Sunday, February 18, 2007

United States Congress disbands 4/1/2007 (and, no, that's no April Fool's joke!)

"The Congress is almost a total failure."
Chalmers Johnson, author of "Nemesis, The Last Days of the American Republic" (a book recently published in this universe, our universe.)

William Shakespeare was the first to coin the idiom about "strange bedfellows." In his play, "The Tempest," we hear "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows." More recently, politics are most often credited with creating strange bedfellows.

But just look what they're doing in the parallel universe just one over from our own. So seeped in misery is the speck of our little parallel Earth, it seems the people and their president George Bush have joined hands to make their country and world a better place for all to live.

In a coalition of the willing, Bush and the people have come together. And their first official act is the disbandment of the United States Congress!

Increasingly for Bush, congress had become meaningless and ineffectual. Since the opposition took control of both houses in January, it had also become a big annoyance for him.

Yet, despite power had shifted to the democrats, congress remained impotent, unable to check Bush, serving instead to only slow implementation of the president's policies.

For Bush, abolishing congress would save a lot of time now being wasted by powerless representatives with their meaningless committees. Hours, days, months spent questioning his appointees, his generals, his wars would be saved. No more examining his new Homeland Security policies making Americans safer from themselves. And best of all, no more summoning oil and pharmaceutical executives needlessly to Washington to grill them or look accusingly upon war and disaster profiteers in some vain attempt to appear they were putting the brakes on capitalism racing to its inevitable unchecked purity envisioned in the writings of great 18th and 19th century economists. Bush policies could be expedited unchallenged. Time could be better spent. So could the money saved funding the powerless government body. Money that could then be allocated for Bush's defense budgets and wars. The thought sent Bush drooling with ecstasy.

For many of the same reasons, Bush's coalition partner, the American people, had also grown disillusioned with their ineffectual senators and representatives. Abolition of congress was favored by nearly 3/4's of all Americans. But that wasn't all the coalition had their sights on.

After the dismantling of the legislative branch, Bush and America had secretly agreed they will then dismantle the media. Keeping it around during the dismembering of congress would be a source of amusement to the coalition; to read, hear and see their take on it. But mainstream media had become another source of annoyance to Bush and a joke to the American public as well as an embarrassment to its foreign readers. American mainstream media would have to be gutted too.

"That's when things will get really interesting," said one originator of the coalition who requested anonymity. "Expect the strange bedfellows to then dissolve their union as each attempts to fulfill their secret aims against one another."

"Bush will have the judicial branch, those great Homeland Security secret prisons and some of the military. Americans will have the numbers. Expect things to really heat up then!"

Well, such is life in the Universe just one door over from our own. While certainly exciting, don't expect anything similar on this Earth. As Frank Zappa once wisely said, "It can't happen here!"

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dada, I sure hope our own universe comes up with a better way out of this republican wilderness than your parallel one.

I totally forgot Zappa did a "It Can't Happen Here" piece. Thanks for reminding me. You ever read Sinclair Lewis' book? I recall laughing about the impossibility of it back in high school. Then a few yrs ago, probably about the same time as many others shocked over bush's reaction to 911, I reread it. OMG, not only CAN it happen here, it already is happening here. ~~ D.K.

azgoddess said...

ok this is some scary scary shit, my friend...and possible

but let's now all think peace -- and people turning off their tv's and waking up....that's what i will visualize!

Anonymous said...

Another case in point:
this week's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismisses 100's of Guantanamo detainees' cases in federal court (and also threatens to strip away court access to millions of lawful permanent residents currently in the United States!)

"We're disappointed," said Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "The bottom line is that according to two of the federal judges, the president can do whatever he wants without any legal limitations as long as he does it offshore."

Will someone please help me find an alternative country to live in?

Dada said...

az.....yes, this is some scary shit. and as deke notes, "it already is happening here."

As you may or may not know, every blog I post here is my last political blog.

(0f course, it never is. That's because there's always something more outrageous for us tomorrow, and it's an unending stream of outrage.)

So, as border explorer points out, this latest decision by the DC court is so outrageous, it was exactly what I'd intended to blog about.

(Oh, and I wouldn't hold my breath for a Bush Supreme Court decicions on its appeal.)

Point being, if we can't get outraged as frickin' American citizens at offshore detainee's rights, and if we can't get more enraged at lawful permanent citizens rights be tossed, we sure as hell can't bitch when they take our own.

This isn't the America we grew up in, but this sure as hell is the America in which we now reside.

What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'? Now, rather than the government having to prove you are guilty, you must prove you're innocent of their charges. But, oh wait, THEY DON'T CHARGE YOU WITH ANYTHING....wow....that makes it real difficult to prove your innocence, doesn't it? Especially when you can't even talk to a lawyer who might explain to you he hasn't a clue why you're being held cept' maybe you scare the shit outta nazi Bush and his fascist freaks.

Yes, seriously, as border explorer asks, "Will someone please help me find an alternative country to live in?"

This is getting to be real scary. (Oh, and couple that with Mrs. Dada telling me Bush already authorized a couple years ago for the military to arrest we citizens.)

Anonymous said...

Dada, Border Explorer, AZ, I'm so glad you are keeping the outrage alive. Just hearing others with the same "Holy Shit" response I have to much of life lately gives me a bit of hope.

Re: stripping of our rights, if I wasn't so Link Challenged, I'd point you toward a nytimes.com article of 1/26/07 called "Secrecy is at issue in suits opposing spy program" by Adam Liptak that took my breath away. We are not just living "It Can't Happen Here", but also Kafka's "The Trial" and "Alice in Wonderland". The stmnt in the article that finally sent me over the edge was a judge saying, "There is nothing in the law that requires (the defendants) to purge their memories". Govt lawyers countered by claiming they "own the portions of (y)our brains that remember anything." Can you believe that f*king sh*t???

Re: alt countries, I have a bad feeling that we will soon be reaping the immigration seeds we have sown, i.e. we will find ourselves trying to illegally enter countries which are deciding to squeeze shut the torrent of american refugees. All of which makes we wonder if it is still possible to set up little enclaves here in the US, much like the Amish? We could call them "reservations" if that would help gain sovereign status. ~~ D.K.

Dada said...

Thanks Deke for that article reference from the NY Times article.

Geez, see why it's sooo difficult to quit this stuff when we're continually fed this fantastic "Dada-like" material which would be farcical if it wasn't so damn outright serious.