

NUCLEAR WAR ON IRAN ... ? UH...

I don’t mind admitting that my imagination can’t really encompass the idea of the Bushniks unleashing a nuclear holocaust on Iran. Not that I’m suddenly unable to believe the absolute worst of our cross-eyed microcephalic baboon of a President and his associated goon-squad -- the course of events over the past 5+ years proves, rather conclusively, that this rabid power-crazed gang of bloodthirsty thugs doesn’t shrink away from pretty much any course of action that could be seen to further their bleak agenda. But actually initiating nuclear warfare? Even as I despise this “administration” of Neo-Nazis with every fiber of my being, I have a very difficult time believing they would really go that far.

The fact is, the Bush regime simply doesn’t need to use nuclear weapons in its single-minded campaign to impose its malevolent will on the world, and naturally, to physically control the earth’s oil reserves. The threat to do so is sufficient to its purposes, and it dovetails nicely with their basic methodology of sowing constant doubt, confusion, and undifferentiated fear in the minds of both their intended victims and their domestic opponents. Of course, given the nature of the psychotic felons in charge, and the monumentally retrograde qualities of the PNAC/Neo-Con agenda they so devotedly serve, nobody can predict, with any reasonable amount of certainty, what’s really going on within their pox-riddled skulls; Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al -- Beelzebub’s ball-washers, every last one of them -- very well may be angling to satisfy their jones for destruction and mass death by raining nuclear fire down upon the Iranian population. Clearly, the impulse to kill and destroy is deeply ingrained in the pickled minds of these sick old men, but there’s no logical or practical reason -- or even a military reason -- why nuclear-tipped “bunker busters” (or whatever the hell they’re called) must be employed to help satisfy their amorphous armageddonist proclivities, at least as far as Iran is concerned. When one considers the size and lethality of the “conventional” arsenal at the Chimp-in-Chief’s incomprehensible disposal, nukes are, at best, superfluous and thoroughly unpredictable -- a pandora’s box that, in my opinion, the greed-freaks and blood-swillers aren’t actually prepared to open. At least not yet.

With all due respect to Seymour Hersh -- perhaps the last real journalist left standing in this sorry excuse for a “democratic republic” -- I’d suspect that the information he recently gleaned from undisclosed Pentagon insiders, concerning the Bush regime’s (purported) nuclear fetish within its (absolutely certain) intention to launch criminal aggression against Iran, could likely be part of yet another sophisticated psychological misdirection ploy, hatched out of the fertile imaginations of such paragons of virtue like Karl Rove or Dick “Trigger-Happy” Cheney. Surely aware of Hersh’s almost other-worldly credibility and scrupulous adherence to the tenets of old-school journalistic integrity, I think it’s entirely possible that they planted these high-ranking informants with their grim tales of nuclear woe, to bend the Iran “discussion” away from such uncomfortable notions as the legality or morality or the economic & political ramifications of a US attack (any type of attack), toward the uselessly technical question of how such an attack may or may not be effected. By injecting the “nuculer” idea into the proceedings, it makes any other possible course of military action -- short of atomic warfare -- somehow seem reasonable in comparison. Let me hasten to point out that this is not some insinuating, back-door condemnation of Seymour Hersh, who, as I said, is the only authentic journalist of any consequence left in the fetid cesspool that is American media. My point is, it’s Hersh’s rather unassailable standing that would make him a perfect -- if unwitting -- dupe, for the liars and killers in the so-called “administration”, in these circumstances.

Well, maybe I’m just terminally paranoid, but that’s what living in Bush’s rubber-walled schizophrenic pressure-cooker will do to you. I admit that I, in all likelihood, may be totally misunderstanding and underestimating the significance of Hersh’s latest bombshell (pardon the pun); on the other hand, there’s no doubt whatsoever that, given their over-preponderance of “conventional” military power and an over-heated willingness to transform their degenerate fantasies into reality, the Neo-Cons don’t necessarily need to use nuclear weapons on Iran. But anything is possible with these miscreant bottom-feeders, so you can’t rule out anything. The war has already begun anyway, so I guess this has all been just more wasted wind on yet another foregone conclusion.

Sigh.

A ZOMBIFIED RICTUS OF APPALLED INCREDULITY

Have you ever had your cognitive abilities completely shut themselves off without warning? Have you ever experienced the sublime discomfort of watching what little capacity for reason and logic you might have had -- in always rather limited amounts, even at the best of times -- suddenly disappear? Have you ever been so inundated by the turd-choked, disease-bubbled, untreated sewage that masquerades as the phenomenal world, your psyche has no choice but to declare bankruptcy and head out on an impromptu vacation? Not surprisingly, this week I find myself in just this sort of condition, a kind of zombified rictus of appalled incredulity, precipitated by too damn much corrupted reality compressed into much too short a period of time.

Actually, those who know me could probably make a fairly convincing case that I'm in a condition similar to this all the time, but whatever.

This past week started out ambiguously enough. It's difficult to argue that Hot Tub Tom DeLay's decision to split Congress isn't good news, of a sort. But honestly, what difference does it make? True, DeLay has been, quite possibly, the most vile and loathsome degenerate ever to befoul the US House of Representatives (at least in recent years), which is no small distinction in an institution not particularly notable for upright behavior and moral and ethical rectitude. The problem is, evil little pufftoads like the Bug Man don't actually need to be official members of Congress to work their merry totalitarian mischief on the dumb, deluded masses; he'll still be spreading his Neo-Con miasma everywhere he can, for whatever corporate-shill lobbying firm that waves enough cash beneath his pesticide-scarred nostrils. So yeah, DeLay gives up his House seat, which very well may be taken by the Democrats come November, and this would be -- and is -- a positive development for the inhabitants of Texas' 22nd Congressional District. But for the rest of the country ...? Minister of Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment Karl Rove, as well as his Gestapo enforcers at the RNC, evidently aren't especially concerned about losing DeLay's seat. In fact, it's obviously just another calculated political move to help shore up the teetering, wobbling, over-reaching, Nazi-wannabe Republican dictatorship. By inducing their (arguably) most overtly corrupt member to quit, it allows them to bleat incessantly about their "values" and their thoroughly bogus dedication to such quaint notions as constitutional law and responsible governance. In tandem with their continuous procession of divisive and cynically exploitative wedge issues, not to mention the never-ending search for new "enemies" to drop bombs on, this is pretty much their MO for maintaining their deathgrip on the levers of power. DeLay, as an individual in Congress, doesn't matter -- he'll be able to inflict his ill-will just as nefariously from the posh confines of K Street, and make a few bucks in the process.

OK. So this business with DeLay breaks early in the week, and while it isn't really as important as some on the liberal-democratic end of the spectrum seem to believe, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and take it at face value nevertheless. After all, here in year six of the Age of Bush, upbeat occurrences -- not to mention "victories" -- are ridiculously few and far between, to say the least. However, the thin veneer of perspective surrounding the felonious activities of the Bug Man is easily peeled away, and placed in an appropriately wider context, when even a little bit of light is flashed on the much more comprehensive criminality of the Bush regime as whole.

This is where my meager store of rationality starts to evaporate, in trying to keep track of the rapid-fire onslaught of scandal and corruption that's just exploding out of this regime: whether it be the fact that Bush, the Great Un-Elected Shithead himself, turns out to be responsible for the Plame leak; new revelations of DHS appointees being child molesters, sexual predators, manifestly incompetent self-enriching assholes, liars, and outright thieves -- often, all of the above simultaneously; or when details emerge of continued war-planning that targets the adversary du jour, Iran, plans which include the impeccably pithy logic of threatening to use nuclear weapons to forestall Iran's use of nuclear weapons ... which they don't even have (just a few examples of fun and frivolity from the past week alone). Well, for fucking crying out loud, how are you supposed to maintain some sense of balance, an intellect-fueled, even-keeled equanimity, in the face of such non-stop awfulness? Little wonder, then, that a quasi-catatonic state seems so appealing -- after an entire week of Repug horror, stalking around and feeling like a stiff-limbed blood-drenched brain-chewing zombie not only appears to be a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but is also inevitable and completely predictable. What else is left, when your sensibilities have been pounded into pudding by these bastards?

Thank God for beer, which is about all I can add at this point.

THIS WEEK'S SPECIAL -- ANOTHER RED HERRING

Come on, already. Don't you people understand what this "immigration" business is really all about? Jesus, you all can't be so thick-headed and dull-witted that you don't see Rove's and the RNC's scaly fingerprints all over this thing. Oh, wait -- what am I saying? Naturally, I plum forgot that the vast mass of public-sphere ruminants out there actually does seem to enjoy gulping down the frothy wastewater so conscientiously supplied by our ruling-class opinion-makers; they naively throw back their credulous heads, shamelessly exposing their quivering gullets, and in pours the toxic stew of lies, half-truths, empty nonsense, and misinformation, gleefully compounded in the bullshit factories of the powerful and their whorish minions. Yes, that's a given, all in all. Even so ... even faced with the hard reality of a mostly oblivious and depoliticized population of distracted mendicants, amoral technocrat enablers, terminally-indebted consumerist boneheads, and mass-produced status quo junkies, it's still almost impossible to believe that so many people are so easily controlled and manipulated by evil putzes like Karl Rove. This scumbag destroyer of representative government trots out yet another red herring wedge issue -- this time concerning so-called "illegal" immigrants in the US -- and, like clockwork, everyone who's paying attention starts foaming at the mouth, in a tizzy of righteous lather. Exactly as Rove & company intend for them to do.

Regardless of what anybody might personally think about "illegals," it's an absurdity of insultingly epic proportions to believe that Republican ideologues have real practical concerns about such a huge pool of surplus labor. We're supposed to believe, indeed, that Our Great Leaders would go to such ridiculous lengths as proposing legislation to virtually outlaw a certain class of people -- deport them, lock them away in Halliburton-approved concentration camps, who knows what -- when this particular class of people serves so admirably as both an effective tool of labor discipline and a wellspring of immense profitability. So, the point is this: Republican crime bosses, along with their corporate-fascisti underwriters, are pathologically motivated by a depth of greed and avarice almost beyond comprehension; as such, they would never -- ever -- do anything to truly limit the numbers of desperate, dirt-poor wage slaves in this country, whether they be "illegal" foreigners or native-born. The complete devotion to globalization, on the part of the power apparatus, ensures and absolutely requires the creation of a permanent underclass -- no matter what its origin. Apart from threats to re-locate the few remaining well-paying jobs in the United States to, say, that worker's paradise otherwise known as the People's Republic of China, how else do you imagine the ownership class intends to consolidate and expand its already extravagantly domineering position in this society? They're certainly prepared to do just about anything, except voluntarily jettisoning the premier advantages offered by massive swarms of the hungry and destitute -- "illegal" or otherwise.

So what's the point, then, of this week's artificially contrived, Repug-inspired, red herring controversy? Well, what was the point behind the Dubai ports thing? The furor over gay marriage? The exploitation of Terri Schiavo? The "war on Christmas"? Or the million other politically-motivated far-Right circle-jerks constantly crashing over our well-bruised brain pans? Remember -- everything these people do, everything they say, everything they debase, corrupt, or co-opt, must conform to the ideological-political needs of the moment. The short-term need presently, with Rove's Bush-puppet sinking to new levels of lame-duck irrelevance, is to position vulnerable Republican incumbents more advantageously come the November mid-terms. Rove and the Neo-Con machine have to give their candidates easy, pre-fabbed straw-men-type issues with which to bludgeon their base into submission, as well as to confuse and distract their opposition; with polls suggesting a Democratic resurgence, they desperately need as much campaign-related hot air as they can get. The most recent source of such propagandistic gut-gas was the UAE ports sale, while today's immigrant-bashing serves the same nefarious purpose. Who the fuck knows what the next phony controversy might be, but since maintaining the Republican deathgrip on Congress is of paramount importance, it's sure to be hoot and a half.

Anyhow, while Rove and the rest of the Neo-Con Gestapo would love nothing more than to haul off as many brown-skinned people as possible -- barbecuing them as quickly and as profitably as the best minds of American Free Enterprise can concoct -- it's far more critical for them at this point, still in the nascent stages of the march toward an unassailable corporate dictatorship, to be slightly more crafty and politically practical. That's why we're being subjected to a seemingly never-ending parade of red herring wedge issues, one after another like Gulf of Mexico hurricanes. Rest assured, though, that once they succeed in permanently satisfying their erection-inducing dream of an overt Nazi-Republican state, complete with KZ's and Negroponte-trained death squads, then they'll have enough leisure time to implement their "final solution" for all who disagree with them. Perhaps that would be less likely to occur if more people would send Rove's endless series of Red Herring Surprises back to Lucifer's burning cockroach-infested greasy-spoon kitchen from whence they came.

Oh well, hope springs eternal ... and all that happy horseshit.