As I was saying, the rickety dump that houses the largest congregation of pox-riddled prostitutes the earth has ever seen -- the United States, in other words -- is rapidly deteriorating and soon to be little more than termite-infested scrap lumber at the bottom of some nameless Chinese landfill. Certainly, nothing that's occurred during the past week has done anything to dispel this unfortunate but inescapable conclusion; on the contrary, the absolute conviction that the monsters of fate are poised and ready to bring down their sledgehammers of doom upon our empty and unsuspecting heads has been, naturally, only reinforced and further legitimized by the most recent outrages and brass-balled brazenness of the Bush cabal and its associated minions.
This week's most obvious example of the regime's feckless perfidy is, of course, their signing-off on this ridiculous DP World ports deal. I don't actually want to participate in the great gnashing of teeth and the self-conscious garment-rending that this appalling fiasco has engendered, since far more knowledgeable (and talented) individuals have already unleashed veritable torrents of commentary on, and condemnation of, this odious and thoroughly reprehensible arrangement. No, it's really only of any significance to my feeble reasoning capacity in the way it so plainly gives credence to my whole "whorehouse" thesis. What could be more whorish than facilitating the buying and selling of major sectors of your nation's physical infrastructure, especially when it involves a disgusting clutch of super-rich Arab despots, rapacious greed-pig tyrants in fact, who also just happen to be long-standing patrons and business collaborators of yourself and all your cronies? If that isn't analogous to a cheap and sordid transaction in the back room of some anonymous whorehouse, I don't know what would be.
By the way, who the hell was even aware of the fact that private corporations -- much less foreign ones -- are actually in the business of running American seaports in the first place? I certainly wasn't, that's for sure. And judging by the near-hysteria this UAE nonsense has created, even among the foaming-at-the-mouth wing-nut knuckle-dragger Republican-freak crowd, it's apparent that the public in general is utterly ignorant of such matters. But then, that's not particularly surprising, given the dismally degenerate intellectual condition of the huge mass of greasy toilers out there who somehow manage -- despite everything -- to keep the bockety apparatus of Bush's BJ Emporium creaking merrily onward, heading inexorably toward its appointment with disaster.
Anyway, the real question isn't if some Arab sheikhs should or should not be operating six or twenty-one (depending on what report you're reading) US ports; the question is, how long can you continue to pimp-out essential public functions to the corporate world -- Arab or otherwise -- before the entire wobbly structure of thieving and whoring finally falls in on itself? The answer: well, I think we all know what that would be.
Personally, I believe we need to get in as much beer drinking as we possibly can -- while there's still time.
Here in the early months of the pivotal year 2006, the United States of America is like a dingy, decrepit, dilapidated, crumbling, creaking, and condemned whorehouse fixing to keel over at the first suitable opportunity. What, you don't happen to care for a cheap metaphorical exercise that shamelessly equates our gloriously wonderful country with a house of prostitution -- one that's on the verge of collapse, even? What's the problem? I would think that describing Bush's America as a debased and disgusting screw-shack, held together with little more than chewing gum, bad intentions, and an effluvium of sweat glands, and packed to the rafters with the most corrupt gaggle of pimps, cutthroats, and whores the world has ever seen ... is, well, actually less a foray into metaphorical fancy than an example of sheer, brutal honesty.
Well, whatever. It would be a stretch to suggest that I had a point here. If I did have a point, it would probably not be that the United States presently has the dubious distinction of being the world epicenter of whorish corporate and political malfeasance, which, at any rate, is all too plainly obvious. No, at the moment my interest is directed toward the edifice in which all the pimping, whoring, thieving, and other felonious larcenies are allowed to take place -- the shaky, ill-kept, and dangerously undermined structure of representative government itself.
Maybe this country, at least as represented in the ruling class and its institutions, has always been -- to greater or lesser degrees -- nothing more than a motley conglomeration of opportunistic hosebags ready and willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder, for some perceived advantage or other; while also being simultaneously prepared to step on the windpipe of anyone unfortunate enough to get caught between themselves and their greedy, self-interested ambitions. That's all a given, pretty much. It's also a given that the current regime in Washington, as well as its enablers and accomplices among the corporate class and other priviledged elites, has more fully embodied this basic MO than any other administration in history. No prior American administration has ever breathed such vitality into the very concept of whorishness, pushing it with so much maniacal intensity and single-mindedness of purpose that the institutional framework within which they perpetrate their criminal swindles and cynical, swinish aggressions is, itself, in mortal danger of collapse and dissolution -- or, at the very least, of being drastically altered beyond all recognition. Previous incarnations of the ruling oligarchy's greed and power-lust, apparently, had been kept under just enough control to allow for the continued existence of the cultural/economic/political apparatus they so effectively manipulate and profit from -- in other words, the centers of power have usually known, almost instinctively, just how far they can bend and warp and generally exploit the system they feed upon. In contrast, today's Neo-Con Nazi-wannabes lack even a bare modicum of the self-discipline and measured control that are sorely needed if the machine they so wantonly plunder is to survive at all. They are, in effect, a political demolition outfit, primed to lay waste everything within their field of vision -- including, oddly enough, the squalid whorehouse that provides them the means and opportunity to conduct their misguided campaign of destruction.
OK, a couple of deep breaths ... So the critical question intrudes itself at moments such as this: what do we do when the befouled house of ill-repute -- which happens to be the country we live in -- has become so compromised that it's beginning to fall down around our heads? Well, I myself am going to have another drink, give it all a few more minutes of serious thought, and then shelve this whole stinking mess until next time.
My head hurts.
If you're one of those intelligent people out there who believes that our country, the United States of America, is dangling precariously head-first above the business end of an overflowing porto-john frequented by a gang of flatulent curry-eaters with intestinal disorders, guess what -- things aren't really as awful as you might imagine. Actually, they're much worse.
Now, you may have figured out by now that I'm not especially burdened by the inane stupidities of unbridled optimism or the dangerous delusions of positive thought -- that would seem rather obvious; must have something to do with the way my brain-pan is wired together, I suppose. Anyway, consequently I'm not likely to have too many nice things to say about pretty much anything, under just about any conceivable circumstance. Even sober, my predisposition to (seemingly) despise all things is as blatantly apparent as a glowing, pus-filled sore on the forehead of your average street-drunk lunatic (or, now that I think about it, the street-drunk lunatic as a whole). In any case, wherever this hyper-critical predilection comes from, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm merely indulging in normal self-conscious hyperbolic exaggeration and overblown melodramatic horseshit with these inchoate and grammatically questionable ravings of doom and destruction. My thoroughly jaundiced view of people and institutions -- this self-contained negative skew towards most things -- doesn't change the plain, essential fact that we are in rather deep trouble, here in the diseased bowels of Bushworld. In fact, our puny imaginations, coupled as they are to our practically non-existent attention spans and trivially distracted psyches, can't even begin to truly get a grip on the real nature of the corporate-inspired catastrophe breathing down our necks.
This past week, Air America's Mike Malloy turned me on to a new 9-11 film, called Loose Change. Apparently, Malloy succeeded in pointing a veritable crap-load of people toward this little movie, if the frustrating inability to access their website for several days is any indication (as an aside, I did finally manage to download a copy of Loose Change, in Windows Media format, through www.question911.com). The significance of this digression is that if you weren't convinced before that the real centers of power in this country -- the military-corporate nexus, the PNAC crowd, the petroleum Nazis, among others -- are playing us like the idiotic, credulous, empty-headed fish that we are, then you certainly will be in the aftermath of this film. The fool's gambit we're all pretending doesn't exist; the misguided faith we assign to organizations and institutions that are already hopelessly compromised; the fatal misdirection of energy and vitality, on the part of otherwise well-meaning individuals and groups, chasing red herrings and other meaningless phantasms ... All of these harsh, unpalatable realities are brought out into high relief by the revelations in Loose Change. We are being completely, utterly, totally, and terminally bamboozled by a cultural/economic/political conspiracy without parallel in all of human history. As I said, it's far worse than our pathetic intellects can even imagine.
Well, at least we still have beer -- the one last thing in existence we can really count on.
It's beginning to look a lot like crap ...
... At least to us more perceptive people. Among the barfly crowd, however -- the loud-mouth/sloppy drunk/pickled-giblet/bad-breath partisans of conspicuous indifference, self-important avoidance, and fruit fly-sized attention spans -- everything still seems to be giving off the usual acrid stench of normality & predictability. Awash in oceans of beer and comforting gobs of artery-busting animal fat, their petrified gonads abnormally stimulated by today's artificial excitement of the "Super Bowl" ... under such circumstances, what could possibly be wrong with the world?
Yes, it's beginning to look a lot like crap -- all the narrow-minded, pop-culture based misdirection of energy and brain-power notwithstanding. From the Alito disaster to the impending war on Iran; from the dictatorial ambitions of the Pinhead in Chief and his Gestapo-minded wire pullers, to Governor Schickelgruber and his wing-nut plans to strangle California with a Radical Right straightjacket; toss into this steaming sump of 21st Century sewer spew such original Sacramento Valley contributions as gridlock, smog, and a Blockbuster Video store on every corner, and the cheerful optimism of modern life tends to -- uh -- nosedive a bit. No amount of over-drinking and broadcast travesties like football can alter the fact that we, as Americans, are chin-deep in the doo-doo of dissolution and destruction -- but try telling that to my compatriots in the brewpubs, my fellow seekers of the Manifest Truth At The Bottom Of Every Beer Glass. What a bunch of stupid fucking assholes, if you'll pardon the expression. How in the hell did I ever become associated with these ridiculous wastes of DNA?
As always, a drink seems to be in order about now.
As I was saying, the rickety dump that houses the largest congregation of pox-riddled prostitutes the earth has ever seen -- the United States, in other words -- is rapidly deteriorating and soon to be little more than termite-infested scrap lumber at the bottom of some nameless Chinese landfill. Certainly, nothing that's occurred during the past week has done anything to dispel this unfortunate but inescapable conclusion; on the contrary, the absolute conviction that the monsters of fate are poised and ready to bring down their sledgehammers of doom upon our empty and unsuspecting heads has been, naturally, only reinforced and further legitimized by the most recent outrages and brass-balled brazenness of the Bush cabal and its associated minions.
