I GUESS WE CAN ALL RELAX NOW

Via Raw Story, which I briefly tripped upon while over-dosing on coffee this morning:

Pentagon's number two suggests terror war will end in Oct. 2008

The Department of Defense's number two official appears to imply in a memo that the Global War on Terrorism will end just in time for the presidential election in November 2008. The contents of the document are outlined in a column in today's Washington Post.

Al Kamen, who writes the Post's 'In The Loop' column, identified a pair of memos written by Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England in today's paper. The first memo was written Dec. 6 and sent to top military and civilian officials. It identifies eight priorities for the coming fiscal year, and the first of them is to "Win the Global War on Terrorism."

In a second memo from Feb. 15, Kamen reports that England wrote that "to ensure that warfighters and taxpayers receive maximum benefit from on-going initiatives, it would be highly desirable to complete current projects by the summer/fall of 2008."

England then provides a quarterly grid with the same eight priorities from the December memo, and "expected milestone conclusion dates" for each one.

As Kamen points out, the first priority of winning the global terror war from the earlier memo is included on the grid, and "looks to be over around October 2008."

The next presidential election will occur in November 2008, a month later.

Kamen's full column can be accessed at the Washington Post's website.

The world isn't spinning into the cosmic shitter after all, it seems.

HOW DID WE GET TO THIS PLACE?

How did we get to this place?

It’s a question that often flutters across the jumbled landscape of my conscious mind, or what passes for a conscious mind. I’m sure it occurs to most thinking people, at various times and in widely divergent levels of piquancy. How did we get to this place? What a question -- it completely beggars an answer.

I caught just a few glimpses too many of the most recent elitist pissing contest involving Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and the question above comes hurling back and washes over my battered skull like a new and improved migraine, this time appended to a further query: Who the fuck are these two artificial, political-machine creatures kidding? I mean, seriously. Such an infantile spectacle, a vile cabaret, a phony made-for-TV time-sucker, all designed by big-money DLC-types to both distract the unwashed masses and provide mountains of raw meat for the sub-human propagandist scum at Fox and elsewhere. So, while overpriced douchebags like David Geffen compete to see which Vichy Democrat can be most thoroughly compromised and co-opted and suffocated in the stale commodiousness of his deep corporate pockets, the Neo-Con machine continues its relentless rampage of death, undeterred and smirking broadly. The repugs stay on message, while alleged “Democrats” stick to their role of ineffectual, self-serving bozos -- solidifying the crucial, and perhaps decisive, part they’re playing in the systematic dismantling of representative government in this pathetic excuse for a country. Unbelievable.

All I’ll say further about this bullshit: assuming that there’ll even be something like a legitimate election a year and a half from now, and assuming also that Clinton or Obama actually contrive to win it, what do you suppose will be the real and true significance of such an unlikely occurrence? The first woman dictator of the United States? How about the first ever African-American despot? Because sure as George W. Bush is the stupidest sock-puppet to ever illegally squat in the sickeningly debased office of the Presidency, if he and his regime aren’t swiftly removed (like yesterday) and the imperial precedents he’s set permanently squashed, that’s precisely what will happen -- the continuation of this disaster, only with a new figurehead fuehrer. Think on that the next time a manufactured story of unabashed political whoring is pounded over your heads, which shouldn’t be too long in coming.

How did we get to this place?

MIGRAINES & MILITARY MATTERS, PART 2

The impenetrable mystery at the center of all life -- that vast, incomprehensibly cheesy wad of existential jello that controls all things, even -- has seen fit to ever so slightly relax the physiological c-clamp of pain that’s been squeezing the piss out of my fat and ugly head lately. Given a day-pass to the land of the living, I pant in exhausted relief and try to remember where I was when last I visited this appallingly seedy waste of time and energy.

Ah yes -- the evil disease of “private military contractors.” Actually, in a forlorn effort to inject at least a smidgen of comic relief into so revolting a topic, I decided to throw away valuable seconds by visiting the website of arguably the most notoriously vile of these parasitical corporate vermin, Blackwater USA. It isn’t meant to be intentionally hilarious, I suppose, nor is it particularly surprising just how the ambulatory chunks of human waste at Blackwater describe their “vision”:

To support security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere.

Some things are so opaquely ridiculous, so patently insane, such premier examples of cognitive bastardization, that caustic remarks and pithy commentaries are superfluous at best. The gobbledygook above is a perfect illustration. I guess it’s theoretically possible that there might be a sub-genius (or two) somewhere in the dim bowels of Blackwater who actually believes that this criminally sick gang of corporate thugs has anything to do with “peace, freedom, and democracy” -- presumably in such purported bastions of “democracy” and “freedom” as Iraq or Afghanistan. Or New Orleans. However, the conscious cynicism necessary to the dissemination of these sorts of laughable fictions makes me wonder. I mean, as disgusting and despicable as the alleged “people” at Blackwater are, it’s an unreasonable stretch to imagine that they’re so stupid as to take their own public-relations flackery seriously. But, of course, their bald-faced bullshit is for our consumption, not theirs. Duh.

Whatever. Anyway, it actually gets worse, if that were possible. Blackwater describes its “mission”:

To support national and international security policies that protect those who are defenseless and provide a free voice for all with a dedication to providing ethical, efficient, and effective turnkey solutions that positively impact the lives of those still caught in desperate times.

Blackwater is committed to the foot soldiers -- the men and women who stand on the frontlines of the global war on terror and who believe in a peaceful future for their communities and nations. Whether serving in or out of uniform, Blackwater is committed to providing these men and women with the best in training and tactical support to ensure they are fully prepared to meet current and future global security challenges.

And if you believe such unadulterated hogsnot, more power to you; grotesque images of barbecued Blackwater employees in Iraq instantly, if involuntarily, spring to mind.

Where do “firms” like Blackwater come from? I’m not trying to be cute here, tossing out disingenuous questions that have a multitude of potential, and uninformative, answers -- I’d really like to know what evil genius first “midwifed” this cross-eyed bastard offspring of corporate money and military power. Now, I realize that the corporate world has always been the main beneficiary of the more-or-less war economy we’ve suffered under since at least the late 1940’s, as both the prime concocter of largely mythical “threats” and the recipient of nearly incalculable governmental largess in an effort to “meet” these “threats”; deriving profit from war, or, at most, the idea of war, is an age-old American tradition, grown to new heights of extent and sophistication over the past 50 or 60 years. The difference these days is the corporate incursion into the military’s traditional “front-end,” in a manner of speaking, the overt assumption of military functions and responsibilities by profit-motivated private companies. No longer content with merely amassing enormous wealth by purveying the implements and machinery of death and destruction, now there’s this insane hankering to actually wield the weaponry themselves. For profit.

The privatization of conflict, this fateful injection of financial incentives into the actual waging of war -- not simply within the economic apparatus that makes war possible -- is probably the number one thing about this shoddy Neo-Con era that really curdles my gizzard, which is certainly saying a dripping gobfull. Consequently, the regime will hardly be dissuaded from their quest to establish war as a permanent condition (a Democratically-controlled Congress? Oh, please), so long as it’s profitable to do so. Destroying the profit motive would be a decent first step; dismantling Blackwater and other like-minded vulturine corporations would be even better. Removing Bush and Cheney from the offices in which they’ve been squatting for more than six fucking years would, naturlich, be the best course of all.

Oh, if only I could trip back to my Cold War Germany Air Force days, where we used to laugh so rudely at the commercials on Armed Forces Television which informed us that we -- the grunts, chumps, and hoseheads stationed in Europe -- were at “the tip of the sword,” the brave defenders of western civilization. The claptrap then seemed, well, more simple somehow ...

MIGRAINES & MILITARY MATTERS

The moderately calm trough between migraines finds me thinking -- in addition to realizing that it’s a rather interesting sensation not to be in pain -- about military matters, of all things. I have to say that at least during these moments of relative clarity, when my skull isn’t being shredded from the inside by some inexplicable biological can opener, I can be as calm and dispassionate about such topics as the next person. Well, perhaps “calm” and “dispassionate” are misnomers or mischaracterizations, but whatever. I can manipulate a computer keyboard when my head isn’t exploding, in any event.

Of course, giving thought to the military, and the over-militarized course down which we’re being so relentlessly goaded, runs the risk of re-igniting the seemingly terminal brain-ache that’s been keeping me company these days. Oh well.

Like most normal people, I have a nearly endless catalog of reasons to despise the military, and militarism in general; that being said, let me confuse the issue by pointing out that I am, myself, a veteran of the American war machine -- in this case, the United States Air Force, within which I was an active-duty firefighter during the second half of the 1980’s. This wouldn’t be of any real importance to anyone, I’m sure. I hardly give two shits about it myself, except for the fact that the very conscious decision not to take the GI career path (I would’ve retired toward the end of 2005) spared me a whole slew of insurmountable problems, not the least of which being the advent of the Chimpy regime and the snowballing series of catastrophes it has fostered and engineered. So, much like generations of poor dumb saps before (and after) me, I have played my anonymous bit part in the great and ever-present hoax perpetrated by the corporate-military combine. That gives me at least a partially legitimate basis from which to heap as much criticism and abuse on it as possible -- migraines permitting, naturally.

Two things mainly stand out in glaring relief when military thoughts come pounding through my intellectual transom: the astonishment that anyone would voluntarily participate in this madness, knowing what we do about the present political “leadership” and their program of destruction; and the fact that the infiltration of profit-motivated “private contractors” into traditional military spheres of organization and operations has rendered the present-day Pentagon machine virtually unrecognizable, to my jaundiced eye at any rate.

... As to the first point -- well, regardless of the circumstances or particular period of time, it’s always nothing less than flabbergasting that anybody is willing to quite literally sign their lives, limbs, and gonads over to the tender mercies of a sinister organization predicated on the projection of corporate power and death. Nobody in their right mind would even consider such a thing, you would think. But they do, in surprisingly large numbers. Now, I enlisted during the Reagan years, and while that doddering old fuck clearly was the undisputed prototype of today’s Neo-Con figurehead meat puppet, most of us in uniform who could actually think never once believed that Reagan would -- or could -- launch us all on a catastrophic adventure even remotely comparable to Bush’s messes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows where else. Reagan’s relatively low-key military misfires (relative in contrast to Bush’s, of course), such as Lebanon, Grenada, and Libya, touched only a small fraction of us in the GI ranks. In fact, I was stationed in Germany at what was probably the high-water mark of the Cold War, during the peak of the US military presence in Europe, well before the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc began to collapse under its own dead weight. We never took the “Soviet threat” seriously, ham-handed indoctrination and constant training and war-gaming notwithstanding -- we were compelled to go through the motions, nothing more. Our prime areas of concern involved the universal problems of “peacetime” American GI life, 1980’s version: getting laid, getting loaded, and the difficulties caused by a weak US dollar against the West German mark. Being involved in an illegal war of aggression was literally the last thing that ever entered our crabbed, alcohol-drenched little minds. In fact, it never did.

Maybe it had more to do with the particular branch of the military than anything else, but nobody I knew was pursuing some sacred mission or trying to fulfill an ill-defined ideological agenda by offering themselves up for enlistment. I certainly wasn’t indulging in either of these absurd fictions -- I was motivated by that classic, rather unpredictable combination of youthful irresoluteness, boredom, and incipient poverty. These “principles” are still very much in existence, of course, perhaps even more than ever. But the fundamental implications inherent to the seemingly innocuous act of affixing a signature to the bottom of an enlistment contract are vastly different these days; even a cursory inspection of the Neo-Con program, as well as a passing acquaintance with what the psycho-killers in the Cheney/Rove regime have actually perpetrated over the past six-plus years, should leave absolutely no room for doubt about what’s in store for any nitwit stupid enough to join the military. This is precisely why my attitude towards today’s enlistees is as sourly ambivalent as it is. At less optimistic moments (which are becoming more and more frequent), I can’t help but think: anyone blind and/or dumb enough to mortgage their sorry asses to the Pentagon in this dangerous epoch -- specifically, after the Supreme Court first appointed George W. Bush to the Presidency -- pretty much deserves every horribly fucked-up thing that happens to them.

Yeah, I know -- that’s just a tad bit harsh, maybe even grossly unfair. It’s certainly conflicted. So what? Only a hydrocephalic baboon with a heart condition would be incapable of understanding what the present regime means for the minions caught on the lower rungs of the military’s ladder to nowhere, so bravely volunteering to be some sort of nameless sacrifice on the altar of Neo-Conservatism is, to put it mildly, just utterly ridiculous. Besides, my not-so-disguised contempt for the sick fools who offer up their blood and guts to the Fascist cause actually pales in comparison to that shown by the criminal regime they so guilelessly serve. Whether it’s the denial of benefits for those who literally contribute their pound of flesh for the Fatherland, or the bottom-line spectacle of privatizing the military and its multitudinous and frequently nefarious functions, never has officialdom been so thoroughly suffused with such sheer, unmitigated antipathy and scorn for the uniformed idiots who provide the muscle for their dangerously overwrought ambitions. Having once been counted among said gaggle of uniformed idiots, I can at least speak from experience -- a word that nearly all Repug politicos and technocrats are unable to apply to themselves, as far as military matters are concerned.

Sorry. I was going to comment further on the travesty of “private military contractors,” but my long-windedness has run headlong into the blurry, uncertain stirring of yet another migraine headache. I’m going to get medicated now -- I apologize for wasting everybody’s time.

WHILE EVERYONE WAS OUT MARCHING

While everyone was out marching this weekend, a little tidbit of foreshadowing doom very nearly failed to appear on the radar screens of our awareness:

From Yahoo! News --

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan passes two fishermen in their small boat as it leaves for its second deployment in a year from North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, California January 27, 2007. The Reagan is headed to the Persian Gulf to support war efforts in Iraq. REUTERS/Fred Greaves (UNITED STATES)

(Larisa Alexandrovna’s always razor-sharp insights can be found here)

So, steadily and quietly, the build-up continues for the wider Middle East conflagration to come. In utter, contemptuous defiance of the overwhelming majority of the American public, their weak-kneed opponents in the Congress, and indeed the vast mass of people all around the world, the Stalinist weasels at the controls of the power structure won’t be distracted or deterred from their program of catastrophe. The demands of real people in the streets? Hot air. Smart-mouthed bloggers? Virtual ass-gas. The uncountable billions of poor and destitute, particularly those in the Neo-Con cross-hairs? Who the fuck are they ...?

I realize that this question isn’t especially underivative, and that it sprouts out of a sickening manure pile of despair and loathing, but here it is anyway: what’s the answer to this madness? Remove them from office -- remove them now. There’s no future for anyone so long as the Bushniks retain their death grip on power.

What a storehouse of originality I am.

DC: 27 JANUARY 2007

photo from somebody at Democratic Underground ...

DAWN IN MIDTOWN

Dawn in midtown Sacramento ...

...is, I would imagine, pretty much the same as in any other comparably-sized city: everything looks gray and dingy, there never seems to be any place to park, and the homeless legions are beginning yet another useless day of mere survival, way out on the precipitous ass-end of the Bush economy. The SUV people are doing their thing, of course, plowing through the rapidly lightening streets as if the great mass of us financially indistinct people are invisible; fat morons blabbering into cell phones, smartly-dressed jaywalkers, and police officers on bicycles round off this mildly spasmodic tableau -- this weird snapshot of vague determination and ostentatious indifference.

I have to say one somewhat positive thing about this bland and fuzzy town -- my dear old home town -- at least there’s no overabundance of affection for the Baboon-in-Chief, and the Neo-Con program in general, around these parts. Of course, this situation prevails largely because most people here pay very little attention to anything of importance unless they absolutely have to, and even then it’s usually as brief and superficial as possible. Professional basketball teams owned by Las Vegas billionaires, and fools who drown themselves at the instigation of a gaggle of assholes at a local radio station (as well as the armada of pointless distractions inherent to the disposable California consumer culture as a whole) ordinarily suffice to stretch the leaking brain-bag of your average Valley chucklehead to the bursting point. Very little elasticity remains for warm feelings toward the Stalinist freaks in the Bush regime -- and I guess that’s a good thing, all things considered.

Sigh. I’m going back to bed.

LET'S BEGIN WITH TORQUEMADA

Sinus headaches and the usual overflowing septic tank of unbelievable outrages have conspired to overwhelm my sensibilities this week, even beyond what's ordinarily considered normal. All I have the strength to do right now is to offer this suggestion -- to any thinking people out there, and even to our fearless Democratic "leaders" in the Congress -- how about at least impeaching this titanic asshole?

As I said, it's only a suggestion.

AND TO THINK I'D ACTUALLY CONSIDERED GIVING UP ALCOHOL

Yes, it’s true: sobriety, as a way of life, had been looking more and more like a viable alternative in recent days. Most people who actually know me would never believe this to be the case, and it’s almost impossible for me to buy such a farfetched impossibility. Nevertheless, one queasy stomach too many, stirred into a nearly unbearable uproar by the almost universal indifference of my fellow booze hounds in the brewpubs, was sufficient -- well, all but sufficient -- for me to resolve to forego the dubious advantages of alcoholic over-medication and the questionable influence of zucchini-brained bar freaks. All I had to do was clear the beery cobwebs from my existential ventilation system and purge my synapses of drink-induced rust and torpidity, and the world would suddenly appear slightly less inexplicable and revolting. Like magic.

Then George W. Bush opens his thin-lipped pie hole, and nebulous thoughts of heading in a dry direction immediately fly out of the nearest fucking window.

Seriously -- how does an otherwise rational human come to mental grips with the exigencies of these times without being measurably inebriated? Just consider the tortured sinuosities of what may or may not be going on here, in the context of Bush’s blubber-gummed “speech” on his “new way forward” from the other day. In theory, his most recent babblings concern his misfired adventure in Iraq, a disaster that has no military solution; but, in actual fact, what we had the supreme misfortune to witness was the launch of a psychological warfare operation aimed at preparing the public for a vastly expanded conflict, one that could eventually consume the entire Middle East. So, on the contrived occasion of a ridiculous little talk on what he supposedly has in mind to bring his illegal war in Iraq to some sort of “victorious” conclusion, Bush trowels out the worst possible idea of all -- an escalation -- and issues virtual declarations of war against two more countries, Iran and Syria. The escalation in Iraq serves to obscure the truth behind what’s coming for the Iranians, grumblings about a “mythical” US intention to attack Iran temporarily distract attention from the Iraqi meatgrinder, while both effectively blot out awareness of what the Neo-Cons are up to in Somalia and elsewhere. All the while, the new Democratically-led Congress reacts to these dangerous challenges by having no real will to remove this out-of-control regime ... oh, and by passing legislation to increase the minimum wage, legislation that Bush will eventually veto.

How in the hell can you stay sober under these circumstances?

I DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO RIVERBEND AS MUCH AS I SHOULD

I sincerely hope that Riverbend doesn't mind my re- publishing her last post in its entirety -- we all could learn volumes from her, if we just paid attention to what she says. This is her most recent post, from December 31st:

A Lynching...

It's official. Maliki and his people are psychopaths. This really is a new low. It's outrageous- an execution during Eid. Muslims all over the world (with the exception of Iran) are outraged. Eid is a time of peace, of putting aside quarrels and anger- at least for the duration of Eid.

This does not bode well for the coming year. No one imagined the madmen would actually do it during a religious holiday. It is religiously unacceptable and before, it was constitutionally illegal. We thought we'd at least get a few days of peace and some time to enjoy the Eid holiday, which coincides with the New Year this year. We've spent the first two days of a holy holiday watching bits and pieces of a sordid lynching.

America the savior… After nearly four years and Bush's biggest achievement in Iraq has been a lynching. Bravo Americans.

Maliki has made the mistake of his life. His signature and unhidden glee at the whole execution, especially on the first day of Eid Al Adha (the Eid where millions of Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca), will only do more to damage his already tattered reputation. He's like a vulture in a suit (or a balding weasel). It's almost embarrassing. I kept expecting Muwafaq Al Rubaii to run over and wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth as he signed for the execution. Are these the people who represent the New Iraq? We're in so much more trouble than I ever thought.

And no- not the celebrations BBC are claiming. With the exception of a few areas, the streets are empty.

Now we come to CNN. Shame on you CNN journalists- you're getting lazy. The least you can do is get the last words correct when you write a story about an execution. Your articles are read the world over and will go down in history as references. You people are the biggest news network in the world- the least you can do is spend some money on a decent translator. Saddam's last words were NOT "Muqtada Al Sadr" as Munir Haddad claimed, according to the article below. If anyone had seen at least part of the video they showed on TV, you'd know that.

"A witness, Iraqi Judge Munir Haddad, said that one of the executioners told Hussein that the former dictator had destroyed Iraq, which sparked an argument that was joined by several government officials in the room.

As a noose was tightened around Hussein's neck, one of the executioners yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr," Haddad said, referring to the powerful anti-American Shiite religious leader.

Hussein, a Sunni, uttered one last phrase before he died, saying "Muqtada al-Sadr" in a mocking tone, according to Haddad's account."

From the video that was leaked, it was not an executioner who yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr". See, this is another low the Maliki government sunk to- they had some hecklers conveniently standing by during the execution. Maliki claimed they were "some witnesses from the trial", but they were, very obviously, hecklers. The moment the noose was around Saddam's neck, they began chanting, in unison, "God's prayers be on Mohamed and on Mohamed's family…" Something else I didn't quite catch (but it was very coordinated), and then "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada!" One of them called out to Saddam, "Go to hell…" (in Arabic). Saddam looked down disdainfully and answered "Heya hay il marjala…?" which is basically saying, "Is this your manhood…?".

Someone half-heartedly called out to the hecklers, "I beg you, I beg you- the man is being executed!" They were slightly quieter and then Saddam stood and said, "Ashadu an la ilaha ila Allah, wa ashhadu ana Mohammedun rasool Allah…" Which means, "I witness there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is His messenger." These are the words a Muslim (Sunnis and Shia alike) should say on their deathbed. He repeated this one more time, very clearly, but before he could finish it, he was lynched.

So, no, CNN, his last words were not "Muqtada Al Sadr" in a mocking tone- just thought someone should clear that up. (Really people, six of you contributed to that article!)

Then again, one could argue that it was a judge who gave them that false information. A judge on the Iraqi appeals court- one of the judges who ratified the execution order. Everyone knows Iraqi judges under American tutelage never lie- that explains CNN's confusion.

Muwafaq Al Rubai was said he was "weak and frightened". Apparently, Rubai saw a different lynching because according to the video they leaked, he didn't look frightened at all. His voice didn't shake and he refused to put on the black hood. He looked resigned to his fate, and during the heckling he looked as defiant as ever. (It's quite a contrast to Muhsin Abdul Hameed's public hysterics last year when the Americans raided his home.)

It's one thing to have militias participating in killings. This is allegedly the democracy the Americans flaunt. Is this how bloodthirsty and frightening we've become? Is this what Iraq stands for now? Executions? I'm sure the rest of the Arab countries will be impressed.

One of the most advanced countries in the world did not help to reconstruct Iraq, they didn't even help produce a decent constitution. They did, however, contribute nicely to a kangaroo court and a lynching. A lynching shall go down in history as America's biggest accomplishment in Iraq. So who's next? Who hangs for the hundreds of thousands who've died as a direct result of this war and occupation? Bush? Blair? Maliki? Jaffari? Allawi? Chalabi?

2006 has definitely been representative of Maliki and his government- killings like never before and a lynching to end it properly. Death and destruction everywhere. I'm so tired of all of this…

I'LL TAKE CINDY AND SUNSARA OVER PELOSI AND REID ANY DAY

It’s been amusing -- in much the same way it’s amusing to see someone shut their fingers in a car door -- to read some of the anti-Cindy Sheehan sewer spew being upchucked across the web in recent days. Since I never waste my time trolling in virtual wingnut waters (a lowly endeavor that would serve no purpose), I’m referring to a few hit pieces I saw at none other than Democratic Underground. As would be expected of just about any dogmatic adherents to a political party line, whatever that party line happens to be, a few indomitable “DUers” have concluded that Cindy actually is the enemy after all. She has the unmitigated presumption to publicly challenge the Democratic “leadership” to live up to their responsibilities; for political disciplinarians of all stripes, such audacity is the most heinous of heresies. Like I said, it’s all so amusing -- hardy fucking har.

Actually, the author of the one crap post at DU that was sufficient to send my credulity reeling around the bend also characterized Sunsara Taylor and World Can’t Wait as “communist” oriented, or words to that effect. Funny, isn’t it, that a nebulous and largely irrelevant spectacle, such as the Democrats taking control of the utterly compromised whorehouse known as the United States Congress, apparently tends to induce a number of otherwise reasonable liberal types to adopt the attitudes, vocabulary, and pejorative iconography of their erstwhile Neo-Con antagonists. What an interesting phenomenon.

Well, one of the most blandly over-used axioms out there says something about people having a right to their opinions ... even cross-eyed mouth-breathers who use fear and ignorance as existential lubrication for what passes for a thought process. That would have to include individuals who operate under the sad delusion that only Neo-Con Republicans should be rhetorically questioned and excoriated and sometimes physically disrupted, while DLC types, and Vichy Democrats in general, should be magically immune from any criticism whatsoever. I’m not sure what you call this sort of thing: Intellectual dishonesty? Hypocrisy? Brain-dead stupidity, maybe?

Fact is, people like Cindy Sheehan and Sunsara Taylor understand full well that our real opponent is the apparatus, the machine, not merely its Republican/Neo-Con wing. They’re not so blindly naive and drowning in wishful thinking to believe that Pelosi and Reid and Emanuel -- and the entire coterie of “off the table” Democrats they lead -- represent an authentic answer to anything, simply by virtue of not being Republicans. Just like the Repugs, Democrats in Congress are politicians, first and foremost, burdened with all the baggage such a designation entails. Posing as self-righteous alternatives to the corrupt bottom-feeders on the Right, the Dems have to be held to a higher standard; Cindy, Sunsara, and others know this intuitively. Too bad a few well-meaning libs at DU don’t seem to have a clue. Political operatives aren’t going to save this country -- real people like Cindy and Sunsara just might.

A PERFECT SUMMARY OF THE SAD YEAR 2006

I can think of nothing else to say, as the grim year of 2006 prepares to give way to what may prove to be an even worse 2007.

Happy trails, people!

SCATTERBRAINED POT-SHOTS AT AN ANCIENT DRUIDIC/CELTIC MIDWINTER RITUAL TRANSFORMED INTO A PHONY CHRISTIAN SHOPPING CIRCLE-JERK

The title of this post pretty much says it all, so there’s actually no point in continuing with this miserable monkey-motion. All people who still possess functional brainstems know full well what’s wrong with the Christmas thing, at least as far as it concerns its appallingly empty modern-day permutation. My overwrought, semi-misinformed opinions and bloviated generalizations have nothing to offer, in any sense of the word; but, as is the case with the millions of other unimaginative morons and deep-seated cynics and purveyors of sheer inexplicable bullshit out there -- in other words, the great bulk of all the yahoos in blog land -- being a half-baked ignoramus with nothing polite to say about anything is no reason to keep your trap shut. So, here we are.

Now that I think about it, I’m fairly well sick of my own particular brand of viscous negativity, as I’m sure everybody is. I’ll leave it to the following quotes to place this “holiday season” in its proper context, from historical thinkers a whole hell of a lot smarter, skeptical, and cynical than I could ever hope to be ...

I am sorry to have to introduce the subject of Christmas ... It is an indecent subject; a cruel, gluttonous subject; a wicked, cadging, lying, filthy, blasphemous, and demoralizing subject. Christmas is forced on a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press: on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred; and anyone who looked back to it would be turned into a pillar of greasy sausages.

--George Bernard Shaw, Our Theatres in the Nineties, Volume 3
January 1, 1898

Yeah, that’s a good one. Then there’s this:

Or consider Christmas -- could Satan in his most malignant mood have devised a worse combination of graft plus buncombe than the system whereby several hundred million people get a billion or so gifts for which they have no use, and some thousands of shop-clerks die of exhaustion while selling them and every other child in the western world is made ill from overeating -- all in the name of the lowly Jesus?

--Upton Sinclair, Money Writes!, 1927

Merry flippin’ Christmas.

I REALLY SHOULD STOP HANGING AROUND ALL THESE DRUNK BASTARDS

I regretfully admit that I don’t devote the necessary brain space to the plethora of disasters the Bush junta is constantly manufacturing for us, as perhaps I should. There’s small consolation in the fact that I’m hardly unique in this rather shabby regard; the chattering gaggle of disgusting drunks, big-screen TV sports dorks, and worthlessly generic barstool monkeys -- my sadly degenerate circle of acquaintances in this foul epoch -- if anything, seem more determined to obscure the ugly, doom-filled implications of present-day reality than I’ve ever been. I guess they wouldn’t be the mildly entertaining alcohol-soaked wastoids they are, otherwise.

You know, these pathetic nitwits force me to consider that maybe, just maybe, indifference might really be the ultimate coping device. We’re all just trying to cope, in one way or another, so I wonder: turning yourself into a self-willed ignoramus, soaking up beer and artery-busting bar food like a disease-riddled biological sponge, and rabidly and loudly declaiming about televised sports as if they actually mattered ... is that any less legitimate than being “engaged” and/or “informed,” as most of us on the left-leaning edge of the blog world like to think of ourselves? In such a ridiculous era of public disengagement, where democratic participation is a fiction and corporate subversion rages virtually unchallenged, is there any real value in the assumption that our commitment and dedication will turn things around? Does it make any sense at all to work ourselves into a frothy lather over the prospect of a Democratically-controlled Congress and all its “off the table” bullshit, when the season premier of “American Idol” is merely weeks away? Why give thought to war and death when we have credit card limits to stretch beyond all recognition, in the pseudo-celebration ritual commemorating the supposed birth of the Christian messiah?

Criminy ... I may never actually give properly serious thought to the temporal catastrophes glaring at us like bloody vibrating tumors, but I must at least stop patronizing these bars full of stupid people. It doesn’t seem to be doing much for my already shredded state of mind.

SLOPPY RUMINATIONS ON THE IRAQ STUDY GROUP

Here on the blasted extremity of the last dribbling remnants of the American dream -- as strained through the spasmo cheesecloth of California “culture” -- thinking people have little choice anymore but to rage and scream and holler and howl and break shit into tiny pieces ... The fact that very little overt screaming and howling and breaking actually occurs speaks gobs about the rather fossilized nature of the human thought process itself, here at the “golden” ass-end of nowhere. Oh, I know, the voters “spoke” and managed to elect a Democratic Congress in defiance of Republican voter suppression and Diebold. What the hell does that really prove? While doing their part to temporarily disable the Repug monopoly in Washington, as welcome as that is on the surface, the nitwits and knuckleheads here also sent Schickelgruber back to the governor’s office, by a ridiculously wide margin. How’s that for “thinking”?

Whatever. Examples of the all-too-common tendency of a woefully misinformed populace using its collective head as an ambulatory hat rack are legion; the re-election of a former Austrian steroid-abusing Nazi-wannabe as the governor of California is truly a somewhat minor, if unduly high-profile, permutation of this sad proclivity. No, of all the myriad manifestations of dumbness stomping their way relentlessly across our bruised and bleeding sensibilities these days, one in particular has propped itself up directly in the foreground of my rapidly deteriorating vision, like a vibrating tumor with a hair growing out of it: the so-called Iraq Study Group, or ISG.

To be more precise, it’s the anticipated reaction to this nebulous travesty of misinformation and confusion, this Iraq Study Group, that exemplifies the predilection of human beings to gleefully extend the boundaries of their own stupidity whenever they can, rather than the mere existence of the ISG itself. Many corporate media dispensers, pundit-apologists, and assorted gum-flappers are fairly gushing all over themselves as they eagerly await the public release of this PR-front’s “recommendations.” In an excellent article by Larry Chin, at the Centre for Research on Globalization, the ISG is aptly described as

another official damage control apparatus, spearheaded by notorious Western political and corporate elites, former military-intelligence officers, and “experts” from right-wing and intelligence-connected Western think tanks ...

The list of some of the ISG’s more top-rung members, including such proto-NeoCons and Iran-Contra-era retreads as James Baker, Edwin Meese, and Lawrence Eagleburger -- among others -- should effectively disabuse any normal person with a functional brainstem from harboring any illusions whatsoever as to what the Iraq Study Group is all about.

But, yes, I know: the two or three people who accidentally trip across this blog occasionally are already among the ragged rabble of cynical loudmouths and liberty-minded skeptics that make the left end of the blogosphere so exasperatingly entertaining, and are about as likely to take the Iraq Study Group seriously as a Republican insider does Nancy Pelosi ... so they certainly don’t need to be lectured by the likes of me about yet another fraud being perpetrated on us by the power structure. My concern, as always, lies with the vast heaving mass of molting morons out there -- TV addicts, cell-phone freaks, Vichyite Dems who help re-install Repug governors -- who refuse to see what’s going on right in front of their doughy, over-fed faces. You know that the sheeple will take whatever pours out of the misleading maw of the ISG at something approaching face value, if they deign to take notice at all. I’d say it was all so depressing, if such a statement wasn’t so utterly obvious. Anyway ...

Disjointed postscript: for Lee over at Captain Quahog -- I apologize for the “cynical loudmouth” crack.

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

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.

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.

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.