23 November 2006

THINK ABOUT IT, YOU GLUTTONOUS BASTARDS

Give us hearts to understand;
Never to take from creation's beauty more than we give;
never to destroy wantonly for the furtherance of greed;

Never to deny to give our hands for the building of earth's beauty;
never to take from her what we cannot use.

Give us hearts to understand
That to destroy earth's music is to create confusion;
that to wreck her appearance is to blind us to beauty;

That to callously pollute her fragrance is to make a house of stench;
that as we care for her she will care for us.

We have forgotten who we are.
We have sought only our own security.
We have exploited simply for our own ends.
We have distorted our knowledge.
We have abused our power.

Great Spirit, whose dry lands thirst,
Help us to find the way to refresh your lands.
Great Spirit, whose waters are choked with debris and pollution,
help us to find the way to cleanse your waters.

Great Spirit, whose beautiful earth grows ugly with misuse,
help us to find the way to restore beauty to your handiwork.
Great Spirit, whose creatures are being destroyed, help us to find a way to replenish them.

Great Spirit, whose gifts to us are being lost in selfishness and corruption,
help us to find the way to restore our humanity.

Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind, whose breath gives life to the world,
hear me; I need your strength and wisdom. May I walk in Beauty.

--
Bedagi (Big Thunder), Wabanaki Algonquin, late 19th century

THANKFUL FOR WHAT?
















Baghdad, 23 November 2006

22 November 2006

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF WHY THE DEMOCRATS ARE SO UNDERWHELMING

Via Raw Story comes this shiny little gem of machine-politics claptrap, this time from Russ Feingold:

"I don't support impeachment, and I don't support impeachment hearings, even though I think the president has probably committed an impeachable offense."

(For the rest of this bullshit, click here)

Now, I might be hopelessly naive or terminally stupid, or something, but can ANYONE recall exactly why the voting public defied Republican disruption and Diebold corruption to hand control of Congress to the Democratic Party?

Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ.

20 November 2006

ROVE -- POLITICAL GENIUS OR PASTY-FACED LOSER?

Did anyone else catch those shots of Karl Rove's fat bloated face during one of the Chimp's post-election "press conferences"? Maybe it was when Rummy was cashiered, or when Bush blathered on about a "thumpin", or some other such phony, over-scripted, made-for-TV exercise in fraud and deceit. I can't remember exactly. It was at one of those corporate-media cattle-calls, immediately in the wake of the midterms, and there was the evil bastard himself -- Rove, the scientifically improbable offspring of Josef Goebbels and Porky Pig -- sporting that patented, blubbery smirk, which normal people are all too familiar with. He looked strangely tranquil, content even; to my jaundiced eye, he certainly did not have the countenance of a mediocre political troll who just stage-managed a Republican electoral train wreck. What gives? What's the backstory to Rove's nauseous complacency?

There's been some indistinct burblings in blogdom about the apparent inexplicability of purported political "genius" Rove and his hugely inept handling of Repug fortunes during this most recent election cycle. With such a well-deserved reputation as one of Niccolo Machiavelli's most fervent, ball-washing acolytes, a bottom-feeding operative who never shrank from plumbing any political depth (so long as it's effective), Rove's "performance" this time around is hard to fathom. Some far-out speculators out there are suggesting that, just perhaps, what we've been witnessing is nothing but a grand ploy, a highly sophisticated and very nuanced political operation of quite staggering subtlety. I suppose it could be posited that one way to ensure the long-term survivability of the PNAC/Neo-Con conception of corporatist domination, in an uncertain atmosphere where the primary figurehead -- in this case, Bush -- is extremely unpopular, would be to effect a tactical retreat, as it were. They knew, of course, that a solid majority of the voting public was squarely against them, for a huge catalog of reasons, with the Chimp and his war being the focal points of revulsion and opposition; the discontent was (and is) so palpable and insistent, that it largely overwhelmed the right-wing game of "Diebolding" the election, in fact. What better way to position themselves effectively in 2008, when surely their sick totalitarian fantasies will reach full diseased flower, than to provide the next crop of radical Republican nut-jobs a mechanism by which they can distance themselves from a reviled monkey-boy President in 2006. They temporarily sacrifice their control of Congress, running before the wind of public opinion -- a capricious and completely unpredictable wind that could turn 180-degrees tomorrow, thereby sweeping the Repugs back into power and providing them the opportunity to complete their project of destroying constitutional government in the United States.

I'm not necessarily saying that I believe Rove deliberately tossed an election so the real Nazification of America can continue apace, a brief period of Democratic congressional control notwithstanding. It's entirely possible that Rove really is the hopeless turd-brained buffoon he's apparently turned into, or always has been. But, naturlich, nothing is what it appears to be, and that's particularly true among a political class that views power as the ultimate zero-sum game, and as merely a point in itself. I can't erase that image of Rove's pasty and glabrous face from my mind -- smugly confident, in the bleak aftermath of an electoral "disaster" ... One thing is certain: if the appalling idea that Repug insiders could perhaps throw an election -- shitcanning some present advantages for much greater rewards later -- has occurred to a tiny sampling of us faceless nobodies out here, then certainly it's crossed the evilly fucked-up brain-pans of Rove and his foul minions.

Oh shit -- I need another drink.

13 November 2006

THE PROBLEM WITH OPTIMISM

Several days of chewing and gnashing and gnawing on the results of last week’s midterm election -- seen by some as some sort of conclusive repudiation, by the voting public, of the Bush Crime Family and its foul agenda -- have left an undecipherable but clearly unpleasant taste in my mouth. Now, straightforward convention insists that the outcome of Tuesday’s dog and pony show is indisputably positive, that the beginning of the end of the Neo-Con terror rampage is at hand, that the poisonous stink off-gassing from the maggot-riddled corpse of Republican corruption has finally been blown away by a mighty blast of angry electoral wind. In short, the long-sought glimmer of light at the end of the murky tunnel of despair, a bleak tube that stretches back at least to November 2000, has unexpectedly switched itself on, as if by magic. We can all start breathing easy, happy days are here again, all is right with the world ...

Excuse me, but I’m having a hard time swallowing any of this sloppy-grin claptrap.

The problem with optimism is that it almost always leaves your existential gonads wide open to an eventual karmic stomping, in a manner of speaking. This is certainly the case as far as modern American politics is concerned, what with its exploitative, parasitical relationship with the population at large. Even under the most ideal circumstances, the organized crime syndicate otherwise known as the US political machine -- including the legions of amoral technocrats, corporate chain-yankers, and media enablers that keep it functioning, regardless of official political party affiliation -- has to be eyeballed with the utmost suspicion. In fact, an effective argument could be made that the distrust and disbelief in politicians and the institutions they serve have to be more pronounced when the so-called “good guys” suddenly find themselves in charge. Congressional Republicans have long been exposed as the hypocritical lying murdering scum that they are; the Democrats, at least as far as being in a leadership position is concerned, are a wild-card at best -- there’s no telling if they’ll be able, or even willing, to do what we all know must be done to ratchet this tired old country back from the brink and salvage something of its true democratic character. We know, without a shred of ambiguity or doubt, just what the Republican Neo-Con vision of America looks like, in all its foul and stenchified detail ... Question is, is the present crop of Democratic “leaders” up to the task? Many voices on the left-liberal end of the political spectrum seem to think so. I’m not convinced.

But then, I’ll probably never be convinced that any political party or political professional truly has the interests of ordinary, anonymous schmucks such as myself in the forefront of their agendas. Don’t get me wrong -- I felt as much of a sensation of very visceral schadenfreude, as any thinking person would, at the spectacle of so many Republican swine being tossed out on their worthless asses, from the Congress and state houses and governor’s offices; that’s a good thing, in and of itself. But the supreme satisfaction we all felt last Tuesday will prove to be nothing but hot air in the long run, if Bush and his cronies and puppet-masters aren’t eventually brought to justice. We’d better light one hell of a fire under the Democrats’ tender flanks to ensure that comes about, otherwise all we’ve bought for ourselves is merely a brief two-year respite, a short detour, a minor hiccup, on the rocky road toward corporate fascism.

There is room for hope, I suppose. But I’m not holding my breath.

Sigh.